Why Being a Graduate Student Sucks, The Travel Edition

At first, I thought Northwest Airlines was kidding me when I saw that the weight limit was 50lbs. It was always 75! Seriously!

Then Colleen told me in her email that they lowered the weight limit, then she had to pay at the airport.

Oh, $%*#.

I have PAPER. And BOOKS. And RESEARCH. For example, I don't need the conference proceedings from the conference back in December. My FIRST publication. I know I will never read those articles because I don't need to at the moment, but there is a lot of sentimental value - those two books have ISBNs. That means it pretty much like a real book. However, together, those two books are a total of over 1200 A4 size pages - they easily weigh at least 5lbs together, maybe 10? Paper weighs alot.

This is why being a graduate student sucks - you gather all the research that you need in the target country only to realize its a royal pain in the ass to send it through mail and utter hell if you go over the weight limit in the airport because obviously, no foundation or government will give you a first class ticket. Everyone goes through the same thing - tourists buy too many souveneirs for example, Greeks from Astoria pack everything but the kitchen sink to go to the mother country for the two to four month vacation (ah, the memories of Olympic Airways and JFK, seeing people unpack and repack at the ticket counter) - but damn, paper is heavy!!!

Ahh...soooo annoying. You get all this research and you need to bring it home and the only recourse to action is to mail it. But I think at this point, after looking more carefully on NWA's policy for overweight luggage and printing out with me, I might as well just keep some of the books and either toss them (Japanese textbooks) or put them through the mail. And what sucks even more is that USPS changed their policies regarding low-cost freight out of Japan, which is a problem amongst many academics both in and out of Japan - I got the petition to restore the service via the H-Japan list serv email. And the Japan postal system isn't cheap either.

I already took out two Japanese textbooks (but frankly I don't need them, I might just chuck them in the garbage, but for now they stay in the bookcase) - I don't need my paper dictionary or my paper kanji dictionary anymore since I have the electronic dictionary for my Nintendo. I MIGHT take out the regular paper dictionary (since its like 5lbs) and chuck it when I leave Japan for good, because by that time I will have my real hard-core denshi jisho. But for now, the kanji dictionary goes home.

And then there are the clothes! I have a winter coat and a jacket to bring back...bah. So frustrating, but its the books that make things so darn heavy. Need to REPACK. Blah. However, everything else regarding prep (printing boarding pass, checking in online, returning rest of library books, etc. etc. is done)

Now, I am REALLY hoping Mel comes in March with the two empty suitcases (he travels light, I plan to use his weight allowance and he wants to come to Japan) to help me move back. I just checked with JAL (which will be the way I go home in March because the Japanese government pays for it and the weight limit is still at 70lbs thank god!)

UPDATE: Finished packing. Since I got rid of like 10 books and took out one Kate Spade bag (figured I should keep a nice bag here, though I am returning with my green KS bag), I had to repack AGAIN into my medium sized suitcase. But thats ok - when I went to Korea, I used said medium suitcase and the weight was 18 kilos. So I *think* the weight will be fine.

I hope.

Attack of the Incredible Paper Monster!

Being a wanna-be Japanese historian and a student, I tend to accumulate a lot of paper. The paper in general falls into two categories:

1) Japanese grammar notes/worksheets
2) Research

With the big paper that I wrote this past semester, and the trip to the National Diet Library in Tokyo, the paper for the latter category just got out of control. That, and the fact that I haven't had the chance to properly put away the paper for the former category, when I took it all out of my bookcase (really a cabinet above my bed, it's all one big unit, there is another cabinet where I keep my clothes) I ended up with this:


Forgive the messy bed underneath the paper. Because I was practically living in school this past week, I had hardly any time to make my bed. But now, everything is tidied up, punched with holes, stapled and placed into cheap little folders with the holes to keep the paper in place:

Mind you, those four binders don't encompass all of the paper, I still have one A4 size binder and a bunch of folders. But I'd say those 4 folders have about 90% of it all. When I go back home, I'm bringing back most of it to scan into PDF (most of the stuff I got at the Diet library were guidebooks from the Meiji period so they are small), and I am bringing back most of the Japanese textbooks that I won't use anymore.

The Paper Monster has been vanquished!

For now, at least.

Research Really Means Collecting Paper and Having to Pay for It

Sure, I came to Tokyo for the conference; that was the impetus for this trip. And then I decided to skip 4 days of class because it’s a chance to see Tokyo. But I figured that while I was up here, might as well check out the National Diet Library – now that totally legitimizes me skipped 4 days of class and letting my teachers think I had a 6 day conference, Uh huh, riiiiiiight.

In short, the National Diet Library is really easy to use – so long as you prepare beforehand and read Japanese. However, they do give user guides in English, which is really sweet for when I want to use the Kansai branch (which is closer to me, as Kyoto is in Kansai) I can request materials online and from the Tokyo branch.

I came in using the visitors entrance and formally registered which makes things run a lot more smoothly; after an initial “WTF? I don’t know this computer system” I got the ball rolling on collecting materials. In two mornings I looked at 5 books, 4 of which were actually from the 19th century and on microfilm. Copying is damn expensive! That is one reason why I didn’t look at all 30 of the books that I initially looked up – first it takes a while to request them since you are only allowed 3 books out at a time (different from NYPL where you can request 3 books, but every 5 minutes you can request another 3), and second the copying is expensive and third I didn’t have much time. So, I just looked up the stuff that was important for my presentation in the next few weeks and some stuff on Heian Jingu for the KCJS class in the fall.

It was raining all day. Today was also when I was going to meet Jessica, Kukhee and Jessica’s research assistant in Shinjuku for dinner, so I decided to check out the Imperial Palace a bit while I had some time to kill. I slowly discovered that I do not like to travel alone; it gets lonely and in spite of all the itineraries, you do run out of things to do. Also, I felt like I didn’t have enough time to check out museums such as the main museum in Ueno Park. So off to Imperial Palace.

Because of the rain, I didn’t walk around so much. I got a look at Ote-Mon and the weather was so dreary that I decided to head back inside to the Maru Biru (“biru” = “building”), find a Starbucks and sit down. I actually brought some of the classical Japanese homework for my advisor so I actually did some of it while sitting amongst the suits. In spite of the café latte (I decided to splurge a bit) I was getting sleepy; I then walked around Maru Biru a bit. According to the floor guide they had the Mochi Cream that I ate a few days before! Yum yum…I got Sakura, Café Latte and Apple cream – wasn’t too thrilled by the Sakura. I discovered “Mochi Cream” in the food floor of the Ginza Matsuya my first day here - it’s mochi but filled with something like flavored ice cream and they have like 20 different flavors – and thank god they have shops in Kyoto, I would have been very sad otherwise. So far, I have tried Café Latte, Peach, Sakura, Chocolate, Matcha and Apple. Liked all of them except for the Sakura (cherry blossom) and Matcha - go figure that is ironic given that this stuff is mochi. Best keep the traditional flavors in their places, then.