Opening Ceremony

I rarely use my computer since I've been here and I've been busy doing other things. Today I have time so I'll try to catch up on things. I feel like I have so much to blog about. Also, the Internet is working fine right now. It depends. Sometimes it's so slow that it's barely working and other times it seems to function normally.

The weather this week has been quite rainy. This weekend we heard about a typhoon. That's probably why the weather has been getting cloudy and rainy often. Japan's rain season ended months ago.
Either it's sunny and warm or it's pouring rain. When it does rain it rains a whole lot. You'll be soaked in no time. Umbrellas may be useless because of the strong wind. When it's not raining, it's usually hot and humid. All the teachers have mentioned that the weather lately has been mild and cool, compared to normal, since it's usually unbearably hot and humid. For most of us it already is unbearably hot and humid, but I do agree. I've experienced the horrible heat and humidity in Japan and Korea before. It's extremely hot already but it could be a lot worse.

On Monday morning we had to get up and go to campus for an opening ceremony. It was pouring rain and I was wearing sandals because it's a semi formal event. The faculty of the Asia Studies Program was there, as well as important people from Kansai Gaidai and people from the American and Australian consulates for Osaka.

I like that they gave us these statistics. Information and numbers like these are of interest to me.

the ceremony was followed by a luncheon

Like a lot of things the university has had us sit through so far, it was serious and official. Formal. They also tend to bring up safety a lot.

This program is several decades old and it seems to be pretty good. Some teachers have been teaching here for decades as well.

Some students are international students because they're normal students at institutions outside of their home countries. I've met several people who are international students who are studying abroad, which could be considered interesting I guess. In Korea I met someone from Norway who goes to college in Australia, someone from Lithuania who goes to college in the U.K., and someone who grew up in Singapore who goes to college in Australia. Here at Kansai Gaidai, I've met someone from Vietnam who goes to college in the U.S. (so she's counted as someone from the U.S. on this program), people from Singapore who go to college in Australia, and someone from Hong Kong who goes to college in Canada. Now we're all here in Japan for the time being.

I didn't write about the orientation or anything at Korea University, but it was different. I only found this.

This post is a bit of a mess but I'm in a hurry.