The Road Less Traveled

Placement Test & Cafeteria Food

Tuesday, September 16th, 2008 | Food, Japanese | No Comments

So I’m done with the first part of my placement test; the final part, an interview with the teachers, is tomorrow morning at 9:15am. All-in-all, I think the test went very well. I did quite horribly on the kanji section (I got 6, I think, out of 25 or so… yeah), but that’s actually expected. I did very well on the verb and adjective conjugations, and the general grammar section seemed to be mostly stuff I knew as well.

Finally around 11am I was able to go and get something to eat for lunch… I was pretty hungry. Breakfast consisted of a slice of toast, a hard boiled egg, and a small salad. Anyway, a bunch of people from our group decided to eat at McDonald’s for lunch, a couple of us thought that was retarded, and ended up eating in the cafeteria. In America, this may actually be a toss up.. often, McDonald’s food and cafeteria food are on the same general level of crappiness. However, this is absolutely not true of the cafeteria here. The food was very good, and worth the 470￥ (about USD $4.50) that it cost. And it was a good bit of food as well.

It was a bit funny how it worked though… generally, cafeterias in America are a buffet-style thing, or at most you go and tell a person what you want and they make it and give it to you. Not here. When you walk into the cafeteria, there’s a display showing all the different meals you can get, with their names and prices. Then there is a vending machine… you put money in, and (no, it doesn’t give you your food ) after pressing a button, it gives you a ticket for the meal you want. You then present this to the cafeteria worker in the right line and they give you your food.

Definitely worth the 470￥. Now I have to go back to the Center for International Programs for a campus tour. Yay.

Tags: Food, test, tour

I’m finally here.

Tuesday, September 16th, 2008 | General, Lifestyle | No Comments

So I’m in Japan. We got here last night about 6pm local time (that’s 5am EST), and got to Chubu University at about 8pm. By the time we got into the dorms and everything, it was pm, and I was in bed by 11. I didn’t sleep on the flight so that I wouldn’t be jet lagged. This strategy actually seems to have worked a bit… hopefully it stays that way. Anyway, as I write this post, I still don’t have internet access. I have to register my computer for access, or something, here in the next few days. There are computers upstairs in the lounge which I can use, though, so hopefully I’ll be able to post this before I have access on my laptop.

In any case, everything seems to be going well so far. It’s about 6:45 am as I write this. I’ve been up since about 5:30am, but that’s not too bad, right? Breakfast, if I recall correctly, begins at 7:30am, and at 9:15am, I have my placement test for what level of class I’ll be in. Fun stuff, right? I wish they could’ve put it at least another day later or something… Whatever, I guess. It shouldn’t be too bad.

So my schedule for the day looks something like this:

9:15am – 12:00pm : Placement Test
1:30pm – 3:00pm : Campus Tour
5:30pm – 6:00pm : Dormitory Fingerprint Registration

I don’t know what we’ll be doing in the off times (probably eating), but that’s all that’s scheduled for today. Tomorrow I have interviews (the final part of the placement test) and orientation for the university.

The rest of the week looks pretty similar. Then next week, on monday, classes start. Yay for that. In any case, that’s about all for now. I’ll post more as it happens. Oh yeah, here’s some pictures of my dorm… (The comforter on my bed, by the way, is awesomely comfortable. I love it)

Packing

Saturday, September 13th, 2008 | Lifestyle | 1 Comment

I finally got around to packing tonight. All in all, it took be a bit over two hours. My biggest concern is that I will forget something… from past experience I’ve come to the conclusion that when you go somewhere, you always forget something. And this is doubly concerning to me now, because as I was crossing things off my checklist, I thought of something else that I should take… then when I went to get it, I forgot what it was.

So for the moment, I’m sitting here hoping that I’ll remember what it was, if it was important… but altogether not actually thinking about it very much. Instead, I’m watching Stargate: SG-1 and winding down.

I don’t know what the plan for tomorrow is, but I know Thomas wanted to hang out, so I’ll probably do that… I also need to go somewhere and get a new pair of headphones, since mine are broken (again). Oh yeah, and Erik Singer is going to be in town, so plans will probably include him as well. But whatever, I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it, I suppose. Unless somebody knows of something else I need to be doing tomorrow…?

Tags: packing

Insomnia and Jet Lag: Outlook… Positive?

Thursday, September 11th, 2008 | General, Lifestyle | 2 Comments

So I originally thought this jokingly, but I’m beginning to agree more and more with this (originally) insincere idea.

I get hit hard by insomnia occasionally (such as tonight and the past couple days), and so my sleep schedule often gets rather screwed up rather quickly. Recently I’ve been sleeping between like 5am and 1pm or 8am and 4pm or so, give or take depending on the day. But then I thought, “Heck, this is perfect! Once I get to Japan, it’ll be 13 hours different, and I’ll be on a PERFECT schedule.”

Of course, I was joking… but now, as I lie in bed trying to sleep (for the past 3 hours), I’ve been becoming more and more resigned to the idea that since I’m only going to be in the States for another, now, 3 days… I may as well just accept that I’m not going to get any sleep at any decent time and just live with it so that I can be on a “normal” schedule immediately upon my arrival to Japan.

Of course, I’m a bit pessimistic about the whole thing, as well. I’m not entirely convinced, given my luck and my previous track record, that as soon as I get to Japan, my sleep schedule won’t flip around again to match what it currently is in my insomnia-plagued state. What do you call that, anyway, reverse jet lag? Who knows…

Anyway, here in a few minutes, I guess I’ll just close my eyes and pray for sleep. Who knows, I might even get it.

But before that, as a side note, I’ve been reading the (rather few) blogs for other people from OU going to Japan, and Ike Hurst’s most recent entry, Notes on a small town, made me realize… I never actually turned in a topic for my elementary school presentation. Woops. I should probably mention that to somebody, sometime, to figure out what I should do about it, but whatever. I’m sure if it’s gone this long, it can’t be that much of a problem… can it?

Meh, could be worse, I guess. I could be awake at 4am writing a blog post about it.

…

Wait, what?

Tags: ike, jet lag, Sleep

5 days? Nonsense!

Tuesday, September 9th, 2008 | General | 1 Comment

As of this moment, it is almost exactly five days until I will board my first flight from Pittsburgh to Detroit; after that, it’s a mere 3 hours until I’m on my way to Japan. This, to me, is nonsense. It doesn’t register properly in my brain, and I have no clue what to think about it, really. So for the moment I’m just passively accepting it and moving on with my life for the moment. I haven’t even started packing yet. Does that make me crazy? Maybe. Do I care? Not really.

Right now, I am helping my mother babysit my twin nephews. They were born August 1st, so they’re just over a month old… It’s kinda upsetting to me that when I next see them, they will be just over a YEAR old.

Anyway, I’ll probably pack late Saturday night… that sounds like something I’d do. In the mean time, I may update again, I may not… who knows. Honestly, I don’t think much is going to change between now and when I leave…

Tags: babies, Japan, packing, reflection

Before our story begins…

Monday, September 8th, 2008 | General | 1 Comment

So, blogging about your trip seems to be the thing to do, and I’m told that I have to keep my frienda and family updated on every tiny little detail of my life in Japan. Well, honestly, that’s probably not going to happen, but whatever. In any case, I am planning on keeping a blog, and updating it relatively often. Whether or not this will last beyond the first day, week, or month… who knows.

I’ve said it again and again that it really hasn’t hit me that I’m going to be in Japan for a year, away from my friends and family, and until yesterday, it’s been true. Yesterday, though, we had a going away party, and it hit me quite a bit as everyone slowly trickled out and finally it was just me, alone. It was a bit depressing, really, realizing that in a week, they would all be thousands of miles away.

That said, I am still looking forward to going. I’ve said many times that going to Japan is both awesome and horrible. I know I’m going to have a great time, but I also know I’m going to miss everyone back here in the USA. I’m not nervous or excited, really, but I am a bit depressed, which is problematic because this is the time when I need to be getting things done.

More later (hopefully).

Tags: friends, Japan, reflection