This week was characterised yet again by my sleep deciding to go on strike. Every night this week I slept very little or very poorly and it seems like waking me up repeatedly was a favourite game. I’m talking about my sleep as if it has a personality, that it likes to toy with me… clearly something wrong with this picture. ^^;

Apart from that, this week was actually pretty good. I’m getting into the groove of going to language school again, although it is a bit like being back in primary school! I’m managing to remember people’s names, which is very novel for me… although since I’m talking to them all the time every day, I should hope so. ^^ We got a bit of a heads up where we should be up to in the self-study book, and I’ve got a little bit of reading to do. The self-study book reads very differently to how they teach though, so I’m not sure how useful it’s actually going to be.

I had my first Curry-bread this week. Awesome.

I learned that depending on where I want to go on campus will actually impact on my transportation – the campus is that big. The two main places I’m going to be going are the International Center and my lab, and depending on which one I go to, I get off at different stations along the Chiyoda line. It takes me a little under an hour to get to either, with my lab being the slightly longer of the two. Quite different from the distances you travel in Christchurch, that’s for sure. When I was living in Seattle I was living in apartments right next to the campus, so it was only 10-15 mins walk to get across campus to the Computer Science building… so, it’ll be a different lifestyle than the ones I’m used to, to be sure! Well, it’ll be different for a whole lot of reasons, but it’s all the little things, right?

This week was also more set-up for my lab – more paperwork to fill out, this time for extending my scholarship. I was under the impression that I wasn’t going to be doing that until after I’d actually been accepted, but hey, I do what I’m told. Unfortunately I actually filled out a part of it incorrectly, and I needed to write up a longer research proposal, which I did this weekend and I’ll be submitting it tomorrow after class. I had a bit of a chat with my supervisor, and I really need to narrow down my specialisation/research interests. Other than the paperwork and getting my new ID card, I got a PC set up at my desk in the lab – everything is in Japanese, so it’s definitely a test of how well I can navigate around Windows without needing to read anything! As it turns out, I know Windows pretty well. ^^

I managed to get some recreation time in as well, watching anime and playing some games. I actually tried to do some online gaming today with Nik, but it didn’t pan out. I don’t think that the network here at the dorm really likes me doing much more than some emails, browsing and chatting, which is a bit of a pain. Not sure if there’s a way around it, either.

A bit of New Zealand crept into my consciousness this week, as I met up with a bunch of Kiwis! First up I met up with Mark a couple of times for some food and a bit of a walk. We actually went out to a nearby school field and I helped him break in his new cricket bat a little (he brought it with him from NZ). When I was in the office one time, I randomly met Luke, another Kiwi studying CS and chatted to him for a bit. I wonder if I’ll see him around more while I’m here. Last but definitely not least, I caught up with my friend Sammi and his girlfriend Ayako, who are over here on holiday at the moment. I met up with them yesterday and we had lunch in Shibuya and chatted about stuff before managing to locate a semi-impromptu dance party at a local park and dancing around for a while.

In addition to meeting up with Kiwis, I got an article in the mail this week from Maureen, my correspondent at the Consular Office of Japan in Christchurch. She had spotted an article about Doug Caldwell in the paper and thought I’d like it. Doug is a famous jazz pianist, and my… second cousin, I think. I never remember exactly. But, he’s pretty awesome, and I’m proud to be related to him – I have all of his CDs, and I went to the concert he gave at the inauguration of the Doug Caldwell Auditorium at the Jazz School in Christchurch. Awesome. ^^

So, the rest of this week was taken up by a few things. Probably the most significant was the start of my intensive language programme on Friday – I got to meet a whole lot of new people in my class (1B), do all the usual orientation stuff, as well as get stuck into to starting to learn Japanese. A lot of talking, trying to talk in Japanese and getting all the textbooks… four textbooks seems like a lot, but it is an intensive course, I suppose. Of the nine people in my class, we’re all from different countries and it turns out I’m the only native English speaker…. I’m actually pretty jealous, everyone speaks at least two languages. I had lunch with a couple of my classmates, Ignacio (Mexico) and Carla (Chile). It was (and will continue to be, I’m sure) a bit odd at first to introduce myself as Xander, but I’m getting used to it.

It turns out there wasn’t actually a meeting at the lab on Friday, my supervisor is in Europe. My tutor wasn’t there either, so I didn’t really stick around for too long. I borrowed a lab umbrella on the way out though, as I’d forgotten to bring one. Friday night I actually went along to another language exchange group near my dorm at a local school, run by a bunch of people that basically just like meeting and helping foreigners, which was pretty neat. I didn’t end up going to the after-tea-party or go with the people heading into Shibuya though, too tired.

Yesterday I shifted my LeithCorp website, email and so on over to my new server. While this probably isn’t hugely significant from a business point of view, it was certainly an interesting exercise for me. I’m not really all that sure about the future of my company now that I’m focusing on my studies, either, but we’ll see how it goes, I guess.

On Thursday I discovered that my local 100 yen shop was also stocking mini-melon-pan this week, which was like taking a delicious snack and making it even snackier. Naturally I bought a bunch of them. Bastards.

Despite being what I would usually think of as sufficiently tired to overcome my insomnia, I’ve been having trouble sleeping, which sucks. I’m hoping it’ll pass sooner rather than later, as the more prolonged bouts can get really annoying.

Today I was supposed to play games online with Nik, but it just didn’t pan out in the end. So, I sat around and played some Heroes of Might and Magic V… while wearing the shirt that I got with the game. I’m such a geek. ^^ That was good fun and hopefully I’ll make some more time to keep playing that. Actually, speaking of my geekdom, I also downloaded a little digital alarm utility, since I don’t have an actual alarm clock. Now my computer is my alarm!

So, yesterday was pretty much a nothing day. After waking up at 5:50am and not being able to get back to sleep, I did the usual email/RSS feed checking then proceeded to not do terribly much. I did some accounts, watching some anime, wrote journal entries and talked online to people. As usual, I wrote a bunch of email… sometimes it seems like I spend way too much time on email and never get anywhere with it. Oh, I read some xkcd as well – I’m all up to date, and I suggest those of you with an intellectual bent to your humour go check it out.

Today started off somewhat interestingly (if far too early again) with a conversation (via posts on one of my Facebook photos) with two of my ex-flatmates from Seattle. Before heading into Uni I also received the very sad news that my girlfriend’s grandfather has passed away. Been coming for a little while, but still sad and I wish I could be there for her more than I can.

After this sober news, I headed into university for my next basic language class. It seemed like a lot of commuting for really not all that much time on campus. I think I spent about as much time commuting as I was on campus. I ran into Stefan and chatted to him for a while, then mucked around doing odds and ends in my room before I was due to go out.

Tonight I went into Shibuya (met up at Hachiko, the dog statue) and met up with Simon (a.k.a. Wocky), an old friend of mine from when I used to work at the internet cafe in the Arts Centre in Christchurch (which is no longer there, sadly). We stopped in at a phone place and picked up pamphlets for me so I could browse through models and so on and make up my mind later. From there we went to a little spicy restaurant and Wocky got me to try various bits and pieces of Japanese cuisine. I wouldn’t be able to tell you what they all were now, but it was all good. I also tried Chu-hai, a kind of Korean alcohol that’s pretty common here. Tastes kind of like a watery, low-level vodka mixer, really – fairly bland and probably good if you want something cheap to imbibe small quantities of alcohol but don’t want to drink beer. We also ordered some habanero chicken – damn that stuff is hot! Had to wear the protective gloves and so on just to eat it. Wocky had sweat pouring off him and both of us required lots of liquid. Anyway, it was great to catch up with him again and hopefully I’ll be seeing more of him, since he lives here in Tokyo.

Back at the dorm and man am I tired. Long day.

Today was the first day of the rest of my life.

Just kidding. Today was, however, my first taste of what I’m really going to be doing with myself on the main campus. Initially I was a little later than I had hoped to be (but still on time, thank you very much), but I went in and had the Japanese test and interview for the International Center on campus. This was pretty frustrating, as I could read most of the questions and grasp the meaning, but I couldn’t remember a lot of the grammar points, and my vocabulary was certainly lacking in the interview portion. Actually, the first one they asked me was isu, which means chair. Naturally I only remember this later that afternoon, when it didn’t matter any more. Ah well. In a lot of ways it reminded me of the test that I had to take for the scholarship, and I did wonder why they couldn’t just use the results from that, but I suppose everyone has their own little ways of doing things. At the end of the interview, my interviewer pronounced, “You are elementary level.”

Well duh, I could have told you that.

After that I went to the Office for International Students (OIS) that’s a part of the Engineering school. I managed to snag some free stuff for my room and found out about the Japanese classes that they run there that I’ll be going along to until my other ones start… so for about a week, I think.

I had lunch at Subway today, which was kind of novel in and of itself. Slightly different menu, everything is done in six-inch batches, the straw hole cover is off-centre, much like the ones at Wendy’s were… oh, and the paper the sandwiches are in is folded/sealed in a funny way to protect the sandwiches. Quite neat, actually. I managed to fumble my way through the ordering process and had a cajun chicken sandwich.

Back at the OIS, I waited around for the first Japanese class. It was just basics again, but good revision for me and some useful vocab. It was at this point I remembered about the word for chair, right before the class was to start. Figures. After class I wandered around campus for a while and took a few pictures, including being a passer-by-photographer for a random bunch of Japanese people.

After that it was back to the dorm to chat, surf and email. Kind of zombie-like, actually. Oh, I found out that there’s a local Amazon as well – I’m in trouble.

I finished watching the anime Claymore today. On the whole I wasn’t particularly impressed with it. It had some nice fight sequences and some characters that looked like they had some depth, but the anime didn’t really explore the characters as much as I thought it was going to. Apparently the manga that it’s based on is much less about the fighting, and I can well believe it. Worth a watch for some nice art and an interesting (if under-developed) set of characters, but probably not one that I’d re-watch, or rave about to people.

This weekend didn’t involve a whole lot on my part. I did my US taxes, which took quite a while and, as taxes usually are, it was fairly tedious. As the post title suggests, I also had a bit of a fit of apathy, not entirely sure why (perhaps brought on by taxes?), and didn’t really do terribly much past watching some anime/television and doing some food shopping.

Possibly the more interesting part of this weekend was spending a bunch of time talking to people online, including eating Pocky on cam in front of Nik just to irritate him. Good times. No major revelations, no emotional bomb dropping… was just nice to catch up with a few people, despite my apathy.