Of working at Tsumura
Gerf	Location: Tsumura housing, 3rd floor AV room	2/15/2005 8:49:25 AM
	02/14/05 --> 23:09 - Tsumura housing, 3rd floor AV room (and later moving to Room 411) Whoa, there's Internet here. Hot dog. *has to laugh* I think I'm going to have to start this day from the beginning, though... So I got up at about 5:00 this morning and said my online goodbyes; by 7:00, I had finished all my last-minute packing and had eaten a HUGE breakfast (since I needed to clean out all my cereal and OJ that I had left over so it wouldn't all go bad). Mama offered to drive me to the station (in the family's relatively new red minivan/SUV/station wagon/car), and it's a good thing she did: had I have caught the next train after the one I did take, I would have been late meeting everyone at Takadanobaba (funny how time just decided to dilate there... huh). Actually, Lars was 10 minutes late anyway, so it wouldn't have been too bad. But anyway, we bought some 5000-yen tickets and headed off to Nippori, and from there took a (slightly different-looking) train to Arakawaoki. Three American dudes carrying around titanic luggage cases on the trains during rush hour must have looked really weird to a lot of people... fortunately, we were on rather non-crowded trains so it was all good. Heading to Arakawaoki, I realized just how non-Japan Tokyo is. I know that forming an impression of Japan based on a stay in Tokyo is a bad idea, but living there makes it hard to form any other impression... until now. Now I can actually see open fields and farmlands. I see trees and bamboo forests. I'm finally seeing Japan... even though I'm still pretty close to Tokyo. Get me out farther... Gosh, lots of stuff happened, all of which is worth talking about, but I'm dead tired right now. That and I've got to follow a lady around with a stopwatch ALL DAY tomorrow, marking down everything she does. All. Day. And I'm only going to have six hours of sleep to do it on. Yikes. I'll do my best to relate everything to y'all tomorrow. Hopefully I'll be able to remember everything! 02/15/05 --> 22:37 - Tsumura housing, 3rd floor AV room Okay, I've got a LOT of stuff to write here. So... Written like it was yesterday: When we arrived in Arakawaoki, we went out the first exit we found... and it turned out to be on the wrong side of the station! The people we were going to meet gave me a call, and I was like, "Um, well, I'm outside right now... there's a haircut place and some hotel over there... you know, we're probably on the wrong side of the station, aren't we?" As it turned out, we were. *laughs* We found them eventually, and we headed off to the Tsumura plant. There were two things that realy surprised me on the drive there. First of all, OPEN SPACE. There were farms, forests, open fields... it reminded me of home and of the south quite a bit. It's funny how you appreciate open space so much more after living on Tokyo for several months! Whew. The second thing that really, really surprised me was the statue. I don't remember the name off the top of my head (I'll inquire about it or research it on the Internet or something), but rather close by to the Tsumura plant there is this HUGE (Bhuddist?) statue that just kind of juts up out of nowhere and is just THERE. I really need to grab a picture of it as soon as I can. It's seriously something else. When we arrived at the plant, we walked into a nice building and sat in a meeting room where we watched a promotional/informational DVD (in English, heh heh) about Tsumura. Apparently, Tsumura deals in taking crude natural drugs (as in, drugs that are found in nature and aren't made by manmade chemical processes) and turning them into "granules" for ETHICAL use. They stressed ETHICAL so many times in the video it kind of made me laugh. *has to laugh* These are called "Kanpo Drugs," and they're not popular at all in America which is why I'd never heard of them before. Basically, they're compliments to Western medicine which deal more with lifestyle issues than diseases and stuff. Interesting science. After that we headed into another meeting room where we got our Tsumura uniforms: an off-white and orange jacket and navy slacks. My jacket fits pretty well (though it really chafes the left side of my neck pretty badly), but the slack situation was pretty ugly at first. I apparently have a pretty skinny waist compared to my leg length (or long legs compared to my waist size... something like that), so the slacks that fit my waist were miles too short and the ones that fit my legs were miles too wide. I ended up going with the super-wide ones and just belting them up (since I happened to have my belt with me), but it was okay because my jacket covered up the resulting bunching. We got stuff like nametags and meal cards (the meal facilities at Tsumura are quite tasty), and then sat through quite a lot of conversations all in Japanese... and got rather little help in being helped to figure out what it all meant. The Japanese students here seem to be very much on top of all this, so not being able to understand all they're doing kind of puts Lars, Andy, and me in the dark. Like, really in the dark. *laughs* We've told them what we can do and we've offered to help, but if they're going to be taking care of everything on their own, I guess we'll just have to let them do that. If they need help, they'll ask; otherwise, we don't know what we possibly COULD do to help anyway. Next we went around and got introduced to several facilities of the plant (well, this building of it, anyway... and there are a bunch of buildings!); these are the places we'll be observing tomorrow with our stopwatches. In a word, it was ruthless, especially because none of us foreigners could really understand all of the Japanese the people were saying, which made for some very uncomfortable standing around and walking back and forth for a few hours. At least I saw some interesting machines and a room full of a TON of crude drugs... half of those things are probably illegal in the US. *laughs* When we finally were able to go to our new home, I was ready to just crash and sleep. We stopped at a Seven-Eleven on the way home first to pick up some drinks (I'm the only one who didn't purchase an alcoholic beverage it seems), then pulled into the Tsumura housing. It's more or less a hotel, and it's actually quite nice. We all get our own rooms, and they're equipped with a bed (which we were asked not to use, actually), at least one futon, a TV, bathroom, toilet (yeah, they're different here), heater, electric range... heck, we even got all the toiletries, too... even toothbrushes! *laughs* I took the opportunity to "replace" my old American toothbrush for this new (small, of course) Japanese one, and even try out some of the Japanese toothpaste later that evening. It's my domain for a month... I like it. ^__^ The headmaster guy is a jolly fellow who reminds me a heck of a lot of Doc Oc from back home at Case. He was really friendly and showed us around the place to introduce us to its facilities: a public bath, an AV/billiards room with a mini-theater, a full weight room, and three laundry facilities. The cafeteria feels more like a dining area, because the food has that home-cooked taste and is delicious. It seems like I eat so much, yet I get so hungry so quickly. It's kinda weird. o_O; At 8:30 we headed up to the AV room and had a meeting with the Japanese students to discuss what we were going to do the next day. We kind of accomplished that, but a lot of the discussion was them talking to themselves and not really filling us in on what we were supposed to do or how we were going to do it. We did do a "trial run" with Wada-san drinking beer at high rates, so I guess I've gotta give them some credit. That and the girls gave us some yummy Belgian chocolates for Valentine's Day (since only girls give guys stuff for Valentine's Day, and it's almost always chocolates... the guys get to reciprocate on White Day, which is a month later!). I mean, I don't have anything against these guys, but they just don't really do a good job at making sure we're filled in with what we need to know. There was a lot of sitting around and feeling useless... and I hate wasting time like that. Hopefully things will clear up eventually. And that's when I found there was a wireless Internet signal leaking out from somewhere into the AV room. The headmaster had said there wasn't any Internet, and yet there I was, plugging away. *laughs* It's by this phantom connection that you're able to read this now, actually. Hopefully it will stay around for a while. Sleeping on a futon is GREAT. I might want one for home now. *has to laugh* And no, I'm not talking about those fake American futons. I'm talking about REAL ones: a few layers of mattres-like cloths and a quilt. That's the way to sleep. I slept so well that the fact I only got six hours of sleep wasn't even on my mind when I got up. And now for today: Took a shower in the MORNING for the first time in... many, many months. Well, since getting to the NWEC, really. And let me tell you: it's a good way to get up in the morning, and it's a good way to prevent my really long hair from getting obscenely out of hand, though it's pretty bad now. My hair just does NOT want to fall down or flow or anything... it just wants to curl up and poof out like a puffball. And it's hot. I should probably get a haircut after all if only to preserve my own sanity! But yeah. It doesn't look like I'll be able to have OJ for breakfast normally, but I'll survive (since I can always get it later). Like dinner, breakfast was quite yummy... I'm looking forward to eating there again! Tsumura sure feeds its employees well. We didn't have much time to do a lot of anything, though, since at 7:50 we had to meet to head off to the plant. My new pants actually fit, which is good. *laughs* We talked about what we were going to do today (ie, us three Americans sat and couldn't understand, but we knew what we were doing), then got to work. And by work I mean following a person around all day with a stopwatch, timing all of their activities and writing them all down on a paper. I've got five pages of time logs of Mrs. Tachi of the quality control/inspection department. It was interesting at first, but after eight hours of the stuff it understandably got tiring. But at least I got to see what it was like to work at Tsumura for a day. And, oh, guess what... I get another three days of it! Yay. o_O; Got home, ate dinner, played some PS2 with Lars, and am now in the AV room again with the group. I just got done typing up my data for the day; later it will be compiled with everyone else's. Hopefully I'll be able to get to bed at a somewhat reasonable hour... likely without getting any of my own work done, but at least I'll have been usefulish. I feel like I'm forgetting stuff, but... there really wasn't a heck of a lot that happened today. I just looked at a stopwatch all day! Well, hopefully I'll be able to keep y'all relatively updated here... and get y'all some pictures of this place! ^__^
		1 reply

Of a second day of following
Gerf	Location: Tsumura housing - room 411	2/16/2005 5:45:43 PM
	Yeah, it's the 17th now, I know... but just pretend it was yesterday. Got it? Goof. I mean good. I'm REALLY tired now, too, so chances are this won't make a lick of sense. But here goes. Today was another wake-up-at-6:30 day. You'd think an hour and a half would be plenty enough time to take a shower and eat breakfast... yet somehow time always manages to make itself disappear. Tomorrow (er, today) I'm going to get myself up even earlier to try and have more time to myself in the morning. Just might work. Had some natto with my breakfast today... for anyone who doesn't know what that is, think fermented soybeans in a weird stringy... paste-ish thing. It's totally something else, and it has a very odd taste. Actually, along with sushi and umeboshi it's probably the #1 thing Japanese people will ask you when they inquire about what kinds of Japanese foods you can eat. I can only stomach a little bit of it, and even then it has to be quickly diluted with something else. Very, very odd. But anyway, it was raining today so I wasn't really able to get any pictures outside, though Nakajima-san did yoink my camera and take all sorts of pictures of us sitting at our "office" in our uniforms. As soon as I can get some time to resize the pictures I'll stick 'em up here for y'all. Just be warned: my hair has gotten to the point of... well, sheer insanity. Like, seriously. I really, really think I'm going to get it cut as soon as I get back from practicum if not before. I just look silly now. *laughs* But yeah, anyway, today we watched a new batch of people (ie, each person watched a new worker for the whole day); I got Mrs. Hanzaki, a part-time worker who looked to be in her 40s or so. Her spot is in a lab where they test Tsumura-made products for chemical defects and the like. As such, my day mostly consisted of watching a bunch of chemistry take place. *laughs* I could tell she was a little nervous at first, so I did my best to keep my distance; by the end of the day, though, we were talking up several storms. She even invited me to go on coffee break with her and a bunch of other ladies, which was certainly amusing. One of the women asked what the difference between "celeb" and "celebrate" was; after explaining, she thought for a moment, said, "Thank you," and proceeded to... well, disappear. She walked into the little mini-kitchen where all the coffee and stuff was stored and just vanished. It was pretty funny. I was kind of sad to have to finally leave... we had a lot of fun. It was tiring sometimes, but I managed to make it through. Mrs. Hanzaki said I should try and make a lot of girlfriends while in Japan. I told her I had one and was very, very, very happy with her, too. ^__^ Work ended at around 5:00, but we didn't leave for home until about 7:30 because other people were working late. In that time, Nakajima-san gave me some more work to do in addition to the program I was going to write for him, which I said okay to and added to my queue. It's pretty safe to say I can speak Japanese the best out of our group of three, and can probably comprehend it the best, too (though Lars knows a buttload more kanji than I do). As such, they seem to direct a lot of the work at me... or, rather, work that requires me to apply my Japanese (and programming) skills a bit more than the rest. For example, today in our nightly meeting I finished writing a program that would take in a table of shipment information they had compiled previously and calculate some statistics from it. Actually, I had written it yesterday but there was some really silly bug (more of a quirk on VBScript's end) that made the project take much longer than necessary. I think the guys respect me as much as Japanese college students could respect a clueless American foreigner working on their team, and that makes me feel good. Earlier on I wasn't feeling all too welcome, but now that we've gotten to know each other a little better and we're all adapting to everyone's Japanese and English ability, we're all getting together much better. I guess that's usually why groups of workers have icebreaker activities and stuff... we were just kind of tossed together abruptly. But it seems to be getting much, much better, so that makes me happy. What doesn't make me too happy, though, is the fact that time to do anything but eat, sleep, bathe, and work is practically zero. I think it should probably change a little come this weekend, but we'll just have to see. Oh, and I asked and found out that there is a post office somewhat nearby. Its hours are exactly when we're at work, though, so Saturday is the only time I could really go there. So, people expecting mail from me... I'm going to try my best to get things out while I'm here, but if you don't get anything when it seems like you should, well, just wait until I get back to the Yoshitakas' house. Oh yeah, I almost forgot. At about quarter to five in the morning, there was an earthquake: the biggest one I've ever felt in my life. I'm on the first floor of this housing complex, and I was literally rolling around on my futon it was so strong. I could hear it, too... not the clinking of a few dishes rattling in the cupboard, but rather entire buildings swaying and creaking. Lars (who is on the second floor) said a cover to his water heater had come off during the shaking (everything was okay, though). Later during breakfast, he heard on the news in the background that the earthquake was a magnitude 6 or somewhere thereabouts. People were murmuring about it at Tsumura, too, and some of its effects were apparent (bottles knocked over, ceiling dust on the tables, etc). Now I know why they sell those clamps to keep your stuff steady when earthquakes hit: them earthquakes can really shake things up! And as always, I woke up about one minute before it happened. I almost ALWAYS wake up before something like that happens in the middle of the night. I honestly don't know how I manage to do it, but it's getting to the point where it's almost kind of creepy. I can't predict big events like that when I wake up, but right before big events do happen I just about always wake up. Is my brain remembering the future? *has to laugh* Heh, I wouldn't doubt it. ;)
		0 replies

Of a little surprise at work
Gerf	Location: Tsumura housing - 3rd floor AV room	2/17/2005 7:24:37 AM
	This Japan Journal recently surpassed my Dream Journal in terms of file size (aka how much I've written in it) a few days ago, and I've been keeping my Dream Journal since 2002. Just gives you an idea how much I've written here. Kind of. Perhaps. Anyway, today I had a rather pleasant surprise for me: I wasn't timing anyone! Whoo! Instead, I got to sit in the meeting room all day and work on computer stuff. There was that program I needed to tweak and finish (which I finally did), some charts to populate with data, and some paragraphs to write and translate. I managed to go until about 2:30 or so before I started getting really tired... so to counteract the tiredness I went with Andy to get some ice cream. And boy, it's a good thing I did, because I found a crazy-mad awesome ice cream bar for 103 yen! It was very delicious... I could go for one of those every day. ^__^ I've noticed that I've been eating a LOT lately, though... but I'm always STARVING when the next mealtime arrives. Huh. Oh, and speaking of meals, this morning I had another traditional Japanese dish: rice with a raw egg on top. Well, you mix them together, but yeah. It's really not that bad... in fact, if you stick a little salt on it it's pretty good. I don't know if y'all want to do that back home or not, but if you ever do, uh, let me know. 'Cause it would be cool. *laughs* Yeah, my brain's kinda mushy right now. I really, really need to get some good sleep. Hah, like THAT's going to happen any time soon. o_O Got home late again, ate a HUGE dinner, and then actually managed to find some free time to play a little PS2 with Lars and Andy. Good stuff... but short. Now I'm up in the lounge again, waiting for whatever to start. Or not start. Or something. *laughs* New pictures for y'all, too. Haven't been able to get a picture of that huge statue yet, but I will eventually!
	Photos: First few days at Tsumura	0 replies

Of one week being done
Gerf	Location: Tsumura housing - 3rd floor AV room	2/18/2005 9:07:51 AM
	Wow... and just like that, a fourth of the practicum is pretty much done. Well, kinda. But still... that was fast. A lot faster than I thought it would be, actually. I was expecting to be sitting around with a stopwatch for four days... instead it turned out to just be two. I guess I lucked out in that regard; with the little sleep I've been getting, I doubt I would have survived very well. *has to laugh* Today I went back to talk to Mrs. Hanzaki about what she did in her job in a little more detail. I got really revved up from that for some reason... I think because I was able to understand what she was saying so well and I was able to reply and ask questions quite well, too. It's amazing to be able to communicate with someone in a language you only know a little bit of. It's just... great. I'm glad I was able to talk to her again, too; she's such a nice lady. :) Spent most of the rest of the day working on Apsu to finish the program from earlier in the week (Nakajima-san wanted some modifications and additions done to it), and then I just kinda did my own busywork to kill time. I don't know why we have to stay here to long if we're not going to really be doing much other than paperwork... we can do that from the comfort of our own rooms. Oh well... I guess that's just how they work here. Cool thing about Japan that you don't see in America: everyone seems concerned about your well-being as a foreigner here. The woman who serves food here always asks if I have eaten/know how to eat different Japanese foods, and people always ask if it's okay to speak in Japanese before they begin talking about things. It's like everywhere I go is coming to Japan for the first time... and it's a nice, warm feeling. I sometimes have to explain that yes, I've been here for half a year so I can speak the language and know all the stuff they're trying to show me (like how to put sauce on my food), but it's still fun. You don't get that in America, though. Like, not at all. Not to my knowledge, anyway. Got some mail from the Yoshitakas today, which was actually mail from my parents. Yay for taxes and Valentine's Day cards in the same shipment. *laughs* I talked with Nakajima-san and we're going to head out to the post office sometime tomorrow... or, at least, hopefully somewhere that I can mail my stuff. That's going to happen after lunch, and until then I'm actually FREE! Whoo! Andy's over right now and Lars is going to come soon, too, and we'll be having a mini-party here, which will likely move up to the AV lounge eventually so we can use the Internet and maybe even watch a movie in the mini-theater. Sw00t. Full stomach, big bottle of OJ from the convenience store in the outside fridge (ie, the outside porch), Apsu, friends, mail from my family, pictures of Kristin. I'm all set. ^__^
		0 replies

Of a dinner with the boss
Gerf	Location: Tsumura housing - room 411	2/19/2005 8:19:51 PM
	Wow... this is, like, the first day I was actually able to rest since getting here. Amazing. And rest I did... got up at 8:20, took a bath, and, well, pretty much sat up in the lounge for about eight hours. *laughs* I talked to friends online, caught up with e-mail and stuff, and did other assorted things, as well as wrote another scripting program to analyze a spreadsheet. So, yeah... basically the whole day was spent just sitting. And sitting. And drinking OJ and eating pizza... though the pizza part was only a small interlude around 2:00. *laughs* Never made it to the post office, unfortunately... I'll have to poke some people about that again. At six we all went to a restaurant near the Arakawaoki train station for dinner. The food there was quite good: a Japanese pizza, yummy shrimp gyoza, awesome pastry-encased sausage, and excellent french fries. I guess the main point of the gathering was, of course, to drink. And yes, guys from the company were there, too... like, section chiefs and stuff. This was a real "drink with your boss and co-workers" kind of meal. *has to laugh* I only ordered two drinks: a "dita orange" (I'm still not sure what that's supposed to be... but it was OJ) and a "yogurt mix," which was a drink made with yogurt... very interesting. Amusingly, even though I only ORDERED two drinks, I ended up with six: bourbon whiskey and two small glasses of sake from the bosses, and a screwdriver from Andy who apparently ordered one for me while I wasn't listening. *laughs* The Tsumura guy was particularly interested in my drinking the whiskey... he had mentioned it before in the car driving us back home one day, and really appreciated my drinking it. *laughs again* I must say I was quite impressed with Andy... he put down, well, let's just say he put down a LOT of liquids and still managed to make it home without falling over or anything (or even getting close to that point for that matter). The guy who ordered me a whiskey came over and tried speaking some English to us, which was pretty interesting. One of the funniest parts of the night came when the waiter gave him the bill. He looked at it and did a Japanese equivalent of "Whoa." It was absolutely hilarious! But then, with about fourteen people there and an average of maybe five or six drinks per person and each drink costing 500-600-ish yen apiece... yeah, that's a lot of money on drinks alone. But hey, I guess that's how you do it in Japan. Drinking is a part of the culture, and that's a fact. I had no interest in drinking before coming to Japan, and still don't really... but at the same time, I don't want to prevent myself from experiencing a big part of Japanese culture and society, just like I wouldn't turn down sashimi or salmon roe (salmon eggs) or raw eggs and rice. It's all part of Japan, and that's what I came here for: Japan. Well, actually Japanese. But they're pretty closely related. ;) We ended up leaving at about 11:00... meaning we had been there for over four hours. Yeesh. On our way home we stopped at a convenience store to pick up some breakfast for tomorrow. Nakajima-san had a hand basket FULL of beer and sake... apparently they're drinking all of that up in the lounge now. I decided against a 二次会 ("nijikai," second party after the first) and just headed back to my room. Yes, I know nijikais are part of Japanese culture, too, but you know, I'm tired and need sleep. *laughs* Mmmm, sleeeeeeeeeeeeep.
	Photos: Tsumura and dinner	1 reply

Of talking with Kristin
Gerf	Location: Tsumura housing - 3rd floor AV room	2/20/2005 8:19:54 AM
	Whoo... and I dub today: "Talking With Kristin Day!" *laughs* We talked over IM for... well, let's see. A very, very long time. I won't say exactly how many hours, but it was more than could be counted with one hand. I needed that, though. I really did. Thanks, Kristin. I hope you're not too tired now. ^__^ Aside from talking with Kristin, I didn't really do a whole lot but random assorted things online. And, you know, it felt good to not really do anything in particular. I needed the break from everything... just totally unplugging (by staying plugged in, ironically) and letting the hours slip by talking to my wonderful Kristin. I don't want to do too many weekends like this, though, because it involved sitting on the same couch all day and eating non-healthy foods. But, like I said... I needed that. Around 2:00 or so I went to the post office with Lars, Nakajima-san, and Wada-san. We were following another car whose driver knew where the post office was, so we didn't really know where we were going. But let me tell you, outside of Tokyo, Japan looks beautiful. I mean, Ibaraki-ken really isn't a beautiful place... it's just a bunch of farms and rusty buildings. But just seeing open air and grass and fields and mountains and lakes and... OPEN SPACE... it's beautiful. I even saw a windmill like you'd see in Holland... not sure what it was doing there, but it was. And it was great. Amusingly, we passed by several post offices before we got to the one we apparently wanted to go to. But since it's Sunday, most places aren't open so I guess this was our only choice. Got my taxes sent off and Lars got his money from the International ATM, so all was good. On the way back we stopped at a 7-11 for food and stuff; I thought it was going to be dinner, so I got some soba and "chili tomato," whatever that is. Nakajima-san asked me if I wanted to try out driving... but I laughed and refused. Even though it was a long straight road and we could go almost 100km/h without breaking a sweat, I didn't want to do anything illegal or dangerous like that. I did, though, guess the way out of the city we had found our way into, so that was cool. *has to laugh* When we got back, Lars brought up his PS2 and we watched Spider Man 1 and 2. I hadn't seen 2 before, and I think it was pretty cool. Flawed physics left and right, but cool. ^__^ Did laundry, had sushi for dinner, and fixed a bug in my program that I was too stupid to check for; as in, I didn't even check the output before I gave it to them... fortunately Wada-san was diligent enough to check my output and point out my mistake. I felt really really dumb, but in the end I got it fixed. This was a very good programming exercise, though: learned a lot more about scripting and Excel. Now I want to write scripts like crazy. *has to laugh* I also want to learn Java and PHP now to compliment my C++ and ASP... they'd be very useful. Well, I'm going to get my laundry from the dryer so I have clean clothes tomorrow, 'cause it's back to work. See y'all tomorrow.
		0 replies

Of getting back to work
Gerf	Location: Tsumura housing - 3rd floor AV room	2/21/2005 6:14:42 AM
	Another day, another dollar. Except the dollar is coming out of my wallet for ice cream. *has to laugh* I had to "time" Mr. Idzuka today; his tests all had to do chemical analysis and just about always involved lactose. Interesting to watch, but still just timing. In the meantime I got assigned yet another programming task: this one should be better than my last two because I know how to do things more efficiently and nicer-looking the third time around. ^__^ Yay for programming and being able to wield this stuff usefully. That's what I like to do. So, yeah. That's about it. Back to work. Hopefully I'll be able to get to bed a lot earlier so I'm not so tired in the morning!
		1 reply

Of my "co-workers"
Gerf	Location: Tsumura housing - 3rd floor AV room	2/22/2005 7:19:51 AM
	Two things I forgot to mention earlier: - Every morning at about 8:30 the morning bells chime at Tsumura over the PA system, and then the "morning stretch" song begins. It's basically some piano and a guy going "Hip! Hop! Ho! Hoi!" and such along with it, which is apparently when you're supposed to do your different exercises. It's great... I love hearing it every morning. I even got a video of it... whoo! Now I can listen to it forever and ever. ^__^ - Yesterday morning when I walked by the office, I saw the morning "repeating of the mission statement" and such. Everyone in the office was standing and facing someone (most likely the boss/section chief) and had one arm outstretched. They all said something in unison, bowed, and sat down. Very, very cool. Offices here, by the way, are quite different than offices in America. There are no cubicles: everyone works together on rows of tables and everyone can see everyone else at pretty much any time. If you're fooling around on the computer in a Japanese office, it's very easy to find out. Yesterday Nakajima-san proposed a new program for me to write, and I finished it about 12:30 AM this morning. That's the third program I've written, which brings the total number of data sheets I've analyzed with programs up to five. This one was kind of complicated, too: given a list of materials, each of which has an "arrived" date and maybe a "used" date, return a list of dates and the number of materials remaining on that date. The goal was to make a chart that graphs the "leftovers" over time... I made a pseudo-chart using HTML tables, and you can definitely see there are some patterns. Very neat. Nakajima will be putting the data into Excel to make a nicer-looking chart soon. And while I'm at it, I might as well mention all the folks I'm working with here. I keep mentioning them and have pictures of them up in the Photo Album, but I've been too lazy to type up descriptions yet. So, I shall do that now. Eventually, I'll copy these into the Photo Album. Wakabayashi-san (Picture, on the left) - He's the first one I talked to about this project and the one I was looking for when we met at Arakawaoki station. I think he's kind of the main ringleader here, and at 24-some years old he's also the oldest. However, he appears to have his "home base" set up elsewhere, because he left after our arrival and isn't going to come back until our presentation on Thursday. Good guy... funny sense of humor. And, as I found out last night, he's Mori-san's boyfriend... which would explain why I always got Mori-san when I called Wakabayashi-san's phone. *laughs* Nakajima-san (Picture, on the right) - As far as our group here is concerned, he's our "先輩" ("senpai," superior). He's the first one I've ever heard since coming to Japan to use "ore" and "omae" to refer to himself and others, respectively, which are very masculine and powerful ways to do so. I really didn't like his personality when I first came here, mostly because he was expecting us foreigners to be able to study all the Japanese we needed to know and be prepared to speak fluently the next day and stuff. After working with him for a while and earning his respect, though, he turned out to be a pretty good guy. He has a somewhat egotistic sense of humor, and certainly isn't afraid to do a bunch of hard (or sometimes dangerous) things. He's maybe two years younger than Wakabayashi-san and uses a VAIO computer, which rocks. He even offered to let me drive his car when we were going to the post office, but I turned it down. *laughs* Wada-san (Picture, on the right) - The other male in the group, Wada-san is 19 years old and loves RPGs. He's able to identify a lot of the video game remixes that I play from time to time, though he especially loves Chrono Cross and Final Fantasy 6. He doesn't talk to me a heck of a lot, but I think it's mostly because he isn't sure how much Japanese I can speak and he knows he can't speak English well. Mori-san (Picture, on the right) - Mori-san spent five years living in the United States, so she can read and speak English very well. Actually, the first time I heard her speak English I was really surprised because she sounded very much like a native speaker... like, so much that if you were to have an English conversation with you, you might think she actually WAS an American. *laughs* She's 19 years old, very nice, and a very diligent worker; I hardly eve seen her tired or worn out from working. I never know if I should talk Japanese or English to her... because she can wield them both pretty darn well! Tomoe-san (Picture, on the left) - Also 19 years old, Tomoe-san is a peppy and diligent girl. I feel bad for forgetting her name so often for several days after getting here, but perhaps that's becaue her name is spelled with kanji I don't know. She's very apt to get excited over things (in a good way, of course), and will often randomly squeak "あ、すごい！" ("Oooh, awesome!"). Like Mori-san, she's always busy working... I think her energy just keeps her going like espresso or something. Though, actually, I haven't really had enough espressos to know what that's like. *laughs* She and Mori-san often exchange parts of their conversation in English, which is amusing... every now and then I'll hear her say "Oh no!" or "Yes" or something just totally out of the blue. ^__^ Today I did two programs... one I'm finishing up now, actually. One was to analyze some things Mori-san was working on, and the other was to rearrange some testing dates to make things more efficient for Hanzaki-san (the woman I watched last week). All these "programs" have been very good practice... I feel much more confident with Windows scripting than before (which was okay to begin with), and now I know what it's like to spend entire days writing programs. Hopefully in the future when I'm doing this, I'll understand how the results are going to be used. o_O; Our presentation is on Thursday... and I have no idea what I'm going to be doing for it. *laughs* Hopefully tomorrow they'll fill me in a little so I can contribute to the actual speech and not just the programs leading up to parts of it! Busy.
		0 replies

Of it being over tomorrow
Gerf	Location: Tsumura housing - 3rd floor AV room	2/23/2005 6:45:13 AM
	And just like that, we're down to the last day of preparations before our final presentation. Zip. Pretty incredible. Did some mild programming to wrap stuff up, did some Power Point making, did some typing, did a lot of sitting and working. But geez, I'm tired, and I've gotten more rest than the rest of the students here. Our job is to suggest improvements to Tsumura's workers; if I could offer improvements to our own group, though, I'd say that a well-rested body is more important than a few extra hours of work. When you're not falling asleep during the day and you've actually got energy to do work, then you can get more good work done than if you just try to wring out more minutes from your body. *shrugs* And geez, we're eating so much over here. I'm surprised I haven't gained a ton of weight already... Well, yeah, presentation practice and preparation. Hope we do well.
		1 reply

Of it being over!
Gerf	Location: Tsumura housing - 3rd floor AV room	2/24/2005 8:35:25 AM
	IT'S OVER! Yay. ^__^ I didn't get to sleep until after 2:00 AM last night (er, this morning I guess), so it was pretty tough to get up and going this morning. However, I dragged myself out and got to the plant on time and everything, and got to work finishing up what was left for me to do with my part of the speech. As I figured (since this is the way Japanese people work apparently... at least students), there were some last-minute changes that happened that almost really threw me for a loop. For one, they rearranged the order of my slides and added a new one, and the "script" for that wasn't written until about 20 minutes before the time we were supposed to present the speech. Before that, Nakajima-san came over and wanted to know how my optimization program worked... and in the process said that some things I had done weren't possible (when before he said it was okay). Fortunately I had written my program in such a way so that the necessary changes were very simple to make. Whew! All in all, I'd say the presentation went well. There were maybe 35-40 employees and bosses in the room we were presenting in, and with the exception of a few instances of not quite knowing what was going on, things flowed nicely. I kind of got tongue-tied in a few places, but more or less I think I did well. Mr. Campbell and one of his sons came too, which was pretty cool. They've been going around Japan to see the people at their different practicums, which is a wonderful exierience to see different places. They actually went in the Buddha statue nearby, which today I learned was the tallest statue in the world (Google for "Ibaraki Buddha statue" and you'll find some stuff). Sweet. After the presentation we all went to a Warawara restaurant for a nomihodai, which is what you do in Japan after stuff like this! At a nomihodai, you pay a fixed price for food and all the drinks you care to down in a fixed time limit (ours was two hours, and Tsumura paid for it fortunately... the total bill came to be over $400 I think for about 15-some people...), and boy do the Japanese drink. I know I've said it before, but geez... Wada-san chugged so much beer and sake and other assorted drinks it was almost disturbing (and he even went to a 二次会, nijikai, or "party after the first"). I mostly stuck with OJ because I was tired. *has to laugh* It was snowing when we came out of the restaurant, and we rode home in a taxi with Mori-san where we said "ですよねー" ("desu yo nee") over and over... which really doesn't have a good English translation other than, like, "Yup," except you can carry on entire conversations just with that phrase. It's great. At the nomihodai we also met the guy who is going to be our "boss" for the next two weeks. He said we're going to be crying and begging for mercy, but I think he's just being funny (especially because after the dinner he tried going into the women's bathroom). From Friday to Tuesday we're going to be "picking," and after that we're going to be in the office working on translating stuff. I'm not sure exactly what "picking" means yet, but I guess I'll find out tomorrow! Hopefully it'll be fun... and come with more free time, too. o_O; The Japanese folks are leaving tomorrow; It's going to be sad to not have 'em around anymore. But... I guess that's just what happens in life: people, places, and events come and go, and you just have to hang on to them with memories or pictures or movies or diaries or mementos. I'm the kind of person who likes to hang onto everything so I can always remember my past; I have old scraps of paper from ten years ago which are totally useless but bring back memories. I can't hold onto everything, though... I can't hold onto Japan, because I'm going to leave in four months. I can take pictures and write journals, but I can't take Japan. And I think that's why I'm so thankful for the things and people and places I CAN hold onto. *bows* Now it's time for me to get to bed early. Oyasuminasai.
		0 replies

All content ©2004-05 Greg Strnad.
All rights reserved.