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Farewell Japan
10/28/2015 Japan
So this blog is coming to an end~ My program in Japan is now finished, and I have returned back to America resuming my studies at UCSD! I already had midterms and stuff too!! How funnnnn XDDDDD haha haa....haaa.ha.. Actually, after my program ended in August, I stayed i...... |
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Goodbye Tohoku
10/27/2015 Japan
My one-year study abroad program at Tohoku University has come to an end. It was a really eventful year filled with lots of great adventures and new experiences~ I'm really glad that I chose to go to Tohoku University, because I was able to live in Sendai! I've never felt attached to a city...... |
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Final Adventures
10/15/2015 Random
I met some of the greatest people at Tohoku University during my year there. They were all so great that I'm writing a separate blog post just for them~ lol Most of them actually turned out to be Americans, probably cuz we just relate to one another alot better. So I'll tell you about..... |
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End of My Research
10/13/2015 Engineering
So my study abroad program has come to an end. Now before I talk about how late I am with writing this blog post or about what I did during my last months in Japan, let's talk about how my research project ended up~ If you've been keeping track of my other posts (like you should..... |
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Learning From Others
06/27/2015 Engineering
As part of my Individual Research Training program here at Tohoku University, I have to participate in various seminars, lectures, and meetings with my research lab. This is actually one of the great things about this program, because most of my other lab-mates are graduate stu..... |
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Engineering Exhibition
06/20/2015 Engineering
So a few weeks ago, I went to this engineering exhibition near my area. It was called the Engineering Exhibition Tohoku~ :D It gave me a chance to see the kind of research that was being focused in the Tohoku Region, as well as a great opportunity to learn some things in my..... |
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Equipped with Lasers & Wings
05/31/2015 Engineering
Alright, so here's a little update on my research. For the past month, I've been focusing on utilizing the Hokuyo Laser Range Scanner with my quadcopter. The laser scanner is used for scanning the quadcopter's surrounding area to localize itself in its environment a..... |
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So Many Events
05/25/2015 Japan
Like always, I've been having a blast here with my life in Japan~ Alongside my research and classwork, I've been going to a bunch of different events over the past few weeks. I even went to Nagoya for a 2-day trip! Not to mention I just experienced the best concert ever~ >w<..... |
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Otaku life
05/10/2015 Anime
Hello everybody! Welcome back to another special report of MY OTAKU LIFE~ "*\(^O^)/*" So since it was Golden Week and half of the past week was a holiday, I ended up not being as productive as I hoped I would be. Even when I went to my lab during the holiday, there was nobody t..... |
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Golden Week Adventure
05/03/2015 Random
Golden Week is one of Japan's famous holidays. It's the longest official holiday in Japan, consisting of 4 separate holidays that happen to form a "week-long" vacation for many Japanese people. With school and work put on break and everyone traveling around with their friends...... |
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Spring Semester
04/26/2015 School
Spring semester's already started and I'm back in school again. I've already decided my class schedule, and already have my first HW assignment due in a few days. So while I'm procrastinating on that, let's talk about how my semester looks this year~ :3 So as I said before, I...... |
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Homestay
04/19/2015 Japan
This weekend, I had the wonderful opportunity to "home-stay" and go live with a Japanese family for a night. It gives you the chance to practice your Japanese in a Japanese home, while also giving you a taste of the life of a typical Japanese family! You call your host- mom an...... |
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1000 Cherry Blossoms
04/12/2015 Japan
With the coming of Spring in Japan, the beautiful cherry blossoms (sakura) have begun to go into full bloom! These famous flowers actually only last for ~3 weeks though (and are only in full bloom for one of those weeks), so Japanese people and all the gaijins (foreigners) in the...... |
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Round Japan Trip
04/05/2015 Japan
In Japan, spring break isn't just one week; it's a whole 2 months! That's because the school year ends in the Fall and begins in the Spring, so during March many students are preparing for school entrance exams. As for me, I got to go on the trip of a lifetime! So in add...... |
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Quadcopter Up and Flying
04/03/2015 Engineering
After months of work in the lab and tons of hours bashing my head against a wall while programming, I have successfully gotten my quadcopter to fly autonomously! *applause* Thank you Thank you~ I know I'm awesome :) But really, I've actually only gotten my quadcopter to lift...... |
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Spring is Here~
04/03/2015 Random
Hisashiburi everybody~ ;D I'm so late on updating my blog, but I have good reasons for it....I was on SPRING BREAK >w< hahaa And spring break in Japan isn't just one week like it is in America, it's about 2 months! That's because the Jap...... |
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Sapporo Snow Festival
02/19/2015 Japan
A few weeks ago was the Sapporo Snow Festival (雪祭り, yuki matsuri）, one of the world's most famous winter events. Hosted in the city of Sapporo in the northernmost prefecture of Hokkaido, the week-long Snow Festival is famous for its enormous snow sculptures and ice scul..... |
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Just My Music
01/22/2015 Random
Wassup world! Austin here~ bringing you another one of my random music posts where I share the latest hits on my Youtube playlist! (^0^) "But wait Austin, aren't you supposed to be talking about Japan?" "Shaddup random quotation! I can write whatever I want! (>O<)!!" And I b.... |
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Culture with Field Trips
01/17/2015 School, Japan
It's almost the end of the first semester here at Tohoku University. That also means that our two month spring break is coming up next month~ :3 But before that, we have finals to take and presentations to give; typical college stuff. >_> One of my finals in particular is for Cu.... |
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Towards a New Year
01/12/2015 Japan
Happy New Year Everybody! (yeah yeah, I'm late >_>) It's finally the new year~ Another year to go fill with new adventures and new memories! Especially since I have tons of plans for traveling during the upcoming spring break and summer vacation! I can't believe I'm not even.... |
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Merry Christmas from Sendai~
12/25/2014 Japan
MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY!~ >w< It's finally Christmas, my favorite day of the year. This is my first Christmas away from my family. I always spend this day with them every year with a small party and a gift exchange, however this year I am here in Japan. But a..... |
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Programming life
12/16/2014 Engineering
Life in the lab has been progressing pretty well lately, however there's one problem... I've turned into a programmer! OTL My research plans and goals have now been finalized for the most part, and it shows that most of the things I need to do to reach my goal would be throu..... |
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School Festival
12/02/2014 School
About a month ago, there was this huge school festival at Tohoku University. School festivals are one of the iconic things of Japanese schools that I looked forward to the most when I was coming here! You see these events all the time in anime, usually marking a significant event o..... |
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Happy Thanksgiving
11/27/2014 Random
Happy Thanksgiving Everyone! However, if you're not American you probably wouldn't care. lol XD Thanksgiving is one of those holidays in America where you use the opportunity to get out of school to go eat tons of food and stuff your belly with delicious and fat food~ Eating and b.... |
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It's Cold
11/25/2014 Random
It's getting closer to winter here in Japan, meaning that the temperature has basically dropped close to an average of 8° C (~46° F, for all you Americans out there~ lol) It seems like snow will be coming soon within the next few weeks~ I can't wait >w< I am literally going to act like a little kid a.... |
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Making Robots, It's What I Do
10/25/2014 School, Engineering
Things have finally settled down here at Tohoku University and my research topic has finally gotten a bit more concrete~ I have some idea of what I should be doing in my lab now and how to get started with learning about my lab's field robotics. Along with that, I've checked out the.... |
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Life in Sendai
10/20/2014 Japan
Sendai is a great city to live in~ Living up to its nickname as "The City of Trees," it's a city that's surrounded by nature in every direction. It has almost been a month since I arrived here and I've gotten quite used to its lifestyle. Since I have now officially lived in three of the great regi.... |
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Tohoku University
10/12/2014 School
I've moved into my dorm and started classes at Tohoku University, the main part of my life in Japan. Tohoku University is one of the top public universities for science and engineering in Japan, and I have the opportunity to study here and do research for a whole year! :D So fi.... |
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The Adventure Begins
10/12/2014 Random
My school life in Japan has finally started! Every day since I've come to Sendai has been packed with going out with friends, getting ready for classes, and going to club events~ (as well as a bunch of needless paperwork... but let's just forget about that). It has been almost 3 weeks.... |
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Tokyo Game Show 2014
09/29/2014 Anime
Better late than never~ So I went to this year's world famous Tokyo Game Show, an event showcasing all the newest games and gaming technology from famous companies like Sony, Microsoft, Konami, Sega, and Square Enix. [Apparently, Nintendo doesn't go to this e..... |
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Bento in Kobe
09/07/2014 Japan
I have been staying in Kobe for a while now as part of my summer vacation~ Thanks to a good friend, I was able to stay in a very nice apartment on a small man-made island. There isn't much here and it's very quiet, but that also means that it's peaceful :) I'm only staying here for a sh..... |
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初音ミク Hatsune Miku
08/31/2014 Anime
Today, August 31st, is Miku's Birthday!~~ To be precise, it's her 7th anniversary from since she has been released :) Yesterday I went to go enjoy the Miku Concert at Magical Mirai 2014 held in Osaka~ I'm always amazed by how much Miku is improving every year. The fan illustra.... |
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Family Travels
08/31/2014 Japan, Random
My loving family came to visit me in Japan the past week~ My parents were worried about me living alone in Japan, so they wanted to check up on me (and use that as an excuse to finally travel to Japan... lol not jk) It was just a short six days, but it was refreshing to see family again.... |
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Lil Otaku Update~
08/27/2014 Anime, Random
Watching anime, reading manga, playing visual novels, listening to vocaloid, hanging out at the arcade, etc. That's basically my life~ Oh, and then there's non important stuff in there as well such as eating and sleeping and stuff, but who really needs that? hehe With all my time during the .... |
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Comiket 86
08/19/2014 Anime
Hello world and all who inhabits it!~ So I had the opportunity to go to the famous Comiket event held in Odaiba, Tokyo the other day. While I didn't buy any doujinshi, it was a great experience to see a Japanese anime event filled with cosplay and free goodies from s.... |
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My Summer Presentations
08/15/2014 School
I've mention this before in my other posts, but for the end of my summer intensive language program at Senshu University, we had to give a presentation in Japanese. I chose my topic to be about the movie Summer Wars, since I already did some research about it last quarter.... |
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Goodbye Senshu~
08/14/2014 School, Random
My summer ILP (Intensive Language Program) at Senshu University is now over. A 7-week program that marked the beginnings of my life in Japan~ At the Senshu University International Dorm, I've met many people from all around the world: Vietnam, France, Russia, Oregon, Laos, Taiw.... |
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Mai Mai Summer
08/14/2014 Japan
And now the Senshu Program is over~ Now I am currently in my Gap Period, which is about a 2 month period between my summer program and my Tohoku program~ This is basically our summer vacation in Japan~ (Which is awesome :3) However, we are responsible for finding ou.... |
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Traveling x5
07/24/2014 Japan
I have been traveling.... alot. I went to the Mitama Festival at a Shrine, to J-World at Ikebukuro, an overnight trip to Nagoya, played around in Odaiba, and then enjoyed the Doraemon Museum. This is how you enjoy Japan!~ Traveling everywhereeeeeeeee~ Many of you guys ha..... |
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Ghibli, Girls, kabuki~
07/14/2014 Japan
How's life everyone? Good? Good :) So I had my Japanese midterm last Friday and that went by with a breeze. We also had a couple of cool dorm events again~ We went out to the famous Ghibli Museum, an all-girls Japanese High School, bowling, and then t...... |
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Anime x Akihabara
07/08/2014 Anime
I really wanted to go to Anime Expo this year T_T As some of you know, I'm pretty obsessed with Sword Art Online. This AX was FILLED with SAO stuff that I missed out on! First of all there was Reki Kawahara, the author of SAO! Then abec, the artist T_T And then, Eir Aoi...... |
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Shodou and Tanabata
07/05/2014 Japan
So short story, my dorm is pretty awesome. lol First of all, I have been lagging my blog posts a bit lately cause of my lack of time due to all the HW I've been getting from class (my midterm is already next week and I have a 5-min presentation Monday T_T) And then I w...... |
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My Japanese Class
07/02/2014 School
It's been about a week and a half now since I've been having my Japanese class at Senshu University. The style is somewhat different than what I'm used to back at UCSD, but it is an intensive language program that is equal to 12 quarter units. Overall, it has a better syste...... |
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Shibuya and Kamakura
06/30/2014 Japan
Traveling~ So in the past few days I went to the famous Shibuya and then checked out Kamakura for a school trip. We took the train to get to these places, and it was a long train ride. There was also a TON of walking along with this as well, as expected of Japan @_@ But yeah, either w...... |
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食堂Cafeterias
06/26/2014 School, Japan
School cafeterias in Japan are amazing~ Simply amazing~ The food is delicious, reasonably priced, and pretty healthy. Since I've started going to Senshu University, I've been eating at the 食堂 (shokdou - cafeteria) pretty m...... |
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Izakaya!
06/24/2014 Japan
After a long day of taking our 3-hour placement test for Japanese, all of us here at the Senshu International House went out for a 飲み会(nomikai - drinking party) at an 居酒屋(Izakaya). From this I learned one thing: Japanese students are insane. lol This is just going t...... |
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Japanese Arcades
06/22/2014 Anime, Japan
One of the best things so far in Japan was the arcade~ [Yes, I'm a nerd... and if you aren't, you won't get this post] Japanese arcades are completely different from an American one. So let me tell all you gamers out there what it was like and how I got my butt handed to me o....... |
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First Day in Japan!
06/21/2014 Japan
Woo hoo, I'm finally in Japan! Still feels really natural to me.... I'm too used to traveling around by myself. Now that I've settled into my awesome dorm and have some time, let me tell you about my first day ;) .......... |
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STEM Students Abroad
06/11/2014 Engineering, School
STEM students are students who are studying in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, or Mathematics. [AKA: Cool Kids] I believe that all majors, especially STEM students, sh....... |
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planning japan
06/08/2014 Japan
Just in case you didn't know because you are too lazy to look at the rest of my website: I'm going to Japan! :D I will be going to Japan for 14 months, so I have made plans and preparations to make sure that it will be a m...... |
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micromouse!
06/08/2014 Engineering
I am really happy about my college life. I feel that I've made a lot of good decisions that has contributed to all of the new friends I've made and the skills I've learned. One of those good decisions was joining UCSD's Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers' (IEEE's) Microm........ |
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my study abroad planning
06/08/2014 School
Let me share with you my experience of how I decided my study abroad program. It is a long process that requires lots of planning, but it will give you an experience like never before; so be patient. Hopefully my experiences can help you find a study abroad program of your own!............. |
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scholarships ftw
06/08/2014 School
So, as I said in my Study Abroad page: Scholarships are completely doable! And to show that, let me tell you how many I've won. [Caution: I will be bragging in this post... for the sake of..... |
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日本語 A bit of Japanese
06/08/2014 Japan, Random
So if you haven't seen it yet, go check out my "About Me" page to see my introductory video and little biography. It actually took me a lot longer than it should have to make it.... Anyways, now that you've seen my video, you will pro....... |
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