Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Random shots around Kagoshima

Found these shots while rummaging through my camera's memory card
Kagoshima sure is very photogenic!

Usuki


Near IUK

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Only in Japan...

No, it's not a recreation of "The Creation of Adam"

In Japan, you can send your contact details, pictures, and files through infrared or Bluetooth (infrared is much more common though, as you can see ^)
It looks kinda funny at times (especially at times like these) but it's all over the place, really

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!)

Monday, July 6, 2009

Google is going...

Just a random fun thingy my brother sent me... try it out!

Here is something fun.. you know the type ahead feature of google where you type in a few keywords and some suggestions come up?

Try typing

"Google is going"

Then wait for what will come out

Saturday, July 4, 2009

I got my hair done!

Me and Miyoung (the new exchange student from Korea) had our hair done today and Marie came along to make sure we do not misunderstand the hair stylists and vice versa.

I don't think I've done something so different with my hair in quite a while so... :P