First week at University of Tsukuba

My short term exchange study at the University of Tsukuba has started this week. 

It was very exciting to explore the huge campus with big research buildings, food courts, and a lot of greenery with moskitoes. 

The first week the weather was great (28-31 degrees with huge amount of humidity) but these last few days have been less (18-24 degrees with rain). The turn of the weather was quite extreme.

Central square near the library. A food court is in the building at the back.

A park near the square. Everyday I traverse this park when cycling to the Art & Design Tower.

The school territory has three residence areas: Oikoshi, Hirasuna and Ichinoya. As a foreign student, I am staying at the Ichinoya residence area. It is said to be the cleanest spot with toilet and shower/bath tub in each room and a shared kitchen and coin laundry. 

My front door.

My room upon entering.

There is a small balkony in the back.

A bed, closet, chair and table are already present.

The small bathroom.

When I first looked at the syllabus, there were too many subjects I could choose from. But when attending the classes, from half of them I was told that they were only for the fourth years (I am third) or that they were on another day at another time during another class I had already planned. My University in Holland had told me to get 20 credits, but in Japan 15 will do. Never imagining that it would be this hard to scrape interesting subjects together, I finally managed to get a working schedule for 20 credits. And after that I got a message from my home university that 15 credits would be sufficient... What was I doing?

641 paged syllabus from which I had to choose my subjects.

Most of the courses are given in japanese. Sometimes I have some trouble understanding certain words, but during artistic classes like sculpture drawing or colour understanding it is not a big hindrance.The powerpoint presentations of most of the theoretical classes are in english and some teachers speak english and that makes it easy for me to understand the classes. 

During the first colour lesson the teacher showed a few examples of compositions with colours. The excercises where based on optical illusions, systematic arrangements, dividing in equal surfaces, etc. The examples were all drawn by hand because the intention was to learn to use colours without the help of a  computer. 

Colour lesson

The classroom for Sculpture drawing has a lot of white sculptures varying in different sizes. Almost forty  students gathered around three sculptures to draw them with pencil or charcoal. For the first time I used a scaling window (plastic sheet with horizontal and vertical lines) and a scaling stick (piece of metal wire for measuring). Another experience of that day was that although the ceiling of the room was very high, everyone was sweating because of the heat. 

Sculpture drawing

 Often after lunchtime, I have an "after dinner dip" which means that I fall asleep at around 1 pm or 2 pm. It happens especially now because I have not yet fully adjusted myself to my new environment and lifestyle. I feel really guilty towards the teacher and find myself stupid each time it happens. But when I look around, it seems that I am not the only person dozing off during class!

A small relief that there are others like me!