Alive (again)

Again, one of my "I am still alive" postings. Since I have returned from my vaccation in Germany on January 13th, I am very busy. Currently, I take 4 hours Japanese per week. It's getting better! However, progress is so slow.... Right now, I am learning adverbs - the spice of every language...

At work, I still haven't finished my plan for this year. It is totally overdue. However, there had been several complications...
But, it seems that I have found a strong vision to follow this year---I "only" have to plan the details....
A good thing happened: I was promoted! This was a very long and complicated process. But, everything turned out well!
Just yesterday, I got to know my new task. It will be quite different from what I had done before. Still, it seems to be very interesting!!

Regarding private life, I was very busy celebrating my promotion, haha. Last weekend I was cooking with 4 Japanese friends in my apartment (for those who know me well: yes, the usual style - they have been cooking and I have supervised, haha). At about 2AM, we went for some bars in Shibuya. However, one guy has already fallen asleep (too much alcohol...). We decided to let him sleep... When I returned home at about 5AM, he was still there---sleeping. This moment was quite funny :-)

Happy new year

Happy new year to everyone!!

My first year in Japan is over. The highlights for me this year have been (in no particular order):
- Creating the deepest research results of my life
- Making Japanese friends and communicating in Japanese with them
- Starting a side-project besides work: Learning Scheme. Improving a lot in OpenGL.
- Going out 2-3 times a week :-)

My plan for next year is (again, in no particular order):
- Improve my Japanese a lot (Compared to now, my lessons will go up 300%)
- Getting engaged :-)
- Create 2 ground-breaking prototypes (slashdot, I am coming!!)
- Create an art installation (side project from above)

In 2 days, I will return to Germany. I am so excited about it!
Sometimes, I miss my family and friends a lot!!

Now, some recent fun pictures:



At the last day of work, I went to a drinking party with my co-workers. Out of the blue, our summer-intern (Alex: Greek, studying at MIT in the US) materialized among us. He is the most surreal guy ever. He lives in the United States and studies Japanese there. His level is above 50% of the Japanese population in Japan. I wonder how he achieves this????


Near my apartment: a Christmas decoration (looks like a 1980's CG demo to me :-)


My friends arranged a drum and bass party recently. This is the most important guy: Kokoro G (=Gangster of the Heart?).
He is responsible for the sound system. He has built a rack of speakers. Size: 5m * 2m. Noiselevel: incredible. His statement: "this is my girl".


At this party, a poor guy fell asleep (totally drunk). Some guys seized this opportunity to decorate him by painting on his body. (I thought Japanese were polite? :-) I took a picture of my favourite decoration: "may the force be with you". I talked to the guy who has written this (mind the mis-spelling of force). He has watched the Star Wars movies 500 times (nick name: Jedi Masta)


At yesterday's new year's party, I have met many interesting people. On the left, you can see an uprising Tokyo-artist. He has drawn pictures of many people at the party in about 1 minute! That was incredible. See my painting below - probably I look better on it than in real life, haha.

The guy on the right (Ben) is also very remarkable. He is British and studied Mathematics there. When he turned 20, he moved to a small town in Okinawa (2000 citiziens, in the middle of nowhere). His purpose: learning Karate. This reminded me very strangely of Kill Bill's plot :-)
We have chatted a little about mathematics. Sometimes, there are coincidents in life which are hard to explain. We are both extremely fascinated by Galois. To sum Galois up: extreme influential Genius; died at the age of 20 at a duel (because of a woman). We were musing about how different the current would be if Galois would have won that duel... I wonder: what is the propability of 2 random people meeting, and both are fascinated by Galois?