Univers(al)ity.

University life!!!!

I realized I took too long. Sorry for that.

Making a quick version of last year will be difficult - yes it will - so instead of letting that prevent me from writing, I'll just leave it for later!

Let's go through a looooooooong version of what happened since end of March of this year.

Now I realize that the office at TUFS (I won't be including full names and addresses for safety reasons. Please do Google when in doubt) really made everything easy for us to move out. Here at Nagoya, everything is wonderful - except for the new office. 

- Moving boxes to the fourth floor without an elevator. Thank God my Indian friend helped.

  (Writing God and Indian in the same sentence made me stop a while to think.)

  Sorry. I'm really glad my Indian friend helped.

- If you forget to sign for your scholarship, you receive a call three days later with an evil laugh. Sounds like The Ring?

- Forgetting your ID card means you're out ot your room. Permanently. Physically. Literally. Stupid security system (without an elevator!).

But happy things! After my friend and I barely managed to bring the monsters upstairs and unpack, I had this feeling that life was really starting. Let's go! If it's too long, you can read a topic per day or week. As you wish, boss.

The Entrance Ceremony

You might think it's something big. No. It's huge. We had the university's freaking orchestra and choir performing for us after the speeches and a load of papers I couldn't read about the magic card system. Sorry, I'm just impressed easily. Anyway. A Brazilian and an Indian are speaking in English and enter an auditorium... no, it's NOT a joke!!! As we took the only free seats in the back, naturally, people finally turned in great surprise, wearing faces that seemed to say "so, you mean they are STUDENTS?!" to their friends. We took the photo of the class together, but I don't remember people smiling. Time will tell. I do hate my group photos though.

The First Week

It's natural. Nobody tells which classroom to go. When somebody does, there are three rooms with the same number. It's Murphy. But that gave me the chance to meet my first friend, Yosuke! He's never too worried about anything so he's a great company. Specially in "I don't really want to study now" times. Gradually I had the chance to meet the japanese people in my class. They were much more receptive than what I expected, which both surprised and relieved me. One thing remains a mystery, though: why do they go to university to sleep? I mean, it's not even a compulsory education level.

The End of the OS War

During the whole high school period, you hear people talking about their favorite computers and companies as racists. Actually I still do, but anyhow... We are learning terminal-based computing. It DOES allow more things and is practical sometimes, but it doesn't mean you have to be a stupid "KILL WINDOWS!!!!!" type of person. The same applies to excessively fanatic Mac users. We all need all of them, depending on what we want to do, and as my teacher says, "only computer engineers know that computers will NEVER take over the world. All of them are just too stupid!", so keep your pride about your expensive stuff inside your tiny mind. So yeah, I installed the not-so-updatable Ubuntu on my PC, I am still using Windows (7) and I think that IPhones are cool. Bring it on, fake cyber-experts.

But wait. So you lost your life?

In Japan, as incredible as it seems, SOME computer engineers are also equipped with a little bit of social life. I have been spending a great time with the volleyball club, which was introduced to me by my new good friends, Tomoya and Nabe. I already said this before to some people, but I prefer the "individual friendship" rather that the "great family" style of living. When not doing that, a group of friends also enjoy having dinner out or bowling or going to karaoke, shopping and all that jazz. I also have Brazilians which recover my mood here a lot of times. In the end, there are things you can only laugh about in your own language. No mistake to it.

Have you been... eating?

Yeah, and don't you start. Japanese food is great! And I also improved my cooking skills a lot since the first burnt vegetables (last year's episode, one day I will tell that), so when I'm happy I cook a lot! Desserts included. Food here is healthy but I have to be careful and eat less. Even if it's zero calory, it's not supposed to be zero gram.

I guess your Japanese must be awesome now. Are the classes easy?

No. And.. No. 

First of all, there are people who would answer "Yes" to both questions, and I would like to say two things.

1) You will never, NEVER, master any language, even your own. "Understand" is to realize how much you still did not learn, and I intend to keep that way forever to get better at what I try to do. A language is a communication tool. Therefore, I'm not writing this in English because I think I have plenty of skills, but because I want this to reach more of my friends. And oh, therefore, if you are going to correct this but you are not an English teacher, ---- you. And trust me, I did ask an English teacher to take a look at this whenever she holds interest.

Oh, oh! Something I remembered now. Since I wrote that number one over there, I want to discuss something. I read the other day something in the lines of "how annoying is it when our japanese friends want to speak in English with us as if we were their textbooks". I don't think so. Because first, let's face it: we are not native Americans or British or New Zealanders. So our English is BAD AS HELL. Second: they never had the chance to speak before!! We are lucky for being able to go to a foreign country and speak in English among ourselves, so thank whichever god you believe in! Keep your pride shut. I am TRULY happy my friends TRUST my English enough to ask me when they cannot speak to their teachers.

Pride should be erradicated. 

2) If the class is too easy, keep it to yourself. If you don't like Japan because it's too easy here, then return home. You are taking the government's money. ---- you too.

That being said, my Japanese is not awesome, but thankfully I practiced pronunciation like hell with my good friends Koh, Yasu and Asana, in Tokyo, so I am not close to dying here. The problem is vocabulary, but my friends help me so much that I wish I can repay them someday. Therefore I also love speaking in English to them when they want to.

I think that's pretty long, so I'll think what else can I write about and put it on the next post! Sorry for the size and if you reached this, thanks for reading!

See you guys around!