MY DAILY LIFE: school

It’s good you weren't expecting a lot… otherwise you might 've been disappointed by the lack of updates. Whenever I feel pressure to do ANYTHING, (yes, also when it’s fun, and yes, even when it only me putting that pressure there) I tend to not want to do it anymore.  Keeping up with this blog is like that. It’s a shitty personality trait and I’m trying to work on it; so bear with me.

Besides having shitty personality traits I have actually been very busy.  School is taking a lot more time and effort than I thought it would and there were also just a lot of things that needed to be arranged. I needed to get a phone, register my residence card at the city hall, pay my rent, get a student id, get a library card, get a discount card, get a train card, make decisions on courses to take, buy a bike, buy basic stuff for my room, etc etc. And it's not like any of that went easy. Seriously, the simplest things take effort here, and not only because of the language barrier. Japan seems to be very bureaucratic; you need to attend briefings, fill in forms and get permission for every damn things. Like, you wanna park your bike at the open, not secured, bikepark at your house? Better show a proof of purchase first, sign a form and put a special sticker on the bike before you do so.

Then if you bear in mind the processing of all these experiences my little brain needs to do and the countless hours I have to aimlessly spend browsing the interwebz... I’ve simply been too busy to update.

I thought I should do some blogs on ‘my daily life’ here. Let’s begin with the thing that might be the most boring one, but also the one that keeps me most busy here; school.

ps- All these photos are taken with my pretty old phone camera so the quality isn't that good; sowwy.


School.. school..what school?
Kyoto University! Kyoto University (known as Kyodai 京大) seems to be a big deal in Japan and people are very impressed when you tell them you are a Kyodai student. It’s the 2^nd  oldest , and 2^nd best university in Japan, and one of the highest ranked universities in Asia overall.  It is mostly famed for its research work and has produced none less than 8 Nobel Prize winners!  Damn right, the possibility of me winning a Nobel Prize (and world domination) is one step closer (muhaha). 

This is what the iconic Clock Tower looks like:

So how come you got in?
I seriously have no clue. In no way do I have "excellent academic and personal records and a concrete purpose for studying in Japan". But oh well, I'm here now so yay! I’m participating in the KUINEP program, which stands for Kyoto University International Education Program. It’s basically just an undergraduate program that gives you the opportunity to choose from all these different introductory courses. This is what they say about it on their website:

“KUINEP courses cover diverse subjects such as life science, environmental studies, physics, economics, politics, social studies, etc. Some courses are designed to offer a fresh perspective to the study of Japan while others address topical global problems. Some courses are team-taught by a group of experts. As all KUINEP lectures are given in the English language, KUINEP students must be proficient in English.”

You could also translate this to:

“Don’t expect any academic challenge, but still experience a lot of stress. Also, just because students must be proficient in English doesn't mean the teachers have to be.”

Besides the 5 KUINEP courses I follow, I also do a General Education course just because it seemed more interesting.  But the biggest workload are my Japanese classes; the 7 classes I take a week are seriously overwhelming.

This is what my school schedule looks like:

That doesn't look too impressive.

I know right?
I'm thinking the same thing. When I look at this it seems like I have so much free time and I have no clue how I get so tired here every day. To be fair tho; I am a little bit spoiled when it comes to school since..forever. I feel like I haven't had to work too hard for anything school-wise so far to make it.

Ever since high school I have been known for my high number of times of being late and my low number of attendance. In my eyes, reports that are supposed to be written in weeks can easily be done in one night. You never to need write anything down during class. Plannings are cool but only deadlines count. Relying on just common sense will work for most of the tests. Using shit you wrote for one class in another one is just being efficient. Cheating is also a way of being smart. Getting most of your basic knowledge of Wikipedia works fine, just make sure you link everything back to legit sources. Making homework is an option but never a necessity. Mornings are made for sleeping, not sitting in class.
All this hasn't influenced my grades to a dramatic degree.. so why change? (A+ for attitude, I know)

Well...most professors here value attendance and being on time a lot, and it will make up for part of your grade so this attitude isn't helping me here. Another thing that is making it hard for me here that classes take up full 90 minutes. Ain't nobody got attention span for that. I need a break!

The 80 minutes it takes to get from my room to school is a drag too and makes the days a lot longer. For instance, this means on Thursday I have to leave at 7.30 am and won't be home until 7.30 pm. Then groceries, cook, eat, dishes, homework, sleep etc. It's nice from an anthropological point of view tho; observing all these Japanese people in their natural habitat (trains/buses) showing very natural behavior (gaming/texting/sleeping/reading) is great fun to me. 

Nihonjin in their natural state

So tell us more about some of your classes

Ok! 
I start my morning on Monday with Development Economics. I haven’t made it to this class that often (Monday morning...what can I say) so I’m not sure I have enough knowledge to form a judgment. .. 

(pff who am I kidding, as if that ever stopped me from forming judgment)

So far it looks pretty well organized and the dude speaks a decent level of English. He seems to hand out homework every class. Not too much to complain about this one I guess. Most of the Kuinep classes are in the Kuinep lecture hall with wooden desks/seats made for people under 1.50m, asses fatter than mine, and a hatred of natural light. Seriously, no legroom, hardest seats ever and the blinds are forever shut. This is what it looks like during a Development Economics class:

My excuse to eat all of the fatty foods: to sit more comfy in these pews

Kanji class

Kanji is up next. We learn about 10 Kanji (those super complicated Chinese characters used in Japanese) every class from a women who talks very little English but is friendly enough to make it bearable, most of the times. She also giggles most of the time. Kanji is hella confusing though as often the character has a ton of different meanings and you just need to look at the context to understand what it means.

Besides the Kanji you will see more Japanese, Japanese, and more Japanese in my schedule About ten hours a week that is.
The classes are going insanely fast and I feel like I’m lagging behind after every class. I'm one of the few that has done close to zero of learning Japanese EVER, so everybody seems/is far ahead of me. We have a small vocabulary test every class that doesn't count, and a big test every 5 classes that does count. I don't have any results back but I'm not too confident. And the thing is, I really want to learn this. I want to be able to actually understand something that is going on around me. So besides the actual classes I put in quite some time in studying at home or in the library.. ::not bad::

For this class we have a different teacher every day. One day its this ‘funny’ older dude who likes to sing in class and share TMI’s about his love life. The other day it’s a perfectly English speaking, pretty woman sensei with awesome teaching skills. And then one day, there is an older lady; who is lovely and friendly and the reigning queen of asking you stuff in Japanese over and over and over again and looking very cute and full of expectations at you. She smiles all the time. It's making me feel guilty for being such a stupid kid who doesn't understand shit.  My brain just shouts WAKARIMASEN all the time. Which means ‘I don t know’. At least I’m thinking that in Japanese.

One of the first Japanese classes from the queen

Renewable Energy for Sustainable Development is one of my favorite classes. Obviously this subject falls right into my interests. The class is really small, about 8 people and this is good for me, because I feel super guilty towards the professor when I'm not paying attention. In a big class I will just sit in the back and play with my phone and doodle around; I'm not hurting anyone with that. In a class small like this one; that's just rude. So I look at the teacher all the time, nod understandingly, write down some notes, daydream about my bed, and ask questions that I already know the answer to just to make him feel valued. Last week we had a guest teacher from Laos telling us about energy demand/supply/problems/solutions in rural Laos. Interesting!

Friday afternoon, after a 3 hour break I (would) have Happiness class.

EVERYBODY HAPPPPPYY????!

Well, no.

I’m not a fan of waiting for anything or anybody, let alone class, even worse; a bad class. The teacher is very friendly which makes it hard for me to hate him. Hard, but not impossible. His English level is okay, but he seems to talk very limited, and not on an academic level at all, about happiness. His favorite thing to do during class is walk around asking people where they are from, what language they speak , what they are majoring in etc.
I don’t care. If I wanna be social I will go to a bar, not to class.
Every time something remotely interesting comes up like whether equality or inequality makes for happier people, he ruins it again with jokes instead of discussions or something. Super frustrating. 


The fact that he said you will pass the course even if you don’t show up makes for a decision easily made on most of my Friday afternoons.

The rest of the classes are just meh, okay. So yeah, this is what keeps me off the streets here.

You sound really negative.
I do actually enjoy being here a lot. I tend to hate school everywhere so that doesn't change; but I much rather hate school here than in Holland. I know kids are dying for education in Africa and I am very grateful for all the opportunities I've been given and I shouldn't be complaining and hating this much. But I just luv to do it ok, it's like a hobby. Hating everything. As my soul mate Louis CK likes to say: it's recreation.

Stay tuned for more updates on my daily life here :)