Some months ago

I started writing a kind of electronic diary two years ago. I don’t write every day, but whenever I feel like it, and up to today, I have around 180 files referring to days I felt like sharing what was up.

 

Going back to it is a mesmerizing experience. I feel like an anthropologist going through somebody’s mind and ideas, smiling at the simple narrative and frowning at the endless heartbreaks.

I guess it’s a good way to decipher yourself and dissect your past decisions. For now, I’ll keep it to myself because I know this is a place where I can really talk freely. But I’ll share some pieces of it that resonated.

 

If I die, of course, anyone near my computer is welcome to take a peak. Pieces of life of a western young woman in the 21st century.

 

March, 20th, 2015

So today was the eclipse. I woke up around 7:30, and finally stood up at 7:50. I am glad my alarm rang and my phone didn’t just died during the night. I prepared myself and after a quick smoothie, I decided to take all my stuff and here I was on my bike. Direction the East Dunes park. The weather was really grey but I was not too worried about it. The weather changes really fast and what can seem like a grey and boring day can sometimes become a really lucky one.

I went through the forest park of the Hague, in front of the, yet-to-be, American ambassy and found the entrance of the park. Same way I used before, I know the place. It was still quite an exercice to go there.

I arrived at this little hill in the « Dunes Park » and I put my bike there, excited. I climbed up the stairs and found a cosy place to set up my material. I look up at the sky and watched the time. It was 9:30, it should begin. And so did the waiting game. I sat and look at this grey sky. At some places, it got lighter and I looked for the sun but nothing appeared.

A man, in his fifties, arrived on the side and started talking to me in Dutch. I apologized and we continued in English. He decided to stay for a while and we talked. He’s a musician, (cello) and travelled a lot. Despite this fact, he always come back in The Hague and often coms to this park. He really liked playing in Italy and likes composers like Olivier Messiaen, rather than Einaudi. Messiaen is more challenging and he inspires his music from the songs of birds. He asked me if I came in the Netherlands knowing anyone. I tell him that no, I had no family or friends here. He told me it’ll come.

We stayed there, we looked at the sky in silence. After a while, it gold colder and colder and he decided to go home. He told me he admired my tenacity as a young person. We saluted each other and there he went.

Some minutes after, a woman arrived and started talking to me. Same ritual and we continued in English. She was an Art teacher, teaching to kids from 14 to 18. She was a perfectionist and got exhausted at a point where she had to take a one week break from work. She seemed really passionate about her job and advised me to go see a ballet in the Hague. She likes Paris, Amsterdam and often goes to small villages in France.
We talked about what’s around, and we noticed how the environment changes. Even though we had absolutely no visual of the sun, we noticed the atmosphere getting darker and the birds stopped singing. This was instead really calm, and especially colder. I shivered and she offered me some of her hot tea.
She really was a warm person. Then, little by little, the sky got lighter, birds started singing again and I was not shivering to death anymore. The peak hour past and there was little hope to see an actual eclipse. She decided to go home and we said goodbye.

Another man with his camera arrives shortly after, looked at my material and in a very neutral way told me that the peak hour is over. I told him I’d stay in case there might be an improvement but he shrugged and left.

I considered going home. I was cold, and I didn’t want to get sick before exams. But I considered it seriously and I decided otherwise. An eclipse is not that rare but this is not common either. I just had to wait 30 more minutes till the official end of the eclipse, and I would rather wait 30 minutes more than 6 years til the next eclipse.
I looked at the sky, and moved around not to be too cold.
Then suddenly, I saw it. It was not in the direction I expected. I jumped on my camera and pointed it at the sky. I lost sight of the sun but I fount it again and started triggering with my camera. When I saw that the filter was useless with such a diffuse light, I said fuck it and removed it. I looked at it with my eyes, ecstatic, and I shot tons of pictures. The more I took, the more I realize that the sun was actually getting out of frame pretty quickly. No wonder I didn’t expect the sun to be in a precise direction. What comforted me is that I looked at the right direction at the beginning.

The bit of eclipse that I saw was only a tiny bit of Moon kissing the sun a farewell goodbye. But still, it was a reward big enough to my eyes.

I biked 10km, stayed 2:30 hours in the cold and persisted and I finally got to see it. The pictures that I got where not a blast but it convinced me to try harder next time. Because there will be a next time!
At the end, when the moon completely left, I let my eyes get wet. I was tired, cold but I got to see it. I didn’t give up and even though it was a tiny bit, I got to experience it.
And it showed me that no matter how naive I may seem, I want to be persistant in what I do and not give up.

I came back home with a big smile on my face while biking and the long bike home warmed me up in no time.

I saw an eclipse today.

 

March, 7th, 2015.

« What we have to remember is that we can still do anything. We can change our minds. We can start over. Get a post-bac or try writing for the first time. The notion that it’s too late to do anything is comical. It’s hilarious. We’re graduating college. We’re so young. We can’t, we MUST not lose this sense of possibility because in the end, it’s all we have. »

Marina Keegan, she died four days after graduating from college.

« But let us get one thing straight: the best years of our lives are not behind us. They’re part of us and they are set for repetition as we grow up and move to New York and away from New York and wish we did or didn’t live in New York. I plan on having parties when I’m 30. I plan on having fun when I’m old. Any notion of THE BEST years comes from clichéd “should haves…” “if I’d…” “wish I’d…” »

« Of course, there are things we wished we did: our readings, that boy across the hall. We’re our own hardest critics and it’s easy to let ourselves down. Sleeping too late. Procrastinating. Cutting corners. More than once I’ve looked back on my High School self and thought: how did I do that? How did I work so hard? Our private insecurities follow us and will always follow us.

But the thing is, we’re all like that. Nobody wakes up when they want to. Nobody did all of their reading (except maybe the crazy people who win the prizes…) We have these impossibly high standards and we’ll probably never live up to our perfect fantasies of our future selves. But I feel like that’s okay. »

 

Friday, April, 17th, 2015

Yesterday, I was playing with the cat, along the road that takes me to Centraal Station. The sun was shining and it was a warm afternoon.

I finally met the owner of the cat. I saw the reflection of a bald man in the window and he appeared on my right. He smiled to me and I smiled back. I left with a « fine daag » and he answered something I didn’t understand.

But I am glad the cat has a nice owner.

 

And one year ago.

 

Tuesday, 10th, November 2015

Close to midnight.

Today’s Ted Talk is about Space. It feels like it’s been a while since I’ve dealt with the mysteries of space and the greatness of stars. Did I reach an overdose with this summer? Not too sure.

The name is Jill Tarter, radio astronomer.

« We actually, as humans, have this very, very intimate connection with the cosmos. If you think about the molecules of hemoglobin in your blood, there’s a lot of iron there, and that iron – in the hemoglobin molecule was created – it was manufactured in nucleosynthesis. Inside a massive star that blew up statistically about 8 billion years ago. So inside you are the remains of a stellar explosion.

[…] Absolutely, you are made of stardust. Everything that we know of is made of stardust, and without the stars, and without the long history of the universe evolving to form galaxies and stars, there wouldn’t be us. If we got that concept in our minds – that we’re made of stardust – and we could take a few moments in our day to think on that cosmic scale, to sort of step back and take a look at the big picture, to see that Earth is just one tiny, little planet in the corner of one small galaxy in a very, very big universe, I think that would help us to understand that really, all of us here on earth, we’re all the same when compared with something else out there in the cosmos. »

I’ll be honest, it does feel like one of these cheesy posts you could find on Tumblr screaming ‘you’re made of stardust’ for the sake of it. But looking at the bigger picture, it is very true, we’re all made of the same stuff. I went to a lecture of Culture of Africa today, and the lecturer was talking about South Africa, showing some pictures of bus stops arranged in such a way that everyone would be divided following their skin colour. The entire city of Johannesburg has been created in the 19th century with the idea in mind on how to separate people, depending on their social status, skin colour and so on. This is amazing how many lines we are able to draw between us when looking at a small scale, while we should honestly all be holding onto each other when looking at how vast the world is, and how fucking little and insignificant we’re on our own.

Anyway, my jaw hurts less and even though eating is still painful, I cannot help but cheer every time being like: “It hurts WAY less than two days ago, yay!”. The scarring is on its way as well, even though it’s a bit slow. I think I’ll keep a nice mark on my chin.

Looking back at this week of physical pain (it sounds very dramatic, I know), I admire how well it kept me away from ‘mental pain’ or any of the doubts/things that were annoying me in the past few weeks. Not saying I should go and knock myself down regularly to deal better with life but hey, I’m trying to find something positive here. But as the physical pain, the burden gets a bit heavier with the day and doesn’t matter how positive I start the day, I always end it up feeling heavy and down. Even when I put my face on my pillow to sleep, gravity pulls me down and every muscle in my jaw seems to weight ten times more. Same for my feelings, they decide to bury themselves into the cushion, like attracted by some mysterious force that’s ready to engulf me every night.

I visited a tattoo shop this morning to talk about some projects that I had. I’m sorry mom, I’m sure you won’t be too happy to learn about that but life is too short not to do things because of others. This is what I say now but I know that very quickly I’ll find excuses to justify myself towards people’s judgments, people whose judgments often mean nothing and yet, I’m ready to bow to them. C’est la vie.

This is making me smile so many times during the day. I have ‘good advices’, ‘good ideas’ (or so I think) but I cannot apply them to myself. I know what I should be doing, I know what my reaction should be -most of the time- and I’m the first one to deviate from them. It’s a living irony.

I should write in the morning, I have more ‘joie de vivre’.

I’d say try to do the same. It’s very therapeutic and mind opening.

And things need to be voiced out sometimes, overwise they just rot in you and it gets toxic. We all need some fresh air.

Give me a bit of time, and I’ll be back

Some snaps before the busy times come in

 

class to Japanese-English linguistics where there is a mistake in every sentence :3

yes, four an hour, number of face palms during this class

piece of french restaurant where I’m now teaching french once a week (it’s a long story)

my desk

after the rain

some food for thoughts (and for the stomach)

 

glimpse at the station

 

 

A piece of today

I got given some first assignments. Two pages on Chinese ethnic groups language policy, with an emphasis on the autonomous region of Mongolia in China  and one page on the limitation/bias one’s language can induce in everyday life. The courses are European and Asian languages and cultures, hence the linguistic approach on the papers.

today’s pictures are sponsored by my visit to nearby temples, with no connection to Mongol linguistic policies…

It does sound kind of scary because these will be the first pieces of assignments I’ll be writing in Japanese. I laid out the subjects I wanted to talk about in English, very briefly and I’ll try to directly write in Japanese to avoid the terrible ‘translated’ essay style. There are no sources required for those, so there is no pressure to find precise academic material. I just have to get out of my head smart ideas and phrase them in Japanese. A challenge I am kind of excited for, even though I have barely a week to write them and this week will be very busy because my mom is coming (hi mom, soon you’ll be on the other side of the blog, or the globe, either way works anyway!).
So tomorrow it will be… !

I was a little bit less lost this week, or rather I was lost in different subjects than last week. It was also a bit harder to keep the curiosity of the first weeks going on and it can be kind of soothing to close my eyes when a ramble of Japanese goes through my ears. But I need to be strong and do my best to stay awake and extract some meaning out of these words.
Even during a 20mn Chinese documentary with Japanese subtitles.

see it as a metaphor of students watching the documentary in class. i’m the one behind that’s trying to fusion with moss out of despair

My, those were intense 20 minutes.

I think my eyebrows have never dance that much for a long time. I was constantly frowning/looking confused and there must have been a slight ounce of exhaustion through my eyes in the end. Ahah, I really tried.
But my interest for China is growing when looking through the glass of all the ethnic groups the country is made of, so that’s good. I’m happy about that! Great thing because I have seven days to come up with two pages on it.

my working situation to kill 4 hours between 2 classes and trying to get inspiration on linguistic policies in east asia

photographs give me a second breath

Went and developed some pictures today. Took only one hour at a new place I tried, and I now regret sending my first roll to another shop. The other shop said it would take two weeks.

 

and I got punished for putting 35mm hood on 24mm lenses

I picked up the pictures after class, and was able to look at them on my computer and damn, the quality of these Japanese scanners. The file is really small so not really detailed but the colours are so good. Even the cheapest of film looks magnificent and has deep black.

 

look at that nice contrast

did a bit of hiking there

 

I don’t know if this modern society and my generation of self-centered people or just below-the-earth-self-esteem-level that makes me obsessed with pictures of myself but there is one that came up that I like a lot.

Looking at it, I don’t really like the expression I have and I’d say I look pretty dumb on it, but I love the atmosphere. The grain of the picture reminds me old photographs of the 80s or 90s.

So I’m happy I have something to hold on, into the form of pixels and I can safely tell myself « this is me, see, you don’t have to hate yourself everyday, you’re nice here. »

 

I feel guilty posting pictures of myself and selfies always take me through an inner battle where I ponder or not to make it public. Which I know is for the most part useless worry, but worry that is there nonetheless.

 

Since I understood that identity is partly shaped by outside perception and partly shaped by one’s intentions, I know I still have a hold onto who I am and I’m not just the passive recipient of what people perceive of me (or what I think they’re thinking)(hello low self-esteem, please continue making me feel miserable.)

So I’ll hold onto pictures of me, where I like a bit of myself. And I can pretend I come from some previous decades where I know little enough to dare think it was a bit more worry-free.

I think I may be fantasizing a careless youth.

thoughts about being a loner

I’m a loner and I know it. I’ve come to accept and appreciate it.

 

To me, it is a synonym of liberty and independence. I don’t depend on anyone to make choices and decisions, it is all up to me to do or not do something. No unpredictable element in the equation, I do the math as I go along.

 

I have never really thought of what it must seem like from the outside and today I got a taste of it. I didn’t think I seemed as unapproachable (more in like, ‘she doesn’t seem like she wants anyone to hang out with her’) as I was but I have to face it. I understand that this is what it seems like.

 

I’m coming onto this exchange with a suitcase of experience and a year of « do and don’t » firmly pressed onto my brain. I know my way around things and unfortunately, I did become this bitter person that does not get as excited as newcomers since I’ve « already seen it. » So I’ve built this nice image of this French loner that can speak Japanese and does things on her own, and y’a know, we better let her because she seems like she has no interests in hanging there.

 

Which I did not interpret like that. I was more eager to do things on the next level. I’m looking forward travelling in East Asia and do not put as much importance on Japan as I used to. I’ve seen most of the big cities (even though, there is much left to discover) and I kind of shrug maybe a bit heartlessly the idea of seeing other Japanese cities. It doesn’t coordinate well with the ideas of other exchange students and I guess I found it easier to distance myself rather than be that person « Tokyo? Yeah, not a big fan, not sure it’s worth going there » when it could be someone’s else dream.

 

I don’t know, I feel like I’d be the perfect party pooper because I cannot seem to get excited for what I used to get excited about 3 years ago.

 

I guess I need to let it go? But at the same time, I cannot put away the fact that I want to speak Japanese and use what I learned. After all, came all the way through here to be immersed in Japan, not in an international expat settings… I guess I came with a different set of expectations.

 

 

I was thinking about that lately. What do I like about Japan? There is a lot I criticize and university gives me a hard time to free my mind and let some positive things come through my mood filter.

I guess the atmosphere, in general, has something special. This way of living (even though a lot of what I loved in this ‘harmonious society’ hides ugly, ugly personal sacrifices) where everything seems to flow perfectly together, where service is smooth and smiles are thrown to customers.

Maybe what touches me the most is how people are ready to get out of their way for others. I was walking around and walked up some mountains to visit a temple. A working monk who was gathering some wood sticks stopped to take the time to show me around the temple, ensuring I would see the best view, understand the history of the place and so on. He went to pick up a picture that recently came out in the newspapers. An old picture found from WW2 of one of the statues of the temple before the bomb exploded in Nagasaki. He also gave me some of the nuts he gathered and put outside to dry. He told me to wait a few weeks for them to dry and then eat them.

 

He could have just said hello and go on with his work. But he stopped, took the courage to see if I was speaking Japanese and went totally out of his way to share his time.

Same thing happened to a further temple. A lady saw me, surprised to find someone in this remote area (in one of the valleys of the numerous hills of Nagasaki) and she brought me to a little cave where a shrine was erected. Water was coming out of the rock and she told me that the temple had completely burned down because of the atomic bomb, and the damage done to the rock made the water came out. Since there was water shortage after the bomb, the city was dying of thirst and many people walked up the mountain to look for water. Most of them died along the way or before reaching the remaining of the temple. The bones were gathered and the temple was rebuilt, with many more souls to remember.

Nagasaki is full of history, may it be from hundreds of years ago or decades. It never stops.

 

These people went out of their way for a stranger, sharing a smile and a few words to a totally different culture.

This is what I love and this is a concept that always surprises me. It is common to be treated as a rarity here, and be different just for not being Asian*. May it be through positive discrimination (where your Japanese is the most wonderful thing ever heard just by the sound of your skewed « konnichiha ») or negative one (if you thought people didn’t sit next to you in the train because they’re nice, think again)(or if they just stare and refuse to talk to you/acknowledge you can speak Japanese), it is sometimes rare to experience an interaction that feels genuine.

I think that now that I can speak Japanese better day by day, I am craving these kinds of experience even more. I want to talk to people about their stories, the surroundings, without mentioning my « non-Asianness » or where I’m from* or how well I’m holding chopsticks.

 

I want to get past that stage and have real interactions. Even though courses in Japanese are harsh, I am trying to soak up the vocabulary learned and it’s a giant satisfaction to remember the words and use them. (and sound very smart when you’re talking about the ‘policy of that government’ or even the ‘influence of national language on minor ethnic groups’)(not that I talk about it often but y’a know, in case of!)

 

So it does feel like I am here with different expectations and it is weighing me down in regards to the other exchange students. I’m not the fun French to hang out with and I look very distant.

 

You can’t satisfy everyone but I guess I could work a bit on my social side because having friends won’t hurt uh? And Japanese friends are great, but they won’t relate 100% to what it is to live in Japan as a foreigner, and some compassion might not hurt.

 

Now I just need to be a bit more open and maybe also more forgiving. I cannot hold people to expectations I myself do not fill, and I need to remember that people are people.

No one is perfect, and you gotta embrace what works and what doesn’t.

 

Without pushing away the world when it doesn’t work.

and embracing what the world throws at you (spoiler: countless hours of allergies)

 

*how nice is it to have the tables turned uh? When we put people apart for not being white?  When we blame it on people not ‘integrating’ in Western society and we hold them to expectations that they do not meet to easily point the finger?

not happy, guess i need to deal with ‘meh’ standard

the wave I was surfing on is slowly dying again and here I am with a bit of ingratitude and unsatisfaction.

 

 

I’m not really happy. University seems like a joke, and a bad one. The courses in Japanese are now getting serious and even though they are really interesting, they are hard to follow. It requires a focus of 1h30 without breaks and it’s a continuous flow of words and unknown vocabulary crashing into my mind.

When it’s about known subject, it is alright and I can kind of guess. Dutch Culture for now is focusing on European history, and I understand not too badly. European Languages is so far alright, the second class being about the French language (with a professor that was speaking French and was delighted to let some French words flow)(and who apparently ‘never seemed so happy’ and he even talked about the fact that he could speak French with a student in another class ahah). Let’s see how it’ll be later on, but I’m trying!

The hardest is about Asian Languages and Cultures. The teacher is amazing, but the subject totally unknown. Today was about Chinese ethnicities and all the language policies/concepts China has been going through. I have a vague idea of what is going on with Chinese ethnicities but it is really, only the big picture. I was confronted today with the fact that there were 55 ethnicities in China, representing 8% of the population (the major one being the Hans, making up the rest) and as many languages etc… The names of each ethnicities kind of change in Japanese and I spent a great deal of time trying to understand each of them. Some of the handouts given as well could have been straight up Chinese too because of the number of kanji.

 

It’s really hard to translate and to follow the course at the same time. But I knew it when I took the course so I’ll just suck it up.

 

The sad thing is that the courses in Japanese are way more interesting than the courses in Japanese, which are dumbed down by a robotic teacher that speaks for 90mn without any intonations and no one understands what he says. I am very unhappy with the fact that one of the teachers seems to be very bothered that I asked for the course to be as indicated, in English. As a result, he just stares at me during 90mn, repeating the same information (about doing survey research, amazing) in different ways and making us watch the same 90s video about survey research in England. None of the Japanese students understands a thing and I am just exasperated. I’m not hiding it and I think we are both getting angry at each other.

He needs to take on his responsibility. If he said his course was in English, it will be in damn English. Do what you say damn it.

 

In addition, I understand that the things making me unhappy can seem a bit futile and easily put aside, but I find it hard to push it away really. I understand the fact that I sound like the grumpy/overstressed student and I feel like it has pushed away many other exchange students. Or if it has not, I receive bitter comments about the subject of my worries, and it doesn’t make things better.

 

I want to let go but I am not here to not completely care either. I can’t be completely detached because I still need to pass these courses. The other exchange students can allow themselves to fail their 3 courses, but I need to pass 8 to validate this semester. And I can’t remove this out of my mind when I am told that I worry for nothing and am basically ruining everyone’s mind. What I do now is that I shut up and go on living my life on my own, but I’m just eating up the anxiety and I let it flourish inside of me. I just end up feeling sick, tired and not amused.

 

 

Putting things and ideas into words is good for the mind, so I’ll really try my best to keep my rants and my negative impressions onto this blog.

 

 

My, it is complicated. I receive sweet words and support but I can’t help brushing them away like if I didn’t deserve it.

It feels like I am consciously putting myself into a hole, telling people about it and eventually adding: « by the way, no one helps me please, let me die here while I complain and you watch. »

 

Which is not what I want to be doing, but it feels like I’m well into that process.

 

 

Can someone come and help my self-esteem please?

 

before i drown myself in kinako dango pls

 

catching up

It’s been a while.

 

you missed the typhoon that hit the university’s bike, what violence

 

I’ve been away on Friday, joining the Rotary of Kyushu for some more awesome opportunities. I’ll make it short but it was basically a lot of Chinese/Nagasaki food on Friday, with a tour in the Peace Park and the Atomic Bomb Museum (which I’ve finally done), a talk from a survivor (which hurt right in the gut) and a night festival with some awesome locations. We were given the first seats to see dances and all the events associated with the Kunchi matsuri. This is an autumn festival, happening yearly for 380 years, with a lot of performances. It’s hard to describe but it was sure impressive to see and I didn’t use any of my seat privileges since I was too busy sitting on the raw floor in front of the performers to get some nice pictures.

[you’ll get the pictures when i’ll be done going through the 9xx pictures i took…]

We slept in a hotel, in a traditional Japanese room, offering us a beautiful view on Nagasaki. Being in the outside onsen while watching the city was definitely a magic experience. The sunrise and the light waking us up through the window was also largely appreciated.

The whole thing was a bit overshadowed by the fact that my DSLR once more gave up on me. This time for some intern electronic mishaps and the rest of the pictures of the day were taken by phone.

Not that much of a problem because at 9 we were gone to Huis Ten Bosch, a gigantic theme park in the middle of Kyushu.

A theme park about the Netherlands. A freaking park about the Netherlands. With replicas of churches from Utrecht, train stations from Amsterdam and canals everywhere.

The funny thing is that everything is larger than the actual thing in the Netherlands. The canals are wider, the houses bigger with more spaces and the streets seem luxurious when really, the whole thing is covered with bikes ready to drive over you.

 

with the beautiful raincoat

 

To add some reality to the whole theme experience, it was raining that day. And not a little bit. The Rotary being really prepared, each of us got a raincoat and we were ready to walk along the streets. I was with a Rotex (studying in my university and living in my dorm!!) who went to the USA and another one who just came back from exchange from the USA as well. We kind of made it a mission to focus our 4 hours visit on food and we started by getting frozen yoghurt. Later on, we tried every free food sample the park had to offer, and let me tell you, they had a lot.

 

mind you, i only ate one of those and it was enough to make me sick

free sample of castella, Nagasaki’s sponge cake (declined into a dozens of flavours)(tried them all, of course)

we continue the weird tasting with cheese and weird toppings

 

We tried everything. At least I did. I even went overboard and when it was time to hop on the bus back, I felt sick as hell. The good thing is that my intern illness waited for me to arrive home to release the kraken and I suffered long 13 hours of food poisoning. I think I ate something I shouldn’t have and all the sugar/fat I added onto it didn’t help.

 

I woke up on Sunday, and I needed to get up at some point so I did. I ran some errands with my bike and inexorably ended up at the food stalls of the festival. It was the last day and I absolutely wanted to try some of the food they had. Stuff like taiyaki (fish-shaped red bean paste cakes) are only found there and this is some of the stuff I love the most.

 

taiyaki #thegraal

 

So I buckled up my body disagreements (and avoided to tell my mom that no, I didn’t follow a coke and rice diet, but rather a « festival-food based-diet » 24 hours after my food poisoning) and ate some of the stuff I really wanted. No one died in the end and I survived the aftershock pretty well.

I went back to sleep for a dozen of hours and woke up fresh like a flower on Monday morning. Great timing, Monday is a holiday day and the weather finally started to get fresher.

 

It is only 25 degrees in the apartment now in the morning, far from the 33 degrees of last week. Sleeping at night with the window open even felt a bit frisky, which is an appreciated sensation after weeks of Indian summer.

 

 

Autumn is definitely around the corner.

I went for a walk and gifted myself to a lunch outside to a nearby coffee. I then walked some kilometers to the center to try another French cake shop (where I got so much free cake, because the lady was excited that I was French)(and they were all very kind)(and the cakes good) and finally, I joined some friends to the top of Inasayama. It’s a very popular spot in Nagasaki and it took me a good month to finally see it, and oh my, it was so worth it!

The view was amazing and the sunset to die for. These shades of oranges shifting to pink progressively, and the reflection of the sun on the sea and the nearby islands was just a treat for the eyes. The fainting light on the city and the port was also pretty sweet, and overall, it was a nice way to end the day.

like a rainbow

As soon as classes started, I finished all of them today. 8 classes crammed in 3 days, schedule got approved by my university (now waiting for my home university to accept the unchangeable :D) and I am now free!

 

the view from the biggest building of the university (through construction fenses)

How to describe the classes? Most of the classes in English started by the teacher scanning the class and looking terribly disappointed when he eyed a non-Asian person. He then proceeds to let out of his mouth some bitter words: « Do you… speak Japanese? »

We shake our heads.

He sighs.

« Alright… I… I wanted to do the course in Japanese if… if there were only Japanese people… But… okay… I’ll do it in English… I guess… »

Yes. Let’s make a real course in English, and not just write it on paper for the government to be proud of ‘so many Japanese universities offering courses in English’!

The classes in Japanese were way more interesting, the subjects helping: « Gender and Human Rights », « Asian Languages and Cultures » and « European Languages and Cultures » (with in addition a « Dutch Culture », 3 hours per week all in Japanese). It does take quite a big effort to understand because there are a lot of unknown vocabularies and I spent a good deal of time writing it down. But damn, it was interesting. I’m sad the language barrier (may it be for Japanese teachers or Japanese students) is so strong that they have to dumb the content of courses in English. Unfortunately, I have to take the courses because I need the credits, so interesting or not, I’ll take them.

So far, the content of the classes seems alright. Let’s be honest, it’s done the Japanese way. Students show up in class and proceed to gently fall asleep for an hour and a half. No one takes notes, they just stare in front of them while the teacher ignores the rest of the room and talks mindlessly. Once the class is over, students stand up and leave. So does the teacher, and everyone goes to their next class, to do the same thing over. Repeat that 6 times a day, and you have a classical day at university.

Of course, all courses aren’t the same. Dutch Culture is taught by a naturalized Japanese (born Dutch) and he’s doing his classes the Western way. What does it mean? He knows people will lose their attention, and he tries to do something about it. He makes the class interactive, asks questions, makes jokes and he succeeded to hold a class for 3 hours without anyone falling asleep. And damn, it’s a challenge when the class is from 4 to 7 on a Wednesday.

The first course of Gender and Human Rights was taught by a Mongolese-born Chinese, living in Japan (with a flawless, flawless Japanese) and she’s just the most interesting person to listen to. Fair enough, there is a lot of things I don’t understand in detail but I get the main idea, and this makes me very happy. In general, I think I have a total of 8 hours of classes in Japanese. So even though I might not understand all of it, my ears are gonna hear real and (hopefully) interesting Japanese for 8 hours a week. The only challenge is to keep the motivation of catching and writing down the words I don’t know.

And write reports and pass exams. This is the most important part.

Since no one takes notes, I have no pressure taking actual notes during class. Everything is done with handouts. The biggest challenge will be to write something coherent in a limited amount of time. But you know, I don’t want to things in half, so I’ll do my best to keep things serious. After all, I need to deserve the 4-days weekend I built myself for the next 6 months.

School (almost) sorted out, I decided to take my life in my hands and go eat cake. Yes, again some could say. It’s true and the workouts I’ve done so far do not excuse them but I felt like celebrating life for a while there.

 

getting closer to the station

dejima warf

 

I heard about a cafe during the Dutch evening party and I wanted to check it out. Unfortunately, it was closed but I found something else on the side, while the area was completely busy preparing for Kunchi, one of the biggest festival of Nagasaki. It lasts 3 days and it has food stalls everywhere.

Happiness in a bucket.

Angie joined me (German fellow) and we enjoyed some lovely view in front of a sea sunset. My, I want this to be life. Cool atmosphere near the sea with sweet treats and good company.

 

yes, there is a face on that café

The terrace wasn’t really busy and we stayed there for a while, enjoying the surroundings. When the sun set, we walked around the port and I was able to get some cool shots.

 

#losingmytan #no #comeback

I re-discovered the concept of ‘night’ and the amazing feeling it is to walk at night in a T-shirt and shorts, with a slight breeze and not even the slight worry of getting harassed. We were just stopping there and there to take pictures, me trying to get countless long posed shots. Running to get the cruise ferry taking out of the port for its next destination in Asia. I didn’t get a good picture but just to see this giant sea building passing the bridge of Nagasaki is a treat for the eyes and for the heart.

I came back to my dorms by bike and got lost once more in my musical life guided by some « She’s A Rainbow » as always and « Isn’t She Lovely ».

Damn, do I enjoy nights here in Japan. It is worry-free, liberating and it heals the soul a bit. It pushes the anxiety away for some hours and you get a taste of carefreeness.

Ah, youth.

let’s celebrate the okay days

First day of class!

Woke up at 8, made myself some breakfast as well as prepared a little bento box.

10 a.m. and I was gone on my bike. It wasn’t too humid outside and I was just strolling on the sound of the Rolling Stones onto a new day. I arrived and found my way to the tallest building of the campus, a 13-flour structure.

Stepped into one of my fellow Dutch student and we had class together. We entered the room and we gently sat down among the 10 other Asian students. The teacher arrived and seemed surprise to see us. The course is « Japanese-English Contrastive Linguistic » (and yes, it is as amazing as it sounds, so much fun) and it is supposed to be in English. The professor mutters some words and looking at us, ask us if we can speak some Japanese. We shake our heads and he then repeats: do you want the class to be in English?

 

Well, you know, it’s written it’s supposed to be in English. So I’d say, yes? Pretty please?

It’s in a broken English that he gave us the syllabus, all in Japanese. Then he went on to talk about English grammar, translating the sentences into Japanese. I was lost from the beginning to the end. Ditransitive verbs, compound structures and their equivalent in Japanese. The differences between ‘will be’ and ‘will be going to’ translated in Japanese (I tried to guess and I got almost all of them wrong ). We were given papers to translate and after a long stare, the teacher told us to just talk about it. We did it seriously, even though I wasn’t in my element at all. It felt like going back to Junior High School with grammar structures I am unaware of. But not in French, this time it’s in English and Japanese ahah.

Ahah.

 

eyeing the faraway cafeteria bento

 

The class ends and we leave. We sit outside to eat a bit and we’re joined by a Hong Kong exchange student (Kiki!) but unfortunately, I realized that we weren’t really inclusive and spent most of our time talking about how we were screwed if the courses supposed to be in English were already in Japanese…

While we had lunch, the cats of the neighbourhood all got very interested in Kiki’s onigiri and she was a bit startled by them.

We went to check out the gym afterwards because after that we were told that there was no gym in this university, we wanted to see for ourselves. And guess what, there is one! It is legit from the 50s though because the equipment is very old and there are like 3 machines (one of them is broken). I went over each one with my Dutch mate to try to understand what does what. Even though we are going to some stone age period, I’ll give it a try. I wanna get strong a bit and train a bit my upper body (I’m good with the legs, I need to be able to carry something with my arms now!)

So we’ll see how that goes, but I’d be very curious to start and try. We discovered some more stone age work out tools outside and I couldn’t resist to immortalize it.

 

man, working out in nagasaki is like time-travel

 

We went back to the AC building to wait for our next class. This time, this one was crazily full: Peace and Conflicts. A class that really seemed promising. I even found back my German friend Betsy!

The only problem was that the teacher was speaking REALLY slowly and he spent 20 minutes warning the Japanese students that the course was in English in case someone made any mistakes and that they should change if they have any difficulty. Damn, it starts well when a teacher goes like « you can still change uh ». (we were also tempted to play a game and take a shot every time he pronounced the word English. We would have been dead drunk on the 3rd minute)

Followed 90 minutes of rumbling about three-dimensional relationships, cooperative, aggressive and business (hello randomness). The class ended with a dozen of people asleep and international students joking about many things (I am shamefully included in that)(there’s like 30 seconds break between each word of the lecturer, so I wasn’t missing anything)

After the class, I quickly ran home with my bike to put my stuff away and I went out again, with my loyal headphones and a fiery sky.

I was invited to a dinner to celebrate a Dutch celebration that happens every 3 October in Leiden, and we were kind of celebrating from afar with all the Dutch of Nagasaki (and me). On the way, I couldn’t help but stop to take some pictures. Damn, it was pretty.

 

even caught a tiny rainbow in the sky

 

At the Izakaya, I met back with Evelien (the Dutch girl I left with), Jim (he’s doing Japanese studies in Leiden and he’s on exchange), Yamashita (Dutch professor) as well as a couple (Jessica and Ron) installed in Nagasaki since May and another professor and his wife who I haven’t caught the name.

I arrived a bit late because I had to run to the station to withdraw some money, and found my seat on the opposite of the other students. I was then next to Jessica, Ron and this professor’s wife, and it was pretty nice!

Jessica and Ron were the kindest people and damn, I found so much helpfulness tonight! I got a lot of recommendations of nice places to go with my mom, or by myself (real coffee place!), great career advice in general and some inspiring thoughts in general. We also had some great food, Izakaya style, with many dishes arriving on the table through the evening. Chicken on stick, kara-age, sashimi, salads, sake, ume-shu (I’m in love with it now) etc… I left the evening with a smile, happy to hop back on my bike for a 30mn ride in a cool night with great soundtrack to accompany me.

I’m a bit sad it took me to be 10 000km away to appreciate a bit Dutch culture. But it feels like in such a different country, it’s the closest you can get to home and you just go with the flow more easily. Maybe the Netherlands is also so close to France that the comparison happens very fast and critics can be harsh. But it was nice to talk about how we missed bread and cheese, even though we do not have the same conception of it, we all cannot find the things we want here.

I think I don’t really miss French food anymore. Of course, I’d love some raclette at any time but I have learnt to go with what’s around and in the worst of case, I have been blessed with two hands and I can cook for myself. Won’t be as good and I’ll mess it up sometimes, but it’s a good way to avoid homesickness and get busy by recreating the tastes you miss. A funny thing is that no matter what I cook, my roommates ask me if it’s French. For my 4th year abroad, the only way I can describe my cooking is ‘it’s international’. I mix soy sauce with curry powder, add some garlic powder and nutmeg in there. No heavy cream or butter (I’m not too into that anymore) but some olive oil to recreate the Mediterranean diet and I’m looking forward discovering some more culinary tools from other countries of Asia. I want to taste kimchi, I want to taste the Taiwanese gyoza and all that. I have many more flavours to discover!

Thus conclude the day, on a sweet breeze of the wind at night, feeling powerful and carefree as ever.

With the advice I was given, I want to invest into a camera that I can take video with. Recently, I was asked to give permission to use a part of a timelapse I’ve done to German TV and I want to get more serious with it. I want to experiment and make good use of the money I received. I am still thinking about what to get and where to get used cameras that fit into my budget so it is a process but it is really occupying my mind. I want to get better and do more!

 

Motivation kicked back and I am so happy. The stress is still looming back  there but it’s not on the spotlight anymore and I’ll try to make it last 😉