Tame impalas and wicked ducks.
Heeeeeeey. Sorry for the remarkably long delay, I've been remarkably busy. Just to start things off, if you were at any point worried about how things were going for me re: getting into university and stuff, your worry is no longer necessary! I'll give you brand new worries! For now, I'm about 2, 3 weeks into being a university student (again) and it's just been such a bizarre journey that I spend a worrying amount of time staring at the ceiling and going this cannot be real life.
It is, of course.
So, lads and ladies, let's start with my house. It's lovely and huge, compared to my old place. Getting things connected was a rough ride, mostly thanks to my real estate agent giving me the wrong address on my rental contract. School started a couple of weeks ago, but I've been staying at this new place for a good month now. I still get polite phonecalls from the water company who cannot for the life of them figure out where I am, how much water I'm using, and how long I've been using water for despite the fact that I corrected my details with them ages ago. Still waiting for the water bill, ahaha. The internet connection felt like I was fighting against exclusionist rebels who had made a solemn blood vow to never give an internet connection to foreign pigs, or something. The contract for the internet was made by my real estate agent, which meant they got given the wrong address too. And somehow for you to get internet here, it has to be operated by two companies. One company hands you the modems and cables and stuff, and the other one hands the actual internet, or something. Not only were both delayed, actual internet company blamed me for making a mistake in a contract that I didn't sign. And once everything had actually arrived and everything was switched on, the faint hint of alien expulsion impulses strengthened when, upon being unable to connect with my Malaysian computer, I got told that they can't give Japanese internet to non-Japanese things.
It got settled in the end, but sweet lord it was like pulling teeth (from angry exclusionist rebels).
The welcome ceremony is a really big, really important event in Japan. In Malaysia, if you get accepted then you' re a bit pleased and someone might buy you cake and your friends might smile at you and that's about it. Here, if you get into a good university, the induction ceremony is almost as posh as I imagine being inducted to being queen would be. People were dressed in their nicest suits, shelled out hundreds of dollars to take commemorative pictures with cooing parents, and lined up about five hundred deep to take a picture next to a sign saying Welcome New Students to Keio. It was awfully lonely, because while I don't personally see the necessity in making such a grand affair of the literal start line, it still would've been nice to have my family while everyone else had theirs. We were congratulated for being accepted by literally every person who spoke on stage, including other students who just wanted to say stuff like please wait for your turn before exiting the hall. I know I worked awfully hard to get through the past two years (worked even harder to get through the ones before those, hah!) but the kids must've worked themselves half to death if this is the level of congratulations you get for being accepted. It's kindof a scary thought, because it implies a level of motivation and driven-ness that I in all my flouncy fanfiction writing don't think I could ever have.
And I don't know how other universities compare, so help me out if you do, but the total number of new students for 2014 entrance is almost 7000. Isn't that an absurdly large number?!
Orientation week was like tumbling into Wonderland while being very slightly drunk and quite, quite scared. We had exams for English (which I did appallingly in, and if that ain't proof I'm not a girl suited for exams I lit. don't know what would be), Japanese (better) and maths (failed, but to be honest it was wholly expected). We sat down and listened to the creator of Rakuten talk about the importance of IT, we got told by the head of the faculty that taking longer to graduate is great since it means more time futzing around on campus, we found out that sometimes you can go abroad for a year and come back to find that credit-wise it was worth nothing. Physical education is compulsory (hah!), we had an ECG done during which a nurse left me lying topless and incredibly self-conscious in a bed behind a towel in the gym, we found out how to make our visas and the clubs went all out to recruit people.
Campus is awfully pretty. Walk further in, and there's a lake with ducks in it and on warm days you just see rows of bodies enjoying the sunshine while snoozing. Wind is really really strong here, because we aren't too far from the sea (about 13 kilometers inland, I think), so it makes for a really pleasant place. There's a canteen that serves subpar but cheap food, and a Subways that I am an ardent fan of. The library's sortof small, but exceedingly well-equipped. Also, because this campus was created with High-techyness as the motto, the sheer number of computers available to students is astonishing. There're loads, with all sorts of specialist software so you can do music with the provided keyboard at building A but you can process 3D graphics at building B and go on to 3D print your stuff at the library. Personally, I like that it's not massive. I am after all really easily frightened slash intimidated.
Now, the people. I don't even know where to start. After 2 years being surrounded by foreigners like me at a language school, being the only Southeast Asian for what feels like miles is really, really disconcerting. Also, since at language school we were studying stuff in the format of exams, and were being lectured by teachers, my listening skill is pitched towards a formal, neat kind of language. No teen of any nationality, I think, speaks in a formal, neat kind of way. Wild contractions and uses of words that don't show up in dictionaries keep me busy and kindof slow while trying to understand and talk. For example, prior to coming I did not know that
-Yahoo is a valid way of saying hello. I still am not convinced.
- To say that a computer is running slow, you call it heavy. We've got compulsory classes so I've already sneakily used it myself, much to my own delight (it's rare for me to make such an effort, usually.)
among other things. My classmates are hard to understand, but for all that I've been warned that the Japanese tend to have a habit of excluding foreigners, being cold and unwilling to tango with the unknown, everything's gone rather well. Having a smartphone helps, as asking if someone has LINE (a messenger app) comes quite often quite soon after saying hello. I stumble over my words a lot, and fluctuate wildly between being quite polite to sounding like a manga hero, but while I can't say I've integrated so well I'm as good as Japanese, the fact that classmates will call out just to say hello is really, really nice. It certainly didn't happen this early in Manchester, and that was in English. People are willing to help out, and make allowances for my occasionally faulty Japanese, and for some classes I even have people to sit beside.
On the other hand, for a big chunk of them there does seem to be this strong safety-in-numbers attitude. A lot of kids don't seem to have the tightest grip on their own schedule, and the LINE group chats are littered with people asking about class times, dates, schedules, notes, stuff like that. There isn't that solid core of self-sufficiency that I've sortof gotten used to relying on, but let's be fair. Most of the people in my year were born in 95, 96. WEE BABIES. It's weird to see people so heavily rely on other people, but the fact that when someone reaches out a hand for assistance someone else is always there to grab it, that's not a bad thing at all. Who knows, maybe I'll be like that next year (not very likely, hah!).
My stationery. I am a srs college student srsly.
Other odd things I've had a chance to see include kids taking a zillion credits in the first semester, mostly as insurance because should they fail some they'll still have enough to go on. I've never known anyone, myself included, to go into anything with plans pretty much made for assumed failure, and I don't think I want to ever get around to that point. My courseload is heavy, mainly because I need to take Japanese since I'm foreign, and I need to take a lot of maths classes since I suck. Otherwise, it's paced with some lectures I can take in English because it's an option here, and biology because while biology is hard, I know enough and I like it enough that I can sortof power my way through, I think. I'd quite like to be a bright student, yes, but I also want to have a good time and not stress myself into getting sick. As my life systems professor said yesterday, the mortality rate for everybody is 100%, so I'd rather not head for it any faster than I need to.
Lectures are interesting, for the most part, but my comprehension rate is heavily dependent on the lecturer. Some are clear speakers who go at a tempo that's easy to get. Some talk to themselves, while occasionally muttering into the microphone at a pitch only dogs can hear, and those I want to throw a shoe at because I can't understand what I can't hear (and quite often I don't understand even when I do, hear). Even if the contents are okay, I'm totally lost when teachers make jokes. People will burst out laughing and I'm just there, blinking as I wonder what's so damn funny about the recording habits the teacher expects us to have once we work in labs. Half the time I'm not convinced the Japanese students are that much clearer on things than I am.
To date, my favourite class was a history of religion one I sat in on for fun. It was a massive lecture hall with 200 students a quarter of whom dozed their way through the class. The boy sat in front of me was busy shopping for skinny jeans online, and I watched with great interest as be burned through half an hour, stuck between skinny ripped black jeans and skinny ripped grey jeans. Then I just nearly lost my shit altogether when the girl in front of me started shopping for cosmetics on her laptop, pulling out her makeup kit and holding her compact powder to the screen to compare colours. Who wastes more time, the shoppers or the creep watching the shoppers? Answer is most definitely both.
I'm having a hard time, but it's a pleasantly hard time. It's the burn in your muscles once you've been jogging a while, but in my head instead. Tough is as tough does, but as yet it isn't unmanageable, and I've found that much to my surprise, I'm kindof still tremendously optimistic that things are going to go okay.
It maybe sortof helps that I'm currently doing crazy well at my IT classes by virtue of being both quite fast and quite accurate as a typist. We're doing HTML right now, and if anybody's good at codes and programming and stuff, make yourself known so I can throw myself at your mercy c:
Me in my suit for the opening ceremony. This was after I'd gotten back (the ceremony hall is an hour and a half away from my house, hngggh) so I was a tired mess but I just wanted to include more pictures heh.
WAY LONG entry is way long. In summary, Japan's weird and mystical for reasons you probably wouldn't have expected at first, but I'm doing okay and I fully intend to carry on doing okay. Lord knows, maybe this time next year I can say I've upgraded to doing great. Hope everyone's been well, yeah! And if you haven't yet, get into Haikyuu!! because no one should cry over volleyball all by themselves wheeeee.
Wheeeeeee.
It is, of course.
So, lads and ladies, let's start with my house. It's lovely and huge, compared to my old place. Getting things connected was a rough ride, mostly thanks to my real estate agent giving me the wrong address on my rental contract. School started a couple of weeks ago, but I've been staying at this new place for a good month now. I still get polite phonecalls from the water company who cannot for the life of them figure out where I am, how much water I'm using, and how long I've been using water for despite the fact that I corrected my details with them ages ago. Still waiting for the water bill, ahaha. The internet connection felt like I was fighting against exclusionist rebels who had made a solemn blood vow to never give an internet connection to foreign pigs, or something. The contract for the internet was made by my real estate agent, which meant they got given the wrong address too. And somehow for you to get internet here, it has to be operated by two companies. One company hands you the modems and cables and stuff, and the other one hands the actual internet, or something. Not only were both delayed, actual internet company blamed me for making a mistake in a contract that I didn't sign. And once everything had actually arrived and everything was switched on, the faint hint of alien expulsion impulses strengthened when, upon being unable to connect with my Malaysian computer, I got told that they can't give Japanese internet to non-Japanese things.
It got settled in the end, but sweet lord it was like pulling teeth (from angry exclusionist rebels).
The welcome ceremony is a really big, really important event in Japan. In Malaysia, if you get accepted then you' re a bit pleased and someone might buy you cake and your friends might smile at you and that's about it. Here, if you get into a good university, the induction ceremony is almost as posh as I imagine being inducted to being queen would be. People were dressed in their nicest suits, shelled out hundreds of dollars to take commemorative pictures with cooing parents, and lined up about five hundred deep to take a picture next to a sign saying Welcome New Students to Keio. It was awfully lonely, because while I don't personally see the necessity in making such a grand affair of the literal start line, it still would've been nice to have my family while everyone else had theirs. We were congratulated for being accepted by literally every person who spoke on stage, including other students who just wanted to say stuff like please wait for your turn before exiting the hall. I know I worked awfully hard to get through the past two years (worked even harder to get through the ones before those, hah!) but the kids must've worked themselves half to death if this is the level of congratulations you get for being accepted. It's kindof a scary thought, because it implies a level of motivation and driven-ness that I in all my flouncy fanfiction writing don't think I could ever have.
And I don't know how other universities compare, so help me out if you do, but the total number of new students for 2014 entrance is almost 7000. Isn't that an absurdly large number?!
Orientation week was like tumbling into Wonderland while being very slightly drunk and quite, quite scared. We had exams for English (which I did appallingly in, and if that ain't proof I'm not a girl suited for exams I lit. don't know what would be), Japanese (better) and maths (failed, but to be honest it was wholly expected). We sat down and listened to the creator of Rakuten talk about the importance of IT, we got told by the head of the faculty that taking longer to graduate is great since it means more time futzing around on campus, we found out that sometimes you can go abroad for a year and come back to find that credit-wise it was worth nothing. Physical education is compulsory (hah!), we had an ECG done during which a nurse left me lying topless and incredibly self-conscious in a bed behind a towel in the gym, we found out how to make our visas and the clubs went all out to recruit people.
Campus is awfully pretty. Walk further in, and there's a lake with ducks in it and on warm days you just see rows of bodies enjoying the sunshine while snoozing. Wind is really really strong here, because we aren't too far from the sea (about 13 kilometers inland, I think), so it makes for a really pleasant place. There's a canteen that serves subpar but cheap food, and a Subways that I am an ardent fan of. The library's sortof small, but exceedingly well-equipped. Also, because this campus was created with High-techyness as the motto, the sheer number of computers available to students is astonishing. There're loads, with all sorts of specialist software so you can do music with the provided keyboard at building A but you can process 3D graphics at building B and go on to 3D print your stuff at the library. Personally, I like that it's not massive. I am after all really easily frightened slash intimidated.
Now, the people. I don't even know where to start. After 2 years being surrounded by foreigners like me at a language school, being the only Southeast Asian for what feels like miles is really, really disconcerting. Also, since at language school we were studying stuff in the format of exams, and were being lectured by teachers, my listening skill is pitched towards a formal, neat kind of language. No teen of any nationality, I think, speaks in a formal, neat kind of way. Wild contractions and uses of words that don't show up in dictionaries keep me busy and kindof slow while trying to understand and talk. For example, prior to coming I did not know that
-Yahoo is a valid way of saying hello. I still am not convinced.
- To say that a computer is running slow, you call it heavy. We've got compulsory classes so I've already sneakily used it myself, much to my own delight (it's rare for me to make such an effort, usually.)
among other things. My classmates are hard to understand, but for all that I've been warned that the Japanese tend to have a habit of excluding foreigners, being cold and unwilling to tango with the unknown, everything's gone rather well. Having a smartphone helps, as asking if someone has LINE (a messenger app) comes quite often quite soon after saying hello. I stumble over my words a lot, and fluctuate wildly between being quite polite to sounding like a manga hero, but while I can't say I've integrated so well I'm as good as Japanese, the fact that classmates will call out just to say hello is really, really nice. It certainly didn't happen this early in Manchester, and that was in English. People are willing to help out, and make allowances for my occasionally faulty Japanese, and for some classes I even have people to sit beside.
On the other hand, for a big chunk of them there does seem to be this strong safety-in-numbers attitude. A lot of kids don't seem to have the tightest grip on their own schedule, and the LINE group chats are littered with people asking about class times, dates, schedules, notes, stuff like that. There isn't that solid core of self-sufficiency that I've sortof gotten used to relying on, but let's be fair. Most of the people in my year were born in 95, 96. WEE BABIES. It's weird to see people so heavily rely on other people, but the fact that when someone reaches out a hand for assistance someone else is always there to grab it, that's not a bad thing at all. Who knows, maybe I'll be like that next year (not very likely, hah!).
My stationery. I am a srs college student srsly.
Other odd things I've had a chance to see include kids taking a zillion credits in the first semester, mostly as insurance because should they fail some they'll still have enough to go on. I've never known anyone, myself included, to go into anything with plans pretty much made for assumed failure, and I don't think I want to ever get around to that point. My courseload is heavy, mainly because I need to take Japanese since I'm foreign, and I need to take a lot of maths classes since I suck. Otherwise, it's paced with some lectures I can take in English because it's an option here, and biology because while biology is hard, I know enough and I like it enough that I can sortof power my way through, I think. I'd quite like to be a bright student, yes, but I also want to have a good time and not stress myself into getting sick. As my life systems professor said yesterday, the mortality rate for everybody is 100%, so I'd rather not head for it any faster than I need to.
Lectures are interesting, for the most part, but my comprehension rate is heavily dependent on the lecturer. Some are clear speakers who go at a tempo that's easy to get. Some talk to themselves, while occasionally muttering into the microphone at a pitch only dogs can hear, and those I want to throw a shoe at because I can't understand what I can't hear (and quite often I don't understand even when I do, hear). Even if the contents are okay, I'm totally lost when teachers make jokes. People will burst out laughing and I'm just there, blinking as I wonder what's so damn funny about the recording habits the teacher expects us to have once we work in labs. Half the time I'm not convinced the Japanese students are that much clearer on things than I am.
To date, my favourite class was a history of religion one I sat in on for fun. It was a massive lecture hall with 200 students a quarter of whom dozed their way through the class. The boy sat in front of me was busy shopping for skinny jeans online, and I watched with great interest as be burned through half an hour, stuck between skinny ripped black jeans and skinny ripped grey jeans. Then I just nearly lost my shit altogether when the girl in front of me started shopping for cosmetics on her laptop, pulling out her makeup kit and holding her compact powder to the screen to compare colours. Who wastes more time, the shoppers or the creep watching the shoppers? Answer is most definitely both.
I'm having a hard time, but it's a pleasantly hard time. It's the burn in your muscles once you've been jogging a while, but in my head instead. Tough is as tough does, but as yet it isn't unmanageable, and I've found that much to my surprise, I'm kindof still tremendously optimistic that things are going to go okay.
It maybe sortof helps that I'm currently doing crazy well at my IT classes by virtue of being both quite fast and quite accurate as a typist. We're doing HTML right now, and if anybody's good at codes and programming and stuff, make yourself known so I can throw myself at your mercy c:
Me in my suit for the opening ceremony. This was after I'd gotten back (the ceremony hall is an hour and a half away from my house, hngggh) so I was a tired mess but I just wanted to include more pictures heh.
WAY LONG entry is way long. In summary, Japan's weird and mystical for reasons you probably wouldn't have expected at first, but I'm doing okay and I fully intend to carry on doing okay. Lord knows, maybe this time next year I can say I've upgraded to doing great. Hope everyone's been well, yeah! And if you haven't yet, get into Haikyuu!! because no one should cry over volleyball all by themselves wheeeee.
Wheeeeeee.