Math: Not even Once!

Captains log, 25/07/2014, 21:00, Friday

I have now written ten pages of my final research report. Ten pages of dense mathematics. I have not yet added any figures or graphs or tables. It's all math. Ten pages.

I have written four theorems. Since I don't trust my proofs, I call them Propositions. I also wrote a Statement, and am working on several in-depth analyses. There is an introduction, and a section detailing the background of the work. A one-page bibliography in an appendix. The part with the problem description worries me; it is still very much incomplete.

I still need to draft my conclusion and suggest future works. There are several points that need discussion. I need to double triple quadruple check proofs, and clean up the consistency in the notation.

I have written ten pages of formulae, analysis, discussion and description.

There is still very much left to do.

More Than Sushi: A Collection of Cafeteria Noodle

Because I'm shot in the head and don't feel like sleeping (because it would mean waking up and having to work more), I bring you: A collection of caffeteria noodle-food.

The counter is clearly marked, and I think it looks happy. I kinda wish it had an exclamation point. Anyways, you know that here you can get at least one...

NOODLE!

Yeah yeah I know plural is hard. I give the world permission to laugh at my Japanese so long as I have a leave to giggle at its English.

Ramen is, of course, a classic.

The cafeteria ramen is pretty decent. A little greasy, as you can probably see. The first thing you have to learn is that ramen is not healthy. It is a pure grease-juice of concentrated flavour. The second thing; it's all about the soup. The noodles are important, sure, but the soup... it's what holds all those delicious calories. That soup could power a small fighter jet.

And yeah. You're also supposed to SLUUUUUUUUURRRRRPPPPPPP the noodles. Making a completely awsome ammount of NOISE. OhmyGÜTENBERG you have no idea of the sheer volume of slurpy-sound a couple-hundred Japanese students make when they're all eating this at the cafeteria lunch-rush. I know it's the culture here, and I know I should embrace it. But I can't help myself. I still find it obnoxious as shit.

In the realm of healthier options, we have

As far as I know, soba-noodles are one of the healthier types.

the cold seaweed egg ham cucumber soba salad with sauce. All the girls eat this. I suppose that means it's healthy. Doesn't matter, had food.

And it was pretty good, too.

The third one is also a noodle-food, I promise.

Udon are worms. Big fat squishy slimy noodle worms.

There's just a lot of stuff on top.

The noodles beneath are of the udon-variety; really really thick wormy slightly slimy things that for some reason I actually do like. They are weird as all hells, but still...

This is udon salad. It has a delicious sauce at the bottom, and of course a bit of seaweed. On top is a classic onsen tamago (hot spring egg): slow boiled at a low temperature (63-ish degrees, I think), which cooks the egg-white and keeps the yolk liquid.

There are countless other noodle dishes in Japan. I eat noodle so often I can't even noodle what noodle I noodle anymore. Noodle.

Just smart enough to survive (but still pretty goddamn stupid)

I take a break from apartment-hunting to bring you a tale of stupidity.

So, I didn't know that today was a holiday, and went to lab as usual totally unaware. "Huh, weird that the gate is closed. And the train seems less crowded than usual", thought I. Arriving at campus only to find that my building was locked, and that my ID card was not enough to open it. No trust for the international students, I suppose. I've heard that you can get access by going to some office and doing some paper something, but I'd never bothered. That was Stupid #1.

I wondered what to do; after all, I'd come all the way out here. If nothing else, it would be a shame to waste the commuting money. After some consideration I decided to lurk outside the building for a while in case I'd get lucky. And shortly, I did.

Some guys came out, and I slunk in like a thief in broad daylight. Politeness really is a major security threat! Even though this wasn't very smart, I count it as Smart #1.

Of course, I realised that I couldn't leave the building, because then I'd have no way to get back in. Yay vending machine food-day for me.

After some hours of work, I felt my stomach complaining. I grabbed my bag and went all the way down to the first floor before I realized that my wallet was on my desk, as I'd needed an ID for something earlier. I count this as Stupid #2, and you'll soon know why.

Fixing this will not count as a Smart, it was too easy. But when I got back upstairs, I put the wallet back on my desk.

Seven thousand hours later, I grabbed my bag to go home, Totoro-shaped IC commuter card holder dangling. Going to grab a late dinner and some snacks at my local 7eleven, but of course my wallet was still at my desk. I'd forgotten it for the second time. This is Stupid #3, #4 and #5.

I had 100yen in a pocket, so I bought an onigiri to munch. But unfortunately for me, money is not the only thing I keep in my wallet.

So I had no key. Okay.

I could go back to the lab again (yo). But no, my IC card was almost depleted, so I actually couldn't afford it. And since it was getting late I wouldn't be able to get back in anyway. There would likely not be many people there for me to luckily utilize on their way in or out.

I could only make my dejected way home (a student on a bicycle was going out through the campus gate as I was going in, so I didn't have to climb it) and hope against hope that there would be staff in the lobby, even on a Holiday Evening. But if there were, would they let me in?

The door-sign said "Closed". Fuck. But I knocked anyway. And lo, there was the staff-man. In half-English half-Japanese I explained the situation, and when he asked for ID I triumphantly brought my glorious shiny red indispensible amazing thank-god-I-had-it-or-I-wouldn't-even Passport out of the secret room in my bag where I always always keep it.

Holy. Crap.

I am seriously.

Always keep your passport handy.

This is Smart #2 through 40.

Now I'm just sitting here seriously hoping that my wallet really is safe on my desk like I think it is. I have most of my really important stuff at home, but I really don't have time to replace my registration card right now. Something tells me that would be a bitch.

I need advice, and it's urgent

My Hunt for a new Home has been narrowed down to two options, and I need to decide ASAP.

Like, today.

The decision is the classic Location vs Standard. 

Number 1: The urban hidey-hole

A small room in an old-ish small share-house in an extremely convenient location.

• Cool, interestingly shaped room on the top floor (4th or 5th, I think) with a wide window-sill (wide enough for sitting, which I love).
• Full carpet floor, which I don't really like. But I could live with it.
• 6 people share house, company policy is no dudes allowed (not even male visitors! If you have men helping you move your furniture they seriously asked that you call in advance!!)
• Cute little shared kitchen, cute little retro-style shared living area with a couple of cute little couches and a television. When I came in on my visit a lady was watching Frozen.
• Cute little shared bathroom. 
• 3min walk to subway station, and no transfers to get to work! Seriously, you have no idea what kind of extravagant luxury that is, especially when your job is in inaccesible-yet-ridiculously-expensive Hiro-o.
• Really close to supermarket, convenience store, drug store, restaurants, izakaya, cafes etc...
• Seriously, the location is fantastic. About half-way between Tokyo station and Akihabara, which means walking distance to both. Quite close to a riverside park, or if I get bored of sumida river I could just walk the other way to the really, really big public access part of the imperial gardens. With the nearby train connections I could easily get to anywhere in Tokyo within 40 minutes to an hour.
• The house itself is in a back-alley type place, so it seems very quiet. No real view.
• Kindof expensive.

Number 2: The Industrial Luxury Palace

Okay, it's not really a palace. But it is a large scale share house with a lot of luxurious features. Only problem is, it's not even really technically in Tokyo.

• Giant 50 person share house extravaganza
• Large, square, totally ordinary room comes with complimentary fridge for my beer.
• Common area made to be like a cafe/bar looks really cool and cosy and includes a drink mixer. Apparently the bar alcohol stash is a shared responsability: use freely, but replace. Since this is Japan, I actually think that arrangment will work, too.
• Said cafe offers FREE COFFEE AND FRESH PASTRIES IN THE MORNING!
• Rooftop tanning beds and general open-air lounge.
• Lounge for reading and whatnot. Pouffes in stead of sofas are a turn-off.
• A Japanese-style tatami dining room with veranda-garden.
• Giant industrial-like kitchen with professional appliances.
• A small fitness room
• A MUSIC ROOM. With an electronic DRUM SET and a PIANO. Dude, that shit is like me in a box!
• The whole thing has a kind of institution-like air though. Racks and racks of shoe-boxes, toilets in stalls and shared bathrooms (not mixed).
• The location is terrible. Miyazakidai is half an hour from Shibuya in the direction of Yokohama, and I'll need at least 40 minutes and three transfers to get to work. めんどくさいよ！
• I want to go anywhere in Tokyo I have to add inter-city travel to the initial distance to Shibuya. Not very accessible at all.
• I also don't think the area itself has much to offer in terms of shops, restaurants, supermarkets etc. In other words, it's kind of boring.
• In spite of all the perks, this place is a bit cheaper than the other one. Location really does count for a lot!

Both places have cleaning staff taking care of the common areas. Sweeeeeet I hate cleaning! xD

PLEASE HELP ME decide! If I want the first one I have to sign the contract really really soon. I've seen those places go off the market superfast, so I need to grab it.

I'm dying here! 0.o

Turbulence

So my situation at the moment is this:

I'm preparing to exit todai. That means I have a bunch of courses to wrap up, which means a bunch of assignments for which the assesment criteria are completetly foreign to me. (For the record, I also have very little knowledge about how to collect my alleged "credits" at the end of it all). At the same time I need to wrap up my research activity, where all I can really say is that "Hey, I read a lot, and have this kinda plan of this thing I'd like to both check out and improve, because I pretty much know it won't work but it's a starting point so yeah thanks for the fish and I'm out." Somehow I've got to make both a scientific report and a presentation out of this during the course of next week.

I also have to move house, because a non-todai student cannot keep staying in a todai dorm. This means that I have no idea where I'll be living a month from now, and I'll be spending a large ammount of time next week visiting various appartments and share houses trying to make all the hard desicions that need to be made.

I've also got my family visiting in about two weeks. I'll spend a fortnight traveling Japan with them, which is totally awsome, but since I've planned the entire trip I'm completely terrified that I might have forgotten a night of lodging or ordered a train on the wrong day or something.

I'm also terribly dressed for the occasion. The climate has gotten pretty tropical, and my wardrobe of summer clothes is lacking at best. I've tried to go shopping in Japan but I just keep failing to find anything that will fit my awkwardly European frame. So I sweat around in jeans when it's 30 degrees (Celsius, duh) and 90% humidity, and on top of everything I don't even have the privilege of feeling stylish.

What I'm trying to say is that I'm really, really restless. My life is about to change a lot again soon, and I can't say if it makes me more excited or terrified. Terrcited? Excitified? I'm dealing with it mainly by focusing every bit of concentration on the remaining loose ends (of which there are /a looooooooot/) and trying very hard not to succumb to what will either be a never-ending fit of giggles or a serious panic attack.

The main life lesson here is that change is hard and scary, and I don't really know how to deal with it. The best I can do is to keep trying really hard, and write a metric shit-ton of to-do lists.

Preparing to namedrop, and More Than Sushi - The first installment of the long-unawaited sub-series about food

Finally, after untold hours of scrounging the internet, I've found a room in Ikebukuro that seem to be just exactly what I'm looking for. And it's available from August 15th, which is almost too perfect to believe. Now I just have to make sure these people rent it out to me, and not some other gal...

In other words, I'm getting ready to shamelessly namedrop Tokyo University and the Royal Norwegian Embassy like a true butt-licker. If that doesn't work, I'll offer to give English lessons to somebodys grandchildren or something. THESE PEOPLE WANT ME AS THEIR TENNANT, and I will make them know it! ヽ༼ ಠ益ಠ ༽ﾉ

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In other news, I've been working myself silly lately trying to tie up lose ends before I say bayh-bayh to the Toh-Dai. I can't believe I only have two weeks left here! Shit, I have... really mixed feelings about that.

When I have more time I'll go on a long rant about all the things about being an exchange student here that I'm going to work on improving while I work at the embassy, but in the mean time (since it's late and people will come to check my fire alarm tomorrow which means that I really should at least take out the 500 empty pepsi cans I've accumulated, and possibly vacuum clean just a littlebit), I present to you:

More Than Sushi

Your irregularly updated and poorly researched guide to Japanese food that is not vinegared rice with various toppings

Basically, just pictures of some stuff I've eaten. I've been planning this for a while, which means I've accumulated a good ammount of dishes for my lazy blogging pleasure.

Let's start wiiiiiith.... LUNCH!

This particular lunch was one I had on a training-day at the embassy, so it's a tad classier than my usual cafeteria-fare.

So this, as far as I understand, is a fairly typical Japanese set-meal. It generally always contains miso soup and a bowl of rice, and then some combination of mains and veggies (usually pickled, in my limited experience). In this case we see my friend the umeboshi making a guest appearance. 

Point 1: this is black-belt level chopsticking right here. See that fried fish? Yeah, it's on the bone. And you pick the meat off wiiiith ya'chopsticks. Suffice to say I struggled. And the natives only laughed at my predicament.

Point 2: Yes that is a raw egg on my rice. The Japanese love it, and I kinda dig it too no matter how much it makes Gordon Ramseys blood vessels pop in fear and rage. Japan (apparently) has very strict laws for poultry production, and since everyone eats raw egg all the time and most people survive it just fine, I'm jumping on egg-train. Besides, the hot rice mostly cooks the thing anyway.

Point 2.5: Actually, this particular eatery has a specialty. What is it? Your lunch comes with all you can eat raw egg. Take that, Gordon Ramsey!

Point 2.75: You can actually find chicken sashimi here. Real, bona-fide RAAAAAW CHICKKKIIIIIIN!!!!