For a lot of people, the word "sushi" summons the image of a slice of fish or shrimp placed on a lump of rice. Yet in Japan I've learned of another type of sushi, the Chirashi.
With the chirashi zushi the seafood toppings (shrimp, fish eggs, salmon, tune.. etc) are scattered on top of a dish (or bowl) of seasoned rice (instead of a single lump of the Nigiri zushi).
Since its probably easier to make, the Chirashi zushi is the cheaper kind of sushi you can get in supermarkets. In case you are wondering, yes, they actually sell sushi in supermarkets here in Japan.
At around 8 pm supermarket sushi is discounted 30%~50% off, making it an affordable luxury for college students such as yours truly.
The picture up there here is the actual the chirashi I had for my ifthar (breakfast) today, and purchased for a humble 360 yen. Its not a common meal for breakfast but I'd say Its pretty awesome.
Ulfes, short for the Ultraman Festival, is an annual event in Tokyo where fans get to meet the warriors of light from the planet M-78. This year is the 20th festival and is the first one I've been to. I wanted to go there before ramadhan starts and get my kohai to come with me this time (Thanks AL for coming a long).
Whats to see? a meet ultraman corner, the gallery of monsters, film sets, illustration corner, arts and craft corner, live stage, and of course the ultra store where they sell loads of ultraman goods.
Ultraman is one of those movies from childhood that I couldn't really become a fan since a lot of the things from the movie gets lost in translation (I think). Coming to the event I was amazed at how creative and detailed the movie set and monsters are. Not surprisingly, there's actually more ultramen than those I've seen on TV (36).
If you happen to in Tokyo this summer, the festival is held in "Sunshine city" mall complex at the Bunka Kaikan 4th floor. The event is great if you have kids, and even if you don't its still a lot of fun. I'm not a big fan of the ultras but at the festival I had so much fun. Be sure to reserve tickets for the live stage and cheer for Utraman Mebius in his battle against Belial.
******** Ultraman Festival 2010, July 23rd to August 29th, Opens 10:00-17:00 Ikebukuro sunshince city Bunka kaikan 4F hall B
A while back, I used to work part time at an English school in Shinjuku and coming home from work I always took the time to visit Kinokuniya and just read books on the spot. So I was elated that I can now save some money to buy more books and fill the gaps I have on my bookshelf.
I like to wonder to the non-fiction section in Kinokuniya and thats where I picked up "Cooked" about a week ago. Reading about someones life (if its done thoughtfully) will teach you a lot about life and tend to make you reflect on your own life.
This is the life story of Jeff Henderson who is the head chef at the Bellagio restaurant in, one of Las Vegas's finest restaurant.
Interestingly -as the cover will suggest- cheff Jeff was once a troubled youth. In his teens he stole cars, sold pot, and later dealed crack cocaine from his mothers flat in San Diego.
I'm trying not to give too much of the story away but I can say that half of the book is about his life in crime and the latter half is his story of awakening, finding his dream and his road to success. It speaks volumes on how hard work and determination is essential in any line of work.
For me, its fascinating how smooth Jeff the drug dealer works and how he well he had once managed his business (he was only a highschool graduate) . Surpringly, he finds that the people in the culinary world are much tougher and -because of his background- don't trust him so easily. Cooking professionally is in fact a very challenging job and getting to that position takes a lot of hard work and street smarts as well.
So I'm giving this 4 stars, for the description of the 2 very different worlds he lived in and for his inspiring determination to pursue his dream.
When the first plastic toys came to Japan from the states, It took the toy industry by storm. Plastic toys looked great, is easily molded into any shape with accuracy and also easier to replicate using molds.
This came as a big blow for Shunsaku-san, the owner of a wood based toy industry in Shizuoka. With plastic toys on the market, wooden model toys seemed altogether obsolete.
Fortunately he didn't give up there. He embraced this invention, learned new production techniques, invested in new machinery and began finding people trained in the art of plastic moulding.
The decision to go into plastic was very difficult on the company, and was very challenging. In fact, the company started as a saw mill so wood was the core of their business. Yet Shunsaku-san decided to move forward and innovate. With that he avoided bankruptcy and eventually led his toy company into becoming one of the worlds most respected and beloved toymaker: TAMIYA.
Sometimes we fear change, to move into the unknown. But if we realize that what we know and who we are is not enough, to change is in fact, the right thing to do.
Inspired by the work of Shunsaku TAMIYA "Master Modeler: Creating the Tamiya Style"
Continuing to graduate school (when feasible) is better than starting work right after graduation. For starters (as most of my friends can attest to) school at any level is less stressful than work. With graduate school, someone will acquire knowledge and skills that gives them a better chance of employment. It also gives you a better perspective on the world that makes you stand out from the rest for I can testify that graduate students are people endowed with academic prowess and also amazing willpower.
In today’s employment condition a post graduate degree will give you an edge compared to fresh graduates. Graduate students are more knowledgeable and already have skills and advanced techniques in certain areas and this is an advantage for companies as they will spend less time and resources for the training of new employees.
Another point Id like to make is that graduate students have better communication skills. Since graduate students have more presentation experience at conferences and such and they appear more confidence in talks and have some depth to their arguments. Furthermore, with their research abilities, their analytical skills are sharpened and thus become an asset to any organization.
However, graduate school isn't for everybody. As you can guess, it often costs more than undergraduate and put a greater emphasis on research (which is, imho, the part of university that is most unpleasant). That explains why most graduate students are often those on scholarship and/or with a grant from their workplace. Lots of researchers and lecturers (who are already the brightest minds out there) admitted to spending years applying for a scholarship abroad. Certainly this not just for intelligent but also the very lucky of the lot.
Admittedly in favor of the graduate school experience, I wrote this up is for me and my friends graduate student friends out there. Cause things can be tough for us grads too. Outsiders only see the nice things we get from grad school, living abroad, learning new languages, scholarship money.
Yet on the other hand a lot of them don't understand all the hardship we go through to survive here. The pressure from our professors, living expenses, competition from local students, the loneliness, the culture differences we feel can really get you worked up. So its once in a while there will be envy to our working friends and off course a longing for the life we left back home.
Seeing my friends work corporate jobs, get married, and become parents while I'm still here struggling to understand gas chromatography is starting to get to me lately. Yet in return I bet a lot of them would love to leave all that work, stressful commute, and family problems to trade places with me and be school again. We always want the things we don't have.
* Currently overwhelmed with the the demands of new semester (2nd year of phD).
Yui's new song is quite the popular song of this summer. Unmistakebly marketed for teens, its cheerful with a catchy chorus, mildly fast tempo, and a cute vid.
The song doesnt say much just what most people would in the summer.
Natsu wa kuru kara, umi ni ikitain da.. (now that summers here, i longed for the sea)
Interestingly, in a recent poll on young people (Count down tv program) Yui has just been voted number 1 as "The artist I want as a girlfriend" poll. At number 2 is Kaori Mochida, while number 3 is Ayumi Hamasaki
Looking at the rest of the list though It might be kind of surprising. Shes not the most beautiful but she excudes a natural warmth that (a lot of) guys would go for. She looks like a fun person.
The Tokyo pier fireworks is one of the city's biggest summer attraction. I remember the last time I went here 2 years ago with my next door neighbour Iwan. We were suppose to meet up with another friend, but because there so many people there it we couldn't find each other.
This particular fireworks display is quite popular because of its location and is televised. When we got there, the beach was crammed with people yet everyone was in good spirits. Men and women clad in Yukata, groups of friends, families and couples all seated on their blue tarps. Then at 7.15 the all eyes look up as the fireworks light up the Tokyo bay.
One of my best times in Japan is those spent on the summer camp. Every year I participate in the ESC camp in NASU and actually I just came back from the camp last friday. For me camp is a chance to revisit my childhood, get out of Tokyo, eat good food, and get in touch with nature. Its really refreshing to hangout with kids all day, teach them the Saman dance, and (somehow) get them to speak English to me.
Actually I wasnt a very nature-loving person back home, and camping/hiking was never a part of me in Indonesia. However while I was in Japan I climbed mount Fuji(1x), Takao (2x), and Chausu Dake (5x), this of course have a lot to do with my mom not being around. I find myself very satisfied when I got on a Chausu dake (1900m) looking down on Tochigi prefecture from up high. Another thing I like is screaming at the top of my lungs to get an echo, its just the thing to take away the stress!!
For this year I got the chance to come to two rounds (3 and 9). I was at Round 3 as a sub-leader where I had to help of captains with difficult kids and be an MC for the evening programs. I find that doing MC in camp is good fun as the crowd is very friendly.
The thing I like the most about being an camp MC is doing the World Wide Web tongue twister. In this activity the crowd is divided into 3 where each is assigned to one word: World, Wide or Web. With the point of my finger a group would say the word theyre assigned to. This is made interesting by going faster, slower, alternating the groups and doing sudden stops. Its like being a conductor and in a way I feel like I have the campers at my fingers. Its a lot of fun for the campers and it gives you a very powerful feeling.
Camp has always been the highlight of my summer and its always sad walking away from the bus and into my lonely room. I hope I'll be able to come to next year's camp and get the kids acquainted with Indonesia. Ah well, till next year..
Sasha baron cohen has got to be the sickest comedians out there. This is an old talkshow he did where he interviewed David and Victoria beckham. You can see that he's got a way sith words and is down right clever roping in victoria into his joke.
Though a lot would say that this is offending (and rude!), but in the end I think they had fun and they already knew whats coming to them during the show.
Although the TOEFL is the more recognized standard for English proficiency,
the Japanese appears to chose instead the the TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication) as a standard. Though a lot of us here are quite aware of the good old TOEFL, the TOEIC is like its close relative born in Japan. I suspect though if not for the TOEIC the Japanese would probably throw the towel on english. A recent survey showed that its english proficiency is ranked at 140 of 150 countries.
Don't get me wrong though, the Japanese are keen at english and actually half of the worlds TOEFL takers are Japanese. Their score however, is second from the bottom. Slightly better than the socialist republic of North Korea.
The TOEIC test is 2 hours long and is 200 questions. Half is on the listening, the other on the reading section. The average satisfactory level is 500 points from the maximum of 990 points. A TOEIC score of 500 and up would let you in graduate school and a 700 means that your English is enough for a transfer to the company branch in New York.
There are two things I would like to point out here. First, the TOEIC is a standard that is achievable for the average non-native person. As most of the Indonesian students here scored over 900 on the TOEIC even though they reached an average 500 (70%) on the TOEFL. Therefore, I predicted that Indonesians would get an average of 700. All that TV and americanization wasn't so bad after all. Second, this would give good results on the overall self confidence of the test takers. I know of a particular japanese person that is very "proud" of his 700+ TOEIC score. With that kind of score this person had the confidence to speak in English and believe that he was speaking "Good English".
As naive it may seem, I think this is a wonderful thing. With that kind of confidence, one would have the desire to get better and try to speak English when needed. Personally, I think Indonesians should adopt this standard as well. The TOEIC is easier to succeed in, and I am sure that Indonesians would do better than the Japanese if not the other Asian countries. This way we would have the pride that we are actually better in English when compared to this particularly proud country.
Change is good, change is scarry, but change is opportunity. After 3 years in the same lab, I think Im lucky to come to this lab and become a part of this wonderfull, intelligent, bunch of people.
My folks came all the way from sunny Jakarta to attend the graduation ceremony in Tokyo. They were here about a week and I had the chance of showing them around Tokyo (when the weather was nice). It was interesting to know that my parents don't just believe me as a guide even though I actually have lived in Tokyo for 3years+.
Still, I'm glad that they came, and now I miss them even more
No im not a Metallica fan and this post isn't about that at all, Its just that I just cant seem to think of myself having the title Master of Engineering.
I honestly have this feeling that I dont deserve this title. The thing is, 2 years of Masters in Japan means 2 years of research. Not that I didnt take any classess, I did like 20 credits that was required of me. Twenty credits, which, If youve been to college, is a semester right?
The thought came to me just aftert my thesis defence. Was that it? Thats all I had to do to get a masters degree from Japan. I'm not the only person who thinks like this, in fact a lot of my friends feel the same, even after a pHD. I kinda wish there was a way for me to know if I really deserve it, I feel that I haven't gained knowledge worthy of a Master's degree.
Malcolm Forbes said that an expert would be "someone who doesn't admit out loud that he knows enough about a subject to know he doesn't really know how much". With that in mind I hope I would be knowledgable on my subject (if not by very little).
So for now I think its best to stay happy, after all, I do have another 3 years of more schooling (research) ahead of me. That means I have another 3 years to increase my capacity in my field of study. Hopefully this time I'll learn more and end up having a better sense of knowledge in this particular field.
Well, I didnt thought I would ever get to posting here. I had recently started thinking about the monogatari again and just realized that I havent been posting for ages.
If you were wondering what happened to me, heres the past 5 months in short. I finished my thesis, presented it and defended it in Japanese. Then I applied and got accepted to a pHD program with a different professor (thank god for that). things were mind numbingly happy after that of very low motivation.Yet as I started things fresh in the new lab I can consider myself as a happy graduate (to some extent) in the land of the rising sun.
Photos from the graduation ceremony (Fuchu), the diploma handover (Koganei) and the graduation reception (Shinjuku).
* 5 days away from the deadline of my thesis submission.
I remembered when I was working on my undergraduate thesis I was miserable. It was like that because I wasn't sure what I was doing and what I should be writing about. The thesis was so damn depressing that it turned out bad, and I didn't ever want to read it again.
Now as I'm working on my Masters thesis. I realized that I am a bit more confident with those things. Its not that its easy, If anything, writing entirely in English is tough and sometimes I had to struggle with every paragraph. Since its my second time writing that sort of thing, I kind of knew better. However, procrastination and self doubt seemed to get the best of me once in a while.
I asked myself repeatedly. If am I doing the right tests, should I show these results, what will my professor think of this? After some time, all that thinking and writing and worrying (and complaining) at the same time really did burn me out and so I decide to take this saturday off.
Anyway, I have been a reading a lot of books on writing this particular feat of academia, and I found quite a handful advice for stressed out writers out there who (like I did) came to the point where they think "That's it, I cant do this no more".
In the book "A manual for writers of research papers, thesis and dissertations" I found a few tips on working through chronic procrastination and writers block. These three tips really got me thinking and I'm posting it here just to let me remember them too. To overcome the slump this is her tips: - Set a routine and achievable goal (something like a 2 page a day quota) - Divide the thesis into small parts and then focus on doing it one small part at a time. - Avoid the obsession with perfection. For a first draft just go and do some quick writing to get it done. Remember that this is the first of many revisions of your thesis.
I just realized that Ive been really out of touch the past month (Im not even on IM). I've been meaning to write a journal entry or two but I just couldn't seem to think of anything else right now... (-_-;). well, off to my thesis again..
Originally performed by cab calloway, I first heard this on the blues brothers movie. Ive been browsing around youtube and I just happen to stumble upon this performance by by bob rozman.
This has got to be the single most awesome cover of this song that an artist can perform solo. Kudos to you bob!
MINNIE THE MOOCHER by Cab Calloway
(Em)Folks, now here's the story 'bout (Am)Minnie the (Em)Moocher, (Am)She was a red-hot (B7/11 ?)hootchie- (Em)cootcher, (Em)She was the roughest, (Am) toughest frail, (B7/9)But Minnie had a heart as big as a (Em)whale.
(SCAT CHORUS) (---------------------------------------------|Em)Hi-de-hi-de-hi-di-hi! (repeat in Em) (---------------------------------------------|Am)Ho-de-ho-de-ho-de-ho! (repeat in Am) (B7/11)He-de-he-de-he-de-he! (repeat in B7/11-| (Am)Ay-ee-ay-ee-ay-ee(Em)ay!
She messed around with a bloke named Smoky, She loved him though he was cokie, He took her down to Chinatown, And he showed her how to kick the gong around.
She had a dream about the King of Sweden, He gave her things that she was needin', He gave her a home built of gold and steel, A diamond car with a platinum wheel.
He gave her his townhouse and his racing horses, Each meal she ate was a dozen courses; She had a million dollars worth of nickels and dimes, She sat around and counted them all a million times.
(Em)Poor Min, (Am)poor Min, (B7/11)poor.........(Em) Min
A lot of times people dont tend to stick to resolutions, that also includes yours truly. Yet, I believe this year its time for some changes. Last year I learned a lot about myself and I am certain that I need to improve in some areas. After some thought I decided to have three resolutions for 2008:
I will manage my time wisely. This is, what I believe the root of all evil. A lot of times I think that there isn't enough hours in a day to get things done. I need to schedule better, prioritize my activities, set goals and deadlines. Other than that I also need to set aside some time for me to work out and time for doing nothing too.
I will stay in touch with friends and family. I realized as I lived by myself, having my friends around is really important. A lot of times I get too busy and completely lost touch with everybody not even those online. By the time I do have time to hang out, my friends are already busy with other stuff. I also feel that I havent been good to my parents since I dont call them as often as I use to (sorry mom).
I will eat properly. I personally think that this is the toughest one to achieve. Since I am living alone and am currently in a rush to finish my thesis (deadlines at January 31st) I might have to resolve to some instant foods to save time. I need to get myself to eat 3 times a day, and also to have vegetables and fruits on the menu (a balance diet).
If I manage to accomplish all three, I am sure that I'd be able to be a stress-free, happy, and healthy person in 2008. Amen to that.
新年明けましておめでとうございます。 \(^^)/ ~Happy New year 2008 ~\(^^)/
先年は色々お世話になりまし、 今年もよろしくお願いします。
For me 2007 was rather stressfull at some points. It was the year when my scholarship ran out and for some months I had to work for a living. Working while studying is stressfull and it doesnt help having a demanding professor at school.
However its also a year of accomplishments and also a year when I had come to believe in myself.
Hope that 2007 gave you happy memories and may each and every one of us is blessed with happyness along the way in 2008.
