Too tired to write about my entire weekend (which isn't over yet) but some highlights ( Read more... )

Sadly, I have finals on Thanksgiving, so I won't really be celebrating on Thursday. Fortunately, the other Fulbrighter were nice enough to move our Thanksgiving celebration (Fulbright tradition) back one day. We are spending the weekend in Kyoto and I am really excited about meeting everyone again. I fell slightly bad that I won't really be ( Read more... )

Especially during finals week. What was supposed to be a short study break turned into many hours of gaming. Dragons Age: Origins, curse you! Great game, especially for people who played previous games by Bioware (Baulder's Gate, Neverwinter Nights), but I did not need this distraction. Lucky for me I didn't screw up too badly on my tests ( Read more... )

So one of my friends recently contacted swine flu. However, it seems that he contacted it when he was traveling in South Korea (James! It seems like there are legit concerns!). Apparently, Tsukuba is not the healthiest place right now, with over 100 confirmed cases of swine flu among the students. Not really sure how large the school is (and I can' ( Read more... )

Well, last night my research room/zemi (seminar) group finally had a welcome party for me at an izakaya. My professor apologized for having it after I had been in Tsukuba for 2 and a half months but hey, if they want to treat me to a free meal, I'm all for it. Seriously though, it was nice to get to talk to some of the people though. As you guys ( Read more... )

Not only are all of our transcripts free, they are sending mine to Japan free of charge as well.

First of all, thanks for everyone who pointed out that my mind went blank for a while when talking about trains. I have no idea why I thought weekend tickets cost more. I should know too because I have taken the Metrolink my fair share of times as well. Disregard that section of my previous post ( Read more... )

I find it interesting that in Japan, train tickets are cheaper during the weekend. I guess they are trying to get more people to use public transportation during the weekend while it is already a given that they will use it during the week. In America (looking mainly at the Metrolink), it is the exact opposite. I guess in America they are trying to ( Read more... )

On Tuesday I went to meet a professor (Tom Blackwood) at the University of Tokyo for help on my project. I was actually pretty lucky to find out about him (Fulbright sent me his info) because what he does is VERY similar to what I was thinking of doing. He's dissertation was on the socialization of high school baseball in Japan, pretty much my ( Read more... )

This past weekend the University of Tsukuba had its annual Sports Day(s). Basically, there are athletic events all around campus ranging from soccer to futsal to exhibitions by clubs (gymnastics, rifle shooting, etc). I entered the "beginners" volleyball tournament with a group of friends. While I and some of the others were definitely beginners, ( Read more... )