Master Balvig

I am officially graduated from Tokai University with a Master's degree from today and also officially impressed with the amount of stuff they give you on such an occasion. I mean, I even got a MEDAL like it was the olympics or something! I guess I can hardly write this entry without including the obligatory graduation shot with my professor, so here it is in all its glory:

3 and a half years of my stay in Japan has been spent at Tokai after randomly stubling across an internet posting about a scholarship in 2002 and the time has come to say goodbye to the founder Matsumae and the rest of Shonan campus. Although I will definitely miss certain parts of attending Tokai and living in Kanagawa, I am already getting used to my new lifestyle as a "salaryman" in Tokyo and am looking forward to (re)figuring out the laws of living in the urban jungle I used to live in for half a year when I first arrived in Japan.

Visiting Denmark

In order to gather information for a research project I am participating in with a professor from Tokai, I will have a chance to visit Denmark for a week next month! Hope to have time to see everyone who wants to see me (all 3 of you)! Here is the lowdown: 2006/10/08 13:10-17:15 Narita - Heathrow 2006/10/08 18:55-21:50 Heathrow - Copenhagen

2006/10/15 10:50-11:55 Copenhagen - Heathrow 2006/10/15 13:50-09:10 Heathrow- Narita

University festival

Last Friday marked the end of Tokai's "university festival", a full week of concerts, food and activities on campus (and no classes!) culminating in a fireworks display Friday night. Tomorrow it's back to school but with less than two months till Christmas and winter holiday! My new excuse for not having been active on this page recently is that I have among other things been working on a different site which you will know about all about once it's done. Till then, I still have those Australia pics that I need to put up, there is just so many of them!

Tokai University - Le Mans race car

It's bad enough that the tuition fees at Tokai are as high as they are, but I wish they at least wouldn't do stuff like spend huge amounts of yen on a Le Mans race car. We all know the race will be won by a Dane anyway.

The Research Lab

In Japanese universities there is a whole culture associated with the so-called "kenkyushitsu" (best translation I can come up with is "research lab") where students gather to study and do "research". Each lab has a teacher and a number of students associated with that teacher. As in many other parts of Japanese society there is a strong emphasis of being part of the group, and each research lab is like a small community with their own little customs and events. Some students more or less live in these rooms that often have microwave-ovens, coffee machines and whatever the average Japanese student might need. Anywhere, here are some pictures from my research lab, that is actually pretty much empty most of the time, since the teacher is new and only a few students have been assigned so far.

Overview of the lab
Shhh....The computers are sleeping...

PCs

My seat
This is my seat when at the lab, where I am considered a "sempai", meaning "senior". Since I'm in the master course I have higher "rank" than for example 4th year students, and this brings certain privileges such as getting the good chair and the window spot. :P My monitor seems to have run off somewhere though.

Ayumi Hamasaki
She's a little quiet but I'm sure she's doing some groundbreaking research in the corner of the room.

Tatami mats
Some of the 4th year students felt it would be a good idea to have a Japanese style tatami section for recreation and relaxation.

...it even comes with...

Wide-screen surround sound DVD system
Is it a good idea to place a microwave oven next to a sub-woofer?

The whiteboard
Notice the amount of English on it and you can probably guess who's been using it most recently.

...and finally...

Teacher's desk
This is where my teacher, Taizo Miyachi, can usually be found.

IPSJ Award

After returning from Hokkaido I suddenly became very busy having to do all sorts of (unfortunately not very interesting) things and also participated in a conference, "Information Processing Society of Japan", where I did a presentation on the mobile music composition-software I created, and actually won an award for best presentation in the category "Community/Network Entertainment". This came as quite a surprise to me since the presentation had to be done in Japanese and all the other participants where...well, Japanese. Anyway here it is, posing with a cell phone:

Open Campus

I was asked to take part in one of Tokai's "Open Campus" events today, the purpose of which is to persuade high school students to choose Tokai as their university when they graduate next year. This basically involved putting on a garish blue jacket, running around handing out information materials and generally helping out, but as expected a large part of my role was more that of being the "token foreigner" freaking out the young students and their parents (in a good way) using my "blonde" hair and "fluent" Japanese.

"Please switch off your..."

In today's episode of the soap-opera that is my 5th period class on Thursdays, my classmates and I were suddenly awoken from our daze (induced by an overload of mathematical formulas) by the sound of music. Upon further inspection, we realized the sound was coming from the television screen next to the teacher, our window to Thailand. Apparently, the cell phone of the girl sitting right next to the microphone transmitting every noise from the classroom in Thailand had started to ring. Giggles turned into outright laughter as the girl proceeded to take the call and carry on a conversation in a loud voice, amplified through the television speakers. While we were expecting her to finish the call quickly, as although there was no teacher physically present in Thailand this was still to all intents and purposes the middle of a lecture, she continued discussing something or other for several minutes and eventually the professor, laughing, had to stop the lecture for a while, as we all waited for a girl in Thailand to finish her phone-call.

How is the weather in Thailand?

Yesterday, I had my second class in "Image Processing", and what makes this class a little special is that it is conducted in cooperation with a university in Thailand, and using video-conferencing technology allows students in Thailand to "attend" (thus we could see a small class of giggling Thai students on a television-screen next to the professor). As a result, the class is done entirely in English and also makes use of a "digital whiteboard", basically a big computer screen upon which you can display graphics and write notes using a special marker. It all sounds pretty high-tech and cool but in fact, sadly it isn't that great. First of all, although I would never criticize the professor's English level (since I myself have a hard enough time understanding Japanese), he does have quite a hard time trying to express himself, and it makes an already complicated subject even harder not only for me and my Japanese classmates who probably aren't the best English speakers either, but also for the people on the other end of the video connection in Thailand. On top of that, there seems to be quite a few problems with the digital whiteboard thing. Notes suddenly disappear due to a wrong keypress, graphics don't display clearly and the professor spends ages scrolling up and down because of the akward interface. Oh well, I guess it's all very new and so on, and it'll take time for everyone to get used to it. Maybe it'll improve given time.

University festival

Christmas is coming (yes "only" 2 more months) and here's one way Tokai spends its funds gained from the 20.000 students attending the private university. Well, it is nice to look at I suppose. The decoration is also part of next week's university festival, where the campus will be transformed into a big spectacle of activities and events, with dozens of small booths and stages for various performances.

First week at Tokai

Whoops, no updates for a while due to a hectic first week at Tokai University, here's how it went: Monday & Tuesday I didn't actually go to school due to a lot of confusion (didn't know I HAD class) and besides I had to go to the town hall in Hiratsuka AND the immigration office, so I didn't really have much choice anyway. It's not too bad though, as the first week is intended as an oppurtunity to try out the different subjects you can choose from, and thus the classes are shorter and usually consists of nothing more than a short introduction. Either way there were only a total of 2 classes I might be interested in, so I'll make up for it next week by actually showing up. Choosing classes is all done online, and the website calculates credits AND generates your schedule, all pretty cool (if only I could read the Japanese descriptions of the various classes...).

Wednesday My first actual (introductionary) classes. My presence seems to confuse the professors a great deal, and I've been asked as to whether I understand Japanese or not at least once every class. I guess it's nice though, since figuring out what is going on does take a huge amount of concentration. In fact, to be quite honest I didn't understand much of what the teacher was saying in the second class, mostly due to him mumbling to himself most of the time. Oh, and on the papers he passed out was written a notice that "this is a graduate school course, so no sleeping in class will be tolerated" (I wonder if you see that sort of thing in any other country). Doesn't that translate to "my classes are horribly boring, but please don't pass out"? Don't think I'll be taking his class after all, but I'll decide everything next week.

Thursday I tried out 4 classes on this day. As I mentioned, the descriptions of the various courses are quite hard to read for me, and even if I manage to translate them from Japanese, I'm not always sure what a particular subject is REALLY about. So for example in the 2nd class "Intelligent Systems", I suddenly found myself in a class surrounded by giggling Japanese boys wanting to build robots. Well, the teacher seemed nice and was very easy to understand so I might take that class anyway, even though it's not as such directly related to what I do.

Friday I was going to take a class on "Image Processing" but as I arrived I was told the class would be moved to Thursday, which means I'll probably have 5 classes (1 class = 1.5 hours) on that day! I was glad to see the class getting cancelled though, as I was struggling to finish the handwritten scholarship-application I had to finish before 4 o'clock. I managed to get all the documents handed in on time, and rushed to catch a train to Odawara where I worked until 10 o'clock.

Saturday The classes I usually teach in Odawara on Saturday mornings got cancelled, so I only had one class in Yokohama and I went to see "I Robot" (disappointing) in the evening. Oh, I also bought a new pair of SD memorycards for my camera and phone, since the write protect-tab broke of BOTH the cards I have, leaving them forever incapable of storing data...

Student ID

Got my Tokai University Student ID card yesterday. Once again I'm entitled to whopping 300 yen discounts on movie theatre tickets and access to the university swimming pool.

Bestået!

Well, så kan jeg altså få lov at studere på Tokai's Master Course (hvis jeg altså vel og mærke betaler ca. en million yen).

Bom tjak bom tjak!

Well, min K-Drum er ved at være færdig (så færdig som den nu kan blive). Skal lige have proppet nogle menuer ind og ting og sager. Det er godt nok ikke verdens smukkeste programkode, men heldigvis er der vist ikke rigtig nogen der skal checke det. Derudover skal jeg have skrevet en rapport, som jeg dog har fået lov at udfærdige på engelsk.

K-Drum (v0.2)

Så lykkedes det mig endelig at få mit lille program til at køre på min mobiltelefon. Først skulle jeg igennem en registreringsproces hos et firma, der gør at man kan uploade sine programmer et sted og derfra hente dem ned igen i mobiltelefoner. Der gik lang tid hvor jeg blot gik og ventede på en bekræftelse, da jeg ikke rigtig kunne komme videre uden at teste programmet "for real" i en mobil, men nu lykkedes det langt om længe. Okay, det er stadig grimt og det kan ikke så meget men det er hip-hop!

K-Drum

Som en del af mit research-projekt forsøger jeg for tiden at programmere en trommemaskine til mobiltelefoner. Den ser jo ikke ud af så meget endnu, og kører indtil videre kun i en emulator, som det kan ses på billedet. Hvis nogen er interesserede i at bidrage eller hjælpe så sig endelig til, det hele bliver jo ikke meget nemmere af, at det meste litteratur på området er på japansk...! _

Research

Jeg havde en snak med min sensei i gaar om hvad det egentlig er jeg skal researche/udvikle de naeste 6 maaneder men det er ret svaert at komme i tanke om et eller andet nyt og originalt. Jeg vil gerne lave en form for musik-software med henblik paa live-performance, men det skulle helst vaere noget der ikke allerede eksisterer eller i hvert fald fungerer bedre end noget tilsvarende. Hvis der er nogen der har nogle ideer saa kom endelig med dem. Btw, Jacob, har du stadig Soundpad-kode/rapport (dele af skitsen ser maaske bekendt ud...) liggende et sted? Kunne du laegge det op paa BSCW?

卒業式

I dag var der "graduation ceremony" på Tokai Universitet, og læssevis af studerende mødte op i jakkesæt og kimono.

Det var sådan set også min beståelses-ceremoni i dag, da jeg afslutter mit 1-års japansk kursus. Jeg fik også et vældig fint diplom:

Det får nu engang de kopisider fra RUC man selv skal ringe og bestille til at blegne. Men jeg havde nu alligevel lidt svært ved at dele den følelse af at have opnået noget særligt, som alle de "rigtige" universitetsstuderende måtte have. Det er jo ikke fordi at det, at bestå et 1-års japansk kursus, har nogen speciel værdi som sådan. Eller det lyder måske forkert at sige, for selvfølgelig er jeg blevet bedre til japansk osv. men det har nu været en mere flydende, umærkelig process, så dagen i dag bar for mig ikke nogen særlig betydning. Desuden var det regnvejr og jeg skulle på arbejde. Men det var da flot at se de mange kimonoer og efter hoved-ceremonien var der pizza og sushi. Gæt hvilken ret jeg straks kastede mig over.

Resultater fra Tokai

Jeg har fået resultaterne fra mine fag dette semester (for det meste baseret på en eller to større prøver, Japanese Style). Skulle nogle være interesserede i dem kan de ses på billedet. Her er en "tegnforklaring":

速読B Hurtigheds-l?sning.

文章表現法B Stil/essay/rapport-skrivning.

異文化コミュニケーションB Kommunikation med fremmede kulturer, en klasse der var blandet med japanske studerende. "Aha-oplevelserne" var lidt tynde for en europæer som jeg, der er vant til at bo i et land med rig adgang til mange forskellige kulturer, men det var sjovt nok at se en "rigtig" japansk klasse i funktion.

異文化コミュニケーションB’ Samme fag som ovenstående men refererende til torsdagstimen (eller også er det omvendt), hvor det kun var os "fremmede". Lavede et fordrag om ordet "gaijin" til den endelige prøve.

口頭表現法B "Mundtlig" japansk. Et fag hvor vi skulle holde taler og lave debat. Svært! Men vi havde en god lærer og nogle ganske underholdende timer.

文法研究B Grammatik-timer. Den klasse der mest af alt mindede om egentlig "japansk undervisning", hvad jeg savnede en del dette semester.

漢字・語彙B Ikke et fag jeg havde (og derfor ingen score).

時事日本語研究IB Kan vel oversættes med det engelske "current affairs", men den bestod egentlig mest i at vi forsøgte at læse avis-artikler og huske udtalen af en masse kanji, hvad der naturligt nok var temmeligt svært for mig...

時事日本語研究IIB Igen "current affairs" men i form af lytte-øvelser hvor vi så nyhedsudsendelser og skulle referere hvad de snakkede om.

社会文化事情IIB Titlen er "Samfund og kultur", men bestod egentlig blot i at en gammel nisse snakkede om random ting hver time, hvis han da ellers dukkede op. Til prøven holdt jeg et foredrag om ligheder mellem danskere og japanere.

経済事情B Økonomi, ikke så svært som det lyder, men derimod en forholdsvist interessant gennemgang af forskellige aspekter af japansk marketing etc.

Japanese Proficiency Test

Hurra, jeg bestod den årlige nationale Japanese Proficiency-test (Level 2). Ikke at det umiddelbart har nogen særlig betydning for noget. Måske man skulle forsøge sig med Level 1 i år?

１級を合格した人にもおめでとう、よく頑張ったね！おちた方はまた今年頑張ってね！