Very serious changes need to be made to this exchange program... I found out today precisely how many classes I need to take to satisfy Tohoku's requirements for my exchange program.
Zero.
There are no requirements whatsoever... not even any guidelines. I am free to take any classes I choose, and have the option of either auditing classes or taking the assessment. Taking the assessment would mean that as far as Tohoku are concerned I get credit for the class based on work done, but ANU will not recognise any of it. Simply auditing classes would mean Tohoku would grant me a pass/fail result of pass, and as far as they are concerned I get credit for the class... but once again ANU will not recognise any of it.
If I wanted to take twenty hours of class a week and do the assessment for all of it, they are happy to let me. They are equally happy for me to sit at the back of one class a week, so long as I show up enough that the lecturer notices I am there often.
But because of ANU's setup, no matter what I do here they will not let me credit anything toward my real degree. Its as though this year is a black hole to be covered under the blanket description 'Year In Japan'.
Oh well.
At least this farce of being made to come two months before theres a place to stay will end here - theres a new ANU student coming over in October and from next year the program will only run in October.
Heading to the station now to catch the shinkansen back to Saitama.
118
Friday, March 12, 2004
Thursday, March 11, 2004
Yep, Im still here. Thanks very much to everyone for your support last week.
After long hard thinking (which I have plenty of time to do) and many discussions, I came to the decision that the best course of action was to stay here. My reasons arent very academically based, but they work for me. So, July 8th or thereabouts is now circled on the calendar. Semester two will most certainly be much better... its all about perspective. Yes, this means I wont be able to get a real job until 2006, but short term there are a couple of very important things that I need to do this year, and try as I might, giving up the scholarship and overloading with more than full time study is going to make one of those impossible and severly cripple the second thing.
Wombats really are nocturnal. Its the closest thing to hibernation for marsupials. This particular wombat has been very nocturnal lately. Having never been able to fall asleep straight away that isnt in any way unexpected, but just lying awake at night means not being able to get up early, and it becomes a vicious circle pushing me to almost a completely nocturnal cycle. It would be quicker to count the days that I have not seen the sunrise then the days I have. Eating, sleeping, and getting on first name terms with the midnight shift staff at the internet cafe... such is the life of a wombat.
Im going to go up to Sendai some day soon - first need to get in touch with the people at Tohoku uni to make sure they are prepared. I went up towards the end of February and really thought that I got the message across to them that I am living in Saitama right now... I tried to tell them, I really did. I didnt think that it was that difficult a concept, really. Anyway not two days after I had been up there last time I got a phone call asking me to come into the office and fill out a form for the Kokusai Kaikan - the Hall of Residence I will be residing in. Its no skin off their nose getting me to come in all the time, but given that it costs 20,000 yen ($260) to make the return trip on the shinkansen I'm not jumping over myself to head up there whenever they sneeze. They did say that it wasnt in any way urgent, so Im making sure that this time I can get as much value out of the trip as possible. Ideally they will tell me I can move in to the Kaikan nice and early... they've already told me that the latest date will be the first of April but with any luck it will be able to be before that. Before the 27th would be ideal, but even if I had to be here past then I think I'll still be avoiding Rays Party on that evening. It worries me that there are people who will pay fifty dollars to spend three hours talking to native english speakers and eating cheap snacks. Dont these people have any friends who speak english? This is Tokyo, after all! That photo of the bloke with the sea slugs... he's a regular customer and typical of the party guests.... so I guess I've answered my own question there...
Pizza costs ten times as much here as it does in Canberra.
On a more positive note, it is finally warming up! Yesterday and today were, amazingly, warm enough to go outside without a jumper! Only til it fell dark, of course, which meant today I didnt get much time in the light at all, but Wednesday I had to work so was up and around much earlier. This change of weather is very good - it means day to day being outside will be actually pleasant - up until now, except for a day or two a few weeks ago, it has just been too cold to be outside for too long. (No, it hasnt been as cold as Bloomington... ) Japan is now entering the rare length of time when it is nice weather - it won't last too long, maybe a couple of months, because from May we hit summer humidity. I am hoping hoping hoping that Sendai, being further north, will be cooler over summer than Okazaki, or indeed the rest of Japan was.. of course this works against me too because Sendai hasn't yet had the warmer weather hit. This might be OK though because its still a little over two weeks until I get up there. I have to tell Ray two weeks before I leave when I will leave so he can plan to have new barbarians come to take over my spot here and fill my room. Not that he takes much notice of concrete dates himself, having pushed back the date I moved in here three times. Hopefully I will be able to move in to Sendai before April... we'll see.
Well, time to make the trek across town to the internet cafe and post this and add some more photos. They won't know what to think of my turning up so early... There is a good plus to this internet cafe- they have free drinks the whole time you are there, and they have really good caramel coffee.... mmm...
119
After long hard thinking (which I have plenty of time to do) and many discussions, I came to the decision that the best course of action was to stay here. My reasons arent very academically based, but they work for me. So, July 8th or thereabouts is now circled on the calendar. Semester two will most certainly be much better... its all about perspective. Yes, this means I wont be able to get a real job until 2006, but short term there are a couple of very important things that I need to do this year, and try as I might, giving up the scholarship and overloading with more than full time study is going to make one of those impossible and severly cripple the second thing.
Wombats really are nocturnal. Its the closest thing to hibernation for marsupials. This particular wombat has been very nocturnal lately. Having never been able to fall asleep straight away that isnt in any way unexpected, but just lying awake at night means not being able to get up early, and it becomes a vicious circle pushing me to almost a completely nocturnal cycle. It would be quicker to count the days that I have not seen the sunrise then the days I have. Eating, sleeping, and getting on first name terms with the midnight shift staff at the internet cafe... such is the life of a wombat.
Im going to go up to Sendai some day soon - first need to get in touch with the people at Tohoku uni to make sure they are prepared. I went up towards the end of February and really thought that I got the message across to them that I am living in Saitama right now... I tried to tell them, I really did. I didnt think that it was that difficult a concept, really. Anyway not two days after I had been up there last time I got a phone call asking me to come into the office and fill out a form for the Kokusai Kaikan - the Hall of Residence I will be residing in. Its no skin off their nose getting me to come in all the time, but given that it costs 20,000 yen ($260) to make the return trip on the shinkansen I'm not jumping over myself to head up there whenever they sneeze. They did say that it wasnt in any way urgent, so Im making sure that this time I can get as much value out of the trip as possible. Ideally they will tell me I can move in to the Kaikan nice and early... they've already told me that the latest date will be the first of April but with any luck it will be able to be before that. Before the 27th would be ideal, but even if I had to be here past then I think I'll still be avoiding Rays Party on that evening. It worries me that there are people who will pay fifty dollars to spend three hours talking to native english speakers and eating cheap snacks. Dont these people have any friends who speak english? This is Tokyo, after all! That photo of the bloke with the sea slugs... he's a regular customer and typical of the party guests.... so I guess I've answered my own question there...
Pizza costs ten times as much here as it does in Canberra.
On a more positive note, it is finally warming up! Yesterday and today were, amazingly, warm enough to go outside without a jumper! Only til it fell dark, of course, which meant today I didnt get much time in the light at all, but Wednesday I had to work so was up and around much earlier. This change of weather is very good - it means day to day being outside will be actually pleasant - up until now, except for a day or two a few weeks ago, it has just been too cold to be outside for too long. (No, it hasnt been as cold as Bloomington... ) Japan is now entering the rare length of time when it is nice weather - it won't last too long, maybe a couple of months, because from May we hit summer humidity. I am hoping hoping hoping that Sendai, being further north, will be cooler over summer than Okazaki, or indeed the rest of Japan was.. of course this works against me too because Sendai hasn't yet had the warmer weather hit. This might be OK though because its still a little over two weeks until I get up there. I have to tell Ray two weeks before I leave when I will leave so he can plan to have new barbarians come to take over my spot here and fill my room. Not that he takes much notice of concrete dates himself, having pushed back the date I moved in here three times. Hopefully I will be able to move in to Sendai before April... we'll see.
Well, time to make the trek across town to the internet cafe and post this and add some more photos. They won't know what to think of my turning up so early... There is a good plus to this internet cafe- they have free drinks the whole time you are there, and they have really good caramel coffee.... mmm...
119
Monday, March 08, 2004
ANU's last day for re enrolment for semester one was last friday... so its now too late to try and re enrol for this semester.
Well, it technically IS possible to squeeze in until the end of March, but there is a financial penalty for that, what I need to figure out now is the relative merits of joining the semester after whats already been already two weeks gone and at least another week by the time I could get to Canberra.
Nothing further to say on that, so Im here at least until the 19th of July, or the 8th of July, whichever comes first...
Doesnt seem like theres much point in actually doing much while at Tohoku though, so Im still going to have copious free time, but at least I get paid to be there. One does have to ask oneself what the financial value of a year is; and to sit around doing nothing and getting $10,000 for the effort sounds like a reasonably good idea - it is in fact what got me here in the first place, but actually having nothing to do gives one plenty of time to think... plenty of time to think things through to the ultimate end.
In Australia I was swept up in the motion of 'yay, lets go to Japan.. yay.. japan has cans of coffee in vending machines... yay...', but here I have plenty of time to look at what I am doing, and actually follow things through to their logical end. Browsing web sites of places for future employment and actually looking at their educational requirements... the degree is cruicial, not what is written in brackets after it.
Yeah, having a year's exchange in Japan has got to be in my favour, more so than not having one. Good thing I've already done over a year here...
Yeah, having the Japanese Language Proficiency Test has got to be in my favour, more so than not having it. Good thing I've already passed it. (That test means virtually nothing outside Japan anyway).
Ugh... at least in a few weeks I'll be able to be wasting my time in Sendai, which has to be marginally better than wasting my time in Saitama. Not that Im holding out much hope of getting any carpet, but I MIGHT have internet access....
123
Well, it technically IS possible to squeeze in until the end of March, but there is a financial penalty for that, what I need to figure out now is the relative merits of joining the semester after whats already been already two weeks gone and at least another week by the time I could get to Canberra.
Nothing further to say on that, so Im here at least until the 19th of July, or the 8th of July, whichever comes first...
Doesnt seem like theres much point in actually doing much while at Tohoku though, so Im still going to have copious free time, but at least I get paid to be there. One does have to ask oneself what the financial value of a year is; and to sit around doing nothing and getting $10,000 for the effort sounds like a reasonably good idea - it is in fact what got me here in the first place, but actually having nothing to do gives one plenty of time to think... plenty of time to think things through to the ultimate end.
In Australia I was swept up in the motion of 'yay, lets go to Japan.. yay.. japan has cans of coffee in vending machines... yay...', but here I have plenty of time to look at what I am doing, and actually follow things through to their logical end. Browsing web sites of places for future employment and actually looking at their educational requirements... the degree is cruicial, not what is written in brackets after it.
Yeah, having a year's exchange in Japan has got to be in my favour, more so than not having one. Good thing I've already done over a year here...
Yeah, having the Japanese Language Proficiency Test has got to be in my favour, more so than not having it. Good thing I've already passed it. (That test means virtually nothing outside Japan anyway).
Ugh... at least in a few weeks I'll be able to be wasting my time in Sendai, which has to be marginally better than wasting my time in Saitama. Not that Im holding out much hope of getting any carpet, but I MIGHT have internet access....
123
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
