Oh no — Earthquake in Japan

Fully knowing that Japan is an earthquake-prone country, I feel afraid settling in Japan even for just a short period of time. And now, my fear is fueled more by the news of a 6.8 strong earthquake that jolted the people of Honshu today during the wee hours of the morning. 

Oh gosh.

JTA Grades

The grades from the notorious 1st JTA Semester are already posted on AISIS and may I just say that I was totally caught off guard! I logged in AISIS just to check “My Individual Program of Study” (look at pic below) to see if my teachers have submitted our grades by looking at the status beside the subject name. A “C” indicates that the teacher hasn’t submitted our grades yet and a “P” means that we have passed the subject, meaning, our final grades have been computed already. 

Being the curious Brian that I am, I clicked “My Grades” just to see if my grades are there. And yes, they are there! However, only our Finance and Philosophy teachers have posted our grades. Since I am not proud of my grades, I censored them. Haha!

Sigh.

Well, as they always say, “bawi na lang next sem”.

Aviation: The JTA Send-Off Party

Most of our batchmates subscribe to the belief that we JTA people are the species of students who are nerdy and grade-conscious. Well, they are right. We are kinda nerdy in our own unique way and to a certain degree, we are grade-conscious, but, we surely know how to have fun, take life easy and party.

Last night, my JTA-CTM friends and I finally got to party without thinking about a long test or a Marketing pass due on Monday. Donning our hip party regalia, we drank and danced to the beat of “Free at last, free at last!” at the back of our head, shoving the message “We don’t have classes anymore!” to the non-JTA party animals lounging at Alchemy. Just look at Cam below, and you will get my point.

It is actually great to see my JTA blockmates outside of the confines of our classrooms wearing clothes we will never wear in school while holding a glass of margarita or pinacolada (which btw will never ever happen in school unless we are willing to get penalized!) catching up for lost bonding moments because the next time I will see these guys will be January next year when we have gone home from our own JTA destinations. So for my JTA blockmates, have a safe trip, enjoy and never convert when shopping abroad to save yourself from guilt!

Here are some more pictures from the party:

Not quite ready yet

I just came home from the focus group discussion (look at the picture on top) organized by the people who went to Josai International University last year and I didn’t come home really really excited about going to JIU right now. I don’t know, maybe I am not just ready to leave yet. However, there are some things in the discussion which made me look forward to my short stay in Japan and these are:

1. They said that clothes there are relatively inexpensive contrary to popular belief. — Yay!!! This means that I will be able to afford adding funky and trendy Japanese clothes in my wardrobe.

2. Having a bike is a necessity since this will be the primary mode of transportation from my apartment to school and other nearby places. — I’m so excited about this since biking is fun. When I was a kid, I had so much fun riding a bike most especially going downhill.

3. Tokyo is big. — Since Tokyo is big, then there are a lot of places to explore and thus we will not run out of places to do. Of course, I do not want to get bored in Japan.

4. Intensive Japanese language lessons. — I think this will be handy for me in the future when I intend to apply for jobs in Japan.

Now boarding!

For years, diaries are kept by people who’d like to relive the past by being reminded of the things they have done and the thoughts they have had as embodied by the sentences that they weave into one story. But diaries are for selfish people who’d rather not share their stories to others. So here I am with my blog which serves as an open-diary for people who’d like to read about my story – my JTA experience.