Lessons Shida should learn from IUK

Throughout my stay at IUK, I noticed many things that are different and at times nonexistent at Shida.

Here are some of the things that Shida should "copy" from IUK:

1. Grad school lab: so this is specifically for the English department at Shida. We're the biggest department in the entire school (if I'm not mistaken) and yet our "lab room" has barely enough room to swing two cats by their tails. Think about that, a tiny room with ancient furniture for around 100 graduate school students! And guess what, they lock the door and you've have to make your own copy of the key if (if!) you want to use this room... no, thank you!

As you can see from these pictures, this is way more spacious than what we have at Shida (maybe about 10 times more...). And here we have our own lockers (forgot to tell you that we had to share our ancient (I'm thinking at least 20 years) lockers with another student), our own space, three computers to share between us, and (!) unlimited access to the printer (I'll probably miss this the most...)

2. On the same vein, graduate school students at IUK get a Xerox card worth 1000 copies free!

3. This one doesn't really make too much sense, but it's cool to have a travel agency inside the university, lol

And this one... I could do without...

4. This outdoor cafe makes really good mocha drinks! It's nice to have lunch surrounded by trees once in a while though the bugs do get pretty annoying...

5. Student hall
The student hall is a place for students to hang out, eat, talk, do homework, whatever. This is a really nice alternative to the library for me, since I find the library air too stiff. Unfortunately, we don't have such a place at Shida. That's why I'm busting my brains trying to think of a place where I can write my thesis when I get back...

6. Bookstore!
Yep, we have a bookstore in the university. And yep, it's tiny but still.



I'm sure there's a lot more I forgot to mention but you get the picture. The main complaint I have for Shida is that for a good school it should provide students a good environment conducive to learning (which I really think it lacks!)

First day of class... finally!

Today is officially my first day in class. I had to wait until 6PM (PM!!!) for my first class to begin. Our classroom (pretty big) can probably seat 60 people but there were only 4 people in the class, haha. The other three were: Hiroki (a Japanese graduate student), Furuse (a social welfare professor), and Faiz (an exchange student from Canada). Pretty diverse, huh?

I am taking 3 classes with Prof McMurray, my supervising professor in IUK, this semester. For the second class, which started at 7.40PM, there were only two of us, me and the Japanese grad student. And, guess what? For my third class with the Prof, it's a one-to-one course!!! @@

So anyway, since there are so few of us, we managed to change the schedule around and now I don't have classes in the evening. Yay! My classes are now from Tuesdays to Thursdays, exactly what I had planned to have before I came. It all worked out, so... yay!

Incidentally, the Prof is an expert of, and is devoted to Haiku and he gave me a copy of his book. I got lots of souvenirs from him today (see picture 2).

Seems like we've got lots in store this semester. I'll potentially present in at least one conference, publish two or more papers, have a chance to teach Japanese learners of English (of all ages), and probably also teach in a local high school, elementary school, and/or college.

Bring it on.