Just smile and nod.

Since this just happened like 5 minutes ago and I'm on my lunch break, I figured I'd make a quick post. Normally at work I just kinda sit at my own desk and program by myself, occasionally asking my mentor some questions. I've been interacting more with people since I got a new assignment that put it in a larger team. The problem is that most of these people don't really speak English. At first, the people I talked to most knew pretty good English because they worked or studied in America before. Though I usually spoke Japanese, when it got to tough technical vocabulary I usually had to resort to English. But with my new project, it's been tough to figure out exactly what they want me to do, and to ask my very specific and slightly nuanced questions in Japanese.

My lack of language ability was just demonstrated to me when one of the computer technicians came by and started spouting off some Japanese to me. He had a clipboard in his hand and was looking at my computer's serial number. I figured he was doing some kind of hardware registration check. He asks me a question (I can tell from his intonation more than from the actual words he uses) and points at my monitor. He says the name of the groupware program that we make and also use, so I open it up. Apparently he sent out a company wide e-mail this morning telling us to download this utility and run it. Of course, I get maybe 10-15 of these e-mails a day and they're all in Japanese, so by now I've given up on trying to read them, and focus on the ones that are just sent to me.

He points at the monitor. I click. Then I just let him have the mouse. Easier that way. I run this utility program, it spits out a few numbers and other data that he jots down, and then it finishes, leaving this nifty window open that I have no idea how to close. He says some more things to me, I just smile and nod. He's like "daijoubu?" (Is it okay?) I just answer back with the same question, "Daijoubu?" (I have no clue, is it okay? He answers "Daijoubu" (it's okay), maybe because he already knows I can't understand anything else. Haha. Don't worry, it's all daijoubu.


Here's a screenshot of my desktop with that cool utility program running and the groupware program in the background. I'm not sure what the icon is, looks like a yellow cartoon ghost wearing a police helmet and carrying a set of padlocks. Beats me. Any of my more Japanese literate friends are welcome to help me out with translation.

Earthquakes, Typhoons and Humidity, oh my

You never really know what to expect here in Tokyo I suppose. On Saturday Adam and I were playing Frozen Throne in my apartment when all of a sudden we feel this shaking. He's like quit shaking the table man, and I'm like I'm not. Then we pause the game realizing that its a freaking earthquake. I've never been in an earthquake before, so I was kinda like hey this is cool. But I was quickly rebuked and sobered realizing that serious earthquakes can be disatrous. We look outside the window as my apartment building is swaying side to side, and people are all looking around, we see some guy get off his bike. Finally it stops. No major damage to my area. But we were luckily pretty far from the epicenter. It was a 5.7 on the Richter scale and 5 people were injured.

It was pretty scary, considering that Tokyo is bracing for the Big One, since it's due for a disatrous earthquake like the one that hit Kobe in 1995, killing 64,000 people. The worst part for me was that it stopped all the trains and subways. You see, unlike America where we always drive cars, pretty much everyone here uses public transporation. And there's literally no other way to get around besides walking, biking or super-expensive taxis. Because of the quake all the trains were shut down for a few hours, stranding me at home unable to go to this fireworks festival I was planning to go to. It was pretty frustrating, but instead Adam and I hung out some more since he couldn't go home either. We saw this Taiko performance going on across the street and watched for awhile - he was even able to play some which was cool since he hasn't played in a long time. Then we played this goldfish catching game with some little kids. I ended up taking about 4 of them home. Some tried to jump out and died, so I put the rest in my bathtub, which was interesting. I finally got a little glass bowl for the remaining survivor, and some fish food. Still deciding on a name.

Anyway then yesterday we were hit by a typhoon which wasn't nearly as bad as it sounds. It just rained pretty hard all day - I've seen much worse back home in Houston. The same goes for the heat and humidity - yeah unpleasant - but about the same as in Houston. I have lots of pictures to post still, so keep your eyes open for those. In the meantime here are some pictures from the weekend before last:


From the Osaka Aquarium.


Kids marching in the Gion Matsuri parade.


One of the floats.


Some kids playing in a stream.

Me + Hydrogen = ?

Here's a funny link I saw:

Stanford project mixes Darwin with hydrogen

Hmmm... in other news - look at my new photostream at flickr:

I cooked dinner for the first time this week. Fun fun. And work is okay. I finished my first project and gave a presentation on it, but they haven't really decided what to do with me next. So I'm just waiting...

Here's from last weekend's Gion Matsuri when I went back to Kyoto:




Yay for the mini SCTI reunion!

More pictures!

Living alone. . .

It's been kinda weird these last few days. I work until 6 or 7pm and then I go home to my apartment. And there's no one there. I suppose it's not that weird, but for always living with my family or in a dorm with a roommate, it's different. A little lonely, but I've been getting out and hanging out with people too. There was a Japan Stanford Association Meeting/Party on Tuesday, and they invited some of us SCTI students to go. Like 6 of us RSVPed but I was the only one who actually showed up - on time at least. So I'm in this fancy reception hall with Stanford banners, business men and lots of good food surrounding me. The last part was the best, meaning dessert. But Derrick, Sandy and Kelly showed up later to help finish off the food, and I was glad to finally see some people who I could speak English with naturally.



Kelly, Derrick, Sandy, and I, all very happy after eating some good food!



And it tasted better than it looked.



It was over by Tokyo Tower.

Too bad it was too late to go to the top. Yeah I heard it's not that great, and expensive. But I'll probably go up there anyway, just because, well, it's Tokyo Tower.

First Day in Tokyo

So I got here on Monday, almost missed my Shinkansen, but made it to Tokyo - took the wrong train at first but eventually made it to the right station and walked in the rain to my company. I get there and the receptionist sits me in this conference room by myself and serves me some green ice tea. About 10 minutes later these two Japanese guys walk in with laptops, sit across from me, and start asking me questions, etc. They speak some basic English, but I still really have no idea what they're saying most of the time. The best part was when they busted out some kind of confidentiality contract for me to sign. They're like Wakarimasuka? (Do you understand?) But at least one of my co-workers was there, she tried to read some of the contract, and she's like I can't even read some of this Kanji - so I didn't feel that bad.

They ask me if I have a hanko, so I get it out and after I stamp it, they're eager to see what it says. It reads "hikari, ken, shi" as in "light, sword, master." My co-worker is like huh? and one of the guys asks Staa Woozu? I'm like hai, and we all start laughing. He's like anata wa jedi desu ka? I'm like moochiron, jedi master desu. (Are you a jedi? Of course, I'm a Jedi Master. hahaha.

That was one of the highlights of the day, besides trying to explain the story arc of the entire SW series to them at lunch, how they're prequels, etc. They couldn't get my login to work for a few hours so I kinda browsed the web randomly and read about the company - in what little info in English they have. Once I logged in, I wrote a self intro and posted it to the company message board, that was fun. I'm basically resorting to copying and pasting all messages I receive into rikai so I can read them. Yeah and I finally figured out how to switch the keyboard setting back to American style. Still though, it's pretty frustrating not being able to read much and trying to understand all these people when I really have no clue what's going on.

On the bright side, the company - Cybozu - is pretty much all young people, I'd say 75% of the employees are under 30, though it could be that Japanese people just look young. The President looks early-mid 30s. There are about 150 people here in the office, which is basically one big room, with desks in rows, no cubicles, but there are short divders so you dont have to stare at the person across from you all day. Another upside is that the company's about 30% female, and not just secretaries and stuff, but some programmers, sales people, etc too. Def. a better ratio than the upper level CS courses at Stanford. Some of the guys I met just started working 3 months ago, and some just graduated, so they're like 22 which is cool. I'm looking forward to playing some yakyuu (baseball) with them, and we have party this friday b/c we're releasing some new product. Ok, enough for now.