One of the things that I’ve joined this year is SCIKyu, or Student Group on Internationalisation of Kyushu University. It’s basically a group that researches the ways to make Kyushu University friendlier to foreign students and give the Japanese students a more international outlook. I joined because I think it’s a worthy goal, and if it help gets more of you kouhai’s here, I’m all for it (you hear me TUFS/Osaka kouhais?)

Part of the meeting notes

So on Friday, we had our first overnight meeting at Kasuya Research forest. Apparently, it belongs to Kyudai, so the stay there was really cheap: Dinner + Breakfast + the Lunch I didn’t eat was 370 yen.

Up the stairs and there we go 😀

Since it’s an overnight meeting, the first thing we did when we arrived was to have dinner. Curry <3

And then, a meeting from about 8.45 to 11.30pm. It was interesting, since we went through the previous problem areas and tried to determine whether they were still problem areas.

Interesting incident (aka how to get people to laugh):

One suggestion brought up was for a series of cooking videos for the new students. However, the only problem was the cost and the fact that we have no budget. So everyone was hemming and hawing until I asked how much each video would cost. From the way the presenters sounded, I assumed it would be 10 000 yen or more. True cost: 2000yen.

My immediate reaction was “If that’s all, I’ll just pay for it”. And then everyone laughed. Not too sure why though. Apparently it was cute. I did talk to the presenters about it later though, to see how I can help with funding.

After that, it was bath and bedtime.

No wait.

Friday night was Germany vs France and Colombia vs Brazil. So obviously everyone stayed up to watch it, although quite a few people dozed off during the match. I watched the first half, and part of the second half of the Germany vs France match, then gave in to the siren call of sleep. I blame the meds.

Also, Germany has an awesome goal-keeper. Just awesome. Turns out no one scored after the 13th minute, so I could have slept an hour earlier.

I believe a few people gave up even 4 hours of sleep to watch both matches. Breakfast was from 8-9 and it was basically bread and cheese. CHEESE.

Outside the meeting room. This is a research center, so there are stuff like this all around. I even saw two stuffed deer!

The second, morning meeting was a group meeting. I’m in publication design, and my current task is to find out which part of the Kyushu University website needs improvement. Feedback is sorely needed, so if you have any complaints about the English version of the website, let me know!

And because I had something on in Tenjin, I left earlier. I was driven to Sasaguri station, which is so cute!

It was a fun, but tiring meeting. I’m really looking forward to helping my future kouhais by making it easier to study (and live) in Kyudai 😀