Graduating university

Hi, blog! Long time no see again. I've had less and less use of you, but thank you for existing anyway. Not sure if this will be my final post on you, maybe there is something more to write about in the future, but at this moment I cannot really think of anything more.

For many years now I've been counting big moments of life in three. Three years of "gymnasiet". Three years in Japan. Three years at university of Gothenburg. Well that ends now, I no longer have much of a reason to count things in three. I did get a job, but who knows if I will stay there three years? Maybe I will stay much longer, maybe much shorter, only time will tell.

I guess, what I am trying to say is, that it's no longer that easy to see the future. I am not stuck in some 3 year committment anymore, and thus I am more free to pack up and leave and go whereever I want at any time. This is a good feeling. But it's weird too, because I do not know where I will be in three years anymore.

When deciding to go back to Sweden and go to university of Gothenburg, and to the SEM programme, I had a few ideas of how it might be like during these years but there were many things I could not predict. At the beginning of the year I was sure I was going to apply for a masters directly afterwards, and go abroad again, hopefully learn yet another language. But instead I am not, 3 years later, sitting here dreaming about owning a little house with a nice view and exploring the beautiful nature of Sweden instead. At this point in time I do not want to apply for a masters, and I don't even feel the need to live aborad again. It was a great experience, but why leave if I like it here right now?

But what I've learned through all these years is that wants and needs change, so you can only go with what you think you want and need in this moment, and then if it turns out you were wrong, you make a change in the future. It might be difficult once you realize your priorities change, and you now have a new goal, and you are not really sure how to get there, but you will get there. It will all be fine in the end. Just take your time.

These past three years have been mostly good, and I have basically graduated, which is nice, and I did well during my time in university. Did not fail one single exam, because I was so afraid that if I failed one I would just lag behind and fail the rest of them too. I do often think of possible problems that might occur with everything. The pessimist does not sleep, even though I wish it would.

In Sweden, graduating university is not a big deal, it seems. When I graduated from high school it was a big deal, not just at school but at home too, we had a nice little get together and I got some gifts and stuff. Maybe because graduating high school is also a kind of rite of passage into adulthood, like, now you're 18 (or 19) so you are grown! You need to move out and thus people give you gifts that you can use as an adult in your own future home. But when you graduate from university (is this actually the correct term?), you have probably already lived on your own for a few years, and getting a party together is not as much of a priority for people.

I am not mentioning this because I want a party or anything, it just feels weird to me how the end of these 3 years of higher education are over and yet it does not feel properly over, because the day it's over is just another day like any other. At this point I don't even know if we will have a ceremony at school because of Corona, if there is a ceremony (even an online one), they haven't even told us about it!

But, there is at least something to signify that I am done with university (for the most part): I have moved out from my old place where I lived with 2 room-mates, and I am now staying in my own place. And because of this, I finally got the chance to get a cat, and so I did. She is still young, so not with me yet, but I will go pick her up in July.

I honestly planned on not getting a cat for at least a few more years, but as soon as I moved out I just realized that I don't want to wait anymore when I have the chance right now. In Japan I wanted a cat so badly but couldn't, but here in Sweden I am not as restricted. As long as I have my own place I can have a pet. So, it's kind of like a graduation gift for myself, I suppose, that's how I see it at least.

Can't wait to start a new chapter in life with a new family member who will hopefully be a part of my future for a very long time! :) Good bye!

3 years since I left Japan

April fools day was a good day to return to Sweden, it makes it so easy to remember when it's been yet another year since I returned from Japan! So now it's been 3 years, and it's finally the year 2020, the year I graduate from university!

How can this year have felt so far away for such a long time and then the next minute I am suddenly here, wondering what happened to the time inbetween? Not much has happened! These 3 years have been a lot less eventful than my 3 years in Japan. In Japan I would see many more things, travel to more places, eat at different restaurants and cafés. Here in Sweden I have barely traveled, haven't been to a lot of restaurants or cafés in Gothenburg either...

But at least now I can say that I have a favourite café and restaurant in Gothenburg, it just took a long time before it happened. The best restaurant is called "Spanska köket" (The spanish kitchen), and my favourite café so far is "Café Sirius". I still have a lot to explore though, and hopefully I will get the chance to do that! With corona around though, I cannot be certain.

Like I have stated before, I have not completely liked my university program "Software Engineering and Management", it has a lot of potential but needs to get a grip, haha. I don't know how to explain it, but they need better and more organized teachers for many of the courses.

However, this third year of SEM has (unlike the other years) been really chill for me. The first semester I took a bunch of online courses in programming and design and the likes, it was a lot of fun! After that our remaining courses have not had any written exam, just assignments to hand in, and it's been pretty easy to get by and still keep up the grades! I am very suprised about this! In a good way of course, haha, it's been good to take things easy.

After much struggle and annoyance I was able to find a job even before graduating (and before all of this corona stuff, which I am sure makes it more difficult since you can't meet as easily), which is good because it allows me more room to plan things.

I have also found a place to live, since I have to move soon. This place may not be long term, but maybe I will find a more long term place later though, we will see if I can make things work or not. It's just good for now to have some kind of certainty of where I am going from here. There was a while when I wasn't sure if I even wanted to stay in Gothenburg even for just a year or two longer, but I decided to stick it out. There are more fun jobs in the big city, and I want to see what it's like to work here. Can't say I am super excited though, because I am a person that worries a lot, so of course right now there are so many things to worry about for me and that kind of takes away a lot of the excitement of new things happening.

But as long as I can find a stable place to live, and I get hired for real after the 6 month "trial-hire period" is over (I don't remember what it's called in English, haha) I should be fine.

Why, Corona? Why?

As many may know, Japan is taking the Corona outbreak quite seriously and have recently closed their borders to a lot of countries for a while. This is just perfect timing for the upcoming MEXT students I am sure, haha, they must be thrilled! I am still in a MEXT-scholarship group on Facebook so I often see people writing about Corona and how they don't know how they will be impacted. This is the time when people are supposed to be coming to Japan to be greeted at the airport but I wonder if everyone was able to arrive safely or if the borders closed before that happened? And if they can't get to Japan now, will they get to go later instead? It's intimidating enough without corona to go to a completely new country to stay for the next 3-5 years or more, so it must suck for the international students affected by this.

There is actually a package in Japan that was supposed to come for me, I've paid a lot of money for it, but I think it was all in vain now, since its been stuck at a Tokyo post office for 2 weeks now and it may be there for a lot longer. Long enough to be forgotten or misplaced by someone. So I think that is probably money down the drain. That's the small way I am affected by the situation in Japan, haha. Do not send packages in the middle of a pandemic!

I've been talking to my friends in Japan, things are fine mostly, some are worried and some aren't. Groceries and toilet paper are sometimes still hard to find in some stores apparently (there was a warning about a complete Tokyo shutdown or something a while ago which spooked people). At least in Japan people are more likely to use masks than here in Sweden, which is probably good for them, bad for us. In my opinion Sweden should make it mandatory to wear a mask when going out (or at least when in train or bus or w.e), like some other countries have. If everyone has to wear a mask it wont be awkward anymore! You wont seem like the worried freak, haha.

For me, I had to make a trip to my hometown a while ago but since coming back I have been staying at home almost every day. I stocked up on a little more food so that I don't have to take a trip to the grocery store as much as I usually do. When I "had" to buy some material things I ordered them online instead of going to the store, even though I really want to go to stores. I just want to go anywhere that is not here in this apartment, in this area. But I feel like every time I am on the bus, some person is there coughing and that isn't great. Being sick it not something I like, and in the middle of my bachelors thesis, getting sick may mean I don't get to graduate on time, so I am trying to be careful.

Being home as much as I am I will probably be fine, but I am worried about my parents who do not seem to care a lot about corona, and they can't work from home that much, so they will be more in contact with people. Hope they are careful.

So what am I doing to stay sane during corona? Not much, really. So far I've done basically nothing, working on the thesis, sure, but apart from that I have been procrastinating a lot. I want to prepare for my job which will start in like 2 months now, but when I think about doing anything productive I just shut down. It's hard to get into it when you haven't had to do anything for quite a while. But I have to try. Trying is all I can do.

Finding a job in Sweden

It is that time of the year again! The time when I remember my blog and feel like writing something down once more!

As I all know, I was not looking forward to these last 6 months of university for a long time. But as it turns out, half of it was fine. We had 2 more "normal courses" and though they had their ups and downs I did not mind them and it was fun being back in school and meeting some friends again.

It was different coming back now though, so many people are not even bothering showing up to class anymore and it kind of helps me see why so few people are graduating this program every year, haha.

Anyway, down to the real reason why I am here: I got a job.

Searching for a job was a real pain in the a**, but I still feel like I came out on the other side quite quickly and unscathed, because I was expecting more months of this searching. Just a few days ago I made a plan for how to prepare for more coding tests and interviews, not knowing what skills or languages to focus on since there are so many different ones out there.

It all started with my finding out that people in my class had already started looking for jobs. This made me feel like I had to do the same, so mid January I sent out a bunch of applications to different jobs that seemed interesting to me. Many people called me back quite quickly and for a while there I had to go to so many interviews (in my opinion), that I felt like I had taken on too much at once and felt exhausted. But a lot of this stuff died down pretty quickly and I still had no job offers, so I was pretty much just waiting around, thinking I will apply for more jobs later on.

About a month or two later I applied for a few more but have gotten no answers from them so far. But I guess that doesnt matter any more, since I got offered a position quite quickly.

A recruiter set me up with a guy this Tuesday, we had a good interview, then he called me on Thursday and we talked a little more, and then on Friday they offered me the position and I took it.

That is very cool and all, and I feel like this will be a great place to work! However, this post is about the job searching process if anything. So here goes:

As a responsible adult, the first thing I did when I started to apply for jobs was to go out and buy some business casual attire to wear for interviews. Even I can't justify going to a job interview in a Legend of Zelda hoodie and my dirty broken Nike shoes. Even just wearing business casual still feels like dress-up to me though, I am not used to it, it doesn't feel like me.

Then I tried to prepare for the interviews, there are some normal non-programming related interview questions online that are commonly asked. Questions I got asked a lot were: "How do you work in a team/What role do you take in a team?", "How would people describe you?", "What are your best and worst qualities?", "Do you have any personal projects you are working on?", "Tell us about a project in school, what was difficult?" and so on.

In order to have some coding projects to show people at different companies I started working more on my writing website (made it look presentable) and made it public on GitHub. I also added another project in another language just in case.

I was afraid that everyone would ask technical questions, but most interviews were just about personality, background, school, etc. Then instead of being asked questions on spot about different programming langauges or skills, I would get sent an online coding test instead. This seems to be the norm at least now.

Most of these coding tests were not timed, but some were and I do not really get that, but that's another story. So for maybe 5 weeks in a row my weekends were largely spent on doing these code tests and I got pretty tired of them. Many days also working on my own website or websites it felt like a lot of work for not a lot of feedback from companies.

Of all the interviews I went to only one made me feel bad afterwards, most people were very nice.

I suppose the worst thing about search for a job for me was the uncertainty of everything, never really knowing if I knew enough or if I should study some other subject or just stick to what I already know. That's why I tried to make a list of what to study first, interview questions for Javascript or interview questions for Java? Backend or frontend questions? Algorithms or datastructures? Do I know enough or do I not? This whole process just really took a toll on my self esteem. Glad it's over for now.

Okay, this post does not have a lot of direction, but I'm going to end it here, because it's time to face the next struggle: Where the hell am I supposed to live in a few months?

First post of 2020!

Hello 2020! How not nice to finally meet you!

This is a year I am not looking forward to (though maybe I should).

The first 6 months will consist of the last of my university life, yea, it's weird that it's ending all of a sudden! I cannot wait for it to be over, even though I have enjoyed my time here, there is just so much that I hoped for with this university programme that just didn't happen. I still think the quality of it is low, and as I have probably said before: If I had been younger I would have switched to another programme, but within the same field of programming, because that is still very much fun.

So, for 2.5 years now I have been dreading the unevitable bachelor's thesis because I am just not interested, to me it feels like a waste of time and just dreadfully boring! But now I actually have to accept that the time is almost here and I have to try to put my negative feelings aside and pull through these lat 6 months of school. The bachelors thesis is technically only taking place during a 3 month period but we are allowed to start a lot sooner, which many people will, also writing the proposal will start in January as well.

Okay, let's say I make it through these next six months (that I imagine will feel like hell after these very fun and relaxed 6+ months I have had so far, haha) which I will because it might even be better than I am expecting, I am a pessimist after all and I don't want my negative emotions about something that has already happened make the thing that will happen actually become negative once it does happen? Get it? ... I just wish I had more of an open mind about these upcoming 6 months, and I will try to.. soon! Anyway, after these 6 months of possible hell, I will then suddenly have to: move out, try to find a new apartment or place to stay, try to find a job, try to decide whether to stay in Gothenburg or not! It feels like a mess.

I kind of want to stay in Gothenburg still, at least for 1-3 years, BUT the plan I had for doing this kind of failed. Seems like I might not be able to share an apartment with friends anymore, since they might want to live alone, and in that case I would have to find an apartment alone. Buuut that's not easy to do here unless you can afford a rent of 11000-17000 kr a month! Which I cant, of course.So if I am to live in Gothenburg alone I almost certainly have to live in one room in someone elses apartment "inneboende" as it's called. So it's not really alone, at all. It's not how I imagine my life as a grown-up.

Maybe I will still go for it, maybe I will try sharing an apartment with some random person for a while. But I don't want to. The price for a room in Gothenburg can be as much as 6000 kr (most common is 5000kr) which is pretty much more than the person renting the place pays in rent each month. It feels like a big scam. But what other choice is there if you want to live in Gothenburg in this day n age?

So in the end I might leave Gothenburg, honestly I still haven't made up my mind yet. But I could leave, wait a few more years (maybe 10) until I have a shit ton of queue points on boplats.se and then rent a great apartment there are work there for a few years like I wanted to, just for fun. Then again, by that time there might be other reasons why this wouldn't be possible.
I have some idea where to go if I leave Gothenburg though, so I just need to make up my mind, which I think is going to take a while because I really thought I would work here after I finished school. Now I am not sure, and it's messing up the plan. The thing that makes me even less capable of making a decision though is the fact that I might not even find my own place to live even if I choose to live outside of Gothenburg. Maybe I move and I still end up living in a shared apartment with some rando? What to do..

2020 will be full of questioning of my decisions, that's what I feel!

Pondering the future again, will it ever end (referring to the pondering)?

I've been back in Gothenburg for a while now, my trip in Korea actually passed by pretty quickly and so has my time here.
When I first came to Korea I wondered how I would make a whole month go by, time felt like it was moving so slowly. But after about a week everything just went by in the blink of an eye. Most days I went out exploring and on the weekend I would go to Seoul to see live traditional performances and go to museums and so on. There was a lot to do in Daejeon as well, though on the smaller scale. Museums, parks, cafes, art related stuff.
The last 2 days of my trip I visited Busan, which I enjoyed a lot! I took a tour there, which visited like 4 different places in one day and that was a bit hectic but an experience in and of itself.

All in all I had a fine time in Korea, nothing to complain about, but it was warm! Even in October my first week there was all 30 degree celcius days. I am just not up for something like this again and after this trip I have decided I will not be studying in South Korea, though I will definitely be back for vacation purposes! Next I want to go to Jeju island, and also back to Busan for a longer visit.

So now I've sadly ruled out Korea as my next study destination and Australia (which was also a contendor) is also off the list because they no longer provide the same kind of scholarships as they did. My list is now very short and I will have to do more research as to where I should study in the future... it either has to be a country where education is free or very cheap or a country that provides good scholarships to cover the education costs.

Then there is this other thing I've been thinking about: I've been wanting to get a dog for years and I thought I would get one after I've taken my masters and started working but since I decided to wait at least a year, possibly longer before pursuing a masters, this is starting to seem like a very distant dream. I wish I could have a dog now, or at least soon. It makes me so sad thinking about this. I could litterally go and buy a dog right now, it could be mine, but buying one is the easy part and after that comes the hard part and I've never owned a dog before so it would not be a good idea to buy one now.
But then I think I could buy it in the summer, maybe my mum would let me stay in her house in June, July, August and I could take care of the puppy there before starting to work in September.
That's probably not going to happen either.
So if not now, and not summer, then when? When will I have the time for this? Man, everything is so much easier with cats and I love cats so much but I love animals in general and I couldn't go through my life without ever owning a dog, you know? It would be such a missed opportunity.

Anyway, I am just feeling very sad about this right now, that's why I am rambling on about it. I shouldn't have recalculated the cost of having a dog because that made me realize that I could have one soon, I could even afford to have one now since I am home most days and thus wouldn't have to pay someone to walk it. Ignorance is bliss, if I had just kept believing that a dog was out of my reach I wouldn't be here now wishing I had one already.

Traveling Japan and South Korea

Being back in Japan again was a weird feeling, even though it had been 2.5 years since I left I came to Japan just feeling the exact same as I had when I had lived there. It was like I had never even left. Maybe it was just the feeling of "this is normal" that came over me and made me a little bit bored initially.

Of course I was glad to meet my friends, that was the main reason why I wanted to go back to Japan in the first place. I guess I had also thought that if I went to Tokyo and not Osaka I would not get the feeling of "this is normal", but I did. So the days I spent in Tokyo weren't super interesting, except for going to the Ghibli museum, because that was great.

Anyway the feeling didn't last long though because me and a friend quickly left Tokyo to visit another friend in Ibaraki where just staying in their apartment and eating the home made food and going to places in Ibaraki made it feel like I was experiencing something new.
It was an interesting few days, I got a bit down because of the jet lag I guess and then I got sick for maybe half a day too and caught a cold pretty early on. Then my friend got a bit sick too and left a day earlier than me. It sounds like a mess, and it kind of was, but all in all it was fun! We weren't really able to do any of the things we planned, like BBQ (it was raining) and going to a big park nearby (because they closed it on that day), but we found other things to spend time on!

After spending a few days in Ibaraki I came back to Tokyo and stayed at my friends place there. They were working for like 3 days (?) in a row so I spend a few days alone in Tokyo. I went to a Samurai museum, a cool park-thing in Todoroki and bought some Harry Potter books that I sent back to Sweden right away (hopefully they will arrive after I get back).

The main part of the trip though was me and my friend going to Nagano for 3 days. It doesn't sound like a long time but we did quite a lot of things and it was a really fullfilling trip. Our first day we went to a little town called Obuse where we ate a lot of good food and saw many beautiful houses and mountains.
The day after that we went up on a mountain and hiked through a forest to various places. Throughout the forest they had put up signs saying "Beware of bears!", which kind of scared me a little, but thankfully we did not encounter a bear.
In the forest you can take a trail to a lake which is called "Mirror lake" and on clear days it will show you a beautiful reflection of the mountains behind. When we were there we saw nothing, and the big mountains lay hidden behind clouds. It was okay though, I liked the weather, it was a perfect temperature which I already miss.
To end the day on the mountain we ate some delicious cold soba, and some ice cream and went to a ninja museum!

Lastly after the trip to Nagano I had about one day left in Tokyo, and was able to meet a friend who came up for a quick visit. We didn't really know what to do or where to go though since we couldn't go anywhere too far from the city center. In the end we just ate some food at a "Mexican restaurant" (it was basically Japanese food in my opinion) and then went to Tokyo station to find a café where we could sit and talk. Turns out though that that was harder to do then we planned and we ended up not getting in to any cafe because the lines were looong. Honestly it was kind of a fail day but I had fun, and I hope my friends did too!

So, that was my Japan trip, in very short terms. Maybe later when I am not so lazy I can go in and edit this post to add pictures... we will see!

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Up next is Korea, where I went right after being in Japan and I am still here! It's gonna be long "vacation" here (I put it in quotation mark because I have to spend most of my days studying anyway) and the first week has not been as expected.
In Korea I am staying in Daejeon. It was pretty easy to get here from the airport but it took a long time! And in Korea I´ve been eaten by bugs every day, doesn't matter if I stay inside my room with all doors and windows shut or outside, they still come and get me! There is always somewhere where I've been bitten and subsequently it starts itching. I can live with it but at first I thought it was lice or something in the room so I got a bit scared that I might have to find another place to stay. Luckily it worked out, the little bastards are creeping in from the outside.

I didn't expect all the bugs. I've never been bitten in Japan. And another thing I wasn't expecting was that there would be 30 degrees celcius heat outside in September/October. Of course I try to research these things but it's difficult when it comes to weather.
Last time I was in Korea coming from Japan, Korea was a lot colder so I just assumed that generally in fall/winter it would be a bit colder than Japan, but I was wrong.
30 degrees is fine, and it is slowly dropping, but I honestly had hoped that I would not have to walk around in sandals and shorts on sunny days.

Okay, that's it for now. More on the Korea trip later, it's long so might as well give it its own post!

Back to WaniKani (again)!

For some reason I felt like starting WaniKani again, after not having used it since 2013-2014 before I went to Japan. I didn't really want to pay for it but it turned out that since I had been a beta user back in the days I got quite a nice discount so I decided to take the chance after all.

(I am not going indepth into explaining WaniKani here, just so you know!)

WaniKani is used to help you remember Kanji and learn Japanese words through the use of mnemonics. I really liked it back when I used it but it does take a lot of time and if you don't use it every day the reviews and lessons you have will pile up into insane amounts.
So after not having used it for like 5 years I expected a shit ton of never ending reviews but that didn't happen. I guess when you stop your subscription the SRS (spaced repetitoin system) clock also stops, so it's been quite chill for the few days I've been using it now.

In my experience WaniKani is the best way to learn Kanji but it's not perfect so this time around I tried to make it as good as I could by installing some of the available scripts and trying out KaniWani on the side.

Scripts can help you order your reviews and lessons, and undo mistakes in typing and so on (that last one is easy to abuse, I've noticed) which is really helpful. That way I can finish studying the radicals of the kanji, then the kanji themselves and then the complete words.
KaniWani is like WaniKani but they show you words in English instead and you have to find the Japanese translation, picking the right kanji and such. It's good and serves a purpose but it's hard to keep up with using WaniKani and KaniWani at the same time since they are both very time consuming.

When I was using WaniKani before I had never been to Japan and I couldn't really speak Japanese very well and that's how it is for most people using WaniKani and they still get a lot out of it and learn a lot. But this time is different for me as I now can speak Japanese and a lot of the kanji on the website I already know to varying degrees. It's a lot easier. I feel like already having this knowledge might make WaniKani an even better resource, because it's a way to keep up what you know so that you don't forget it over time and it's easy to use because you know the language. Learning kanji isn't a daunting task now, it's something familiar and brings back good memories (at least for me, lol).
Maybe it's also more fun because I don't feel the pressure to learn in the fastest time possible now, I can use WaniKani for 30-60 minutes a day and not feel bad about leaving reviews for the next day.

I do recommend WaniKani for people that already know a lot of kanji (unless you know everything on there already, which I sure don't!) because kanji knowledge and vocab doesn't stick forever the way we would all want it to. We all need some kind of repetition system available, and WaniKani is a fun one!

Anyway, with this random post out of the way I guess I should go back to studying some more kanji, just to set a good example for myself!

Keeping in touch with friends on the other side of the planet

I am finally on summer vacation again, though I am trying to finish up my extra math courses now so that's taking up quite a lot of my time. It's not going super well, but it's fine, I guess.

During summer I usually go home to my "home town" which is nice, but it's pretty far from Gothenburg and thus I can't really meet anyone who lives in Gothenburg during the summer, well, I would if I had money but now I have to save all my money for the trip!

I will be going down to Gothenburg at the end of August for a few days though, which is nice.

It's kind of hard for me to keep up with people online, people I don't see every day or every week or month. It's easy to forget them, even though I don't want to, there is just so much else going on.

In Japan I met a lot of nice people, and I am keeping in touch with just a few of them today on a regular basis. Me and 2 friends in Japan even started a cross-continental book club, it's gone quite well so far, way better than the book club we started at SEM (where we only read 1 book and then it just kind of died out). So far we've read maybe 5(?) books.

Having something set like a book club is a good way to remember to keep in touch I suppose. Just setting specific times a week for a chat is a good way of doing it.
When there is no set structure to your chats or talks, I guess that's when things eventually die out.

But even if that happens it's always possible to start up a conversation again, even if years have gone by, I know that. You just have to work on it, and the other person has to work on it too. Some people are easier to keep up a friendship with than others, but anything is possible.

I am just rambling, really, but I just wanted to remind myself of this.

スウェーデンに帰ってから2年間が立っての日本語ブログ記事！yikes..

スウェーデンに帰ったのはちょうど2年前ぐらい、２０１７年４月１日でした。帰ってから日本語を話す機会とか書く機会などはもちろんあまりなくて、少しずつ日本語は覚えなくなっています。でもまだけっけうしゃべれますし、日本語で書いてある本などは普通に読めますし、この変化は速く起こりません。それはいいことかもしれませんけど、ちょっと怖い、いつの間にか日本語がわからなくなるような気がします。まだ大丈夫だと自分は思ってたらその日はきっといつか来ますよね。

日本語はやっぱり私の一番好きな言語ですし、また日本に沢山旅行したいし、今まだ持ってる日本語能力を無駄にはしたくありません。でもスウェーデンで1人で日本語の勉強をするのはちょっと難しいですよね。何を勉強すればいいのかを考えてしまいます。日本語で書いてある本は少しあって、それを読むのは好きなんですけど、やっぱそれだけでは足りません。自分が話さなかったら、書かなかったら新しい言葉とか文法などは身につけません。本とか動画とかはもちろんそれなりに大事なものなんですけど、それだけでは日本語は上手にはなりません。

たまには自分は　めっちゃ日本語を話したい！聞きたい！っていう気持ちに溢れてNetflixとかでドラマやアニメを見たり、自分だけと日本語で会話をしたり、日本の曲を歌ったりしてちょっとでもまんぞくになりますけど、ちょっと寂しいですｗｗｗ。

クラスには日本人いませんし、たぶん学校全体にはいませんよね。日本人でない人の中にも日本語喋れる人まだ会ってませんし、どうしようかなって感じになります。まあ、たまにはSkypeでまだ日本に住んでいる友達と話しますけどその時は日本語使いたくてもほとんど英語になっちゃいます。

 これからはもっと頑張らないとあかんねんって思ってますので、ブログでもっと日本語のブログ記事を書きましょう！丁寧語でのブログ記事、大阪弁でのブログ記事など！今それをしなかったらいつにするでしょうか？今しかありません！やばいよ！

将来には何も見えない

Exams are coming up and like usual 3 weeks before the exams I got into a bit of a panic thinking I would never have time to study enough to get the grade I want, so I contemplated not taking the exams at all and do them later instead.
But now the exams are 2 days away and things have been pretty chill for the past few days, and I feel like I know most of what we need to know.

Which means that now there is time to worry about other things instead.

Will I have enough money to do something fun in Gothenburg after exams?
Will I have enough money to go to Japan for vacation?
Will I have enough money to buy a small house or apartment in the future...?
Will I have enough money to retire when I am old?!

Sometimes I feel like everything is a downward spiral and everything I want in life is right there in front of me but because I wasn't born into money it is unreachable to me. Doesn't really sound like a fair world, does it.

Even the idea of getting a scholarship in order to do a masters abroad seems like it could just slip out of my fingers. Sure, I did get a scholarship before, but this time is different and I would not be surprised if they all just simply rejected me right away for me just being me. Because I am weird, kind of. It doesn't impact my skills, I am a really good student, but being a good student isn't all they think about when considering who to choose for a scholarship.

I am also afraid that I will never be able to "become an author" because I suck too much at writing and I might never become good at it, and even if I did that doesn't guarantee anything.

I don't want to be a slave to the status quo system, working just to make a living and barely getting to spend time on what I want. I want what I want and I hate that I might not get any of it.

The future is a scary place I dare not think about for too long, because I only see the worst in it.

Planning a trip to South Korea and Japan, and still struggling to make a decision about my future

Happy (belated) new year! 2018 was a fine year, nothing special, but not bad. Now we are entering 2019 though and hopefully things will get even better!

When I started my 2nd year at the SEM program at university I was sceptical, but it's been better than the first year so that's good. But, I made a promise with myself a long time ago that I would do something fun in Gothenburg every week, like at least once a week go out and do something - anything! And I am saddened to say I didn't really follow through on this promise, but during this new year I've made a new try and it's gone a lot better!

So now I've started to think more about things I want to see and places I want to visit, and I realized that during my 3rd year at SEM I will have about 4 months where I will only be studying "Distance courses" because we can choose to study whatever we want, and this means I wont be bound to school every day like I am now, so I can go travel!

Luckily I've been able to save up some money so that I can afford to visit both Japan and South Korea this September or October. In Japan I think I will just go to Tokyo and explore around there, hopefully I will be able to meet some friends again! Maybe I will go to Osaka but I'm not sure if I will have the time or money, but we will see! Anyway, in South Korea I've already made up my mind a bit more about where I want to go; I want to start in Busan and be there a few days, then check out Daejeon a little and then finally spend a few days in Seoul. I might be traveling alone in Korea though, so we will see how that goes!

It's still around 8 months til the trip so I don't know any specifics about it, I havent even booked flight tickets yet! They are pretty cheap right now but I am looking every day to see if I can find some tickets under 6000SEK!

Okay, so that's the fun stuff, now to what's bothering me:
I've decided what I will work with after I graduate, and to no ones surprise its "Web development"! Doing web development for 2 courses at school now has really reminded me about how much I like it, and even since I was 16 or something I've wanted to make awesome websites. I've already made a list of all the languages I should know/want to know, and I am very excited to learn!

During my time at SEM I've been looking into other fields that might be fun to work in and I ended up not being able to decide on anything until now, and now I feel like I've made up my mind, which is cool but it kind of changes my view about taking a masters degree. I want to take a masters, but there would be seemingly no point if it's unrelated to webdevelopment, and it's pretty hard to find one that is related. If I do find a really appealing masters degree I might just go for it even if it's not related, but I am not sure where I would be able to find that...

So right now I am in this limbo where I don't know if I should go for a masters, but at the same time I am still sickened by the thought of having to spend 5 days a week of my life dedicated to some job! Working with web development seems really fun, and I want to start right now, until I am reminded of the fact that a normal job is not like university. In a normal job I will have to wake up at 6 every morning just to catch a bus at 7 and then start working at 8, probably going home from work at 17 and not being home until 18 and then I have to cook food for 2 hours. So basically I will have about 3 hours of real free time a day except for the weekends...

And down the rabbit hole I spiral again.. Bye bye!

Japans takeover of Thailand

Long time no blog!

School has been pretty busy since I decided to take on an extra course, and it's about to get even busier since from next week I will be a teaching assistant for 2 months...
It's fine though, and so far school has been very fun since we've been doing webdev and our webdev teachers were really good!

But before I started school again I went to Thailand on a 2 week long vacation to visit my friends and do some "island hopping".
I don't really have a lot to say about the trip since I was sick about half the time (which is just what I expected to happen, but hoped wouldn't!) but I did notice a few things while I was in Thailand, namely that I almost felt like I was back in Japan!

Japan and Thailand are nothing alike, as I am sure you will know if you've been in both countries, but even so, when it comes to franchises, specifically restaurant franchises, these 2 countries suddenly become eerily similar.

Turns out Japan has been sneaking in all its favourite restaurants into Thailand one by one until every other restaurant you can see in a mall in Thailand is a Japanese restaurant!

There is Matsuya, Yoshinoya, Coco Ichiban Ya, Yayoiken, etc etc, and I'm pretty sure I saw MosBurger too (ew). Then there is everything from Shabu shabu to sushi and ramen and so on. It never ends!

Turns out the best food I would eat in Thailand was my favourite Yakishake onigiri, and man did it taste delicious!

So really, if you want to go to Japan, why not go to Thailand? It's cheaper, the people are very kind, the driving and the roads is horrible, and they have great beaches!
(Warning: Higher risk of getting sick in Thailand compared to Japan)

On a more serious note though, while I did like seeing all those Japanese restaurants in Thailand, because in a way they made me feel at home and they brought a sense of nostalgia, I really hope that Japan does not succeed with their "takeover" of the Thai restaurant industry.
One of the best things about going to another country is getting to try the food there (unless you get sick!) and if everywhere you go is suddenly a Japanese chain restaurant, it kind of takes away from that experience.

Software Engineering and Management program - The breakdown

It's finally here! The moment I've all been waiting for: The Summer Holiday!

The only bad thing is that I have to work during the whole thing...

Anyhow, this means that I made the first year of university after all! It wasn't as difficult as I had feared when I first started, but also it wasn't always as great as I had hoped (at least course wise).

A classmate reminded me about a post I had written around half a year into the program, about how I liked it and thought I had picked the right program, well, turns out those feelings wouldn't last forever.

Just a few weeks after our official one year at the program I started to desperately try to find any way I could out of it, but it was too late. I am stuck here, and that's ok, I suppose, BUT if I could go back and change my decision to enter this program, I would.

So because I want to let other students know what they are getting themselves into when applying for this program (Software Engineering and Management at Göteborgs universitet / Gothenburg university) I thought I would do a bit of a breakdown of its courses and how it's structured, and tell you about the courses I've had so far, and how I feel about them.
Let's get started!
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Year 1 courses (each are 7.5hp, they always go 2 in parallel):

Mathematical Foundations for Software Engineering
Rating: Bad
This course had some fun parts, since we covered a lot of different topics in math, but it was way too crammed, with a new math subject every week. I studied like crazy for this exam, like I've never studied before, yet I still barely passed, because there were just too many things we needed to know in a very short time.
The supplies we got from the teachers (mainly explanatory videos) were really bad, and didn't help at all, so I had to find other videos on youtube to actually help me.

Object-Oriented Programming (Java)
Rating: Good
This course was great, great teachers and layout and such. I learned a lot even though I had already studied a bit of Java and knew most of what we did in the course.

Requirements and User Experience
Rating: Good
This course was boring, and I didn't really see the point of it at first, but the teacher was good (a bit cranky though), and the course layout was very well made and it felt very organized. It contained no programming, which was sad.

Mini Project: Team Programming
Rating: Bad
In a group of about 5 to 7 people we were supposed to build kind of a "library system" for borrowing and lending books. We were pretty much given free hands as to how to go about doing this. Thing is, we were supposed to be using SCRUM etc, and learn how to manage a project, but they didn't teach us anything about management beforehand, so it just felt super disorganized and I just got the feeling that we weren't learning as much as we would have if they had given us a course in management and project work before throwing us into this.

Data Structures and Algorithms
Rating: Bad
This course was a giant mess and the teacher shouldn't be a teacher at all, because they were too fragile and I worried for their mental health at times. What I learned from this course was from youtube videos and google searches, because there was simply nothing good being provided at lectures, and the teacher barely knew what they were talking about at times.

Data Management
Rating: Good
Another well structured, well organized course with good content. We got to learn SQL and a bit of NoSQL, etc.

Software Analysis and Design
Rating: Bad
This is kind of like the continuation of the "Requirements and User Experience" course, and was all about how to design software using different models. Again, I think it's boring, but I can see why it's important to developing well-structured and modular software. Sadly this course was not as good as its predecessor. It was messy, the teachers didn't seem to care about us and never answered our emails, and there were barely any lectures. After extensive complaints from students they started to try to fix it at the end of the course, but it was a bit too late at that point.
Also the exam was crazy big, with no time to finish all parts without hurrying like crazy, and even the people that usually always get a VG felt like they had been screwed over by this exam.  

Mini Project: Systems Development
Rating: Bad
Another projec course! Like the first one we had to be in teams of around 5-7 people, but this time we didn't get to choose our own teams... !
This course was a big, vague mess for weeks and weeks, and made me suffer a lot.
We were supposed to program a robot car to autonomously parallel park itself using Arduino, and later they also added that we had to use a Raspberry Pi for something too. My group used the Pi with a PiCamera to try to make the car detect traffic lights.
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Final verdict:
So, there you have them, our courses for year 1!
As you can see, most of them are bad, and it's not just my opinion reflected up there, but almost all my classmates opinions as well, because every day before class you know there's going to be trash talking about a course going on, if that course happens to suck.

Main problems:
Unorganized courses
Many of the courses we had were badly structured and very unorganized, and courses like the "Mini projects" take up way too much time, time which I would've liked to also spend on the other course as well.

Project courses
Working in such big groups, where some people don't work at all and you have to pick up their slack sucks. These courses are mostly just about googling, because you don't know anything you're supposed to know. They don't bring anything to the table that you couldn't learn in a better way if the course was restructured. 

Problem based learning
Also the mini projects do not teach us enough, because they are built on some random idea of "Problem based learning" where you don't teach the student anything, you just give them a problem and tell them to figure it out on their own. Trust me, it sucks and is a bad way of teaching anything.
What if a piano teacher just gave a total newbie a piece of sheet music and told them to play it? The student wouldn't know what to do, and would have to spend hours and hours google searching something the teacher could've just told them straight up right then and there.
That's basically how it was for us during these 2 mini project courses.

Not enough programming
Another thing that bothered me A LOT is that we have only had 1 single programming course this year (I don't count SQL here, but maybe other people would). And one of the biggest reasons that I applied for this program was that I thought there would be a lot of programming!
Before I applied I even emailed the people responsible for this course and asked them what programming languages we would learn, and they listed around 7 different languages! So of course I felt really good about it.
Turns out software engineering is not mostly programming though, but really it's about making models. That's why we have a lot more architecture courses than programming courses.

Management
Maybe I am stupid but I thought that the management part of "Software Engineering and Management" was about managning software, not projects. Turns out I was wrong. Which would have been ok if they had actually thaught us any good management skills, but they haven't.

Missing courses for masters
When you finish this program there are not a lot of options for masters programmes you can apply to, unlesss you like me in some roundabout way find a way to study extra math courses during year 2.
In year 3 we have half a year to study whatever courses we want, and in an ideal world this would be where we could study all those math courses we need for masters, but it's not. The math courses I need aren't even available as stand alone university courses in Göteborg. So I have to apply for internet university courses in these math subjects, and hope that I get a spot, and hope that they do not get cancelled, because if they do, I will not be eligible for the masters I want.
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What's to come:

Year 2 courses:

Fundamentals of Software Architecture
The continuation of Software Analysis and Design, with the same teachers...

Mobile and Web Development
(Finally some more programming)

Software Development Methodologies

Mini Project
(Ugh!)

Cyber Physical Systems and Systems of Systems: Development of Embedded and Real-Time Systems

Software Quality and Testing

Project: Cyber Physical Systems and Systems of Systems, 15hp
(Double ugh! A project course that is twice as long...!)
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Year 3 courses:

30hp - Elective courses (I will be adding a lot of programming and more math here)

Software Engineering Research and Practice: Startups and Industrial Software Product Management 

Research methods in Software Engineering

Bachelor Thesis in Software Engineering and Management, 15hp
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Okay, this has gone on long enough. All I can say is that I think that year 2 is going to be quite difficult for me, with it's 22.5 hp of project courses (which are my least favourite of all the courses)! Year 2 is basically the reason I didn't want to continue this program, along with just the general awfulness of a bunch of other courses.
But like I said, I have to continue, it's too late for my to apply for other programs now...
And if I can just get through this second year, I will have a great 3rd year (I think), because there are no mini projects the 3rd year and I have found a bunch of nice courses I want to apply to.
But that's just me. This is an international program after all, and most of the students are not Swedish, and some of them don't speak a lot of Swedish, or for some other reason cannot apply for different courses outside of this program.

So, here's why you shouldn't apply for this program if you are not Swedish, and don't have a certificate saying that you are eligible to apply for courses thaught in Swedish:
You will not be eligible for almost any computer/programming related masters, and during your 3rd year you will most likely not be able to pick any course you want, because only a few of them are available in English in Gothenburg.
So if this is you, you most likely wont be able to apply for those 3 math courses you need to be applicable for most masters in fields like computer science etc, and a lot of doors will be closed to you. You also wont be able to apply for any courses outside of software engineering for your 3rd year, which also sucks.

 Before applying for this program I read posts on different forums online about people talking about the problems about this course, and those problems still persist to this day. I didn't listen to them, I thought maybe they were outliers, but now I know that they were right.
It's too late for me to change programs now, and I've come to terms with that (pretty much), but it's not too late for you! So if you are considering applying to this program, really think it over, try to find as much information about it as you can to see if it really is for you. Talk to students and talk to the people in charge of the program, because knowing what you are getting yourself into can save you a lot of pain.
Honestly the only reason I am still at this program is because of the awesome people and friends in my class, that brighten up the dark times, haha.

Ok, sorry. Rant is over now, time to enjoy my Sunday! :D
 

Nobody likes group projects, right?

I haven't really had time for much of anything lately because of this group project we are doing at school. It's getting very tiring and even though we have a deadline in 2 days for an 18 page report, I am the only one who has contributed to this report so far.
I've reminded my team mates to do it 2 times now, and they always say they will, but have yet to take action to their words.

Now, I have pretty good team mates. There are 2 loafers, and one person who wants to work but doesn't really have the skillset yet to be of much help, and 2 other people have have been working really hard. And then there is me - the only person so far who has cared about things like management and documentation.

I am scared that in the end I will be sitting here finishing our 18 page document on my own. And that's not the only thing we have to worry about. There are so many things we have to finish in a matter of days now, and even so I am the only one at school working!

Yesterday I even got a little frustrated about it, because I felt so alone, and I know that there are those 2 loafers in my group that are just riding on the backs of the people that are driving the work forward (which right now seems to for some reason have boiled down to me mostly, especially since I've since the beginning taken on a strong management position in the team).

I already decided that I shouldn't care about this, and just let it go whatever happens, but sometimes you can't just ignore the fact that these people will pass the course by doing nothing, because me and a select few other people are sitting day in and day out working on this project for them.

This project has had me go haywire a couple of times, I had a little breakdown once and almost had one again this morning, and I know one other person in my group has experienced the same thing. And in most of the other groups too, the people who are actually working are working so hard that they at one point break down.

Meanwhile other team members are just chilling, not answering messages or anything. Some of them are even going out to bars, drinking and having fun while their team members are still at school, trying to earn their mark.

Sometimes I wish I could just give up, but I am not one to let my team down. For the few people in my group that actually care about doing a good job and not letting others down, I have to keep going, because I don't want to let them down.

Also, if there is even a small chance of getting a higher mark, I am going to try to grab it, even though in all honesty, things are looking very grim right now, and I have accepted the great possibility of merely just passing at this point.

Learning Korean in Sweden

At the end of 2017 I started looking for Korean classes in Sweden, I thought maybe I could take some university course in Korean (granted it was in Gothenburg, or an "internet-only" course), but lo and behold there were none available.
So I started a Korean course elsewhere (not at a university), which means it costs money, but not really all that much money, I suppose. One other downside other than the money issue though is that it is very slow paced, with only 1 1.5 hour lesson a week.

I've been going to lessons on Mondays now and it's been mostly very good, and I really like the teacher and her teaching style. She speaks a lot of Korean to us, even if we are total beginners, and it reminded me of my Japanese classes in Japan, where the teachers only spoke Japanese to us. It really helps you learn much quicker.

We aren't very many people in the class, last Monday I think we were only around 6 people, and I think less than 20 are signed up to the course in total.
It's mostly girls, and a few boys. Most of the guys in the class I am pretty sure are gay, haha. I am not sure why the Korean language seems to have attracted mostly gay guys, but maybe they too (like the girls), are interested in the boyband aspect of Korean culture.

At the beginning of the first lecture we all had to tell the teacher and the class why we were interested in learning Korean. I was the only one who said that it was because I wanted to study/take a master there. Now, I know that might not happen, I might not get a scholarship or maybe I will change my mind, but it was my main reason for starting the language classes, or atleast what got me to finally take the step to do it.
Most other people said that they wanted to learn the language because they like Korean dramas, or the music or the food, the culture etc (which I like too of course), but it kind of surprised me since I was expecting to hear a bit more diverse set of answers.

Anyway, like I mentioned, the classes are good. My only complaint would be that I haven't gotten to know any of my classmates.
When I was learning Japanese in just the same way as I am learning Korean now, I quickly became friends with a lot of people in class, which made classes that much more fun. We could talk and make jokes and all that, and feel like we were learning together. The friendships didn't become lasting after classes ended, but I still like that they happened.
I would like to get to know people in my class more, and I hope that will happen when we get to do more speaking, because so far we've mostly studied the writing system.

On the subject of speaking, last Monday we did have our first speaking session. Sadly, as mentioned, we were only 6 people, but it was still a lot of fun. I got to hear people's accent, which was really good, since it made me realize that I am not the only one struggling with the Korean accent and way of speaking, and also that my accent isn't bad compared to some people.
Why isn't my accent as bad as some of the other students? Because I've been practising using one of the books I bought from Japan, which is all about speaking (and speaking out loud). This means that my effort working with the book has payed off.

Some people in my class are really shy though, and do not want to speak at all, and if the teacher presses them too much they get angry and she has to back off. It's sad, because this way they will never learn the language, but I also feel bad for them of course, I know how they must feel. Hopefully as time progresses, they will get more comfortable in the classroom setting and be able to do more speaking.

Ah well, I should get back to school work now. I also need to prep a bit for Monday's Korean lesson, wish me luck!

Life getting in the way..

So much to do in school right now...
I really shouldn't be doing this right now, but I am...

Warning: this post might make you think I am a spoiled brat, but that's okay.
Life isn't fair, it kind of sucks, more for some people than for others, and I got it good, I know that. It's just that it could be better.

The more I think about it the more do I not want to start working full time, so yea, I am going to complain about that again. Because maybe in the future I will go back and read these posts and wonder why the heck I was writing such strange things about not wanting to work, or maybe I will still feel the same.

Anyway, signing off 9 hours a day, 5 days a week, to do stuff for someone elses benefit (mainly the benefit of a corporation), and only ever have a minimum of 5 weeks vacation a year seems crazy to me. And honestly I do not understand how it doesn't seem crazy to other people too! I guess you just get used to how things are, so you never question them.

Well I do question the system we have, even though it is already sooo much better than the systems of so many other countries, there is always room for improvement.

Think about it:
A workday is "8 hours", but then you also have lunch which also is connected to your work, so most if not all days you will spend a total of 9 hours a day at work.

Then there is commuting!
While some people are lucky and live very close to their jobs, I think most people aren't. So maybe you are commuting for 1 hour a day? 2? 3???
Let's say just 1 hour, 30 minutes to get to work and 30 minutes to get back home.

Well then there is another thing! Grocery shopping and other shopping just to keep the household going. This isn't really something most people enjoy doing (I think), but they have to do it, and it takes up time that could be spent on things you really want to do.

To keep the rant going we got: cooking!
I am not really fond of cooking and hate spending 2 hours doing it every 2-3 days, I feel like it takes up so much time I would like to spend on other things.

There are of course more things that go into a day that are also things we don't really want to do.

So lets say we are at work for 9 hours a day, commute for 1, and do other necessary tasks for 2 hours a day (realisticaly it's probably even more than this).
That is a total of 12 hours, so how much time do you have left of the day to spend on stuff you want to do?
Well if you go to bed at 23 thats 3 hours (if you ended work at 17). Man that feels great! So the only way I can spend a sufficient amount of time doing things I want to do is to not sleep?

We got the weekend to do whatever we want, which is nice, but spending 5 days a week on building someone elses dream and 2 days a week of freedom doesn't seem fair.

Also 5-6 weeks a year on vacation? Are you kidding me? What will I do with that? If I use all that time to take a long vacation in the summer, when will I have a winter break? When will I be able to get off work to visit family?

Am I really the only one who thinks the system is screwed up? Why are we striving for the happiness of corporations, without even considering things from the workers point of view?

The least we could do is implement "6 hour workdays" (with lunch they would still be 7 hours of course), because the companies who have already tried this model don't seem to be reverting back to "8 (9) hour workdays", so it seems to be working fine. And also, make vacations longer, 5 weeks as the minimum is just not enough, ideally around 3 months would be, but I may be shooting for the start here in this society by saying that.
I would say a minimum of 7 weeks is the absolute minimum we should aim for (it's only 2 weeks more than the current 5!), with the opportunity of negotiating for even more with your employer.

After all, the point of a democratic society is to keep improving it, and I think that should include improving the personal lives of people, by letting them actually have a life that extends to more than 5 weeks vacation a year, 2 days of freedom a week, and a few measly hours a day that do not unclude working.

--Thats the end of my rant, I kind of hope you didn't read it, it has nothing to do with anything... I just needed to get my thoughts out there, to keep them saved for the future me, whom I hope is in a better place work wise than I am fearing I might be in the future...  :)

6 months of university in Sweden

I have now studied 4 courses worth a total of 30 points, and in Sweden you normally study 60 points worth of courses in a given year. Which means I somehow made it through half a year already! That's quite insane, because it really doesn't feel like it.

But this is actually not my first time studying full time at a university (which I had totally forgotten about), because before going to Japan I took 2 Japanese courses at another university, and those courses mounted up to be 30 points and I studied for half a year there too.

So since I've now got 30 university points collected in 2 different fields, I did a little comparison in my head and just found that there is such a huge difference between what fields you study, and the amount of work you have to do.

I got a really good grade in my Japanese courses, and they were really easy! It was a distance course so I never had to leave home, we met with the teacher on group calls online. We also did our groupwork the same way.
It worked fine I guess, but even though I was a full time student, it really didn't feel like it. Most of my days I spent in the house just not doing much, or atleast feeling like I wasn't doing anything.

Those six months I spent on Japanese classes were super chill.
Maybe it was just my particular school and their curriculum that didn't really understand that they could have put more pressure on students, without doing them any harm.

Anyway, these 6 months at the SEM program in Gothenburg have been so different, and so packed with new stuff that there has never been a dull moment. Sure it's been difficult and annyoing and boring some times, but all in all I look back on these 6 months with a smile on my face, and I look forward to more of it.
Which is more than I can say about the 6 months I spend at home, being a full time student but feeling like a total slacker with nothing to do and nothing to contribute.

Don't get me wrong, studying language is awesome! But doing it from home wasn't really my thing. :)

Are you really suitable for a study abroad scholarship?

 Trust me, straight A's isn't all you need for a scholarship. I am a totally normal average person, and I got one! So it's not that hard. That's not what I want to talk about though. I want to talk about a persons suitability for recieving a scholarship, based on their personal traits and behaviours.

Having found this new scholarship that I am considering applying to has made me reflect more upon the time I applied for my scholarship for going to Japan, as well as on the people who recieved this scholarship and who abused it.

I go to an international university program right now and there are so many people here from so many different countries, which is amazing. But it made me realize something: Many people that come here from a different country to study, aren't very good students.
Don't get me wrong, most of them are great, but there is still a noticable amount of people that aren't doing a good enough job.

Of course it's the same with the Swedish people, many of the Swedes in my class also slack off and don't study. But it's not as big of a deal for them. They are not paying anything for their university education, and if they would fail they could just take a short trip home to live with their parents again.

For international students, things are a bit different, which lead me to believe that they might take school more seriously. But no, they don't.
And the more I think about it, the more I realize it was just the same in Japan, with scholarship students none the less!

It has made me realize that not everyone is fit for studying abroad, and I would like people to really look into themselves before making such a big decision.

Are you really fit to study abroad? Let's see.
If you are planning on applying for a scholarship in Japan or anywhere else, or just want to study abroad using your own money, or your parents money, please consider these things.

When you fail a test, who do you blame?
Do you blame yourself for not studying enough, or for studying the wrong things etc? Or do you blame the teachers, the way the test or course was structured? Maybe a mix of both?

If you have ever failed a test think back to your reaction. Who was to blame for your failure?
If you happen to have failed tests on several occasions, and you do not feel that you are to blame in any more most of those occasions, you probably shouldn't study abroad.

Trust me, if you fail a test, most of the time (though not always of course!), it is almost entirely your fault, and if you cannot accept that and learn from your mistakes and work harder you probably shouldn't make any big decisions about your education that might affect you badly in the long run.

I've noticed that many people in my class constantly put blame on bad teachers, badly structured tests, badly structured courses, etc. And to some extent they can be right, but never to the full extent. Plus, after all their complaining about everyone else, they still never even mention what they could've done better themselves.

Constantly blaming your bad luck on others is just going to make you miserable, and will not help you with your studying.

How are your group work skills?
Personally, I am not a fan of group work, mainly because before university I was always the one doing all the work in the group works we had.
My naive self thought university would be different, and that everyone would be great team members, but it really isn't different at all (which I already talked about in another post).
One difference though is that in university you can have a whole course revolving around group work, and if you don't do your part, your team members will hopefully rat you out to the teachers (righfully so, in my opinion) and you might fail the course, if it turns out that you were riding on the backs of your team members the whole way.

Failing courses can get you kicked out of your program, and thus all your time and effort (and maybe even money), will have been wasted.

How well can you deal with disappointment?
Many of my fellow scholarship students came to Japan with hopes that were way too high for reality, so when things didn't go their way, they just quit.
I am pretty sure I've talked about it already, but at my first school there was a guy in my class who always skipped class, and my teacher had to call him several times a day to pester him to come. He did move on to university in the end, only for the same story to get repeated there. Granted, he wasn't a scholarship student, and might just have been forced to Japan by his parents.

Another story of a girl who was a scholarship student and already 100% fluent in Japanese: She got through the language school that they forced her to attend even if she didn't need to. She didn't attend classes very often of course.
Soon after she started her new school she flat out quit because she didn't want to move to Kyoto, and so on.

The worst story though if that of another scholarship student. This person attended the same school as me, but a year below. But she stopped coming to school for over a month, and therefore was no longer eligible to recieve her monthly payment to live on. But even before she lost it, she had stopped paying the rent for her apartment, so her roommate was left to pay it all on her own.
I do not know what happened to her in the end. But if she were to continue this behaviour she would not only lose her scholarship, she would also get kicked out of school and thus the country. And because she failed to pay rent, maybe even worse things could happen.

I think many people who want to study abroad have these grand expectations of how it's going to be, and when it turns out that it honestly kind of sucks sometimes, they just break down and quit and do not take responsibility for the position they've put themselves in.

What is your real purpose for applying for a scholarship?
 Are you really a good student? I am not asking if you have straight A's or anything, I just want to know if you do your best. Do you put school first? Would you rather spend time on writing a good assignment, and handing it in on time. Or do you only study last minute for a test? Write assignments right before deadline?
Would you skip classes to do something more fun? Would you arrive late to class because you just don't really care that much?
Do you even really want to study? Or is your main goal to come to another country to travel around, and live off of free money?

I'm not saying it's wrong to want free money, or to want to travel and have fun rather than attend some boring class. But when you are a scholarship student you have to take responsibility, because you are first and foremost a student. And someone somewhere believed so much in you that they decided to spend all this money on you.
Don't let it go to waste.

In Japan, and I know in many other countries too, coming to class on time is very important. Even coming just a few minutes late can affect your grades.
Even so, my first year in Japan I was the only one in my class with perfect attendance. And most of us lived in the dorms which were connected to the school!
Being late, to me, is disrespectful, especially if it literally takes you 30 seconds to get to class.

-------

Well there you have it. Another rant. Take it with a grain of salt, I guess. I am not saying you shouldn't study abroad if you ever failed a test (or even many), but if you constantly keep failing, and don't even learn from your mistakes, well...

TL:DR(?)
The main thing is to be a responsible person, a person that cares about not letting yourself or others down. A person that can be relied upon, by teachers as well as other students. You don't need straight A's in school to achieve these things.
But then again, straight A's don't make things any worse either, right? ;) (Man, I wish I could get straight A's too..)

Year of the dog

2018 is here, which is very exciting! But I must give a shoutout to 2017 as well, it wasn't a bad year.
- I got to visit South Korea in March, and spend my last days and very last moments together with my closest friends in Japan.
- I got to go slaloming in Sweden in April (which I didn't think was possible), and I also rode a scooter for the first time, which was awesome. And I didn't trip over even once! Though it was close at one point, haha.
- I got to spend almost six months with my family before moving again!
- I got into the university program I wanted, and I really feel like I made the right choice.
- I have worked hard in school, and plan to keep on doing it.

I haven't made a "New Years resolution" since I was a kid, because of course you never keep them anyway! But this year I sort of made an inofficial half-resolution to try to do even better in university, in order to get very good grades.
This is of course something that I am not sure I can achieve, because I do not have that much confidence in my ability to learn, even if I am willing to do it.
But I have to try, and I do have an incentive to.

When starting university I still was not sure what I wanted to do after graduting this bachelor's program. Do I want to work? Or go for a master? Or?
So since I thought I might go for a master, I had already decided to try and get as good grades as possible, since you need good grades to get in to master programs. But I still wasn't really sure, and thus sometimes felt like maybe I didn't need to push myself that hard after all.
The incentive just wasn't strong enough, even though I really did want awesome grades, I didn't have a clear goal to focus on.
But now I think I do.

I have set my eyes on another scholarship.
It's the same type of scholarship as the one that brought me to Japan, but given out by a different country. That's all I will say for now, because this scholarship is for master's, and I still have 3 years or bachelor's studies to take care of. And I am very aware that 3 years is a long time, and that I might very well change my mind during this period. That is why I am not making any promises.
But if I after 3 years feel the same as I do now, I will apply for this scholarship.

Thing is though, I think that it must be a lot harder to get than my previous scholarship, because here they are asking you to have a "GPA at 80% or more", and as a Swedish person I do not even know what that means! We don't have GPA in Sweden, and when I tried emailing school officials about it, they just told me that if you want to know your GPA you have to do some kinda conversion of your grades, which can only happen once you have finished the program. So I cannot know my GPA until after these 3 years! That is kind of nervewracking.

So if after 3 years I still want this scholarship, and my grades are good enough, I will apply. And until then I think this might just be the right incentive for me to study as much as I possibly can!

What I am looking forward to in 2018:
- Learning more Korean
- New university courses!
- Finding a summer job related to what I am studying
- Becoming a better programmer
- Hanging out with my family on holidays
- Possibly finding a student apartment
- And more :D!