Posts

Hamamatsu weekend

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Hi! This post was to be the second-last post of this blog, but instead this will actually be first of a few posts I will make about the last few weeks. Still, there's already less than two weeks left of the journey, and looking at my statistics, once in 2-3 weeks exactly how fast I should be expected to squeeze out one last post. Yet, it seems like I will try to do several in a few days. You'd think I would know my own capabilities better at this point, and act according to them... Speaking of capabilities, you might remember how in the very first post I was claiming to begin a quest to do my best to flood my social media with stuff, just to see what it feels like. As a result, I now know that I either am not efficient enough at it or I'm just too nit-picky - the few Instagram posts and Snapchat stories I managed were stressful and fatiguing to produce. I'm sure I could get better at it and learn to be much more photogenic and easygoing about posting pictures of mys...
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Summer Vacation and two weeks of normal life

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Hi! Only a month left of the trip, and I've hardly noticed time passing. I think a big part of it is because of how evenly my weeks float by here - it's been over three years since I had this steady weekly schedule for this long. (Last time was when I drove a taxi 60h a week before starting my studies.) On top of that, everything has been running pretty smoothly after the the initial sick days and after getting used to the apartment and daily life in it. Speaking of which, I think I've yet to describe the looks of the apartment in any way! I'm aftraid though that house tour in the apartments current state is impossible, because of, well, the carnage that are my living conditions when let go unchecked by anyone else. I do set things in order about once in a week, but it's just too easy to get comfortable with things in inconvenient places with so little possessions and so much space. Because space there is, just a bit too much. It's only a one room apartment ...
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Enjoying work, A Jog, and finally some tourism

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Hello! Two weeks have gone by in a flash, and while things could be more active and productive for me, life is starting to set to a regular rhythm. The weekend two weeks ago, after the earlier post, I spent in Tokyo with friends Matias and Tobias from Slush, from my work back at Finland. We ended up going to the same restaurant I went with Lauri two weeks prior, and it just as much a blast as it was the first time. This was Matias' and Tobbes' first time eating at an izakaya, a traditional japanese pub/restaurant thingy, and I was glad that I could introduce it to them. I'm still thinking of doing this big write up of Japanese food and restaurant culture as far as I'm familiar with it, but long story short, izakayas are the place where a local salaryman goes with their friends after a day at work, either for a few beers and some snacks or a party with all kinds of Japanese food and an all-you-can-drink deal (for two hours, at least). In the izakaya culture food is a...
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Loneliness, communication, and karaoke

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Hello! I'm keeping up my old habit of quickly slowing down my pace of posting after the rush of the arrival, but let's keep these coming anyways. I might've said last time that there isn't that much to do that I wouldn't have time to write more soon, aaand I guess lounging around and relaxing in my empty, lonely flat counts as doing something...? Last week's work wasn't much to mention about, as it probably won't be in the future either. It's not just because I'm not allowed to talk about it's details, it's more because I don't really find even the nature of the work assignments (which I should be able to talk about) that interesting: I'm reading and rewriting someone else's code, I'm drawing flowcharts, I'm writing tests for the code, that's mostly it. I'm quite convinced that I'm not going to be doing this for the work, as much as the work experience is very welcome, but for the people, the work cultu...
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Live, well, and moving ahead!

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Heya! Last four days have been great, and much thanks for it goes to the fact that I did beat that cold! I got to work on last Friday again, and while the air conditioning still bugs my drying eyes and nose, I'm managing with it and getting work done. There's not much to say about work, though: Friday was mostly setting up my work environment, and today on Monday I got to refactor some of the clients code - a task that seems to be the main one for the time being. Thankfully, the code is well readable, even though I'm using Google Translate to deal with the Japanese comments on the code, but it's at least interesting for now, and a good way to learn the software anyway. On Friday, there's another party / after work brought together by someone from our division, so that's again something to look forward to. Most of the people at the office don't speak much English, but at lunches and the after works most have been interested in doing their best and trying,...
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Sick!

When I was on Tuesday already well on my way to the big four hour meeting that would start the project, I caught a cold. I'm not sure if I had fever or not, but since I didn't want to miss the meeting, and I was so far from home anyway, I struggled through the meeting (though I made it clear that I'm not exactly feeling well) and went back with the others afterwards (the party/after works that was planned was postponed to the next meeting that we would have in two weeks time). I made it home, went home after a quick dinner, and slept for some 15 hours, only waking up in between to report to my colleague that I indeed wasn't in working health. It must've been some combination of jet lag, exposure to new environment and it's germs as well as strong air conditioning and too little clothing that brought this on me. Either way, I've spent the last two days under covers, resting and taking it easy. I feel pretty OK at the moment, and I have high hopes that I...
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First day in the office

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So today was the first day at the office. I'd love to post pictures of the indoors, but the paper I signed on Friday told me not to take any pictures from the inside of the office without explicit permission. I didn't bother asking yet, but I'll do my best to describe it! The office is an open one, and it's big. In one floor (4 in total), there are about 10 lines of tables, and on each line about 10-15 people. Each division sits next to each other, mostly in same lines. The chiefs of the divisions sit at the end of the lines with their own tables, away from the line, facing down it. Though I'm not sure if were talking division chiefs here, or something else. I don't really know that much about the company structure anyway. Just that the people working on same things sit together, like I sit with my colleagues. The day went smoothly enough, thought I must say that these first days in a job are surely the dullest. All of the day was spent on troubleshooting ...
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