uni update

An update on the uni front, for anyone who is interested.

Things are going well.  It's a big advantage being a native speaker to keep up with the volumes of reading.  When it comes to research though I will be constrained by my semilinguality (monolingual might be overstating my competence somedays). I'm doing ten credits this  term - 4 subjects. I give myself to the end of the semester in these glasses. The reading and writing load is huge.  Today after handing in an essay and doing a presentation, assuming I have counted correctly, I have 21 writing tasks to complete before the end of January - all of which require either deep or extensive reading...   Lecturers and classmates are good, as are facilities - printing and photocopying costs are included in the semester fees and the printers are more likely to have toner than not.  It's very international - the biggest national grouping would probably be US, Japan, France, Germany and the Philippines but also Estonia, Hungary, Taiwan, China, Thailand, Senegal, Sierra Leone, UK, Morocco, Canada, Russia.  It's think on Africa, the Subcontient / central Asia and also South America. Most people are trilingual at least....

I am in stale mate with the uni on Japanese classes.  I didn't sign up for classes this term, but will do so next term even though I will miss one in 4 classes...   I may have to enrol & withdraw (no financial cost, it's just a pain to have withdrawals on my academic record) but hopefully will be able to sufficiently endear myself to the teacher that I can still remain in the class after I withdraw officially.

I'm impressed with the railway subsidy - there is no such thing as a general student card for public transport discounts, but they give a 30-40% student discount if you buy a monthly pass.

I have yet to find the pool at the uni, but apparently there is one there - with some luck it won't be heated to the 28 degree hydrotherapy temperature that the local pool is...

But so far so good.  I'm basically on top of the workload though teaching and working on a Zen translation on the side are keeping me very occupied.   It's good to be using my brain and it's good to have to be organised in my thinking.