Living with evil

On Tuesday, I woke up to this in the common chat of my house:

I was so angry.

They and their friends went on to joke about killing it together. That there’s still a blood stain there if you want to see. And how they didn’t actually kill it but just hit it multiple times with a mop and it was still moving and they just brushed it under a vending machine HAHAHA.

What kind of person does this? How messed up in the head do you have to be to torture a harmless little animal that’s terrified of you? And then publicly joke about it afterwards?

It makes even less sense here, since in Japanese folklore bats are often used as a symbol of luck, happiness and longevity.

I almost started raging in the chat, but in the end decided to leave the group instead. It leaves a notification for everybody. The more I know about the people living in this house, the less I want to know about them. At least it’s clean and quiet.

To repair my brain, in the afternoon I went to a camera shop in 橋本 (Hashimoto) with Mt, C and R. The others bought some film there. I was looking for a half-frame film camera, but couldn’t find one yet. And in the evening, I had ramen dinner in 高尾 (Takao) with M, P and L.

In the evening, we also went to one of these cheap stores that sell everything. I was trying to find the most useless products there. It was quite fun and hanging out together with these nice people made me feel happier.

One awkward conversation per day

I wanted to give bouldering a shot in Japan, so on Wednesday I went to a small and cute gym in 町田 (Machida). There were a lot of beginner routes, but not so many harder ones. My level was around 7A+/7B, a full grade higher than Finland. Great for self-esteem, but not very realistic - the grades seemed a bit off.

Also, it was fairly challenging to talk with the clerk and do the initial registration at the gym, since it was naturally all Japanese. But I’m kind of used to it by now. And I have actually set a goal for myself:

I want to have one awkward conversation in Japanese every day.

On that note, I had great success with awkward conversations the other day, when I went to a health checkup at school.

The Japanese university students go through a bunch of medical tests every year: pee, measuring height and weight, eyesight, blood pressure, heart check and lung x-ray. I’m probably forgetting something. And I took part, since I didn’t do the tests in Finland.

The nurses only spoke Japanese, so everything was quite confusing and awkward. But I think the pee test is the winner.

So, I got a pee container thingy from the exchange center before the checkup and walked with it to the health checkup place. Once I got there, I handed it over with my student id expecting them to tell me where the toilet is. But they were expecting it to be full already. And then they were trying to explain to me in Japanese that I already needed to pee in it. And I was like eee chotto matte kudasai :D and dug up Google translate.

With a lot of repetition I finally understood them, and asked them where is the toilet. And then, they literally walked with me to the toilet and waited outside for me while I was peeing in the container. And when I came out they walked me back to the room. “This guy isn’t the smartest, he will probably get lost.”

In total, there were maybe 7 different rooms with different tests and each one was an experience. In one of them there was this cute old nurse who was talking a lot and asking me where I’m from. I said 北欧のフィンランド (Finland in Northern Europe). Then she was like waaaa and said a bunch of stuff I didn’t understand. I just caught オーロラ (oorora). She had heard of northern lights and was very excited about them.

All in all, the process was very efficient, like a lot of things here, and I was done with all the tests in around 30 minutes.

A club called Sharknado 2

Actually it is called Enter Shibuya. We went there with some of the exchange group on Friday night, since we couldn’t make it to a techno club on time (the price doubled at midnight).

But yeah, so Enter felt like Sharknado 2 turned into a club. The DJs were so hilariously bad and the music so cringy that it actually became kind of entertaining. The only difference is that watching Sharknado 2 doesn’t give you lung cancer, whereas people were freely smoking inside this club. All my clothes smelt like cigarettes by the morning.

I danced most of the night, but the club was quite packed. And the DJs were not really trying to mix stuff together, half of the time it felt like they just hit the “play next” button on Spotify. The crowd was like 80% foreigner guys looking for girls, and some people in our group were harassed. Vomit.

But, it was a good reminder of why I no longer go to random mainstream clubs, and why I always check the lineup. Techno events tend to have much nicer audiences (and DJs) who are actually there for the music.

At least we all got out of there alive after four. And, on a positive note, the company was great and I got closer with some of the people I really like!

And the way back home was amazing: I watched the sun rise over central Tokyo through the train window. One of the most surreal and beautiful things I have seen in my entire life.

After getting home, I slept maybe 3 hours and then prepared myself for school, since I was supposed to present myself to the other students in my major in an introduction event.

Enjoy Japan

In the introduction, all the professors and staff presented themselves to the media art students. And then it was our turn to present ourselves one by one on a microphone in front of all the other 50 students. In Japanese.

That was exciting. I sounded like a toddler but at least I managed to tell my name, major, home uni and explain that my Japanese still needs some work. Like they couldn’t figure hahaha.

I basically got to know just one of my classmates a bit, since they seemed like the only one who was comfortable with English. This person seemed nice, and translated most of the speeches for me. But he was also European. So I didn’t really chat with any Japanese students yet.

We also got a tour to the workshops and studio spaces. They felt quite underwhelming compared to Aalto - this makes me appreciate what we have back home. But hey, at least there are some!

Oh, and I finally got my courses this week!

I was a bit nervous beforehand. Tamabi is a prestigious art school and I expected them to give me school for 6 days a week, 8 hours a day. And I would sit in my room studying the whole time.

But, the meeting with the professor was really chill. And a bit chaotic. But in a nutshell, my professor said “Enjoy Japan” and gave me two seminars: Tuesday and Friday afternoon. They will run until the end of July.

I’m expected to work on my own project and present it in the seminars to get feedback. Essentially this means I can have long weekends for traveling and seeing the country. And I already have a project in mind. One that I can do while traveling.

Now it all feels a bit too good to be true. Like I won the lottery. But I’ll take it!

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I’m ending the week feeling relieved and happy. It seems like I will have a fair bit of time for traveling the country. And I even found out that a friend who I really like has a similar schedule and they might want to travel with me. Exciting!