Non-working day -_-

I came to work this Saturday even though it wasn't an official work day. I only found out when I got there. I guess, I misunderstood because people here work all hours of every day of the week, and the fact that my previous internship had a 6-day work week. Well, good for next week - I'll be able to visit more places.

I took a different road today as well, but it was too sunny and I had to walk up and down so many times ;;;;;;-_- It was very hot as well. They say Kumamoto is the hottest, but I see no difference between   it and Tokyo. It's seriously むしあつい here as well. Maybe not as むし but certainly あつい.

I stayed half the day at work trying to figure out the requirements for the competition. I had to manually translate all the names of the required areas. Lots of new words like 相互 （そうご）and 倉造（そうぞう）, 性能（せいのう） and 採用（さいよう）, and on and on. Kinda like this:

After I got home I could finally do some housework. I went to the nearest grocery store (Kinokuniya on 青山通り) that turned out to be soooooo expensive. I think I'm going to stick to コンビニ food from now on.

Tomorrow I want to go to Omotesando, since it's really close by. Also, Tokyo station has lots of famous architecture around it, so I might go there first. Aah, so many places to see, so little time... Good thing I have 3 more weekends to look around.

Very european looking building on my way from the store. It was so shiny and at the same time fuzzy - the picture doesn't look like the original at all. Tomorrow I hope to have fancier pictures to post.

Catching up

It's been such a long time. I was super busy with my MA project these past couple of months. We already had the presentation and I'm not sure, but it seems the outcome was good? The graduation ceremony is more than a month away and we were not told our results at all. A bit confusing, but, perhaps, I missed something. Our professor doesn't seem too worried at all.

This here is a peek at my project. I might post prettier posters or a PDF,

but right now I'm a bit sick of looking at it.

Another thing that's coming up is our lab trip. We'll be going to Hiroshima. As usual all trip details will probably be posted at the last minute. I prefer to know at least the departure time in advance, so I'm slightly frustrated.

We were going to find a bigger flat to rent, but we were so busy, we ran out of time. So another year will be spent in our tiny one room apartment. Which is fine, I guess.

Since I had a bit of time to relax, I finally finished editing the Takachiho trip video, which was waaay back in November. Oh yeah, I'm so fast. I found out my iMovie was pretty basic, no options for sound separation or slowing down/speeding up functions. Still, it was quite interesting regardless. I did get tired of listening to the random things I say over and over :D

The video is in 4 parts over at YouTube - www.youtube.com/user/MariaLivchak

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なつやすみ

Aah, it's been such a busy couple of weeks. And now it's summer vacation. Or so people say. Architecture students don't have much free time.

I signed up for a workshop in Oguni with our lab. It was pretty fun. Everywhere you walk in that small town you can hear the sound of water, because the streets are lined with irrigation canals. It has a greenhouse where they grow strawberry and some other red berry. There's also an old sake brewery.

We had a barbecue in the evening, and when it got dark, we played with fireworks. After that we visited the public bath. My first time - はずかしいーー！But it's really nice to sit in a big hot bathtub.

We had breakfast the next day at a very cute cafe that sells natural apple juice. I believe they make it themselves. Everyone was oohing and aahing at the juice, but to me it felt very diluted with water. I guess not a lot of families here make their own juice :).
We ate lunch at a bar type establishment - so much food. Very good karaage. After the super huge lunch we went to play in the river with kids. So refreshing. But right at the end a local kid sprayed me with water. How dare he! So I jumped in and stole his water shooter. It was easy to operate, but I ended up spraying myself just as much as others.

Tomorrow we have an end of term party. And on the weekend I really want to go to the anime exhibition in one of the local museums. Can't really make plans further than that because of all the meetings and preparations: have to make a model on a Monday, Tuesday is for preparing for Open Campus that's on a Wednesday and a meeting after that.

Another Week

This week I was a bit more free, since we no longer had the debate preparation meetings. So nice. Tomorrow, though, we will get a new debate topic and the troubles will start all over again. Hopefully, this time there will be someone in my group who speaks English.

Right now it's all about the campus project. But the more I listen to what the teacher says, the less I understand: gradation story? requirements/conditions for space? Huh? Am I being thick?

On the other hand, I'm hoping that my Japanese is improving slowly but surely. I do try and talk more in the lab. I guess I 'have' to, because one of my pals speaks not a word of English. It's fun though. We share some similar interests.

On Friday we tried to get married, but the City Hall officials had other ideas. All our papers were in order, it's just one of those things - one of my documents was of a new type, different from an older version (no longer given out). We'll wait a bit and see what the embassies say.

On Saturday we went to the city centre. To get my shoes from the cobblers' (the place is too upscale for that word...) and buy some walking shoes. Shiv persuaded me to buy slightly larger ones. Buying new jeans for Shiv was also on the agenda. He looks pretty good :D

Today we had the campus project meeting, and afterwards I went to play catch-ball with some of my lab mates. It was fun, but I got bitten by mosquitoes and am now super itchy.