It's a No-Day today, what I would call a day when you don't expect anything to happen, and you don't have anything planned. I don't have classes yet, no assigned things-to-do yet, no nothing.
Well actually I did have something planned: prepare my presentation for the "semina" (that's Japanese for seminar, just as "bas(u) senta" is for bus center) this Saturday wherein all new PhD students are to make a presentation, as well as this one "short-term researcher" from Italy. There are four of us new PhD students, 1 is Japanese and is taking the environmental wind engineering track, and the rest of us are taking the structural wind engineering track. The other 2 are from India. Most of the Indians here are Tamils, from Southern India.
I thought it might take time to finish my presentation, surprisingly I was able to finish a complete first draft of my presentation for Saturday. I have Friday to review and revise it.
Me expecting it to be a No-Day, for some reason I woke up so late! Probably around 7:50am! So I hurried to make it to the "office" at 9:00am. I was a little late. And then... Surprise! No one was there yet! So apparently it was normal that no one came to school that early.
I think I woke up late because of the exhaustion from yesterday. Hopefully tonight I'll sleep early enough because tomorrow, we'll leave Atsugi early for our technical tours around Tokyo!
Anyways, this day, there were still a few administrative stuff I had to do, like sign some documents, get my picture taken for my student ID card (I got it this afternoon), submit some more stuff, and so on. Have I said I don't like doing these administrative stuff? But it's all necessary, of course.
And who said it was a No-Day today. Out of the blue, the short-term researcher from Italy asked me to join them for lunch at the cafeteria with the other Italian guy, and later a couple of Indian guys, and then we were to meet up with an Australian and a Japanese (not engineering students though). Cool, international flavor! We were going to have lunch at the main cafeteria, but it was jampacked; it was 12:30pm already - lunch break for everyone. The Indian guys say they usually they take their lunch at 12:00pm so that there are not much people yet.
Anyways, we decided to have lunch at the other cafeteria. During my last stay here, I did not get to eat at this "other" cafeteria. They had a slightly different style here, like for one line, it was much like a buffet. Then the food you got was weighed and you pay by the kilo! The rice was weighed separately because it has a different unit cost. The soup though - good old miso soup - had a fixed cost. Hot or cold green tea, your choice, was drink all you can. Love it! For Y733, I didn't feel full though. Awww.
So anyways, it was cool to meet new people, and hopefully I could meet more new people - but I really hope to have constant friends/buddies here. It's a little more difficult now because, for example, among us 3 new structural students - I'm the odd one out, literally. I'm the 3rd to arrive, plus of course, there is already a bond between the two Indian guys who arrived on the same date and probably the same flight. I am being friends with them, and with everyone of course. There is also young Pillai-san, younger brother of the Pillai-san PhD student (now Dr. Pillai) who was so nice and who I became close friends with (together with a Vietnamese guy and a Japanese guy) the last time around. But anyway, basically there's also a whole lot of us here now compared to before, so it's difficult to become close with anyone, or at least not yet. Supposedly I'm assigned a "big brother," but he is too busy nowadays because he's about to finish his PhD this semester, and so he is not really able to attend to me.
Anyways, dinner is ready-to-microwave meals from the school store. I also bought milk and juice there because it's cheaper (prices are for students) than in the supermarkets or convenience stores. I hope to sleep early today so that I can wake up early enough tomorrow!
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