Tuesday, 31 March 2020

Where Should I Go?

I planned to go back to Indonesia for one full month this March, many thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic, I couldn't take any risk of getting infected. I guess I will spend my life in Japan for another 6 months and make it 2.5 years without return. Hell yea.

This year the spring arrived quicker than ever. Guess what, it was still mid-March and the sakura flowers had started blooming. That's one good news, the second is I got positive feedback from the company I'm interested in. We did a simple interview and he offered me a part-time position beforehand so that I could get used to the task and at the same time to know how I perform before I step for an interview for a full-time position. Fair enough.

I don't really know the rules or any programs at this campus I'm in. The only thing I know until that day was just I come here, take classes and make sure I pass, do my research, and eventually write some papers, journals, and thesis for sure. However, on that fateful day, the lab secretary called me to talk in person just to inform that I am a rank-1 student (maybe in the faculty). I forget the details already, but that means that it would be easier for me in case I do job hunting in Japan. Good news aside, I just want to live far from crowds and work at flexible hours and permitted to do remote work. As I always concern about my financial health, I'd like to save 100k-200k yen per month. I don't really care about the total amount of salary because the tax, insurance, and fix living-cost will strip the number away before you could even touch it.

Early hanami. Well, I went out in the middle of the fucking corona lockdown. The government suggests the people to stay inside and avoid physical contact with people. For introverts, this is not a problem, but even for me who has been staying in the campus area the whole winter, it is time to get some sun! So I decided to go to Tsurumi-ryokuchi park on 20 March. As expected, nothing much to see because technically the spring hasn't arrived. Only some trees have bloomed, but the tulips were not one of them.

I went to the park and met with a group of people. Basically, they are friends of my Indonesian friend who came and studied Japanese in Kobe and recently she got a full-time position in Kidzania. I met with one Japanese girl who is going to start working as an elementary school teacher starting next April. Her English is good and she is very friendly too. The other interesting people I met were 2 Mongolian boys who look like Korean and pursue their master degree at Kobe Unversity, one of them will study psychology and his friend will study animal science. One American-German guy, he is the friendliest among all, one Italian girl, and one French guy who brought an American-Indonesian girl. I will talk about her in a moment. Finally, there was a Belarus guy who came with his Japanese wife and 2 kids.

This American-Indonesian girl was born and raised in Japan until the first year of high school. If I don't misunderstand the story, her biological father left and her mom remarried with a Japanese man. She was sent to Indonesia for 5 years to study in pesantren (kinda Islamic based school?) because of her bad behavior in the past according to her story and she just recently came back to Japan. Funny thing is that she got this French guy in the bar.

The deadline for the last paper I can submit is changed to a later date, May 8th. I think I can thank the virus for this since I can have a little more time to write the manuscript and extend my research a little bit before submitting it to the proceeding. Yay.

March 24th was the last day I saw my M2 friends. I hate farewells so I didn't come to any party. I don't like it. It seems to me as if it is better to forget them rather than remember and hope that they will be there the next time you come to the lab. It kinda hurts somehow. But people come and go, and somewhat I oughta get over this bad habit of mine.

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