my father visited me

My father was visiting me for a week, about three weeks ago.


I took some days off work and lead him to Paris and Rotterdam. In Paris, we visited Champs-Elyse Street and museums, and took a dinner cruise. At museums, we saw paintings for a long time, seated on benches. We went to see a group of windmills near Rotterdam. The one in operation was open for tourists. When I went under its wings, it was frightening!! They were going around more vigorously than I had imagined.


After that, we came back to the city where I live. During the day, I worked and he visited a city each day. He said he liked Brugge above all, so I will visit the city in near future. His last night in Belgium, we had dinner at a restaurant called "Chez Leon," where we had blue mussels, one of specialties of Belgium. He seemed to have fully enjoyed the trip overall, with which I am content. 


His visit, or his attitude during the trip, reminded me of the fact that traveling abroad by ourselves is something challenging for the ordinary Japanese. I and other Vulcanus program participants are more used to traveling overseas alone. For this, I had forgotten the fact, but the majority of them travel in groups, guided by Japanese attendants. For example, he seemed nervous to buy a train ticket by himself. 


I believe he is less worried about my stay in Belgium, after his trip. This is because he saw me speaking French and English throughout the trip, and also because he saw my everyday life at the very place. They must have shown that I don't have much difficulty in living alone abroad. I'm content with that, too. 


That's all for today.
At work, a reagent we ordered takes long to arrive, and many machines for characterization are to get repaired. What can I do..?

a rough description of my internship

It has passed a month since my internship at a research center began. Perhaps the biggest task I dealt with the past month was to get accustomed to this new environment. That means I have done nothing as output. C'est la vie. = The life is like that.

mug cup with Chinese characters on my desk 

First, what is surprising, even to myself, is that I speak only French at work. Because I had just 4 month to learn French, I expected I would use English to compensate for my poor French. However, I don't need help of English except for the technical terms. 


My internship really resembles a research at university. The motif is on "a new manufacturing process of substance A, utilising a machine B with a conventional process C." A, B, and C are for things that I had better hide for confidentiality.


I spend the month in studying about the motif, to learn the basis of the research and understand its objective. This was largely comprised of:
---application and usage of the substance A
---usage of machine B in combination with process C
---other manufacturing processes of substance A


I also started few experiments. But very few. I'm looking forward to more of them in the comming month,


My supervisor is a Ph.D. researcher. We have discussions on my study a few times a week. It is kind of him to offer me occasions of discussion, without my asking. Additionally, I ask him to discuss summaries of what I have learned about once a week.


The other colleagues are also kind and I appreciate some of them talk to me so friendly. Especially the technicians there are real funny guys! They LOVE jokes. I'm often make fun of. For example, they teach me a nasty word and make me say that to a female technician... This is something universal, isn't it?? :)


That's it.
This is rather a translation of original essay I wrote in Japanese , so I didn't have to think what or how I write. But, even if that's the case, it took much time... I hope it will take less and less time in future.

keep blogging

I could not keep writing this blog. I wrote for one and a half month, but since then I have never written any post for the blog. For this occasion of resuming blogging, I would like to consider how to keep blogging. 

Windmills in Nederland

I believe it is most important to make it a regular habit. For example, I made it a rule to write blog posts about every day. A device here is that it is not "write every day." This helps me to keep the rule, for it is easier than "write every day." 

But a problem is that it was not declared when to post. This means when to write is not clear, either, and writing could not be a habit. So this time, I clarify the posting time: Wednesday nights. (And for the Japanese blog: Monday and Friday night)

One more device I want to add is to keep a stock of posts of a certain number. For this blog, I will keep 3 posts in stock. This allows me to fail to write for 3 weeks, and will make it easier keep the rule. (For the Japanese blog: 7 posts)

Alright, that's it for today. I will make the stocks this week, IF possible... 

French blog?? Je ne le sais paaaas. On va voir...

20100505

2010.05.05 Wed

I and Yuto repaired the congested sink in the kitchen of the school, through which I found Yuto is a man of action.

The sink has tended to be congested recently, and it got completely congested today. Since we had no class this afternoon, we tried to repair the congestion. It seemed to me that we needed a tool, which you see in the picture above, to clear the congestion, so I said that. And then, Yuto proposed to go to buy the tool, which I thought represents his energy for action.

Another demonstration of his great activity was seen when we looked for a sports shop. I thought it was hard to find one just by walking around, so I said that we needed to ask someone. However, I was too timid to talk to locals and hesitated to ask for some time. Then, Yuto proposed to ask a shop clerk, and soon he did it.

At the table of diner, the Madame of my host family argued that we should have had talked with her much more. It happened suddenly. Just after we began eating, she started speak in an upset manner. I could not understand at first because of my poor French proficiency, but gradually I understood what she said. She argued that she had been alone before or after diners in the past one month because we, I and a girl staying in the same home, were with her just for the diner time.

I believe she expected us to be with her for longer hours from her experience as a host family. Compared with her expectation, we spend LESS time with her, so she had a fuman. On the other hand, not only for her satisfaction, there is a benefit for us to spend more time with her; we would speak more of French and improve it. From both of the perspectives, I will stay with her for longer hours from now on.

20100504

2010.05.04 Tue.

Maybe I ought to do what I should/want to do, not what will make my stay to seem “enjoyed.”

I have wondered what I should do so that I, after this stay, can say with confidence that I will have enjoyed the stay. That has lead to caring how much I am "seen enjoying" the stay from the others’ points of view. I have been affected much by my imagination of how I am seen by others: if I am seen making the most of this stay.

This inevitably interferes with what I genuinely should/want to do. For sure, my own assessment of my stay must be more important than those of others. In conclusion, from now on, I try not to care how well I am seen doing, and concentrate on what I should/want to do.

20100503

2010.05.03 Mon.

I realized that I should intently listen to the lectures as a listening practice. It is sure that we carefully listen to lectures when we have not understood the contents. However, we tend to listen to the lectures less seriously when we have already understood them. I argue here that we should not do so.

Generally, for the improvement of language fluency, we need a lot of time on practicing processing the language. It is also true to the listening ability. And, attention! The entire lecture is given in French; this can be precious time for the processing practice. So, in order to take the most of the class, we have to consider it as a listening-practice opportunity and listen to it intensively.

Another thought on listening. Is there any significance in the noises in the background of listening materials for practices? In some listening materials, there are noises that hinder the understanding. For example, in the background of dialogue on the street are noises of cars. I believe these noises are to interfere with our understanding, and they works when we want to examine the ability to listen to words, in spite of the noises.

Ordinarily, however, listening in the class should be supposed as a practice. In practicing the process of understanding languages, we need materials that we can understand easily, because we can exercise the ability only when we understand materials. On this ground, I believe noises that hinder the understanding must be harmful to nurturing listening proficiency.

20100502

20100502 Sun

Since I could not write any post for this blog in the morning, I stayed at a café with my laptop from 13:30 to 19:00. Several points are different from weekdays at the cafe.

First, we cannot stay the interior just with a drink; we need to order something to eat in order to have a seat inside. So, I had a seat on the terrace, although it was cold and also rained, furthermore. Later, I could move into the interior and have a seat there. Sigh…

Second, the prices of drinks seemed more expensive. I didn’t ask about or confirm the prices of other drinks, but hot chocolate I ordered was 2.2 Euros, while it is 1.5 Euros on weekdays.

I will not go to the cafe any more on weekends.

20100501

2010.05.01 Sat

I went cycling today. On the morning, I went to a super market for a Japanese cuisine, but it was closed. So, then I lost things to do today. As I do when I have nothing to do, I went cycling in the afternoon. To the south of the town, there is a vast forest, which I like to go through by bike. Here are some photos from the cycling.

20100430

2010.04.30 Fri

Those who cannot speak the language spoken there are inevitably seen less intelligent than he actually is. In my class is a classmate who cannot speak English or French. He seems stupid, and which is because he cannot speak English or French, I believe.

I visited a bigger city with my friend to buy a pair of shoes for badminton. We had asked a guy in a badminton club where we could buy shoes. However, at the shoes shop, there were no shoes for gyms. We had no idea about other shops, so we asked locals two times. The second shop which we were told of was exactly we wanted; it was for tennis, table tennis, and BADMINTON! I could buy a pair of shoes with which I would not be likely to slip on the floor of gym.

We noticed that we had not paid for the lunch; somehow we forgot to pay when we ate lunch. Of course I paid for it afterwards, but it is interesting that clerks did not notice us going out without paying, either. How could it possible? It is probable that the clerk forgot to ask for payment when we ordered foods, although we are supposed pay at the time.

I was almost cheated also. Just after we entered a super market, we were talked to by a black man. He demanded us to leave our bags at the entrance. I was easily taken in, and was about to leave my bag. Then my friend suddenly went for the exit, so I followed him with my bag. In retrospect, the black man would have been trying to cheat us of our bags. I should not have been so credulous!

At night, I joined a party. There I knew an interesting game called “Puissance 4” or in English “Connect 4.”

20100429

2010.04.29 Thu

I bought a French keyboard. As I wrote before, I have been wondering about the most convenient way to type letters with accents such as "é". The biggest motivation of buying the keyboard was that I wanted to use a web service called "smart.fm," where I cannot type letters with accents with my Japanese keyboard. Though I did not want to increase my belongings, it is still nice if I can solve a problem by a moderate amount of money. It cost 23 euro.

20100428

2010.04.28 Wed

After a class I was called to talk with by a teacher. It turned out that this is because I complained about the teaching method of the school in homework letter, as I wrote in the yesterday's post. She sincerely tried to check if I was content with the lessons and to understand the points I made. She insisted to find out these things, which was impressive for me. She is certainly concerned with our satisfaction.

At the dinner table, I found that the French call kani-kamaboko "surimi" and it is a masculine noun. In Portuguese, it is called "kanikama," my host mate said.

20100427

2010.04.27 Tue

In today's home work of writing a letter, I criticized the school’s teaching method. I have believed that learning a language in the country where it is spoken is merely a waste of money and the time; at least not necessary for a language acquisition. Having experienced French lessons at the school, I reconfirmed that that’s true. The most ineffective point is, as I have written in this blog before, that they explain the grammar and the meanings of words in French, which we have just started learning.

20100426

2010.04.26 Mon

There came another student to our French class. Previously, all the members were Japanese, but the new one is a Swiss. I'm very glad to have a classmate from aother country.

He laughs so often that he might be the most cheerful person that I have met! He is 24 years old, and a baker. He makes really big reactions, which is often funny to me. He doesn’t speak English, so it is difficult to communicate.

He didn't turn out to be much intelligent. He had a dictionary where all the words had their corresponding pictures. It seemed interesting and a little bit useful. But!! But, it is the ONLY dictionary he has; he doesn’t have an ordinary dictionary with comprehensive vocabulary. His dictionary is almost only for nouns. I don’t know how he looks up words other than nouns. Is he going to learn French seriously?

20100425

2010.04.25 Sun

I visited Mont-Saint-Michel and Saint Malo.

This excursion was planned by the language school and cost just 66 Euros. 5 students joined the trip. I preferred Saint Malo to Mont-Saint-Michel, partly because the weather was better there. Here are some of the photos of Saint Malo.

These days, I am very conscious about what I (should) do, as which I would like to be as conscious in Japan, too. I frequently wonder how I should spend days in France, for the stay is limited (one year). As for the life, too, I realized I should be conscious like this, for the life is also limited. It is interesting that several points we have to pay attention to during Vulcanus in Europe Program are also true to life in general.

20100424

2010.04.24 Sat

I visited my Kazakhstani friend at a near city. We were both joining IAESTE internship in Freising, Germany in 2008. I missed the train I had reserved, and paid an extra fare to take TGV.

I found four different points between Japanese and French trains:

1. Tickets are for certain trains. Departing stations, destinations, trains’ numbers are written on tickets. However, you can change it to other trains even after you missed the trains.

2. Trains are numbered, but the platforms of arrival are to be decided about 30 minutes before the arrival. We search for our train numbers on bulletin boards and find the platform number.

3. The distances between stations are longer; Trains don’t stop for 10 minutes.

4. Passengers leave their seats earlier; they wait standing for about 3 minutes.

The friend was in the first year of her master course. She was funded by a French company, for a condition that she will work for the company’s Kazakhstani factory for at least two years after finishing her master course in France. She works for the company now, already, for a few weeks per month. I am happy to see she was doing very well.

On the way back, I wondered about jobs a little, and thought it will be nice if I could earn money I need whenever and wherever I want.

20100423

2010.04.23 Friday

Today I went to a cafe to write blog posts there. My friend likes to study at a cafe, so I asked her for a recommendation of a cafe. It was actually nice, and I am satisfied with the amount of the posts I wrote.

Westerners often ask questions like “Ca va? (how is it going?).” I realized these are asked in order to give someone an opportunity to talk. This works when a person hesitates to make comments or ask questions. Following the answer “Oui/Non,” the person will feel easier to make comments. For example, when you have difficulty with understanding a lecture but hesitate to say that, you will be given an opportunity to express the difficulty by those questions like “Ca va?”

letter to a temporary teacher

2010.05.14 Fri.

For the past two weeks, a temporary teacher has taught us French, because our regular teacher was on a vacation. It was the last day for her to teach us today, so I wrote a message (in French!) on a postcard and gave it to her.

I wrote something like this (I translate from French to English):

Thank you for the two weeks. I would like to tell you your virtue and a defect of yours.

First, your virtue. You accept feedbacks form students sincerely, and change the class plan flexibly. In the feedback session, just once you began making an excuse, but in a moment you quit doing that and admitted the criticism. That is for which I respect you!

A defect is that you say what you want to say, rather than what students want to know.For example, you often make a hasty judge when a student asks a question, and you answer something different from what the student wants to ask.

I believe that you have honesty and a sincere attitude, and that you will be a better teacher if you pay attention to students' reaction.

When I gave it to her, she read it on the occasion and said "C'est gentil, merci." I was glad to hear that.

20100422

One of the exhibitions of one’s tolerance to other cultures is possibly not to deny the whole character of people (or cultures) you don’t like. This attitude means that you respect their customs even if you don’t like it. I believe someone who is tolerant to other cultures doesn’t consider different customs *inferior*, but he/she just recognize that customs are different and possibly *unpleasant*.

There is a big difference between “inferior” and “unpleasant.” “Unpleasant” is merely one’s preference, but by saying “inferior,” you DENY different customs. That is why those who look down on others with different customs can never be an international engineer (for example), I believe.

I saw a movie called “L'Auberge espagnole.” The main character was a French student who studies in Spain. He appeared excessively sad for me, because Spain is adjacent to France, and the duration was just half a year. On the other hand, as for me, I am a Japanese and stay in Europe for a year.

20100421

On Wednesdays, there is no class. Today, for almost 5 hours I chatted with other Japanese and for some time with a Korean. The topics varied from what we do to ease stress to the techniques of being a good listener, but they were trivial on the whole :)

Though the topics were trivial, I enjoyed it much. I don’t often have opportunities to chat in Japanese so long, and it is very relaxing.

20100420

How can I type letters with accents, like “é”? For MS Word, I can do that by just pressing “Alt+Shift+7” and “e” afterwards. But for other applications, I need to memorize numbers like in “Alt+0233.”

If I change the setting of the keyboard to French, I can put them with just one key. However, my laptop is Japanese one, so letters with accents are not printed on the keys. It is little bit hard to memorize the location of the keys. Some say I had better buy a French keyboard.

At night, I played badminton again. We played a doubles game against two French for the first time. We lost it with scores of 6?-21 and 18-21. It’s a fun to play doubles!

20100419

I bought a card called Carte 12-25. With this card we can take trains with reduced fares by 25 or 50 percent. It costs 49 euro, but we can save more soon.

Many shops seem to close on Mondays. For example, bakeries and banks are closed today.

Having mentioned about bakeries, I talk about everyday lunch. Lunches are not served at home, so we buy something to eat. I regularly eat a small baguette and a can of ratatouille, which cost just 0.45 and 0.79 euro. Previously I bought a larger baguette at a super market and ate it for two lunches, but these days I buy a smaller baguette at a bakery so that I can eat fresh baguette every day.

20100418

I visited a zoo with three friends. The appointment was at 10 a.m., but I was the first although I arrived at 10:03. What a European time! At the zoo, seeing chimpanzees made me feel queer, because they are similar to humans. When I find them similar to humans, it is strange that they act like animals because it is as if I saw humans acting like animals.

It has passed two weeks since my arrival. The first week seemed longer like three weeks, but the second seemed faster and shorter than it is. The following weeks will also seem faster and faster, I expect.

20100417

What makes my staying abroad “fruitful?” What should I do so that I can say I will have enjoyed the stay with confidence after this stay?

My host mate seems to enjoy her stay much more than me. She has many friends here, and joins parties often. This is one of things that make me feel that I should enjoy more, and think what I should do now to enjoy this stay. For reasons like this, I cannot help feeling that I must go out more often. It seems difficult to say I enjoy my stay, if I stay home on weekends.

Undoubtedly, one of my goals is to maximize the number of things or incidents about which I can talk passionately. This is partly because I want to be better at talking about my experiences. Through experiencing something different and recording them, I would like to be better at it.

As you may notice from this diary, I believe I could enjoy the stay more; I am not enjoying much. I sometimes wish that time pass faster, and feel I should not think so because this proves that I’m not enjoying the stay.

I went cycling in afternoon. I visited a near forest.

20100416

Today I asked my French teacher why she explains meanings of words in French, which I think is effective. She explained that is because through the method we can learn synonyms and antonyms at the same time. I’m not content with the answer because many words cannot be explained by their synonyms or antonyms. For example, when the synonyms and antonyms are too difficult for us.

I heard that taking shower is most likely to be a problem on staying at French families. Most of the families limit the duration of time to use water. This appeared to be because water is expensive here. Besides, you cannot take shower at late hours.

I bought underwear, because my host mom doesn’t do laundry often enough. A student said sometimes she wears a pair of socks for two days, and another doesn’t wear socks on some days.

20100415

I played badminton for the first time since the arrival to France. I had heard that we could play badminton at a near gym and it’s free. We, I and a vulcanus friend, arrived at the gym a bit later than 9 p.m., when many locals were already playing. We knew nothing about their organization, so we asked if we could use a vacant court and a used shuttle. We played just a little, because I had a slight cold.

As for the locals, on average they played as well as us though it varies from person to person. I look forward to playing with them.

I got better from the cold afterwards, which may be thanks to playing badminton. And, later it turned out to be free for the students of our language school.

20100414

I felt that I lack the attitude to evaluate things, and that I need it. Today I was asked by a friend about how I like the French Language teachers. As for one teacher I answered “yes, she is ok,” but for another teacher I answered “so so.” The friend seemed to think there should be a problem with the latter teacher and asked what is wrong with her. However, I answered “ok” and “so so,” because there is nothing wrong with both of the two teachers. For sure, the biggest problem is the miscommunication between me and the friend, but, for me, the lack of the attitude to evaluate things is the biggest.

The reason I believe so is because although such an attitude is important, I didn’t have any assessment about the teachers. Evaluative attitude is important because we need evaluations in order to make improvements. For example, I can let teachers improve themselves by telling them of their good and bad points. The reason why I felt I lack the attitude is because I could not come up with any good or bad point of teachers.

In a nutshell, I would like to be more sensitive and evaluative on things surrounding me.

Blogging is a good way to improve my attitude toward evaluation, I believe. That is one of the reasons I do this.

20100413

From time to time, it is heard that you have to distinguish one’s opinions from his/her character. I believe this is to make discussions more constructive. If we confuse the two, we will look down on someone’s whole character when his/her opinion is wrong. Or, when our opinion is wrong, we will try to defend our character and be so upset that we cannot continue constructive discussion.

In the class (of French Language) I felt they are distinguished. It is also important in classes, too, because making mistakes is an essential part of learning things. When a classmate answered wrongly, for example, I didn’t feel classmates look down on the classmate. This is an aspect of the class that I am content with.

20100412

Today I knew the Germans are generally thought to be cold, which is new to me. Here, “cold” indicates a personality of someone who doesn’t often express his/her feelings. Both of my host mom, who is an old French woman, and my host mate, a young South American, said Germans are cold.

From my seven-week experience in Germany I don’t think they are cold. More precisely, I didn’t notice that they are cold. This is firstly because the friends I met there are mostly from other countries; I didn’t have so much interaction with Germans that I could notice their average personalities. Secondly, the Japanese might be as cold as the Germans, so I, Japanese, could not notice their cold personality. And, in retrospect, when I try to remember German people, it seems true that they are LESS cheerful than the French.

20100411

In a conversation with my host mom, I confirmed that streets named “Rue Nationale” are likely to be the main streets of many cities. When we want to find a big street, Rue Nationale can be the first try.

I visited the Sunday Market again. I enjoy walking around and seeing booths, but it is unfortunate that I cannot buy much food there. Though as in supermarket I get to want to cook, it will be a mere waste of money in a way. This is because I have meals served at host family. If I prepared meals by myself, buying foods in market would be a necessary expense.

After the market, I visited two bakeries recommended by my host mom. At each, I bought one croissant. The croissant of one bakery in the west of the city was less oily than other croissants, and the one of the other, which is on the other side of the river, was so delicious!

At night, I joined an international dinner. I prepared sushi. Other Japanese cuisines were Nikujaga, Hayashi rise, Tori-no-teriyaki. I enjoyed the dishes from various countries, but I enjoy less the party on the whole because all the other participants except me were girls. And, it is additionally because I was the worst French speaker there.

20100410

I visited a bigger city with three friends. I ate a brioche and a croissant for lunch. We visited an enormous cathedral and the central square, and walked along the main street. It was interesting that we don’t take off shoes when we use fitting rooms; in Japan we do.

I realized that I don’t do anything these days. Of course I go to the language school, but I do almost nothing else. I take a year off from my graduate school, so I don’t do research for a year. Instead of research, I must do something worthwhile, I believe. Learning French is undoubtedly one of those things; I should make much effort on French. In addition, any other things that will make my one-year stay more fruitful. Any idea?

2010409

In a lecture today, finally, our teacher taught us grammar. That’s what I want!

Nowadays I appreciate my English proficiency, for two reasons. First, learning French is made easier. It may be easily understood that some English vocabulary can be transferred to French with slight modification. Furthermore, many sentences or phrases are easily understood by replacing each word with an English word.

Second, I rediscover that English is very useful as a means of international communication. Since the arrival at this small town, English haven’t seemed useful; just few people speak English here. Another student at my host family speaks both French and English, and sometimes functions as an interpreter between me and my host mom. If I don’t speak English, however, I cannot benefit from her translation. So that’s why I appreciate my knowledge of English.

I started to use my mobile phone. Because the display of the mobile was in French and also because it was not charged with money, I have not used it. I asked a clerk at a mobile shop to change the language and charge 15 Euros.

After that, I went to a big supermarket to buy materials for sushi. I bought rice, smoked salmon, avocados, soy sauce, and a can of crab fresh. I enjoyed walking around in the supermarket so much. It stimulated me and made me eager to prepare meals with materials that are available there.

20100408

As grammar, vocabulary seems essential for a language,,, I will try a website called “smart.fm.” In past, I was told of the website by my friend, but I have never tried it.

At night, I joined a party at the school. It was reconfirmed that I am not good at enjoying parties like that. I really admire a friend who appeared enjoying the party much. I would like to acquire the “ability to enjoy himself” like his.

20100407

After school, I send a request for permission of stay to the office. I was not sure about the procedure, but a madam at the local office was so kind that she wrote address on an envelope.

I realized that we need grammar knowledge in order to talk about complex matters. For example, words like “if” are necessary to make an assumption. So that can be a strong motivation of learning French.

20100406

The first day of my language school. It appears that teachers at the school don’t speak English. That is why their orientation was not understandable completely… Additionally, I understood almost nothing of the test for class allocation. As expected eeeeasily, I was allocated to the lowest class whose students were all Japanese.

Lectures are given entirely in French, which I think is ineffective. Declarative knowledge like meanings of words or grammar systems should be discussed in a language students understand, I believe. We, beginners, don’t fluently understand French, so it takes much time to explain things in French. The only way is to show many examples and let student find grammatical rules.

But an interesting point is that discovering grammar rules can make language learning more enjoyable. When we take to something, it is a strong factor that we ourselves find them and have affection to them. Similarly, if we find grammar rules by ourselves from given examples, we may take to them.

Another ineffective teaching method is listening. At the very beginning of French learning, we don’t know almost all the words of listening materials. What could we understand of materials full of new words? It was completely ineffective!

Having said that, I will just adapt to their method. One of my beliefs is “Circumstances are not what we struggle to change, but what we adapt to.”

20100405

Though it is Monday, our language school was off; it is Easter today. Invited by my friend, we visited a castle. Cousin of his host mom was visiting her and they took us to the castle. The cousin was with her family: her husband and two kids. She is French and her husband is English. So the kids speak French and English. They taught us a French word “froid” that means “cold.”

As I returned home, my host mate had returned from her trip to Paris. She is a South American girl who I can hardly believe is younger than me. Surprisingly, I was found out to be shy in a minute…

20100404

I use a notebook when I talk with my host mom. I hardly understand any word she says, and hardly pronounce any word I want to use. Needless to say, but unfortunately, she doesn’t speak English. It inevitably leads to talking on a notebook. Moreover, we don’t actually make sentences; communication with just a few words that we find on my electronic dictionary.

With this “notebook conversation,” I heard about a Sunday Market at the breakfast table, and went to see it. There were about 60 booths, which were selling vegetables, cheeses, breads, dried sausages, fish, flowers, clothes, bags, watches, furniture, etc.

What seemed French was that some people had baguettes in their hands or bags. And, there were several shops that demonstrated functional peelers, which is common scene on TV in Japan. I bought a croissant at a baker’s booth. The bakery’s madam is so talkative; she always keep talking or singing :)

20100403

I left Brussels for the city where I learn French. I and two other Vulcanus Program participants took the same trains.

We missed trains that we would take. On changing trains in Paris, we needed to move from one station to another by taxi. But the line for taxis was so long that we had to wait 30 minutes. As the result, we failed to take the trains.

The biggest problem is that we had to change appointments with host families, who are not supposed to speak English. First, we asked a staff of our program for help, but she answered she could not help us. Now that we had to change the appointment by ourselves, one of us composed sentences for telephone conversation. We called each one’s host family and managed to tell the time of our arrival. At the end of the long journey, we could meet our host families at the station.

On the way, another program participant told me what she did. She seemed to be managing so grand a research project that I could not help feeling upset; you feel so when you know your contemporaries are doing much better than you, don’t you? Anyway, I don’t want to become “her,” so comparing our lives is useless. This is the way I tried to cease my upset temper :)

So, this was the beginning of my life in France.

20100402

4/2 the third day of EU seminar. We had a lecture by a participant of Vulcanus in Europe 2008, where I thought:

---It's a nice idea to make friends with a language school student who speak the language better than you.

---I will welcome difficulties this fiscal year.

---It is a bit unpleasant to hear the participants say "Vulcanus participants are interesting."

---In this year I may become interested in studying abroad again.

---Or, become interested in working without returning to the graduate school.

---I doubt if we should attend schools to learn things, when we feel less than needed through working. You can learn by yourself while working fulltime.

Afterwards, we joined tourism and drinked in a bar.

Beginning days of Vulcanus

I've stayed in Brussels, Belgium for 3 days. Here, I will describe these days from March 29th, when I left Japan.

3/29

I arrived at Narita Airport at 17:00. Since I seemed to have time till the departure time 21:55, I paid 500 yen for 24 hours connection to the internet. This lead to a tragedy: the loss of my diary booklet... I jotted down the password on my diary so that afterwards I refer to it to log in to the internet. Just before the departure, I connected to the internet and left the seat in a hurry. That is where I lost the diary, I believe.

As for the flight, it was not that hard this time. It must be mainly because I had friends to talk with. Thank you two! Having said that, it was still not pleasant flight, for I couldn't sleep well and I had stiff shoulders.

3/30

We arrived at Char De Gaulle Airport at 4:00 am. The train from there to Brussels, our destination, was 7:47, so we took a plenty of seats and waited for it. After boarding, the train turned to be 1st class car! It was really comfortable, and I enjoyed the trip.

At around this time, I felt that I was a bit passive because the trip was like a group travel and that I must be more proactive.

When we got to the hotel I stay now, it was just after 9, then we deposited our luggages and left for sightseeing. Nonetheless I was not so eager to go sightseeing for exhaustion from the flight, I ended up walking for almost 5 hours till the check-in time. After checking in, I bought a new diary booklet for the lost one.

3/31

It was the first day of the three-day EU seminar. First, we got to know each other by talking about hobby, favorite color, and so on. Then we listened to a lecture on up-t-date EU information, and visited EU parliament.

The self introduction part taught me that my English proficiency was not much high in the group. This is in a way comfortable for me, because it has not seemed to me beneficial to think my English proficiency as one of my identities.

4/1

The second day of the EU seminar. What seemed important are:

1. I need to seek the moderate extent of assertiveness. i.e. Be aggressive, but not too much.

2. Only when you understand and agree to an explanation, you can nod. Otherwise, the speaker will misunderstand that you agree.

3. Confirm by e-mail what you discussed with your boss

4. Examine complains about the circumstance whether they could be improved by our effort or not. If not, don't try to change the circumstance and just adapt to it.

What was most impressive for me through these days is that every member who joins thisprogram has relatively higher independence. It's admirable for sure, but sometimes it leads to a breakup of the group, or results in too many leaders in the group. This interest me much..