Back in Japan, got back yesterday and caught a train back to my uncle's house where I stayed for a night. At Ueno station, a business man gave me a shout out to give me a hand to find the right platform I was to take to make it to my uncle's house. He bought me a coffee, chatted for a bit and exchanged contact information.
He gave me a call later to make sure I made it to my uncle's place ok. There some parts of Japan that catches me totaly off guard. As much as I sometimes complain about certain aspects of Japan, there are definately nice aspects to Japan.
When I have more time and my thoughts more clear, I will post more about them. But for now, I gotta get ready to touch Canadian soil again.
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Friday, September 22, 2006
Chungnam University: Daejeon
I am now currently sitting in front of a computer in Chungnam university, where my friend Su I am currently visiting studies. I have so far crashed 2 classes with her (she is a Japanese major) and I got caught in one class, interestingly in a Japanese listening class. The teacher was pretty friendly... the first thing she said was "hmm, class seems a little bigger today" in Japanese. I did end up learning a little Japanese on this end as well. Hah, learning Japanese in Korea.
Outside of the cultural studies building, is some martial arts demonstration going on. I will have to leave this station soon to check it out. There is music blaring and men dressed up in white looking traditional clothing doing some kind of dance or something.
I stayed in downtown Daejeon last night, came to the university sat in on a few classes, hung out with a new friend I made from the Japanese class, where we played some basket ball and went out for some food and drinks in the evening. A great time was had!
What awaits for me today, I have no clue, but it will be fun anyways.
Outside of the cultural studies building, is some martial arts demonstration going on. I will have to leave this station soon to check it out. There is music blaring and men dressed up in white looking traditional clothing doing some kind of dance or something.
I stayed in downtown Daejeon last night, came to the university sat in on a few classes, hung out with a new friend I made from the Japanese class, where we played some basket ball and went out for some food and drinks in the evening. A great time was had!
What awaits for me today, I have no clue, but it will be fun anyways.
In korea
Well I am in Korea now, live and well. I stayed in a hotel for the first night with a lake side view... interestingly, I was provided with shampoo, a shaver and etc. I think I washed my hair with shaving cream. Damn it!
Life is good an interesting in Korea, I am having a great time none the less and as much as I would love to write a really long post on what I have been doing here but I'm kind of busy and it's getting late.
Well, this is only the beginnings of my interesting adventures in Korea. When I have another chance and time, I will post then.
Just letting you all know, I am alive and well on this end.
Cherrio.
Life is good an interesting in Korea, I am having a great time none the less and as much as I would love to write a really long post on what I have been doing here but I'm kind of busy and it's getting late.
Well, this is only the beginnings of my interesting adventures in Korea. When I have another chance and time, I will post then.
Just letting you all know, I am alive and well on this end.
Cherrio.
Monday, September 18, 2006
Getting Ready for Korea and Canada
I've been busy and tired this weekend. While on internship, I was sleeping about 6~7 hours a day and getting by pretty fine on that. Weekend, I would be sleeping just as much, seemed like one of my dreams on cutting back on sleep was coming into effect. It didn't last by the time I got home.
Friday, the afternoon I arrived back into Sendai after a 200 km trip by bullet train back from Utsunomiya. I b-line'd back home dropped off my stuff unpacked and left immediately to lab to start working on a presentation I would give the next day. One of those scheduled lab presentation things where I would present 3 months worth of work and what I have been doing to everyone. Fortunately I had all 39 slides ready before I left and about 1/3 of my presention hand outs completed before I left for my internship. I started working at about 7:00 pm and worked till midnight to finish my handouts, had them printed and finished by mindnight. By lab standards, got my work done pretty fast-- it is not unusual for people to sleep over at lab preparing for their presentations. One of the 3 presenters did exactly that.
I gave my presentation the next day, updating everyone on my recent results, which were a mixed bag. Some good and some not good. Some techniques worked and some don't so well.. it's important to not let your pride get tangled with the results of experiments. Experiments are exactly that, you don't know what the outcome is going to be... if something works, it works, if it fails then it fails. What it has to do with you is nothing, the reason you are doing this is to figure things out. After spending 1.5 years here and watching everyone trying to say that they are doing a good job on their research or hiding things that didn't work, I got fed up-- there is nothing wrong with saying so.
I did my presentation that day and made absoultely clear of the things that did not work for me, I was blunt and even told them it could be poor handling or whatever and asked the audience directly if I was doing anything wrong or if anything could be improved. Maybe it will encourage these people to speak out more and not take things so hard if the professors rap on them a little. Didn't learn something right? Got advice from people and learned something new? Great! That's all you need.
My presentaiton was energetic and interactive, I was glad that nearly everyone was awake during my presentaiton. There was one guy that fell asleep and drooled over his shirt and we had a good chuckle out of that.
Got home after the presentation that day, crashed a little and went out for dinner with friends I promised to see right after getting back into Sendai.
The next day, met up with another friend from a volunteer group who is always gracious to invite me out to all sorts of events for lunch and got people together for a hotpot that evening that went till 2 am.
The next day, I would have to get my internship report done, do some shopping and get a lonely planet guide to Korea. I just finished all that and then mostly finished packing. It is 3 am and I am bushed. Just checked that I can have one carry on and one personal piece of luggage. Going to have an oversized shoulder bag and a backpack that I am going to bring.
Well, tomorrow I get up at 9:00 am. Hit the University to sign some documents then hit the bullet train out of here to Narita Airport then off to Korea I go. If I have net connection, I'll keep you people posted.
Bon Voyage to me!
Friday, the afternoon I arrived back into Sendai after a 200 km trip by bullet train back from Utsunomiya. I b-line'd back home dropped off my stuff unpacked and left immediately to lab to start working on a presentation I would give the next day. One of those scheduled lab presentation things where I would present 3 months worth of work and what I have been doing to everyone. Fortunately I had all 39 slides ready before I left and about 1/3 of my presention hand outs completed before I left for my internship. I started working at about 7:00 pm and worked till midnight to finish my handouts, had them printed and finished by mindnight. By lab standards, got my work done pretty fast-- it is not unusual for people to sleep over at lab preparing for their presentations. One of the 3 presenters did exactly that.
I gave my presentation the next day, updating everyone on my recent results, which were a mixed bag. Some good and some not good. Some techniques worked and some don't so well.. it's important to not let your pride get tangled with the results of experiments. Experiments are exactly that, you don't know what the outcome is going to be... if something works, it works, if it fails then it fails. What it has to do with you is nothing, the reason you are doing this is to figure things out. After spending 1.5 years here and watching everyone trying to say that they are doing a good job on their research or hiding things that didn't work, I got fed up-- there is nothing wrong with saying so.
I did my presentation that day and made absoultely clear of the things that did not work for me, I was blunt and even told them it could be poor handling or whatever and asked the audience directly if I was doing anything wrong or if anything could be improved. Maybe it will encourage these people to speak out more and not take things so hard if the professors rap on them a little. Didn't learn something right? Got advice from people and learned something new? Great! That's all you need.
My presentaiton was energetic and interactive, I was glad that nearly everyone was awake during my presentaiton. There was one guy that fell asleep and drooled over his shirt and we had a good chuckle out of that.
Got home after the presentation that day, crashed a little and went out for dinner with friends I promised to see right after getting back into Sendai.
The next day, met up with another friend from a volunteer group who is always gracious to invite me out to all sorts of events for lunch and got people together for a hotpot that evening that went till 2 am.
The next day, I would have to get my internship report done, do some shopping and get a lonely planet guide to Korea. I just finished all that and then mostly finished packing. It is 3 am and I am bushed. Just checked that I can have one carry on and one personal piece of luggage. Going to have an oversized shoulder bag and a backpack that I am going to bring.
Well, tomorrow I get up at 9:00 am. Hit the University to sign some documents then hit the bullet train out of here to Narita Airport then off to Korea I go. If I have net connection, I'll keep you people posted.
Bon Voyage to me!
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Getting value out of work
I had a day scheduled to do nothing but data analysis, but it seems that my work went faster than anticipated and I finished about 4 hours early... leaving me the entire afternoon to myself. I could, of course notify my boss that I am done, but 1) he isn't around right now and 2) I have some internship reports that I need to work on.
So what happens when the boss isn't around? People fall asleep. 2~3 people in the group have already fallen asleep for the last 20 minutes. Kind of funny, but not really.
Actually, when I get back to the office after lunch, I see atleast 3-5 people either sleeping on their desk or playing the most popular PC game in the world "solitare". Really, if you find yourself playing solitare or sleeping at your place of work then I have the feeling that you don't really enjoy your work.
For a place like Japan, where most people today intend on working at the company they are at for life; I find this to be exceptionally freightening-- why would you want to be stuck to a job that you might not find particularly interesting for 40 years!? I personally could not fathom the thought. Actually, I should rephrase that argument with a little more detail.
You see, the place where I work, does research on materials for integrated circuit packaging. The experiments they run involve making samples, heating them up and taking data on how these samples expand or how their stiffness changes with temperature. After getting the data, people like me spend days hacking at Excel calculating and graphing data (Excel graphing is a real pain in the rear, because I haven't found a nice way of making batches of graphs all at once). It's fine to do this work for a little while but to do it for a few months or so and I'm going to have to take a hard look at it and ask myself, "what am I getting out of it?" And seriously, this is a question that you should *always* be asking yourself when you work... and I am not talking about the money (and in my case, I am getting nearly none).
What I realized, that to the success to anyone's personal carrer, is that you have to be getting something valuable out of your job. If not money then what else is there? Plenty.
It might not necessairly be obvious to you at first, but in general, we all extract something of tangible or intangible value when we do something whether if its playing a computer game for fun, exercising for fitness, helping that little old lady across the street because its nice, et cetra. Now when it comes to work, if you're working just for the (average) money and getting by on it, you're not getting any value; you're on life support--you are dead in the water if or when that job gets cut.
What do I mean by that? Suppose that you're an engineer or a person with a science degree working in a lab somewhere as a technician. It's a job that you have to do repetitive work but it need a little bit of special knowledge you picked up along the way through University. Unfortunately the work is kind of boring because you're doing the same thing over and over again, but it gets the bills paid. You might not realize it, but you are already in deep trouble and it's time to get out.
The problem working in jobs where you do not get prehipreal personal benetfits in term of skills, connections, resources or in general "anything that you can use" is that when you get cut, you're really left with nothing. If you leave your job and then realized that you left your job without anything worth noting, then you've really got nothing to say at your next interview for your next job or perhaps, promotion. When you get into a situtaion like that, you're going to be thinking like a union worker that needs job stability. Personally, I don't like relying on unions to keep me treated fairly-- if you got a skill that people need, then you will be able to find someone that will. Relyance comes from yourself in this case.
How do you get value out of work? It's a matter for you to find it. It could be finding efficient ways of getting work done, whether it be writing programs to do things or clever ways of speeding things up. Maybe you'll learn a few things along the way, maybe the company you'll work for will find value in what you do and get other people to do what you do. Maybe they won't but you can use the time you save to find other things to do.
There are lots of possibilities... and when you decide to go into a new field or job, you'll be a bag of ideas that someone will want to get their hands on. Now that's value.
So what happens when the boss isn't around? People fall asleep. 2~3 people in the group have already fallen asleep for the last 20 minutes. Kind of funny, but not really.
Actually, when I get back to the office after lunch, I see atleast 3-5 people either sleeping on their desk or playing the most popular PC game in the world "solitare". Really, if you find yourself playing solitare or sleeping at your place of work then I have the feeling that you don't really enjoy your work.
For a place like Japan, where most people today intend on working at the company they are at for life; I find this to be exceptionally freightening-- why would you want to be stuck to a job that you might not find particularly interesting for 40 years!? I personally could not fathom the thought. Actually, I should rephrase that argument with a little more detail.
You see, the place where I work, does research on materials for integrated circuit packaging. The experiments they run involve making samples, heating them up and taking data on how these samples expand or how their stiffness changes with temperature. After getting the data, people like me spend days hacking at Excel calculating and graphing data (Excel graphing is a real pain in the rear, because I haven't found a nice way of making batches of graphs all at once). It's fine to do this work for a little while but to do it for a few months or so and I'm going to have to take a hard look at it and ask myself, "what am I getting out of it?" And seriously, this is a question that you should *always* be asking yourself when you work... and I am not talking about the money (and in my case, I am getting nearly none).
What I realized, that to the success to anyone's personal carrer, is that you have to be getting something valuable out of your job. If not money then what else is there? Plenty.
It might not necessairly be obvious to you at first, but in general, we all extract something of tangible or intangible value when we do something whether if its playing a computer game for fun, exercising for fitness, helping that little old lady across the street because its nice, et cetra. Now when it comes to work, if you're working just for the (average) money and getting by on it, you're not getting any value; you're on life support--you are dead in the water if or when that job gets cut.
What do I mean by that? Suppose that you're an engineer or a person with a science degree working in a lab somewhere as a technician. It's a job that you have to do repetitive work but it need a little bit of special knowledge you picked up along the way through University. Unfortunately the work is kind of boring because you're doing the same thing over and over again, but it gets the bills paid. You might not realize it, but you are already in deep trouble and it's time to get out.
The problem working in jobs where you do not get prehipreal personal benetfits in term of skills, connections, resources or in general "anything that you can use" is that when you get cut, you're really left with nothing. If you leave your job and then realized that you left your job without anything worth noting, then you've really got nothing to say at your next interview for your next job or perhaps, promotion. When you get into a situtaion like that, you're going to be thinking like a union worker that needs job stability. Personally, I don't like relying on unions to keep me treated fairly-- if you got a skill that people need, then you will be able to find someone that will. Relyance comes from yourself in this case.
How do you get value out of work? It's a matter for you to find it. It could be finding efficient ways of getting work done, whether it be writing programs to do things or clever ways of speeding things up. Maybe you'll learn a few things along the way, maybe the company you'll work for will find value in what you do and get other people to do what you do. Maybe they won't but you can use the time you save to find other things to do.
There are lots of possibilities... and when you decide to go into a new field or job, you'll be a bag of ideas that someone will want to get their hands on. Now that's value.
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
More on Tokyo Later, making my way back to Canada
As of Sunday evening, I have returned from Tokyo from a 2 night, 3 day adventure spanning from Asakusa, Ueno, Yokohama, Roppongi and Odaba. If there is something fun about travelling in a foreign country, it is also meeting foreign people.
An update on this trip will be published later when I've got pictures to show.
I've got until the end of this week with my internship in Utsunomiya where by the end I will make a short return to Sendai to greet and tempoarary say hello and goodbye to friends before I head off on my next trip to Korea (Seoul and Dae Jong), Vancouver, Toronto and Calgary.
Touch down in Canada on the 26th of Sept. I'll see you guys back home wherever you are!
An update on this trip will be published later when I've got pictures to show.
I've got until the end of this week with my internship in Utsunomiya where by the end I will make a short return to Sendai to greet and tempoarary say hello and goodbye to friends before I head off on my next trip to Korea (Seoul and Dae Jong), Vancouver, Toronto and Calgary.
Touch down in Canada on the 26th of Sept. I'll see you guys back home wherever you are!
Go Watch Keith Olberman
Keith Olberman, a commentator on MSN NBC is remarkable as he is eloquent (though sometimes appearing brash) when it comes down to slamming the current US Bush administration. My words unfortunately cannot even come close to how well this man puts it.
Olberman Special Comment on 9-11: "Who has left this hole in the ground? We have not forgotten, Mr. President. You have. May this country forgive you"
Olberman to Bush "Have you no decency, Sir?" (Bush's attack on Freedom of Speech, following Rumsfeld)
Olberman's Response to Donald Rumsfeld (Secretary of Defence) on America "Fighting a new Fascim"
Olberman Slams Fox News' Bill Oriley (Fox news, screws up the facts and coveres it up)
If only a few more people like him existed to succinctly call out on the stupid things a government does, the world would be a better place instead of the noise you'd hear inside a house which supposedly rules a nation.
Olberman Special Comment on 9-11: "Who has left this hole in the ground? We have not forgotten, Mr. President. You have. May this country forgive you"
Olberman to Bush "Have you no decency, Sir?" (Bush's attack on Freedom of Speech, following Rumsfeld)
Olberman's Response to Donald Rumsfeld (Secretary of Defence) on America "Fighting a new Fascim"
Olberman Slams Fox News' Bill Oriley (Fox news, screws up the facts and coveres it up)
If only a few more people like him existed to succinctly call out on the stupid things a government does, the world would be a better place instead of the noise you'd hear inside a house which supposedly rules a nation.
Saturday, September 09, 2006
In Tokyo Now!
Arrived into tokyo lsat night and now staying at a youth hostel. And wow, it's the cheapest youth hostel I've ever seen (and quite good too)! For 20 bucks you can stay over night, got access to some public washrooms and all the people staying here are pretty nice. I think I've had the most fun meeting foreign people in Japan actually, they really are that easy to talk to. The link to this place is here.
Going out to check out the market around Ueno, Roppongi (the really uptown district) and then Yokohama later today. Going to rent some bicycles and ride them around town today instead of taking the train everywhere. Should be an interesting adventure. Will be here till Sunday.
Going out to check out the market around Ueno, Roppongi (the really uptown district) and then Yokohama later today. Going to rent some bicycles and ride them around town today instead of taking the train everywhere. Should be an interesting adventure. Will be here till Sunday.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Climbing Mt. Fuji
So here is my awaited report on my Mt. Fuji climb. I departed from Utsunomiya to Mito, a large town in Ibaraki located to the South-East of where I am. From there, I would meet up with Natali and the Ibaraki JETs (Japanese English Teachers) who have made plans to climb Mt. Fuji on the weekend of Sept 2nd... convienantly the same weekend I wanted to go. Incidently, Natali is the cool and interesting character I met up at the Yotsukura Beach party a few weeks back and we had remained in contact.
From Mito to Fuji mountain, approx 150 km. Mito is on the top right.
I arrived at Mito on the Friday night to hang out with the JETs, an amazingly cool crew of people. The bunch I'm with had only been in Japan for all of about 1 month but they seem to be getting along just fine. I think it's a thing with international people coming to a foreign country-- they're all extra friendly.
We departed from Mito the next day at 12:30 am on our way to mount Fuji. We had 28 people out for this trip and rented our own tour bus to hit the mountain. Our point man max,
Say hi to Max!
was coordinator for this trip. You'd never think that a big beer drinker like him would be up for a tough mountain climb, but he's a trooper... in more ways than one!
A little about Mt. Fuji
Fuji mountain stands at about 3770 m above sea level. With temperatures at the peak for this season dipping into 2~3 degrees C. The upper most car accessible station (known as the 5th station) is at an elevation of approximatly 2200 m leaving us about 1500 m in elevation to reach. 1.5 km doesn't sound bad when you're walking on flat lands, but going verticle is a different story.
There are several climbing routes up Mt. Fuji depending on what base station you start at. There are 3 base stations each with their own set of stations. For disambiguation, we started on the 5th station of the Kawauchi route. Between the 5th station and the top there are 3 other stations in between, the 6th, 7th and 8th where travellers can make pit-stops, buy supplies and lodge for the night (for $50!).
The climb
The climb takes on the order of 4 to 7 hours depending on the pace you go at. For us, we arrived at the mountain at 7:30 pm, our objective was to catch the rising sun at 4:30 am ish leaving us with plenty of time.
Our 28 people strong group!
What is most often done, is that groups of climbers will climb most of the way out and sit it out there until a few hours before the sun rise. The reasoning is that it's damn cold at the top, so why wait at the top?
We too found it cooler at the bottom of the mountain
Unfortunately for us, the crew of 5 people from our group and the integration of a hiker from a different group of JETs from Hiroshima, we thought that it wasn't cold at all and decided to power through the whole mountain to see how fast we can make it to the top. We did it in about 5 hours. I could hardly keep up with these people and I felt like I just wanted to keel over the entire hike up.
What happened is that as we reached the top the temperature dropped incredibly fast from the 10s of celcius into the single digits making it exceptionally cold. Also as we went further up, the wind suddenly picked up making it really really chilly up there. By the time we made it to the top, we immediately found an outhouse and made our retreat from the harsh environment.
That's us in the outhouse
Sure we might looked all huddled for the picture, but be assured it wasn't for the picture. It was so cold that we had to bunch together to keep ourselves warm using body heat and most of us were shivering like mad. We arrived at the top of the mountain by 12:30 am leaving up with a cold 4 hour wait at the top. Some of us tried to sleep but me and most others, none of us could get a wink.
By 3 am, the legions of other climbers started making their way to the top of the mountain and we were consistently bothered (or perhaps they were bothered by us) by people coming into the outhouse to relieve themselves. After the outhouse got sufficiently stinky, it was time to make our move out of the place and wait for the sunrise.
I bought a $4 shot of hot coffee to get some warmth into my body-- I'm not a coffee drinker but I needed anything hot I could get my hands on. After patient waiting, we were finally greeted by this:
The sunrise over the horizon and clouds
What a sight. After suffering 5 hours on an intense climb, 3 hours wait holed up in an out house, we were greeted by a magnificent sunrise. It was well the struggle.
My moment of victory in the sun!
Me, on the way off the mountain
There is of course more to the story but I could spend forever writing. The long and short after, was that we decended the mountain, taking 3 hours. Decending is far more of a pain then going up because the decending path is different and less steep since going downwards is tougher than going up. We made it back to the 5th station caught our bus and got out of there afterwards.
If you want to see more, I've got a photo album setup with more photos. Feel free to check it out here.
A final word. The Mt. Fuji climb is *not* for the faint of heart -- The climb is long and tiring and you will be brining plenty of supplies throughout the hike. There will be parts where you will have to use your hands to traverse rocky sections. Not only will you have to deal with a tough hike, the air also gets thinner which may lead to altitude sickness. I got mild altitude sickness near the top and felt pretty much like a zombie for most of my time there. If you do decide to climb it, make sure that you are properly read up and prepared!
From Mito to Fuji mountain, approx 150 km. Mito is on the top right.
I arrived at Mito on the Friday night to hang out with the JETs, an amazingly cool crew of people. The bunch I'm with had only been in Japan for all of about 1 month but they seem to be getting along just fine. I think it's a thing with international people coming to a foreign country-- they're all extra friendly.
We departed from Mito the next day at 12:30 am on our way to mount Fuji. We had 28 people out for this trip and rented our own tour bus to hit the mountain. Our point man max,
Say hi to Max!was coordinator for this trip. You'd never think that a big beer drinker like him would be up for a tough mountain climb, but he's a trooper... in more ways than one!
A little about Mt. Fuji
Fuji mountain stands at about 3770 m above sea level. With temperatures at the peak for this season dipping into 2~3 degrees C. The upper most car accessible station (known as the 5th station) is at an elevation of approximatly 2200 m leaving us about 1500 m in elevation to reach. 1.5 km doesn't sound bad when you're walking on flat lands, but going verticle is a different story.
There are several climbing routes up Mt. Fuji depending on what base station you start at. There are 3 base stations each with their own set of stations. For disambiguation, we started on the 5th station of the Kawauchi route. Between the 5th station and the top there are 3 other stations in between, the 6th, 7th and 8th where travellers can make pit-stops, buy supplies and lodge for the night (for $50!).
The climb
The climb takes on the order of 4 to 7 hours depending on the pace you go at. For us, we arrived at the mountain at 7:30 pm, our objective was to catch the rising sun at 4:30 am ish leaving us with plenty of time.
Our 28 people strong group!What is most often done, is that groups of climbers will climb most of the way out and sit it out there until a few hours before the sun rise. The reasoning is that it's damn cold at the top, so why wait at the top?
We too found it cooler at the bottom of the mountainUnfortunately for us, the crew of 5 people from our group and the integration of a hiker from a different group of JETs from Hiroshima, we thought that it wasn't cold at all and decided to power through the whole mountain to see how fast we can make it to the top. We did it in about 5 hours. I could hardly keep up with these people and I felt like I just wanted to keel over the entire hike up.
What happened is that as we reached the top the temperature dropped incredibly fast from the 10s of celcius into the single digits making it exceptionally cold. Also as we went further up, the wind suddenly picked up making it really really chilly up there. By the time we made it to the top, we immediately found an outhouse and made our retreat from the harsh environment.
That's us in the outhouseSure we might looked all huddled for the picture, but be assured it wasn't for the picture. It was so cold that we had to bunch together to keep ourselves warm using body heat and most of us were shivering like mad. We arrived at the top of the mountain by 12:30 am leaving up with a cold 4 hour wait at the top. Some of us tried to sleep but me and most others, none of us could get a wink.
By 3 am, the legions of other climbers started making their way to the top of the mountain and we were consistently bothered (or perhaps they were bothered by us) by people coming into the outhouse to relieve themselves. After the outhouse got sufficiently stinky, it was time to make our move out of the place and wait for the sunrise.
I bought a $4 shot of hot coffee to get some warmth into my body-- I'm not a coffee drinker but I needed anything hot I could get my hands on. After patient waiting, we were finally greeted by this:
The sunrise over the horizon and cloudsWhat a sight. After suffering 5 hours on an intense climb, 3 hours wait holed up in an out house, we were greeted by a magnificent sunrise. It was well the struggle.
My moment of victory in the sun!
Me, on the way off the mountainThere is of course more to the story but I could spend forever writing. The long and short after, was that we decended the mountain, taking 3 hours. Decending is far more of a pain then going up because the decending path is different and less steep since going downwards is tougher than going up. We made it back to the 5th station caught our bus and got out of there afterwards.
If you want to see more, I've got a photo album setup with more photos. Feel free to check it out here.
A final word. The Mt. Fuji climb is *not* for the faint of heart -- The climb is long and tiring and you will be brining plenty of supplies throughout the hike. There will be parts where you will have to use your hands to traverse rocky sections. Not only will you have to deal with a tough hike, the air also gets thinner which may lead to altitude sickness. I got mild altitude sickness near the top and felt pretty much like a zombie for most of my time there. If you do decide to climb it, make sure that you are properly read up and prepared!
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Quote of the Moment: On Project Work
The Six Phases of a Project: Enthusiasm Disillusionment Panic Search for the Guilty Punishment of the Innocent Praise for non-participants
--Anon
--Anon
Monday, September 04, 2006
Working at Sumitomo; Internship in a Japanese Company
Since coming to Japan, I have had reservations about working in a Japanese company in the sense that corporate organizations are somewhat formal and rigid from my laboratory experience. It seems from my observation of their working environment has led me to think differently.
Since coming to the Sumitomo Bakelite (a subdivision of Sumitomo), I have found that the staff there is very friendly and very straightforward when it comes to getting work done. I'll lay out what my work experience has been for the past week.
Living in Utsunomiya
I live at the company dorm, which is something interesting to note compared to Western companies. A company dormitory is something that I've never heard of since living in Canada but it seems to be quite common in Japan. Nearly all large corporations in Japan offer living space at their dormitories for exceptionally cheap. Rooms regularly go for less that $80/month in rent. Food in the cafeteria (full meals) goes for approximately $1.5 and $3.5 for breakfast and dinner respectively at where I stay. For a country that is renowned for it's expensive living costs, these prices are on the extremely cheap side.
As I would love to post pictures of the dorm I am staying at, that will have to wait till I get my pictures downloaded tomorrow. I am staying in about a 5x5 meter room with a hallway extending out of it with a kitchen sink, gas stove, washroom+bathtub unit. For all intensive purposes, I can live comfortably in this room.
Electricity is billed at some flat rate and it is "all you can use" (the exact costs are unknown as I don't have the number available to me).
Departure to Work
I depart from the dorm at 8:00 am daily here. As traumatic I thought this would be from my usual lifestyle starting at 10:00 am, the switch was not bad at all. I car pool to work with a member from my group in the simulations and evaluation division to work, which is about a 30 minute commute for a total distance of approximately 10 km. Speeds are a little slow on the roads due to significant morning rush hour traffic. You might be wondering why I am not going to work on a train-- the train lines are most dense with population. Utsunomiya is not one of those places, which is even smaller than Sendai with a population of approximately 600,000 people.
Changing into Uniform
I arrive at work by 8:30 am giving me time to chance into the company uniform which consists of a blue cap, shirt and dress pants... all in different hues of blue. Feels like an institution to me. Wearing the cap is mandatory when you go outside buildings. I have 2 pairs of shoes, one for inside company buildings and one for walking outside.
Morning Stretches ("Radio-Taisou")
There is an 80's movie called Gung Ho made in 1986, if you've seen this then you'll know what these morning exercises might look like. Apparently since the 50's in Japan, a morning exercise program was instituted at schools, which required students to attend exercise events where they would stretch to standardized recorded music. If I were to play this song anywhere in Japan, they'd know what it is in a heartbeat.
Morning stretching consists of light jumping jacks, arm stretches, hip stretches etc etc. Nearly all employees attend but from by observation, attendance is optional. This is something that you'd never see in North America, but I find it quite amusing.
Morning Meetings
For those of you that have been following the debauchery of meetings I have for my lab, working at this company has changed my opinion of Japanese meetings -- they're not all bad! We have regular morning meetings immediately after stretching that runs for approximately 10 minutes where the 5~6 members of the team and boss report in on what they will be doing for the day.
Safety at the Work Place
Occasionally we have a short safety presentation from a book where a dangerous situation is described and a short resolution is presented. In Japanese everyone repeats the problem and solution and ends of with the English of "check" at the end. It's kind of cute actually. I should give a short comment on industrial safety at this company and about other companies from what I have heard.
The motto is "Safety is number one." Since arriving at this company and getting my orientation, the first thing they told me about working here is that safety very important. From what they informed me, they told me that most accidents are a result of reoccurring "close calls." If repeated sufficiently many times, someone gets unlucky and an accident occurs. In general, most obvious accident causes are easily dealt with and that their objective is to reduce the number of close calls by informal reporting to whoever in charge.
They also prescribe to a "danger anticipation mindset" where potential (and even benign) dangers should be anticipated and dealt with. Things like adding ramps on large cables running through a room or carrying a stack of boxes which go past your neck are considered. These people consider a good amount of safety detail.
Some of the doors in the stairwells even have labels noting that people should open them slowly incase people are behind.
Special Meetings for Me
During most morning, right after the morning meetings a second meeting is held where the head of our group and my supervisor come out to discuss what I will be doing for the day. They've had a 3-week plan all set out for me since the first day I arrived. I've never seen such work planning before, but I will be taking that in to note as a technique to organize my own work (I've done it before, but never took it seriously in university for group projects to the degree as these people do, for me at least).
The division leader for my group is an exceptionally nice guy. He had personally given me a map of Utsunomiya, lend me his bike, umbrella and gave me a cup since arriving here. What occurs is a short explanation of what I will be doing, why is it is important and the communication of some peripheral information to me. I, intern have the opportunity to ask questions and make comments which have led to me taking on 2 side projects and have some of my work rescheduled to immediately undertake my projects. This is exceptionally nice flexibility and I appreciate their ability to be so accommodating. This might also be the result of me being an intern and having no responsibilities, meaning that things can be very easily rearranged.
The Work Environment
I work in an office style floor which comes equipped with many cubicles and people working on computers for most of the day. Once in a while there is a bit of chatting that goes on, but for the most part the people there are quite focused. Communication is free and open; members of the team have direct access to each other. Actually I was looking for a memory card reader for my camera just today and asked around and one of the guys had one that will bring it to the office tomorrow. It's great, I like it.
Lunch
We leave at 12:15 to lunch to let the lunch crowd dissipate a little before we head in. I sit beside the group head so we go together with a few other members of the team. The cafeteria at the office is exceptionally cheap serving a full lunch set for $2.50/meal and even less if you just want ramen. The food has to be subsidized by the company for the prices to go this low. I have a small salad, a bowl of rise, miso soup and entree to go with my meal and I am quite full after every meal.
Hours
My official work hours at this company is from 9:00 am till 5:40 pm with a 1 hour break from 12:00 till 1:00 pm for lunch. Most people at the office stay later and I generally see them returning at 7:00 to 9:00 ish after work. They are also paid overtime though. I have tried to work overtime on my second day here on one of my projects but the division head insisted that I go home because I didn't have to do overtime.
I was very amazed to hear something like that coming from within a Japanese company where it is normal for people to do things like this... I was simply working because I thought what I was doing was interesting and I wanted to continue working on it. From what I have heard, some companies encourage people to not stay late working overtime which I think is a good trend and possibly a chance in work culture.
Conclusion/Consideration
From my experiences working at Sumitomo, I have found that Japanese work environments are not as intense as I anticipate they would be. As a result of this, I could possibly consider working here for a few years if something good pops up. Of course this is my experience from one company and should not be taken as a generalization for all Japanese companies, but the existence of one company like this suggests more environments like these exists in Japan.
Wanna Religous Debate?
All I am going to say about this is that you gotta watch this. I want way more of this, way more often!
Return from Mt. Fuji (200th post)
Greetings everyone, I have returned from Mt. Fuji safely (gladly). I wil have photos up later on, suffice to say, this was the toughest hike I have undertaken. My legs are sore and I had an awful time getting out of bed today. I will have pictures up later on, the camera battery is running low on power and I left my charger back in Sendai. One of my co-workers has a memory card reader so I'll be borrowing that and posting a few shots later on.
There is a saying along the lines that:
"You are a fool to have never climb Mt. Fuji,
You are a fool if you climb Mt. Fuji twice"
I heartfuly agree.
There is a saying along the lines that:
"You are a fool to have never climb Mt. Fuji,
You are a fool if you climb Mt. Fuji twice"
I heartfuly agree.
Saturday, September 02, 2006
On my way to Mt Fuji
Arrived last night in Mito, which is abut a 1 hr car's ride form Utsunomiya or a 1.5 hour's ride on train to meet up with Natali whom has been really cool to off me a place to stay. Arrived in at about 10:00 pm the night before and hung out with the JETS in Ibaraki. Really cool people, had a blast and hung out with them till 3:00 am.
We are getting ready to head out to the mountain on bus. Going to be about 23 of us all together so it's going to be quite the hiking party in more ways than one. The peak of Mt. Fuji is 3000m above sea level and currently about 4C. Pretty darn cold, the base of the mountain is about 26C now. Quite the difference hey?
Well, I'm off to catch my bus. I'll be back Sunday ish with a report. That's all for now!
We are getting ready to head out to the mountain on bus. Going to be about 23 of us all together so it's going to be quite the hiking party in more ways than one. The peak of Mt. Fuji is 3000m above sea level and currently about 4C. Pretty darn cold, the base of the mountain is about 26C now. Quite the difference hey?
Well, I'm off to catch my bus. I'll be back Sunday ish with a report. That's all for now!
Friday, September 01, 2006
Getting Work Done in Multiples
As some of you know, I am currently at Sumitomo Bakelite on internship, which started for me on Monday. What Sumitomo Bakelite does, is develop plastics used in IC packaging. 40% to 60% of all ICs fabricated use Sumitomo's plastics to package them. Though as benign as plastic packaging sounds, packaging for IC chips is a significant engineering problem.
What happens as temperature rises, say due to an operating chip, stresses are induced on the chip by the package because of mismaching of thermal coefficients between the chip and the plastic casing. The induced stress can lead to breaking of circuit wiring rendering the chip useless. It seems that Sumitomo Bakelite has done a good job of capitalizing on this problem to make a product and provide the consulting necessary to meet the demands of the IC industry. The way they do it is through a lot of testing and simulation.
I joined the simulation and evaluation team of this company and currently working on some low level work. Mainly, data taking and the operation of equipment for 2 experiments. As I learned from the guy that ran these machines, what he basically did was flip a switch, heat up a sample and hit "enter" on a computer for 4 hours straight in 5 to 10 second intervals. I ran the experiment twice and if I were to do it as a job, I'd go batty. They had scheduled me to run these experiments a few more times... and I thought there ought to be better ways of doing it.
What I did instead was proposed to the team that I make a program to automatically hit "enter" every 5 to 10 seconds and have the computer remotely managed some somewhere conveniant... (ie my desk). After a few inital false starts, I now have the program working today. Now 4 hours of work can be done with about 40 minutes of supervision. Wouldn't it be lovely if I could goof off for the other 3 hours and 20 minutes and still get paid for it?? (Note, I'm paid peanuts for this job! But it's kind of fun).
The next trick which I completed today was writing a little software package would let me strip temperature data out of some recorded files. What these people do was they get a guy to open every file and type that temperature value down for every file. One data set can run upwards of 300 to 400 files. I got through about 60% of a data set in about 2.5 hours and they had 10 data sets for me to get the temperature data. Riiight, can you say "slave labour"??
Well, it tuns out through a stroke of luck that I figured out how and where the temperature data is stored in these files in binary form after about half a day of searching. Once I had that down, all I had to do was write a program that would go into the directory, get a list of all the files, strip the temperature data and dump them convienantly into a text file. In 2.5 hours, a working program was running and I pumped out a script to gather data from 10 directories. The data was stripped out in about 30 seconds using the program. They also told me that they asked the equipment vendor they could do what I did... the vendor told them that it was impossible (ha!).
I still have to do a few more things by hand but it seems that I've gotten all the long and boring work done. All I have to do is strip out some more data, do some calculations in Excel and I'll have the bulk of my work wrapped up nice and tidy. Apparently, I've given these people the problem of finding more work for me to do.
What you should walk away with from this story:
Being paid by the hour sucks if you can work multiple speeds faster than what people can currently do. If I do several days worth of work in a single day my time should be worth at least multiple times what the regulars are paid, because the work was done and time was saved. So here's the question, how do you ask your boss for a 300% pay raise? There is an answer, but I'll let you think about it.
What happens as temperature rises, say due to an operating chip, stresses are induced on the chip by the package because of mismaching of thermal coefficients between the chip and the plastic casing. The induced stress can lead to breaking of circuit wiring rendering the chip useless. It seems that Sumitomo Bakelite has done a good job of capitalizing on this problem to make a product and provide the consulting necessary to meet the demands of the IC industry. The way they do it is through a lot of testing and simulation.
I joined the simulation and evaluation team of this company and currently working on some low level work. Mainly, data taking and the operation of equipment for 2 experiments. As I learned from the guy that ran these machines, what he basically did was flip a switch, heat up a sample and hit "enter" on a computer for 4 hours straight in 5 to 10 second intervals. I ran the experiment twice and if I were to do it as a job, I'd go batty. They had scheduled me to run these experiments a few more times... and I thought there ought to be better ways of doing it.
What I did instead was proposed to the team that I make a program to automatically hit "enter" every 5 to 10 seconds and have the computer remotely managed some somewhere conveniant... (ie my desk). After a few inital false starts, I now have the program working today. Now 4 hours of work can be done with about 40 minutes of supervision. Wouldn't it be lovely if I could goof off for the other 3 hours and 20 minutes and still get paid for it?? (Note, I'm paid peanuts for this job! But it's kind of fun).
The next trick which I completed today was writing a little software package would let me strip temperature data out of some recorded files. What these people do was they get a guy to open every file and type that temperature value down for every file. One data set can run upwards of 300 to 400 files. I got through about 60% of a data set in about 2.5 hours and they had 10 data sets for me to get the temperature data. Riiight, can you say "slave labour"??
Well, it tuns out through a stroke of luck that I figured out how and where the temperature data is stored in these files in binary form after about half a day of searching. Once I had that down, all I had to do was write a program that would go into the directory, get a list of all the files, strip the temperature data and dump them convienantly into a text file. In 2.5 hours, a working program was running and I pumped out a script to gather data from 10 directories. The data was stripped out in about 30 seconds using the program. They also told me that they asked the equipment vendor they could do what I did... the vendor told them that it was impossible (ha!).
I still have to do a few more things by hand but it seems that I've gotten all the long and boring work done. All I have to do is strip out some more data, do some calculations in Excel and I'll have the bulk of my work wrapped up nice and tidy. Apparently, I've given these people the problem of finding more work for me to do.
What you should walk away with from this story:
Being paid by the hour sucks if you can work multiple speeds faster than what people can currently do. If I do several days worth of work in a single day my time should be worth at least multiple times what the regulars are paid, because the work was done and time was saved. So here's the question, how do you ask your boss for a 300% pay raise? There is an answer, but I'll let you think about it.
In Living Memory of Dr. Jin
I decided to hold of on making this post for a while... about a week now but I believe that it is now appropriate to do so.
Last Sunday was Mike's farewell party as his time as he will be returning back to MIT to continue his studies. A beach party was organized by him were we could get together and have a BBQ and hang out. What transpired was very unexpected.
A Post-Doctoral student from China came to join the lab last month, his name is Dr. Jin. I never really had the chance to talk to him that much though I did see him around the lab from time to time. Dr. Jin had come out to join us for Mike's farewell party; it was also a good opportunity to meet and intereact with other people at the lab.
Though he enjoyed swimming, it would be his first time swimming in the Pacific ocean. The water was choppy that day and there were other people around at the time, he went off to go swimming but he would not return after 2 hours. After most other people had left the waters swimming, we were unable to find him.
For you as the reader, you probably know how this story is going to play out. For me at the time, I had no idea. Some people went out an hour earlier to go look for him but did not find him. Others from the group were called into join. While searching for an hour, there was a notable panic in a few people's eyes... for me, I could not declare a person missing after 2 hours of being away, especially for an adult.
A helicopter flew in over us with some of the members waving at the helicopter... I thought it was overkill, soon after a patrol boat arrived. It seems that the members made the call to the coast guard made the right call... I would not have made that call until much later. Searching continues for 2~3 hours with helicopters and patrol boat with no luck. The police, ambulence and even the news crew came out, unfortunately all of them were pretty useless and I was quite displeased.
I wasn't around when the police came around as I was looking around on the beach but eventually returned to find them there. When I got there, they were busy taking names of the members of our group and asking questions. What they asked were things like "did he drink before going swimming? where was the last time did you see him? When did he go in" and things like that. There were atleast 10 of them at the beach. What did they do afterwards? They just stood around looking at their notes. I was incredibly unhappy about this, if you're going to stand around like that then get out there and LOOK. You got the information you needed and you aren't gathering anything more, *do something about it.* That didn't happen.
The news crew came out after and started asking the same kind of questions. What they were most interested in hearing was whether if he was drinking when he went into the water. What are you people trying to do? A person is missing, this isn't the time for a "story!" Unless you are going to do something useful like getting word out and getting people, then great, if not, then what's the point? To do nothing but talk is disgraceful (literaly in the sence of "no grace").
What did they do? They went out to the ocean to take pictures of the crashing water, took pictures of us looking for Dr. Jin they even had the nerve to come out and take pictures of distressed members of our group. I can't seem to get a good image of news reporters at the moment, but I can clearly say this much, it is far better to act then to sit around talking about things. If perhaps the news inspired people to do so, I may hold them with higher regard... but for all I can imagine of a story with crashing waves and unhappy people, what good is this?
I would leave Sendai the day after to Utsunomiya to begin my internship with the hopes of Dr. Jin being found well. I would recieve a phone call today and a messege informing that his body has been found, 10 km South of where we were, the cause is unknown. I was somewhat prepared for this, though sad I was not shocked. I recieved word from one of my labmates and contacted her, she is currently corresponding with his family to figure out what to do. After talking with her, I can tell the impact this has had on her... she was also called out to identify the body and knows Dr. Jin better than I. I feel bad that I don't feel as sad as her, but what am I to do?
The funeral will be held this Saturday in Sendai. Though I had plans to climb mount Fuji this weekend; after consideration I have decided that I will not return to Sendai to attend. After talking with my friend, I don't see much else I can do and prefer not to just attend a funeral ceremony. This is not to say that I will not attend funerals in general, I would not like to attend a ceremony like this if I can't help or make people feel better. Weather permitting, I will pay my respects from the top of Mt. Fuji.
From what little I have met of Dr. Jin, he is a kind and friendly man. As tough it might be to find himself in a new culture with little knowledge of Japanese, myself and others found it easy to welcome his presence.
I would like to end on this:
Life is for those that choose to take action - it is insufficient to to only watch or listen. As important as these activies are, to only do so will have your life or a life will vanish before you in many senses of the meaning.
Last Sunday was Mike's farewell party as his time as he will be returning back to MIT to continue his studies. A beach party was organized by him were we could get together and have a BBQ and hang out. What transpired was very unexpected.
A Post-Doctoral student from China came to join the lab last month, his name is Dr. Jin. I never really had the chance to talk to him that much though I did see him around the lab from time to time. Dr. Jin had come out to join us for Mike's farewell party; it was also a good opportunity to meet and intereact with other people at the lab.
Though he enjoyed swimming, it would be his first time swimming in the Pacific ocean. The water was choppy that day and there were other people around at the time, he went off to go swimming but he would not return after 2 hours. After most other people had left the waters swimming, we were unable to find him.
For you as the reader, you probably know how this story is going to play out. For me at the time, I had no idea. Some people went out an hour earlier to go look for him but did not find him. Others from the group were called into join. While searching for an hour, there was a notable panic in a few people's eyes... for me, I could not declare a person missing after 2 hours of being away, especially for an adult.
A helicopter flew in over us with some of the members waving at the helicopter... I thought it was overkill, soon after a patrol boat arrived. It seems that the members made the call to the coast guard made the right call... I would not have made that call until much later. Searching continues for 2~3 hours with helicopters and patrol boat with no luck. The police, ambulence and even the news crew came out, unfortunately all of them were pretty useless and I was quite displeased.
I wasn't around when the police came around as I was looking around on the beach but eventually returned to find them there. When I got there, they were busy taking names of the members of our group and asking questions. What they asked were things like "did he drink before going swimming? where was the last time did you see him? When did he go in" and things like that. There were atleast 10 of them at the beach. What did they do afterwards? They just stood around looking at their notes. I was incredibly unhappy about this, if you're going to stand around like that then get out there and LOOK. You got the information you needed and you aren't gathering anything more, *do something about it.* That didn't happen.
The news crew came out after and started asking the same kind of questions. What they were most interested in hearing was whether if he was drinking when he went into the water. What are you people trying to do? A person is missing, this isn't the time for a "story!" Unless you are going to do something useful like getting word out and getting people, then great, if not, then what's the point? To do nothing but talk is disgraceful (literaly in the sence of "no grace").
What did they do? They went out to the ocean to take pictures of the crashing water, took pictures of us looking for Dr. Jin they even had the nerve to come out and take pictures of distressed members of our group. I can't seem to get a good image of news reporters at the moment, but I can clearly say this much, it is far better to act then to sit around talking about things. If perhaps the news inspired people to do so, I may hold them with higher regard... but for all I can imagine of a story with crashing waves and unhappy people, what good is this?
I would leave Sendai the day after to Utsunomiya to begin my internship with the hopes of Dr. Jin being found well. I would recieve a phone call today and a messege informing that his body has been found, 10 km South of where we were, the cause is unknown. I was somewhat prepared for this, though sad I was not shocked. I recieved word from one of my labmates and contacted her, she is currently corresponding with his family to figure out what to do. After talking with her, I can tell the impact this has had on her... she was also called out to identify the body and knows Dr. Jin better than I. I feel bad that I don't feel as sad as her, but what am I to do?
The funeral will be held this Saturday in Sendai. Though I had plans to climb mount Fuji this weekend; after consideration I have decided that I will not return to Sendai to attend. After talking with my friend, I don't see much else I can do and prefer not to just attend a funeral ceremony. This is not to say that I will not attend funerals in general, I would not like to attend a ceremony like this if I can't help or make people feel better. Weather permitting, I will pay my respects from the top of Mt. Fuji.
From what little I have met of Dr. Jin, he is a kind and friendly man. As tough it might be to find himself in a new culture with little knowledge of Japanese, myself and others found it easy to welcome his presence.
I would like to end on this:
Life is for those that choose to take action - it is insufficient to to only watch or listen. As important as these activies are, to only do so will have your life or a life will vanish before you in many senses of the meaning.
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