Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Japan: Yay! An Update! Back to Fukuoka Tour!

Ok, let's see how far I can get in this hour or so before I'll probably go to sleep. I've been really busy, so haven't been keeping up with the blog as much as I would've liked. As such, the entries will not be as detailed as I would like them to be (for both reasons of having forgotten some of the details and also due to amount of time to make such entries).

5/20/2006




After lunch, we went to the Kyushu National Museum. Unfortunately we really didn't get a lot of time to see the exhibits very much, but we tried to make do with what we had. There were lots of interesting items all over the place. One room which particularly amused me was called the Ideal Asian Room. They also had a room with a bunch of various old instruments that you could hit (drums mainly). In that same room were two more drums that you were not supposed to hit, but looked like all the others. I hit one. Oops. The museum also did not allow pictures inside the exhibits.






After visiting the museum's gift shop, we went down this interesting multicolor pathway and down a pretty long escalator to arrive at... a children's theme park. Well, not really, but we saw one and I took a picture of it. We followed a path to a rather large crowd gathered around some sort of stage. I wasn't able to see what was going on, but I'm sure it was pretty neat. We then went into another temple (this one larger than the others). They had some interesting statues and we took a group picture here. One of the groups told us about a legend of the person who designed the temple. Apparently he was reluctant to leave his home, but he came and his favorite tree flew over to be with its owner. Also of note, a bunch of us purchased fortunes here. If the fortune is bad, you're supposed to tie it up to get rid of your bad luck. If the fortune is good, you're supposed to keep it somewhere safe. My fortune told me that my studies would go well with ease, my traveling would be good if I paid attention to my surroundings, and that I'll find someone special in my life soon. It said a bunch of other stuff too, but I forgot what else it said.


We then went further down the path away from the temple to a little shopping district. This district had a bunch of little shops that sold some pretty cool stuff. We really didn't have much time to carouse through them all though. I did not end up buying anything, though I was tempted by a few things.

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Japan: Quick Update

私たちは授業がもう始まりましたから、とても忙しいんです。それからこのBLOGはあまり書けません。

Class has already started. Very busy. I can't write much in this blog right now.

Packed classes until Friday. Thursday: Tea ceremony class. Friday: 安いデパートをさがします (Looking for the cheap department store). Saturday/Sunday: Trip to Nagasaki.

Sunday, May 21, 2006

Japan: Tour de Fukuoka

5/20/2006 (Getting close to caught up)

I actually woke up before the alarm at around 7:40am. Not tired at all. Brush teeth, walk to 7-11 to buy a quick breakfast (パン! Bread!), then wait for 8:40am. We meet, Masuda-sensei tells us we'll be taking a chartered bus, we walk down to the bus and we're off for our first destination: Fukuoka Tower.



Fukuoka Tower is really tall and pretty. The height is 234 meters. Sara purchases a 100円 collectable pin for the tower, decides she doesn't like it and buys another. She gets the same one, so I buy it from her and she tries again and gets one of the two that she wanted. We then ride the elevator to maybe half the height at 123m. We take pictures, get a Fukuoka Tower stamp thing, then head down to the third floor for more pictures. On the third floor, it is said if you face the direction of your loved one and make a wish, that wish will come true. After that, we head down to the gift shop and I buy this yummy frozen gummy thing for 10円 (which is like 9 cents). After that we walk down to the bus and we're off for our next destination: とちょじ (Tochoji) Temple.





We enter the temple and the smell of incense permeates the air. We stop at a cleansing station, where Matsushima-sensei and Naki-sensei show us how to perform the ritual before entering the temple. First you clean out the little water scoop, then you take the scoop in one hand, pour it on the other. Take the scoop in the other hand, pour it back on the first hand. Then switch hands again, take water from the scoop, pour it in your hand, then rinse your mouth out with it, then spit it out. The temple was, again, very pretty. There's a nice incense station that you can use to try and get the smoke on the parts of you that need healing. We then proceed to check out this massive Buddha statue (no pictures allowed). According to Matsushima-sensei, this statue is not the old one, but a new one that was recently built. I get to ring the bell, throw money into the box and pray like in all the アニメ (Anime). We look around some more, then once we are finished, walk down to the bus and we're off for our next destination: くしだ神社 (Kushida-jinja).




This Shinto shrine is, like the other places, quite pretty. When we arrive we see that a traditional Shinto wedding is in process. The bride looks beautiful with her 着物 (kimono), but I thought it wouldn't be right to take a picture without asking (and ain't no way I was gonna ask). Sensei tells us about this huge structure that is apparently carried by many men around as a parade during the month of July. There is another ritual here where we pour water into our hands, then drink 1st for your own health, 2nd for the health of your family, and 3rd for the health of your relatives. The water was, frankly, quite disgusting and I accidentally drank too much my first sip (more of a gulp). It tasted somewhat of mineral/salt water. We walked around, took pictures, then we walk down to our bus and we're off for lunch.


Lunch is in a traditional Japanese room with no chairs (the ones where you have to kneel at the table). The food is all traditional fare including some delicious fish, miso soup, sashimi, and lots of other stuff. I didn't last very long kneeling (Naki-sensei didn't even) so I guess I need more discipline in ignoring the fact that no blood is going to my feet. After lunch, we walk down to our bus and we're off for our next destination: Kyushu National Museum.

Japan: Subway of Thought

05/19/2006 Continued:

I'd already written a lot of this, but my computer crashed and I didn't save it, so I guess I'll have to rewrite it. After the 1 hour or so in the computer lab, we had free time until 5:40pm, which is the time we would meet to go to the Welcome Party. Most everyone went back to the Seminar House, but 4 of us (Gretchen, Sara, Marissa, and I) all decided to go to the てんじん (Tenjin), which is like the shopping district of ふくおか (Fukuoka). Along the way, we saw two of our group walking around (Parner-san and Hales-san) so they started following us (not fun... they're very annoying... Hales-san is obsessed with Japanese school girls so he talks about them non-stop...) to the 地下鉄 (Subway station).

We take the train to 天神南 (Tenjin-minami) and get off to wander around. So Japanese Department stores (デパート) are interesting. They're usually tall buildings (maybe 8-10 floors) that have various departments/stores on each floor (like men's dept, women's dept, Gap). Typically the basement has a kind of food market type place as well. We went up and down one of the department stores, then walked to another one (a bigger one called まつこし [Matsukoshi]). This one was interesting because apparently, it is International Week so they had an Italian fair on the top floor (the 9th floor). This fair very crowded; it consisted of lots of booths selling Italian goods (including food). In addition they had lots of samples of the food, some of which were actually pretty good, whereas some of the other stuff was... less so...

After mooching off the samples, we ride the 18 escalators or so down to the street level again. Across the street from まつこし (Matsukoshi) is an Eddie Bauer, and next to that is a ビックカメラ (Bic Camera: http://www.biccamera.com). We go to the store and I look for a camera to replace my old one that I left at home. I ended up buying a Canon Powershot A530 + a case for 20,844円. I'm pretty sure I could've purchased the camera elsewhere for cheaper, but I needed a camera and it seemed reasonable enough. I give the tenant my credit card she asks if I have a plus card (for discounts). I say no and we get almost to the final point until she holds my card to me and asks me a question... I have no idea what she says. She asks again and I meekly show her my ID thinking that might be what she's asking for. I then promptly get the rest of the group and no one can understand what she's asking. She then asks one of her co-workers and shows her the card; the co-worker says something and she completes the sale. *shrugs*. The entire process was pretty scary though.


After that we went to a Lawsons across the street. Lawsons is a convenience store, similar to 7-11 (of which there are tons here). Gretchen was looking for a specific type of パン (bread roll thing) that is related to an アニメ (Anime) called Yakitate Japan. They are supposed to be selling them now in Lawsons, but we haven't found one yet in ふくおか (Fukuoka) yet so maybe they're only in 東京 (Tokyo) or something. By this time, it's getting to be 5:05pm or so and the latest train that we could use to get back on time leaves at 5:16pm, so we start going back to the train station. We have to run a little bit, but we reach the train on time and all is well, except the train actually left at 5:22pm. We get back to ふくおかだい (Fukuoka University) at 5:38pm and rush towards Building 8 (of course in the pouring rain). We get there a little late, but everything's ok. We go to the building where the Welcome Party is and up to the top floor.

We get our name tags and see lots of tables set up with food (すし! Sushi!) and chairs to both sides against the walls. We sit and I get my camera setup so I can start taking pictures while we wait for the action to start. At the front of the room is a sign that says "Welcome Georgia Institute of Technology." A few people give speeches (including ムーンさん [Moon-san], who won one of the scholarships) all in Japanese of course and then all of the students are called to the front. We figure this was when we would have to sing the song so when なき先生 (Naki-sensei) hands Sara the microphone, she freaks out not wanting to sing into the mic, but hands it down until I'm holding it in front of all of us. Oops, we were supposed to each introduce ourselves into the microphone. Sara gets it back and we each introduce ourselves in Japanese, saying our major and year in school. Tons of people forgot to say "Please take care of me" which is usually what ends an introduction.


We finish the introductions and that's when we had to sing the song. It seemed ok, except we were singing pretty slowly, I thought. The Japanese people there all clapped along to our song. The song is called 上を向いて歩こう (it's a Sukiyaki song). We then get introduced to our "Host families," who we will be staying with for a weekend in 3 weeks or so. My host insisted I call her のりさん (Nori-san; see above picture). She was very nice and her English was actually pretty good. We spoke and ate and talked with some other host families and had a jolly good time until about 8:30pm - 9:00pm. The director dude says we can take food back (and they even provide us with containers) and so I grab some food and a bottle of coke, then we head to the 地下鉄 (Subway) to come back to the Seminar House. We get off at 六本松 (Ropponmatsu) and walk the rest of the way back. Once back at the Seminar House, Masuda-sensei tells us to meet at 8:40am again the next day so we can have our ふくおか (Fukuoka) city tour. We get Internet working, I take a shower, and we decide to get up at 7:45am the next morning to grab a bite to eat before we meet.

Saturday, May 20, 2006

Japan: Fukuoka... DIE! Ja nai!

For 5/19/2006:

It's wet... dark and wet... it's the kind of weather that penetrates... I wake up early Friday morning to the sound of one of my roommate's alarm (7:17am... he has one of those clocks whose alarm is only the hour hand). The cool thing is that I don't feel tired at all (jet lag kind of takes away all sense of time and you start off again with a clean slate). In any case, I hear the rain going already... slow and steady. I brush my teeth and head down to the dining room to have a nice Western style breakfast. This meal consisted of an omelette, sausage, ketchup, fruit, and bread. After breakfast, we head to the lobby and watch some wonderful Japanese TV until Masuda-sensei comes and tells us what's going on at 8:40am. We each get 2 5,500円 subway/bus passes that speeds up the process of using the two types of transportation.

We then walk to the bus stop in the rain, then all board the number 12 bus bounded for ふくおかだい (Fukuoka university). We get there and rush in the rain to Building 8 (where we will be spending a lot of our time). We head to the International Affairs office and introduce ourselves to the staff (including the guy who is directing most of our program). We then head to room 834 (building 8, floor 3, room 4) and sit in these odd bench/desk combinations (3 seats per desk). The orientation mostly consists of the director reading us the contents of the program packet. After the orientation, a few of us wandered around the halls some, then head back down and Naki-sensei hands us these yellow sheets of paper with lyrics to songs on them. Apparently, we were going to have to sing a Japanese song at the Welcoming Party. Too bad the room we were just using was taken up so about 4 of us started singing this song in the middle of the hall. We then headed downstairs where the rest of the group was and proceeded to practice the song in the middle of that hallway during a class change... yeah... that was fun. I'm terrified of singing in public...

We get let into our next room (824) and there are about 5 or 6 Japanese students who seem terrified already in the room. The director comes up and tells us (oh yeah, he spoke pretty much entirely in Japanese btw... just so you get a scope of what we're going through) that these students are going to be our tour guides for the campus. He calls them all up and he tells them to introduce themselves. The first person goes up and says "英語で?" (In English?) and he responds "No, they can speak in Japanese." She proceeds to introduce herself anyway in a heavily accented English. They each introduce themself; some in English and some in Japanese. It's funny, but these people have been taking English classes for upwards of 10 years and they're scared to death of speaking it, whereas we have been taking Japanese for like 5-8 semesters or so and we're now fully immersed in it.

Anyway, Masuda-sensei splits our groups up into groups of 4 or 5 for the tours. My tour group consisted of Lee-san, Luu-san, Liu-san, and Moon-san. Our tour leader was a Biology major and he actually spoke a decent amount of English. He kept commented that we spoke very good Japanese though. He showed us various parts of the campus (in pouring rain) including a few buildings (some with computer labs we can use) and a restaurant or too (a place called "Mo's Burger" - Welcome to Mo's!), the gym, the library, etc. He also points us to the 地下鉄 (Subway), which we can take to てんじん which he states as a great shopping district. He takes us to one of the school stores and I buy an umbrella for 350円 so that I wouldn't get quite as soaked anymore. Of course right after I buy the umbrella it stops raining.

We're getting pretty hungry by this time so we head to the cafeteria and I get かつカレ for like 330円 or so plus 90円 for a coke (so around $4). Not bad for a lot of food, that was decent. We have lots of fun talking to our tour guide and he even offers to let us tag along with him and his friends to go see a movie sometime. We exchange Email addresses and phone numbers and such, then head back to Building 8 to get ready to go to a computer lab to setup our accounts. The computer room is extremely hot and I was very wet from the rain. Hence my title from the posting I made in the lab. Computer stuff set up and we now had student accounts to use. The keyboards in the lab are pretty interesting. I may try to get a picture of one before I leave. Lots of random Japanese stuff. They also have both Linux and Windows installed :)

Wow... tired already... More to come about this day later. Jeeze... I need to catch up; I'm falling behind. みんなさんおやすみなさい! (good night)

Friday, May 19, 2006

Japan: Backtracking and Backpacking

Let's go back a bit. I'll now write about a few days ago, when we were still in Tokyo. Gretchen and I are both staying in Japan after the LBAT program to work abroad, meaning we had a lot of extra clothes and such that we wouldn't be needing until after LBAT. Fortunately, Gretchen's company (JCD) allowed us to keep a bag each here while we were in Fukuoka so that we wouldn't have to worry about it so our next quest was to find her company with our bags so they could hold them for us.

Now we were staying at the Holiday Inn by Narita Airport, which is about 45 minutes to an hour away from Tokyo by train. We checked out of our hotel at 8am, left our luggage at the hotel to pickup before we went back to the airport for our flight to Fukuoka, then took the train with the two bags in hand and my laptop (I didn't want to leave it at the hotel with the rest of the bags).

We bought the cheapest train that would take us to Tokyo from Narita (the JR Line Rapid Train) for 1280円. Unfortunately, we didn't quite understand the train systems yet, so we didn't take the first train that we could, and thus we had to wait about 45 minutes for the next Rapid Train (the others were Limited Express which are more expensive and make less stops).

We finally got to Tokyo at around noon (we were trying to get there around 11am) and transfered to the Yamanote line to go up to Ueno where JCD is located. We then reached Ueno and tried to follow Gretchen's map, which she had copied down from the company website into her Palm Tungsten. We obviously didn't know where to start from the train station, so we asked a police officer in a police box and he gave a really awful map and some directions to get to the building.

We walked and walked and walked and turned and walked and eventually we figured we'd walked to far and stopped somewhere to ask a local if he could help us. The local spoke no English but he very excited pointed towards the direction we'd come from and said such words that I caught as "second traffic light" and "white building." We wandered around some more, then decided it was best for Gretchen to call her company to get better directions from someone we could understand. The person who answered the phone spoke no English and the person with whom Gretchen kept Email correspondance was not in the office so after some time, Gretchen finally got them to agree to meet us in front of the nearby McDonalds she thought. In any case we waited about 15 minutes and started to get pretty discouraged. Then a woman approached us and it was actually the person Gretchen spoke to via Email and not the one who she talked to on the phone (yay! English speaker!). We finally relinquished ourselves of our extra luggage, though I still had my laptop case, and were really hungry so we stopped at a local restaurant to grab a bite to eat.

We were standing outside the restaurant and the people inside saw me and started waving (I figured because they knew we were foreigners). We went inside and they saw me then said "ちがいます!すみません!すみません!" which basically means "Oops we were wrong, sorry, sorry." Apparently they'd thought I was someone else. Anyway, we were looking at the items to choose from and trying to pick the one with the least kanji (so we'd know what were getting). We then just decided to get カレうどん (curry udon), but they didn't have curry... So she started saying other stuff and I decided to get curry with tempura. Gretchen was having trouble deciding what she wanted instead, but then they informed us that they had enough curry for one person, but not both of us so she got that. The food was good, except Gretchen's was too spicy.

Having fed ourselves (my food was only like 340円!) we walked back to the train station. We were going to go to Akihabara so that I could buy myself a digital camera, but our time in Ueno took longer than expected so we ended up deciding against that and heading back to Narita. We looked around the Ueno train station for a faster train (but cheaper than the JR Limited Express which was twice the price of the JR Rapid), but couldn't find one so we decided just to take the JR Rapid line, which took FOREVER. Plus we had to transfer trains at Narita to get to the Airport, which took even more time. Needless to say we got to the Narita airport at 4:50pm for our 5:55pm flight, then ran to a taxi (remember? we still had our luggage at the airport and we didn't want to wait for shuttles!). Took the taxi to the hotel, asked the taxi driver to wait (in Japanese), grabbed our bags, then ran back to the airport. 5:10pm.

Run run run run until we get to the domestic check-in. Of course, we get a trainee at the check-in counter... so she has a supervisor explaining to her what she's doing and she also doesn't speak English very well. Anyway, it's creeping on 5:20pm, 35 minutes before the flight leaves, and she's asking us all these questions (since the flight was full we couldn't sit together) to which we kept replying "That's fine! That's fine!" since we just wanted to get on the plane. She then explained that we had to take a middle seat each! Agh! The last thing she said was "Make sure you get to the gate by 5:30pm" which was ironic because she was holding us up so much. We then run to the gate and get there around 5:26pm! We actually made it with time to spare so Gretchen got a drink because she was thirsty from all the running around we did. We got on the flight, took off and I promptly fell asleep and woke up when we landed (I was out cold).

Fukuoka was rainy (something about a typhoon) and we arrive at the Seminar House after a taxi ride. Wait in the lobby as check-in process goes on; catch up a bit with the other LBAT participants. Everyone else was obviously very tired because they'd just gotten in that day so they'd been flying all day. We get explained the rules, get our keys, then have to carry our luggage up the third floor because there's no elevator. We get explained more rules then head to our rooms. Some rules: 11pm curfew period (gate closes) and we are only allowed to use the showers in the basement (communal) from 9pm - 11pm. Since we got in at 10pm, we got extended special permission until 12am for that night. I take a shower. People try to use Internet, but fail miserably as the temporary usernames / passwords do not work. We'd have to wait until we got our Fukuoka University (FU... hehe) student IDs.

Fall asleep on the rock-hard beds and pillows to wake up decently early to go to Fukuoka University for our campus tour / orientation. More on that to come. Also some pictures as I have now purchased my digital camera from "ビックカメラ" (Bic Camera). I'm kinda tired now and wrote this long entry so that will have to wait. おやすみなさい! (Good night!)

Japan: Hot and Wet

Hmm... currently I am in Fukuoka after another flight yesterday from Tokyo. That is another story in itself (I will try to post again later). I'm at Fukuoka University in one of the computer rooms (they gave us username / password). Typhoon season is apparently upon us so it was crazy raining during our campus tour. The Seminar House we are staying at is nice, but we couldn't use Internet yet, so hopefully I can post from my room later tonight... Unfortunately, I forgot my AC adapter for my Router (either in Tokyo or in Atlanta) so I'm gonna try to steal Gretchen's wireless Internet (with her permission).

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Japan: Ici at Last!

And now I'm in Japan... Yay! We landed and went through Immigration (we lied and said that we were planning on staying only 6 weeks instead of our actual length since we don't have full VISAs yet). That took about 30 minutes. Then we got our bags (yay! nothing was lost!) and I exchanged $400 to Yen (boo! the exchange rate went down!)... We then waited for about 30 minutes for the shuttle for our hotel (Holiday Inn) and then checked into the hotel and the room is actually pretty nice for the cost, but smells of smoke. Free Internet though, which is nice. Of course the geek in us had us setting Gretchen's router up so that we can share the Internet =D.

We were pretty tired so we kinda dozed while watching Japanese TV (specifically a Tom Hanks movie subbed in Japanese) and then at around 7pm we walked to a Family Mart to buy dinner (we didn't feel like eating at the hotel for more than the cost of the room). Of course we enter and the store owners are all like いらっしゃいませ! which means "Welcome!" We browse around and I end up getting an orange mango drink, some yakisoba, and some dumplings for 633円. First experience with being confronted with full-fledged Japanese was paying for the food/getting them to heat it up. Very scary. I haven't quite grasped the amounts of money available via coinage and via bills so I was trying to pay the amount in coins, but didn't have enough so I paid with a 1000 yen bill so now I have a lot of coins.

The food was really good though for being store-bought and microwaved. The drinks are expensive. All in all, I'm having fun! After dinner I tried to stay up till at least 9pm JST to call my family via Skype (it'd be 8am EST) but the Internet was down and I fell asleep so we woke up at like 1am JST and the Internet was back up so I called then and posted this entry. Now it's back to sleep until tomorrow, when we'll head to 東京 (Tokyo) and うえの (Ueno) then back to Narita to fly to ふくおか (Fukuoka).

Japan: In Transit

The time is 9:06am JST. I am currently on the plane from San Francisco to Tokyo. I have been on the plane for roughly 5 hours after the 5-hour flight from Atlanta to San Francisco. The flights gave been pretty uneventful so far, which is a good thing I think. We're supposed to arrive at Narita Airport at 1:48pm. Since I got about 2 or 3 hours of sleep last night, I slept most of the way to San Francisco and a good bit of the way to Tokyo. Otherwise I've watched Anime, played some games on my PDA and written this entry. Movie on ATL -> SF flight: King Kong. Movies on SF -> Tokyo flight: Nanny McPhee, Lion Witch Wardrobe, The Interpreter, and The Transporter 2. Food was less than stellar so far but ok: white rice with chicken curry and various side dishes. Second meal was a pasta dish with no meat that was actually pretty good.

Monday, May 15, 2006

Japan: 2 Midnights Gone

My flight leaves tomorrow morning at 7:20am. I have to get up at 4:30am to get to the airport on time. The next entry in this blog will be from Japan. I'm going to be tired. I'm an idiot though. I already realized that I forgot to pack a camera. Oh well, too late now. I'll buy one in Japan. Let's get this party started!

Sunday, May 14, 2006

Ramblings: 1 Midnight Gone...

It's quite sad to think that I'll be seeing all these people for the last time for several months. I had a very pleasant dinner at an Italian restaurant recommended by Jim (my boss) on Friday night with good company, then watched a good movie (Art School Confidential) with some more good company.

Tonight I spent a lot of the day prepping my computer for travel (lame I know), then headed to Aubrie's and Will's place for a lovely Southern dinner and another interesting movie (The 40-year-old Virgin).

Tomorrow I'll be having Dim Sum with my family (Father's side) and then I have to go shopping for some clothes to wear for work while I'm at Japan, then I'll be having dinner with Casey and Kelly (and Pat if we can ever get in contact with him). Then... back home to pack my life into a suitcase or two. Monday will be spent running errands (getting traveler's checks, some yen, turning in some paperwork) and then sleeping until my early awakening Tuesday morning around 5am to leave to get to the Airport for my 8am flight.

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Ramblings: Back at Home Again

After an exhausting weekend, I've finally moved everything back home. Now I've got a pile of boxen and random junk lying on my floor. I don't really want to unpack, because A) I'm going to Japan in a week and 2) Once I get back from Japan, I'm likely to move again.

Got my grades using the CAPP hack. A in ECE7102 (expected, but I'm pretty sure everyone else got an A...), A in CS7491 (glad... I worked my butt off on that last project), B in ECE6500 (HAHAHAHAHA! I skipped the entire last two months!), C in ECE6610 (can't say that I'm very surprised, though still disappointed in my first C at Tech), and S in JAPN3001.

I got an Email from my company regarding my VISA issue, so hopefully that's taken care of. I need some help carefully crafting an Email to my company to find out what dress code they have. I also probably need to buy some clothes to match their dress code.

Also trying to schedule last dinners with people so I can see my friends one last time before I'm off to 日本 (Japan). If you have not gotten contacted by me about having dinner yet, let me know (if anyone even reads this?)

Quotes/Songs: Why Do I End Up Dreaming?

どうして私はゆめを見てしまんだろう? くれかいしあきもせつ 分かる一つもぶ見たい。 - Honey and Clover

Translated:

Why do I end up dreaming? Over and over again, without getting tired of it. As if that's all I know. - Honey and Clover

Friday, May 05, 2006

Ramblings: Done With That

So I had my last final today: ECE6610 - Wireless Networks. Let's just say... yeah... we'll see... I really had lost pretty much all motivation to perform well in my classes. I never really had senioritis at all, but now it's like I have "graduitis" or something.

I also started checking people out of their rooms. Being a CA was interesting, but I don't think I want that responsibility again. It was definitely worth doing, but as everything winds down I just don't see myself doing it again. I've got a long weekend ahead of me of checking people out, meaning a long weekend of people complaining and stressing out and not wanting to charge people extra, etc. etc. etc. After all that I have to move myself out too, which I don't really know how long it will take me to do.

For now, I still have to grade a few more papers.

In any case, countdown to Japan: 11 days. Scary...

Thursday, May 04, 2006

Ramblings: これはテストです

あのう。。。これを読めますか? みんなさんおはようございます! これは私のテストですね。。。 日本語を書けるかどうか分からないから、見ようね?

Ramblings: Back on the Dark Side

In light of new experiences, allow me to illuminate the web once more again with my luuminosity. Do not glare too long at the brilliance, or the glow shall provide edifications of the elucidations.

A brief history of my past blogging experiences shows the initial name of "Luuminosity" referencing a bit of light in the darkness of the world. Some time afterwards, I changed the name to "Luucid" representing that same light, but also playing on the phrase "Luu's Id" to represent some of my deeper thoughts and the like. Now the main purpose of this blog will be to provide a place for me to jot down my experiences in Japan and post pictures.

Enjoy.