Things to do in winter

There's nothing much to do in the winter. Roads are blocked, weather is freezing cold. The activities in the snow are different from other season. Here are some of the things that we can do here, such as

1) staring at trees


2) trees,


3) and more trees


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4) or write in the snow


5) or unsuccessfully make a snowman


6) sleep in the snow


7) or make your own ice kacang

Snowshower

Urasa 浦佐, where IUJ is located is known for heavy snow. Even though the temperature is just 1 deg C, snow is heavy. Everyone's bragging there's an unbelievable 3m of snow 2 years ago, a record in many years. However, there's only 0.5m of snow last year, which is almost equivalent to no snow.

This year, I prayed for more snow, hopefully 4 or 5m. Then I'll just climb out from my friend's window from the 2nd floor.

Last week it was snowing non-stop and the snow went up to 1 meter high, covering almost everything.



The roof of our dorm was totally covered with snow

and so is the whole university

From outside ......................................... From Inside

Even cars ...................................................... and bicycles


This is how it looks like in the middle of the snow

Thai Chinese

Me: Are you a Chinese?
Thai (proudly): No, I'm a Thai Chinese. Thai first, Chinese second. I can only understand a bit of Chinese.

Here in IUJ, we meet a lot of people from all over the world and we communicate freely. A large percentage of students are from Indonesia. A lot of us are Overseas Chinese (Indonesia Chinese, Thai Chinese, Malaysia Chinese etc).

Overseas Chinese are not really considered Chinese evidently when there was a 'Chinese' gathering, only China Chinese were invited. The rest of the Indonesia Chinese, Thai Chinese, Malaysia Chinese, Taiwan and Hong Kong Chinese, we had our dinner separately. OK, no big deal. Most of us can't speak China Chinese anyway and we Overseas Chinese communicate in English.

However, most most of them prefer to be addressed as their own country's citizen, like the Thai Chinese, who refer themselves as Thai first, Chinese second.

This is so contrasting with Malaysians, who would very much want to distance ourselves from our country. Malaysians say "Chinese Malaysian" with Chinese first, Malaysian second. Wonder will we have a day when everyone would tell others proudly, we are "Malaysian Chinese", Malaysian first, Chinese second.

Snowshower

It has snowed continuously for 5, 6 or 7 (I've lost count) days now...

Snow is so high, it covered cars, rooftop and walkway. Everything is white now.


Snowing, everything blur


Trees standing in the middle of the snow, naked


The gym and the ski jo at the back


Evening view of the snow


Snow covering cars


Campus in snow


More photos uploaded here
http://picasaweb.google.com/chinyankeat/Snowshower/

Dean's List

Results for last term released. Got GPA 3.82 / 4.00. Wow... that's quite good I said to myself.

The ranking was
H : 4.00
H- : 3.75
S+ : 3.50
S : 3.00

But then... hey, how come I got H- for my 'Financial Accounting'? The grade was supposed to be top 10% student receive H. I got the 6th highest (79.3%) in that course, trailing the 5th place (80.0%) by just 0.7 points. Just with that additional 0.7% in 1 subject, I'd be able upgrade my GPA to 3.87, making me in the dean's list!!!

How unlucky. I'll be cursing myself for the rest of the term.

Heavy workload, MBA 1st year 2nd term

Winter term for MBA students turned out to be the heaviest in the entire 2 year course. Marketing and Economics turned out to be the 'killer' subject. We would have to read at least 100 pages for the 2 subject every week in addition to the case studies, quiz and homework.

My initial plan was to switch to Elementary Japanese 2 from Basic Japanese 5. However, 5 morning classes a week in elementary was too tough. So I skipped taking the qualification test altogether.

Hopefully I will survive this term.

Woman with scarf in Japan

It can always be sure that when you see a woman wearing scarf in Japan, she must from Malaysia or Indonesia. Just strike a conversation in BM and you will be able to know either Indo or Malay. I have started a few conversations (always with BM first) with a few people wearing scarf and it turned out all of them are from Malaysia.

In Ikebukuro while waiting bus back to Urasa, saw a lady wearing scarf talking to a guy in Bahasa Malaysia (not Indonesia). Ah... Malaysian.

It turned out we came back on the same flight and the guy, Asryn was staying in a town just 40 mins away from Urasa. He was in Japan for the past 6 years studying and working and went back to get married and brought his wife back to Nagaoka. Wow... what a story.

End of Winter Holiday

Coming back to IUJ is a chore. My flight is in the afternoon. I didn't realize that I would arrive in Tokyo at 8pm, clear custom, and then take 1 hour train to Ikebukuro and then rush for shinkansen / bus / train to Urasa.
I have given up all hope of coming back to Urasa at the same day, until I found out the day before the flight that I will be flying on 11am and reach Tokyo at 6pm, leaving me with 4 more hours to catch the last bus.
The nice thing in Japan is that... you can plan your journey way ahead. All the train schedules for EVERY train station & bus are always accurate up to the MINUTE!!! If the schedule say that there is no train, don't pray that miracle would happen.

On 9th, my MAS's MH070 was delayed reach Narita at 7pm. Then the custom has introduced new regulation to take photograph & fingerprint of all foreigners, delaying my departure from airport by another 1 hour. Luckily I was able to rush back to Ikebukuro by 10, and took the last bus at 11:30pm, and arrived in Muikamachi at 3am with Ben there waiting for me in the snow to pick me up back.

Had class next day.