Job-Hunting Scene

I just got home from campus and had my wallet gone with all of my important cards on it. OMG, I am not in the mood of renewing all of my cards, especially I''ll have to pay for the fees. Anyhow, enough with the talk about my unlucky day, but today I got to wear suits because of my TA works.

Strangely enough, today, wherever I go, all of my friends looked at me and asked:
「マヤ！就活？」Maya! You're doing job-hunting?!
「あら、マヤーさん、就職活動もう始まるんですか？」Maya, you already started your job-hunting?
And it's not only one or two people who asked me about that, but it was almost around 10 people! Up until last year, whenever I wore suits to campus, nobody asked whether I was wearing suits for job-hunting. As I remember, they'd ask whether I have presentation for class or not, but never mentioned about job-hunting.

Then, I remember, oh yeah, I am a third year student -____- Great.

To make it fancier (ahahaa actually not), I decided to take pas photo for my visa extension while I am in this rare occasion wearing suits to campus. When it's done, OMG, I realized I just looked like those Japanese people who are doing job-hunting. And strangely enough that since I started my days as a third year student 3 weeks ago, everyone around me always talking about job-hunting, job-hunting and job-hunting. And also, every Japanese movies or dramas I watched always have job-hunting scenes on it. I feel like wow. And somehow I feel I am getting a lot older now thanks to it.

Seems life's getting serious from now on.

記憶

「記憶はいつもそこにいる。。。。けれど、記憶はいつもあそこで途切れる。17歳の僕等がいた、あの場所で。そして、途切れたまま、成長することはない。」－僕等がいた

In A Mean Time

"This is a time turner, Harry. McGonagall gave it to me first term. This is how I've been getting to my lessons all year." - Hermione Granger

"You mean we've gone back in time?" - Harry Potter

This is exactly what I really need right now. A time machine.

Really.

I Must Be a 社会人 Inside

I remember I was quite busy during my first year in APU. Joining bunch of local exchanges, multicultural weeks, part of camps and even a shareholders' meeting in Kyoto on behalf of APU students (not a joke, folks). My second year even much crazier. I joined RA, SAS, and also taking part of Indonesian Week 2012, where all my days filled with meeting, meeting, meeting, and works that have to be done at the end of the day. I remember I cried when I didn't have time to study for Japanese Final Exam and blamed myself for taking part of many things and couldn't handle it. I was thinking back then, why did I doing all these stuffs when my purpose coming to Japan was for study, not became a busy-little-girl. Yes, I remember well when everyone labelled me as the busy girl.

Now, here I am. Had been free from all those things. No more RA meetings nor Kitchen Duty. No more go to Student Office every single days to talk with the officer who in charge of Multicultural Weeks on behalf of Indonesian Week 2012 Committee or reserving classrooms for dance practice. No more hectic schedule. No more busy girl.

I knew exactly how it felt having no time for study how much I wanted to. Now I can understand people who are dying to go to school but cannot go because of financial or other reason. That is why, this semester I don't dare to waste my time for lazying around. I was craving for study time for the last one year and I am going to use it properly. Other than class? Yeah, I still have TA works and SAS, which still keep me busy on Wednesday.

Still, something is missing. I was so used to have meetings all day long. Continuing meetings. But suddenly, now I don't have anything. I feel like I lost something that had been part of me for a long time. And I wish I could have some part of it back. Yeah, I said it. I must had became a typical Japanese society's member or 社会人 (syakaijin). You know, they are bunch of Japanese people who do nothing besides work, work, and work every single day. And for them, they couldn't stand doing nothing. They work until morning and have a very little free time. Once they got a one-or-two days free, they appreciate it as if it's a Christmas present from Santa Claus. And I'd became exactly like them. I couldn't stand doing nothing. Thanks to my free time, I always finish all my studies (including reviewing and previewing!) early. But, after that? I have too many free time, which killing me inside. 

I really need to find something or I might go insane for some instance. Interesting. Somehow I couldn't say I am enjoying my freedom as much as I thought I would be. When I thought about this, I remember nearly one year and half ago, one of my senior from China told me this when I told him I wanted to go for exchange in Ritsumeikan University (RU).

"You won't fit there, trust me,"
"Eh? Why not? I haven't even give it a try,"
"You'll get bored. RU is different from APU. There's not a lot of activities you can join, and for such an active person like you, you'd better stay here,"

Funny when I realize it now that he knows me better than myself, despite when he said that, he just met me 4 months earlier. All I can do now is focusing on my study (nothing else to do), do TA and SAS, and if I could, joining beneficial activities from campus and (maybe) find part-time job.

I am a 社会人。
I am a 社会人。

Sigh. 

Some Bites of Japanese

Just a quick random post, but I just realize that Japanese books have lots of great books, and what I mean is, there are bunch of it. Too bad, you have to understand Japanese and know Kanji. If I knew this from long time ago, I should have been motivated to study kanji more seriously.. or maybe not. Just saying, lol.

Anyway, recently I am kind of tend to buy more Japanese book than I used to buy and actually read every line of it. I don't know when it started or where the willingness came from, but I just feel like I want to read more and more books in Japanese. Is there any relation with me living in downtown, now?

However, for novels, I still have my pick on the English novels since I never really get the essence of Japanese novel. But, look at what I got here. These are the books that I bought from the last 7 days. One light comic, 50 questions of job hunting interview, management book based on Disney Company, and a book about how to behave in Japanese company. Very interesting. I am reading books in Japanese. Is it possible that I've blended more with Japanese society without I even realize it? The other thing is, I start to read things related to work, to future. I wonder whether it's just because I am third year college student right now. 

Or simply because I've became old and boring?

Repeating Histories

All I see when I have to goto campus are new students. They are all around me, wandering around in groups with faces full of excitement of what they will going through for the next 4 years ahead. Or at least, having their first snow in Japan.

Weirdly enough, seing all of them, I feel like suddenly I am able to see my own self walking around with them. Two years ago, I was just exactly like them. I could recall everything from my first semester (or even first year) as if it's just happened yesterday. The very first time I passed through the highway road from Fukuoka Airport to reach Beppu, the time I saw my campus gate for the first time, the first time I arrived in AP House, the first time I met my first international friend and also my Japanese sharemate 11 days later, the excitement went to all the new student orientation guidance, and lots more.

Even when I visited AP House today, I could smell the same smell just like it presented during my first week there. The things that I couldn't understand is, why all these memories strongly coming back now; I mean, I'd repeated the same fall last year. I wonder if it has anything to do of me being over-busy last semester.

All the excitement's brought by the new students that rose up to the sky made me feel excited as well. As if excitement could spread out within people. But one thing that I realize when I saw them is how limited my time left in APU. And even though I could remember what happened two years ago, I couldn't deny but day by day it becomes blurry and worn out. I couldn't remember how I really was if the new students didn't help me to remember.

Makes me wonder, would everything will be forgotten as if nothing's happened once I stepped out from Japan?

Fall Is Just Around the Corner

Despite all the Fall Collection every clothing stores here could offers (knitted sweaters! oxford shoes! shawls!), I can actually smell fall already on the air. Just like a morning breeze, it spreads fresh air that lift up the spirit to look further at the other side of the line. Wait until the leaves change color and everything would be perfect. Things will start new and fresh. As much as I couldn't wait for fall to come, I couldn't believe I'm starting as a junior from next month.

This quick blog post will be a little remark of me having this little blog for the whole two years and living in Japan as well. Applause, applause.