Tuesday, September 11, 2007

How to sum-up a year in Japan? (Part 1)

Well, I've been meaning to write some sort of summary for a long time.... maybe 2 months, in fact. Often I find myself only writing when I really don't have time for it, when I should be doing other things (like right now I'm in my school's computer lab and I really should be finishing Japanese homework...). But I found this and I feel it does give a pretty actuate protrait of some the aspects of being at Waseda's SILS (School of International Liberal Studies). I just hope that I was less apathetic and more motivated that many that I had met there.

The list, taken from "You know you when to SILS if..."
-you speak a hybrid language. e.g. "i'm so fucking hungry dayo!!"
-although you technically go to school in nishi-waseda campus, you don't really go "inside" the campus that often.
-statistics is your worst enemy.
-you confuse people from other departments by using the word "sils" profusely in daily conversations.
-you often forget english is supposed to be a foreign language in japan.
-you think...no, you know 留学センターis stupid.
-you spent half your freshman year first semester in building 19's lounge.
-however, when you become older and cooler you tend to forget that you too used to spend time in 19's lounge.
-in open college classes you and your friends are the loudest... and coolest, in your opinion.
-you don't know half your friends' surnames.
-when stuck in a conversation with nothing to say, you ask people where they want to/are planning to/have gone to study abroad.
-you can't speak your mother tongue properly.
-your non-japanese friends speak better japanese than the japanese ones.
-you say hi to at least five people walking the slope between 19 and 22 for your next class.
- you meet most of your friends and professors at HUB in Takatanobaba.
- you feel cool and fab dressing up for Tanabatas and Halloween.
-you know that SILS office staff are useless.
-your decision on which course to take depends on the professors' english skills.
-you ask for chewing gum as if everyone has it everywhere.
-you wear weird clothing and freak out people in side the waseda gate, who all wear the same clothing.
-you wear scanty clothing and show lots of your skin (and fat).
-you think that bldg. 22 PC room is for sils students, therefore you feel pissed when other department people are dominating the place and there's no room for you to kill time on facebook.
- you have to think about 3 seconds and then reply when people asked, where did you come from?
- you lived in more than one country before.. and if you didn't, your friends think you should be in museum.
- your facebook wall has english and japlish eg. kyo wa tanoshikatta yo neeee. all over.
-you are out partying almost every friday.
- you said SILS all over and expect other people to understand what it stands for.

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