Salaariman Tapir

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...

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,...

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...

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 ...

Heya! The 3rd full day of the trip is at it's end now, and thanks to staying with the family of a FST employee, I've already experienced many interesting things of Japanese daily life - or at least, the daily life of this family. What I haven't experienced, though, is a clear mind and proper rest, as jet lag is still affecting me badly. I'm hoping to get some good sleep this night, so I might leave some things out of this post or tell only a part of them, and tell them in length on a later™ date. My arrival to Narita Airport went without much of hassle, and I was only asked the most simple questions of my internship. From there, I took the Narita Express train for an hour to Shinogawa, where I changed to the Shinkansen bullet train and traveled a few stops, another hour, to Shin-Yokohama. This is the city where the main branch of Fujitsu Software Technologies resides, and there I got to meet the two people who had done the work behind my internship. The day consiste...