shunbritain's Journal

A week to go before handing in
I'm still working on my dissertation, mostly fixing little things. Erin did very good work, proof-reading my thesis. I also asked Martin and Sam to read bits and pieces to see if they make sense. Now Dirk is reading it too to see if there's any 'non-academic' sentences. To be perfectly honest, I'm fed up with looking at my thesis. I just want to hand it in and be free! I'm seeing my supervisor this Wednesday, and I'm just hoping that he'll say it's ok and done. I'm not really good at editing. I find it very difficult to cut or shorten sentences, and add new things to what is already written as a whole. I will never be a good writer, I feel, although I certainly do need to improve on that, if I am to be a politician, writing speeches.

Well, since my thesis is mostly done, I really cannot spend so much time on it any more. So I've been watching World Cup as well as playing football with my housemates and college mates. Unlike Erin, I was very happy that Italy won yeterday's World Cup. France beat Italy twice in 1998 World Cup quater final and in Euro 2000 final. So I didn't want to see them win again. I was also very sad when Italy lost against Brazil in 1994 World Cup final because I used to like Robert Baggio (is this how you spell his name?), who missed the penalty. Yesterday, France I think deserved to win. But as for Zidane, what a guy! The TV kept repeating the scene of his 'head-bat', but every time I saw it, I laughed! Everybody at college who was watching the match thought it was amazing! It must've been really painful! Zidane is a real legend, both as a player and an entertainer.

To Carlos and Jenny, I don't know the exact dates when I'm coming down to London. But when is it good for you for us to have a Nabe party? I need to stay in my house for one day since a moving company is delibering the boxes. I also want to be here at 22nd Saturday because some people who already finished their courses because their courses are 9 months are coming back for their graduation here. So I want to see them. Apart from those days, I'll be mostly free after 17th. So let me know.

I've finished the first draft of my dissertation!
It's now 4 am. I've just got back from BBQ at my friend's place. It was sad that England lost, but congratulations to Jenny and all Portuguese people. It was a great night since I managed to finish the first draft of my dissertation! It's 19,300 words. I started writing from Monday, although my hope was to finish by Friday, it took me till this evening. But I'm still proud of what I've done. Towards the end, it was very hard. I really hope my draft will be fine to the view of my supervisor. I only have 700 words left, and making any major change will be very difficult. So fingers crossed! Today, I'll put bibliography, which actually takes long, but I feel good. I'll try to read it through as well and there are some places where referenes have to be confirmed. But, I feel very good the draft is complete! So I'm finially up-dating my live-journal while I'm about to collapse into my bed!

We got a new housemate,
I haven't told, but another of our housemate left our house. It was Enam, Bangladesh guy from London. He left to another place because he said he couldn't concentrate in studying in our house. He thinks we are too lazy. Well, we were, but not any more. We just watch films during the night time. But I understand to some extent that his course in Economics is much tougher and harder with exams and more course work. Martin and Dirk went to see him to give him back his DVD they borrowed from him, but apparently he said it's a little bit too late to start studying hard. Anyway I wish him best luck. And, now we've got a new house mate. His name is Pepyne (or can't spell his name) from Holland, doing physics. He's here for internship for 3 months only. He seems very young. Anyway, he seems good, and I took him to the Union debate on whether we should set a limit on immigration. He was interested in the topic because of what's happening in Holand now. OK, I'm going. I find it very difficult to write something after doing lots of reading. My mind is knackered!

I watched MI3
I can't believe it's been already three weeks since I last wrote...Time just flys. In most of the days, I've been doing the same thing, reading, reading and reading. Then my housemates and I watch TV series in the evenings. By that time, I'm too exhausted and don't feel like doing anything. But, I did go to see Mission Impossible 3 with my housemates. It was really good. And last night, I went to attend the Toiro-meeting, a society for Japanese people at Cambridge. They organise seminars every month, and yesterday's was on immigration. I was really looking forward to it, but it was so boring. The guy who gave the talk was not a specialist in the field. He did the research only because his senior professor asked him to do it...typically Japanese. But, we went down the pub and had fun with my friends and other Japanese people. And of course, I got drunk. Anyway, more of the same to come for this coming week. But from next Monday, I'm going to Rome with my housemates. That'll be really fun!!

Sharpe
Why is it the case that the time passes by so quickly when you don't update your blog??? Anyway, I'm still on holidays. The next term is not starting until next week, so I still have a week off. That doesn't mean of course I'm free. I've got to do more reading. And, I soon need to start preparing my presentation on my thesis. Mine was to be in the beginning of June, but I saw my classmate at the party which took place at the Fitz college yesterday, and she wanted to swap hers, which is in the mid May, with mine, since she still didn't know what exactly she wants to write about for her dissertation. I'm still playing football. We try to play on every Wednesday, and we managed to talk to a lot of people about it at the party. So we're expecting more people to turn up this week. And, Martin and I have been watching 'Sharpe', which is a 10-year-old TV series about a British working-class soldier who fights again the French led by Napoleon. There're 14 episodes of two hours each. We just finished the last episode yesterday, called 'Sharpe's Waterloo'. And the reason why we've been watching it is because they made a new episode called 'Sharpe's new challenge', which was in fact on TV today, and its second part will be played tomorrow. Sean Bean plays Sharpe. It's really good. It has all elements that the general British population would like to see. It describes the eccentricity of the English upper-class, against who working-class Sharpe does very well, yet struggles too because of the difference. And of course, they beat the French! I think one of the things that the British are proud the most is the fact that they beat Napoleon and the French at the battle of Waterloo. Indeed, the Eurostar arrives in Waterloo station every time the train comes to the U.K. from France to remind the French of their defeat. Anyway, in the new episode, it's set in India, and I'm looking forward to seeing the second part tomorrow. Sad that the TV has come to play a large role in my life entertainment!!

I've really got nothing to say, but...
Ah---, I've really got nothing to day. I've just been reading books, that's what I've been doing. Oh, I did play football thesedays. Well, it's more like kicking around. But there's the Fitzwilliam sports field just behind our house, so it's really convinient for us to go there and run with a ball for a while. It's years ago now when I stopped playing football, but it's still very much fun. And it's really good to get refreshed by doing exercises after studying! If the weather's good, we'll play again this Wednesday, so fingers crossed!!

Carlos, I just replied to your comment, but if your lecturer can give me a bit of information about RPGs, I'll be grateful.

Jenny & Carlos came!!
Today, Jenny and Carlos came to visit me in Cambridge. It was really cool!! I was worried that the weather'd be bad, especially after raining whole day yesterday, but it turned out to be a fine day. Good people(?!) like us get a bit of luck when we need, right? It was only a day trip for them, but it was really good to see them. And Cambridge is so small that you'll get to see almost everything you're supposed to see as tourists within one day, anyway. I first took them to the Faculty of Education to show them where I study. There's a nice cafeteria there, and we had coffee and talked to catch up with each other. Then Jenny managed to film me giving out my frustration that I accumulated over the last 6 months, being surrounded socialists in the course. She found it so funny that she said she'd post it on her blog. So those who wish to see it, check her blog... Then we went to King's college and had lunch there. The dining hall is really nice at King's, and food is good and cheap. After that, I showed them other two famous colleges, Trinity and St John's. We also went to the Fitzwilliam museum, and we had coffee at Fitzbillies, apparently famous coffee shop. I planned to have dinner at my Fitzwilliam college, but there was a long queue, so we ended up having pizzas at my place. So, sounds we did lots of things within one day, doesn't it? We talked a lot too about how we've been doing and stuff. And I was glad my old friends listened patiently to lots of my complaints on my radical liberal classmates! It was such a nice day, and I was really happy to show my friends some parts of my life in Cambridge. I'm going to London again in June, so I'm already looking forward to seeing them there. But Jenny and Carlos insisted that I do Nabe-party so they can come back to Cambridge. Well, let's do it! But first, I need to finish my dissertation. So I'm coming back to working on it again!

Suffering from hay fever,
I haven't updated this for a while again. Well, I'm on holidays now, so I've actually not much to say. But I've been suffering from hay fever these days, and it's really annoying. Without it, spring would be definitely my favorite season. But because of it, I can't concentrate on doing things, including supposedly important studying! Well, what else happened lately...??? Yeah, I had a dinner meeting with my senior Japanese friends at Cambridge. I cooked cabbage, chicken and bacon soup, Japanese chicken rice (what George, my American flatmate last year, called 'ketchup rice', and waffle with coanish ice cream for desert. People really liked my food, so it was successful. But there were people who didn't know about the chicken rice, which I thought was really common in Japan. They come from rather well-off background, so we concluded that chicken rice is food for commoners!!

'come back from super-busy Japanese trip,
I came back to Cambridge on Friday night from my trip to Paris with my friend from Japan. It was my friend's first time to go there, so she was very excited about it. Well, she's Japanese, so our trip turned out to be a typical Japanese one, in which we bascially try to go and see as many sites as possible within few days. So we did that, and of course she took so many photographs. But for doing this, we were sacrificing our sleep, which absolutely exhausted me. I was sleeping every time we got on the train, while my friend seemed to be fine. It was a bit embarrassing. I guess I've lived away from Japan for too long. I stayed at my parents' French friend's place in Paris, and he gave me some sympathy, but I wonder if there'll be any when I go back to Japan. I might seem to be lacking energy or something! Although the trip was exhausting, of course I really enjoyed the trip overall. I love Paris, I never get bored with visiting there. And having managed to visit and see so many places gave us a great sense of accomplishment. I do now prefer relaxing holidays, but Japanese super-busy style trip is indeed rewarding. Anyway, I spent this weekend sleeping to recover. I did absolutely nothing while my friend was busy preparing for her attending graduation ceremony for her MBA on Tuesday. It makes me think whether I'll survive the busy life there in Japan when I go back. I guess I'll just have to do it. Or, I'll become a politician in the future and will change the life style there! Well, it could be to do with Japanese people's gene, so it won't change. In that case, I certainly lack that gene.

I'm still up tonight,
I've just finished my essay properly so that now I can print it out and hand it in. I'm having a firned over from Japan from tomorrow for a week, and as we'll be going to Paris for three days from Wednesday, I have to hand in my essay tomorrow. Martin, my housemate, once again did a great job of proof-reading my essay. He spent like 3 hours doing it, he's a very nice guy! Right, I should really go to bed now, otherwise I won't be able to go to the faculty 30 minuites earlier than the class at 9 am, so I can print out my essay and get it binded. My friend's arriving in the evening, but before then, I'll go to the seminar on Bushido and Japanese Politics. So, it'll be another busy day!!

I've finished my draft!!
I've just finished my draft of my essay that I needed to send to my supervisor. I'm going to see him tomorrow, and hopefully he'll think it's fine. I still need to have it proof-red and perhaps improve it a little bit, but I'm glad it's done! I'm going to see Michael Howard, a former leader of the British Conservative party today as he's coming to the Peterhouse Political Society. It'll be interesting to see what he thinks of the new leader, David Cameron.

Jenny & Yukina, thank you for your messages. I'll certainly see you when you come back to the U.K., Jenny.

OK, I'm going to bed now. It's been a long day.

Another phone call
It's so funny that a few minuites after writing the previous one, I've got another phone call, with unregistered number, from another friend of mine. She used to study at Roehampton for one year as an exchange student when I was first year. She then went home, but she came back to do her MA at Institute of Education for one year when I was third-year. She was calling me from London, again, saying that she's back in the U.K. for 3 days to attend her graduation ceremony for her MA!!! I really want to see her, but I had to tell her I couldn't go to London now as I've got an essay to finish within a few days, too bad!! But she had a good news that she had a job at a Japanese NGO and now is working in Cambodia, helping to build schools there. She said she needs 3-year experience before she needs to get a job for higher position in any bigger organisation, such as the U.N. It's cool that people are moving forward, making progress in their lives, and so shall I!!

Being very busy!!
I just a phone call from a friend of mine the begginning of last week from a friend of mine. He's a PHD student in International Relations at University of Kyoto and I met him last year when I went to see a kind of famous Japanese war veteran. He spent one year at University of London and he's now studying for one year at State University of Moscow in Russia. Well, I thought he was there in Russia, but he was back in London for 2 weeks when he called me. So, he came to visit Cambridge to see me and his other friend studying here. It was really nice to see him after more than 6 months. BUT, I'm having a friend over from Japan from next week Monday 13th. And I've got this essay due on 17th. So I really need to finish this before she comes. The research is done, but I still need to write 6000 words!! Tomorrow, I have lectures all day and during the evening, I'll be learning French from Dirk, one of my house mates from Belgium, and be teaching Japanese to him, Kyunga and Martin, as we always do on Mondays. AND, I have supervision with my supervisor on Thursday and I'm supposed to send him my first draft for it soon!! Well, I should've done this much earlier, so it's my lack of organisation, but I'm being too busy!!! I can write 6000 words within one day provided that all the research is done, so that's what I'm going to do on Tuesday! I'm going crazy and I forgot about my mother's birthday 2 days ago!! Waaaa------!!!

I went to see Stephen Hawking!
I haven't updated this for a long time again. My new year's resolution is already being broken, how weak my will-power is! But I've been doing things over the last 4 weeks, apart from that much studying. Monday this week, I went to see Professor Stephen Hawking with my friends. He came to give a talk at the Cambridge Union. The talk was only for members. The life-time membership of the Union is about 100 pounds, but it was for that sort of events that the money was worthwhile. His most famous work is, of course, A Brief History of Time. I haven't read the book, but he's someone everyone knows even when they haven't read the famous books. His talk was about 45 minuites, and it was titled 'The Origin of Universe'. Be honest, I only understood probably one third of what he was saying, but it was still very interesting and inspiring. He's such a great talker who can make his presentation so inveresting. He makes lots of jokes as well, he's so funny! He's still using the same computer attached to his wheel chair with that funny computer voice. He hasn't changed or updated it since he started using it in 1989. The graduate assitant said that the voice is actually the closest that he could have, and no companies have maned to produce a computer voice closer to his original one than the one we know. He now can move only a little part of his upper lip and eyes. It's really amazing that he's still doing his work (he's supervising 6 PHD students at Cambridge), travelling around the world, giving lots of inspiration both as a scientist and as a person who's fighting against disease. He took three questions from the audience, but to answer each question with a short sentence, it took him about 6-7 minuites. So his graduate assitant took non-academic questions from the audience. The whole night was really inspiring. Since my friends and I went there so early (we got there about 6.30 when the talk was supposed to start from 8.30!), so we got one of the best seats. So, I managed to take good photos (I'd like to believe so as I haven't developed them yet!). I was very pleased with the whole event!!

I've become 25!
The day has come finally... I've become 25 today. Well, 25 is the year, that comes 30 when it's rounded off. It's a very big deal in Japan (as far as I remember). You cannot possibly be young any more, in a sense that you're supposed to be a full 'adult', capable of taking responsibilites over your life. Well, I'm not yet. I'm still dependent on my parents to cover my education. But hopefully, I'll be able to start earning a reasonable amount of money when I go back to Japan within this year. Getting old is not as exciting as it used to be, but I'm going out for dinner with my friends tonight, not because I want to celebrate it, but because I think I deserve it!

The new term's starting
My long winter holidays is finally finishing tomorrow, and from Monday, I'm coming back to the class. I haven't done as much preparation as I hoped to do, but I'm looking forward to it. But the new term at Cambridge actually started from last Thursday. To make an excuse for not having up-dated it, that's why I've been doing things here and there again over the last three days. On Thursday, I went to see the talk by Tim Yeo, a Conservative member of Parliament. He talked about the effect of having the new Conservative leader, David Cameron to the British politics and so on. His talk was fairly balanced surprisingly. He mentioned a lot of good things and achivements of Tony Blair and sutff. So it was interesting. Then I went to the first formal debate at the Cambridge Union Society. The first debate of the term is always free to everyone at the university, so it was completely packed and some people even had to leave. The proposition of the debate was "This house believes that legislating against incitement to religious hatred makes a crime of free expression". The speakers were all interesting, but especially, we had Director of human rights and civil liberties organisation, Shami Chakrabarti. She always turns up in the television these days, and I find her a bit annoying because her political views are little bit too liberal or too on the left. But she was, as I thought so from having seen her on TV, very intelligent and her debate skills were fairly impressive. I also made a first little speech as an audience (I was finally picked by the president or the chair) for the opposition, saying that the incitement of hatred is not actually part of freedom in the first place because it lackes respect to people who live in the same community or same country. I said you can hate someone, but respect them still as a member of the same community at the same time. I also added that Pericles in the ancient Athen said "We do not give him the kind of black looks which, they do no real harm, still do hurt people's feelings". I know the Athenian democracy was based on the slavery, women's subjugation and having strict restriction on the number of people who could actually be Athenian citizens, but nonetheless, I think Pericles idea of freedom is the one that comes with the respect to the other fellow citizens. Anyway, I was, of course, very nervous to make the speech especially with the huge audience. But I think I did well, and it became another of my good experience at Cambridge. OK, I should go to bed now, but before I do, I'd like to finish with my Perciles' famous quote: "We do not say that a man who takes no interest in politics is a man who minds his own busienss; we say that he has no business here at all".

My housemate's left
When I woke up around 12.30 pm last Tuesday, as I've been doing for the last two weeks, having this messed up body-clock, I found out that one of my housemates had left for good! I can't put his name here in case someone might find this site, but it was one of the two English guys living in here. He's a really polite decent friendly guy. He is typically a good British middle-class man, in a very good way. He seemed to be absolutely fine on the night before. I saw him in the kitchen with another English guy living in my house, watching a TV series together. But he had an exam in that morning, and he didn't go because he wasn't feeling confident enough and didn't want to fail. He bascially chose to defer it rather than failing it because if he does so, he'll never be able to come back to the course as the exam was for one of the core modules of his course. Our house is very relaxing despite the fact that students here studying at an academically demanding place like Cambridge. We don't study as much as other people seem to be doing. We often stay in the kitchen and have a chat or watch a film together and stuff. But once I heard him that he wasn't getting anything from his classes. It seems that the course turned out to be different to what he'd expected it to be. And he wasn't putting that much efforts for it. We all are sad that he left because we've been very good friends. We're hoping that he'll come back and drop by so we can talk a little bit. He's still got some things left in the house to pick up. Another guy in the house said "One left, Seven to go!", but we won't, hopefully!!!

How would you prevent me from talking about politics?
It's 1.45 am now, and I'm still up, being unable to go to sleep. The fact is, my body-clock is completely messed up. I invited my Japanese friends at Cambridge for dinner. All together, we were 6 of us, but kept talking until 5 am. They did what they should never have done: they started talking about politics when I was around!!! My Japanese friends are really great. Actually, I don't know if I can call them 'friends' as they all are older than me. Some of them are even married. They are of course at Cambridge and some of them are really cool people, like coming from the Japanese ministry of finance, used to be what we call a 'charismatic teacher at a preparation school and so on. In addition to their high level of education and curiosity to knowledge, which are likely to make people interested in politics, they all are mature people. It's a general thing that the older you get, the more interested in politics you become. Being young, I don't know why I'm so interested in politics. Am I mature? Or am I just old??? A friend of mine from Roehampton calls me 'Oji-chan' meaning grandpa in Japanese. Anyway, here at Cambridge, I have lots of Japanese people to 'exploit' and to get involved with talking about politics. They're mature, so they're also tolerant and patient. So they let me go on forever!!! 3 out of 5 people who came for dinner actually invited the other 2, thinking and actually hoping that the more people there would be, the less likely that I'd talk about politics. But it turned out to be wrong!! At the end of the night, they were blaming each other to have started talking about politics. But I said to them, because politics exists everywhere, everywhere there is a power and power exists wherever there are more than two people because power is defined as influence and control over others, any topic can be turned into a political conversation. As I am a complete political animal, I'm so good at it! But I have some friends back in Japan who manage to prevent me from talking about politics completely. And sometimes I try to analyse how they do so. I think they stick to talking about themselves, gossips or TVs and stuff. Talking about TV so much is boring I have to say, but I think the best way to stop me from talking about politics is to talk about yourselves or gossip I love. Right, I know this is getting too long, although even after I finish writing this, it's unlikely I can go to sleep. But, as a friend of Shun Kobayashi, if you know how to prevent me from talking about politics, please let me know. Because these people at Cambridge are desperate for that!!!!

Happy New Year!
Happy New Year!!

The New Year ’s Day is my favorite day. It makes you refreshed and excited! It’s amazing I managed to have left this journal without up-dating for more than 5 months. But I did. Well, it’s one of my New Year’s resolutions to keep this up-dating at least once a week. Let’s see how long it will last, shall we?! But I’ve written here so people can always site and quote to blame me for not doing it, so I think it’ll be more effecting in terms of enforcement. Cambridge was so cold after Christmas. It even snowed! But it seems Japan has been having much more snow than here. This is my last year in the U.K. I can’t believe I’m finally going back to Japan. I’m sure I’ll have lots of culture shocks over there! But one thing I’m really looking forward to is the New Year’s visit to shrine to pray for good luck with the new year. I haven’t done it for 6 years, and I still don’t quite feel that the near year’s come without doing that. OK, I’d better go now and have a first good night sleep in 2006. I wish you all will make 2006 a wonderful year! Bye for now!

Shun

I can update now!
Yes, I know how to update this!! I just now need do this again before I forget how to do this, hehehe.

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