Other Pictures (5)

Hi

The weather in Japan is beautiful. It's rather warm, and this week I realized that flowers had started to bloom all over campus

I really like the donuts at Mister Donut. I always associated this brand with Japan, but it actually started out in the U.S., as described on the bag. I think Mister Donut is pretty Japanese now. I've only ever seen Mister Donut stores in Japan and South Korea, and I'm convinced they don't exist in the U.S.

Posters to remind exchange students of the completion ceremony are around the CIE (Center for International Education)

the view of a main part of campus from the top floor of the CIE

food

parfaits and pancakes

It's already that time of year... I was surprised to see these boxes in the kitchen this morning.

The semester is undoubtedly winding down. We only have one full week of classes left, and after that it will be finals week. The official last day of the semester is on May 23 (though I imagine most exchange students will be finished with exams before then), and the completion ceremony will take place on May 24. That's in less than two weeks. People can start moving out or going home around that time. Students must move out of the seminar houses before 5 PM on May 31, which is the absolute last day you can be there, and many will move out earlier, between May 24 and May 31. Some people are going to travel more, others will return home, but by the end of May almost all exchange students will have left this city. In three weeks I will be at home.

大福 / Daifuku

We had another cooking event at the seminar house. This time we made our own daifuku! I like mochi so I was looking forward to this.

It was very sticky so it was difficult to work with

These are mine! Yes I know they're ugly. One is filled with a strawberry, another has a strawberry and whipped cream, another has a piece of banana, and the other has anko (red bean paste) inside it.

After making daifuku, everyone was offered free ice cream

Valentine's Tarts and Bingo

Seminar house 2 has a few free events every semester for residents. The first one of the spring was making tarts and playing bingo.

I noticed the RAs making the tarts and preparing for this event a few days in advance. Here are some supplies as they were setting up for the event yesterday

Everyone's task was to decorate two tarts. They could keep one and then give the other one away. Everyone gave and received a tart, so in the end they had two again. We passed the tarts around randomly.

Prizes for bingo!

For some reason everyone received free tea before the game started

I won! Actually, I'm sure that almost half the room won, since there were many prizes. We kept going for a while. This is my prize

Seminar House

A few recent pictures taken in seminar house 2.

My room when I first arrived two weeks ago.

futon

The third floor is a girls floor now.

My kitchen box thing changed from the top row to the bottom row. I thought I'd hate the bottom row but it's not that bad.

This is what my cupboard looked like several days ago.

They changed the room numbers for refrigerators. Though I live in the same room again, I now use the fridge to the right.

First Day of Classes

Orientation week is over and classes have begun!

Speaking Japanese is required for all exchange students, and though I didn't take Reading & Writing Japanese last semester I decided to take it for the spring semester.
I had the best Japanese teacher ever last semester. He was awesome and class was always fun. I miss that class, but my Japanese teachers this semester also seem friendly.
My Speaking Japanese class includes three other people who were in my Speaking Japanese class last semester. In fact, out of 11 students, there are only three people who are new this semester. There were a few people who were absent though, so I'm not sure about the final count. Also, the first week is review and then we take a test. Therefore people have the ability to move up or down a level.
My Reading and Writing Japanese teacher lived in the U.S. for nine years so I'm sure she's fluent in English. I can't be certain because the class is taught in Japanese so I haven't heard her talk in English, but she did say a few words in English to translate and her pronunciation was great. She seems really nice.
The thing about Reading and Writing is... my level. I didn't take that class last semester. In fact, I haven't done much with kanji in over a year! I didn't take any Japanese class at all last spring when I studied in South Korea. I took a placement test last week and it was short, and somehow I was put into the intermediate level. I thought I'd be far lower for Reading and Writing. I was surprised.
Now, after the first day of class, it dawned on me that I really want to try to stay in this level. I'm worried now, since to do so I can't fail the review test next week. Therefore I hope to study lots of kanji and try my best to pass. I felt a little overwhelmed. I hope I can do it...

Since I'm taking two Japanese classes this semester I signed up for two lecture courses instead of three. One is Pacific Rivalry, which I really want to take, and the other is Japan and Globalization. Well, I didn't get into the Globalization class. They placed me into Visual Anthropology instead, which I don't want to take! I'm going to drop it. At first I thought I'd try to get into the globalization class, but over the weekend I talked to half a dozen people who are also on the waiting list. Since it seems difficult to get into that class and since I found another class that would be better for my major, I'm not going to worry about getting into Globalization anymore. Now I'm trying to get into a class about the modernization of Japan and China. I really want to get into it. It interests me a lot.

What else... I could write about a lot of things.


All exchange students here are in the Asian Studies Program, which is different from the rest of the university. We're on a calendar that resembles the American calendar, so although our semester started, the Japanese students won't start their semester until April or so. It was different in the fall. We started earlier then too, but the Japanese students started about one week later (and ended much later than we did). Now we'll be on our own on campus for roughly two months. It's emptier, and it's not difficult to find a place for my bike in the bicycle parking lot for now.


We don't have a fancy opening ceremony this time. Instead, we'll have a completion ceremony in May.


I live in seminar house 2 again. There are four in total and SH2 was open during the winter for extension students, but I moved out completely for the winter because I traveled the whole time. I was surprised that they assigned me to the same exact room I had last time. Initially I had a roommate from the U.S., but I met someone who wanted to change rooms so she ended up switching with my roommate. That means that I've had a new roommate since yesterday. She's from the Netherlands. We get along.
I'm used to living in dorms. I think this will be my last semester having a roommate, and I don't mind at all.
This will be my sixth semester of college and my fifth semester sharing a room. I will have had roommates for a semester from four countries: the U.S., India, Japan, and the Netherlands.

There are some changes to this seminar house. One major difference, compared with the fall semester, is that the third floor changed from a boys floor to a girls floor. That means there are only nine guys who live in this building now. Seminar house 2 is the smallest seminar house. We have four floors. The first floor barely has any rooms. The second floor is an actual floor, but it has slightly fewer rooms than the floors above because the kitchen and dining room are there. The third and fourth floors only have rooms. Last semester, the first and third floors were for boys while the second and fourth were for girls. Now all floors except for the first are for girls, and the first floor only has four rooms.

Aside from more girls, there are some empty rooms this semester. At least two or three rooms are completely empty. Also, rooms are assigned to a refrigerator, and they changed the numbers. Even though I live in the same room again, I'm using a different fridge now.

As for RAs, only one RA from last semester is an RA again. We have three RAs here in total, and I actually knew two of them already because one of them who is an RA now was a resident here last semester. That means there's just one new person (in my view), and she's quite nice. Also, she's good at English.

Last semester we had three Japanese RAs and four Japanese residents. This semester we don't have any Japanese residents.


I'm still adjusting to this new semester. I'm having a bit of a hard time because I don't warm up to change like this easily. I'm in a bad mood sometimes or feel sad.
Last semester wasn't always the greatest and there were some people I disliked, especially towards the end, but I've started to look back at it and I miss it. Last week I was thinking about all the people who used to live here in this building, many of which are no longer in Japan. Since our seminar house is small I knew everyone by name and face.
Now there are all these new people. That's ok, I get along with some of them and we have fun, but... it's different because I'm not new.
One major change is that my two really good friends don't live in the seminar house this semester. I met them here in the fall and we started to go to places together on weekends and watch movies together and stuff. I spent my winter break with them. This semester, however, they decided not to live in the seminar house. One of them is doing a homestay and the other is living in an apartment. I never looked forward to living in SH2 by myself. We wouldn't see each other in the hallway anymore, or hang out in the kitchen, or spontaneously watch movies together. I miss that. I think it will be alright, and we can see each other at school and make plans on weekends, but it's another adjustment.
Many SH2 people from last semester were either in their second semester already, were only here for one semester, or are still here but live off campus in their own accommodation now.

I'm still getting used to all these new people, some of whom I haven't met yet, and my new schedule and classes.

I actually counted the other day, and I could think of 12 people (myself included) who lived in SH2 last semester and who are living here again for the spring semester. In addition, I know of five extension students who lived with host families last semester and who live in SH2 now. This is just based off of my memory and the knowledge I have. SH2 supposedly has a capacity of 58, and I know that the number of people who live here is lower than that, so 17 people from last semester actually isn't that bad.

Sometimes I wish I weren't living here again just because I could then avoid having to deal with all these changes and differences.


The weather has been warm lately, at least during the day. I keep thinking that it feels like spring.


I looked at the list of everyone who is living in the seminar houses, and not including SH2 I could only recognize a couple of names. Wow. Are there no students left from last semester? Perhaps a lot of the extension students live off campus now? Then I reasoned that most of the people I knew last semester I only knew because we lived in the same building. There are plenty of people who I can recognize when I see them, but I don't know their name. Since I was on campus for classes today I realized that I recognize a lot of people from last semester, only I don't know their names. I don't think it's that uncommon for the people who do a year here to stay for the fall and then the spring. Still, I met plenty of one-semester students last semester.


Anyway, these are some things that have been on my mind. I'll probably come up with more things I could mention later, but I'll end this post now.

Return

I returned to Hirakata today. I'm back at the seminar house. After five weeks, I'm here again... It's a little weird. A lot of new people have been arriving throughout the day.

I was really excited earlier in the day. I went shopping today and did laundry and took care of some other things. I got all my stuff out of storage but I have yet to unpack. I don't want to deal with that yet.

Oh, two things!!
I moved out for the winter break, but this program put me back into my room! I'm going to live in the same exact room from now on that I lived in for the fall semester. I don't mind at all. I like my room's location.
Since it's orientation week, everyone can expect to live in a temporary triple. The third person has to live here for this week and then they'll move out next weekend to go to a host family or their own off campus accommodation. However, there won't be a third person living in my room this week. I won't be in a triple!
I haven't met my roommate yet. She arrived at some point today, after I got there.

Most students should be here by Tuesday. They'll be arriving over the next few days. There's a busy schedule full of orientation programs, such as introductions, campus tours, opening a bank account, and other sessions. As an extension student I can skip all of those, which means I have the week off. The first day of classes will be on Monday, February 3.

Being back at the seminar house during orientation week means that my internet connection will be terrible. It was horrendous at the beginning of last semester. It will get better, but it should take a while, like a couple weeks maybe. I find this really frustrating. I'm relying on my friend's pocket WiFi right now. Anyway, I know I'm behind on blogging but I'll try to update throughout this week. The problem is, I may not have a reliable connection or access to the internet at all.

Extra Pictures From December

Here are pictures I took this month that didn't fit or belong in my other posts.

A few weeks ago I went to Panasonic. As part of their global initiative, they invited groups of exchange students to get a tour and socialize with young workers.

The types of things I can cook is limited, and I was getting tired of always eating the same food. I saw my friend making fried rice one day and I thought it was a great idea so I decided to try doing it too. I'm not sure if I actually fried the rice, but it tasted good!

I never eat fast food at home, and it never occurred to me that Mos Burger is fast food, but I think they taste great

I bought a hat. I rarely wear hats but I noticed that my ears and head often feel cold outside

I bought more cute things

I ate more than 6 kg of rice this semester. I know that because I buy these

I became a fan of toast

My friends and I went to Mister Donut!

I wrote about it here. The futons keep piling up, indicating that someone moved out. My floor always had the most. On Wednesday I saw nine. Today all the futons had disappeared from the floors.

I think it was on Tuesday already that people started moving in! I wasn't expecting that at all. I was accustomed to the seminar house emptying out. The last thing I expected was for people to start moving in already. Only students who are staying for the fall and spring semesters can apply to live here during the break. Out of the people who have moved in that I met, they had done homestays (no one can have a host family during winter break, only during the semester) and I recognized them from campus.

This was after Wednesday's concert. The train station was incredibly crowded! It was crazy. The entire platform was packed with people. When a train arrived, I couldn't even move. I was just stuck in this massive mob of people who crammed themselves onto the train. I've never experienced anything like it, not even during rush hour on weekdays in Seoul. I was pressed and shoved and couldn't move anywhere on my own. Luckily it was only a short time before I had to transfer. Even getting out of the train was difficult because there were too many people, and again everyone was pushing and shoving.

I avoided this after the concert on Tuesday night and I'm not sure how. After Tuesday's concert I hung around and bought a snack at a food stand. By the time I got to the platform that night it was fairly empty.

Everyone uses public transportation, and when a concert ends you suddenly have thousands of people in one place who need to get home.

Machines like this are not uncommon. You insert money and then push the button for the food you'd like. A ticket comes out which you hand to someone at the counter. Then they prepare your food. That's how you order.