Equilibrium Instabilis

As every thing I want to do, my trip to Japan is getting complicated. I need to get a certificate of eligibility in order of getting a working visa. They need me to send them some documents via standard courier (and this is slow) and then they will apply a form to the Ministry of Justice (and this is the slowest part). I had already bought an air ticket for the 30th August but my tutor asked me whether I could change my booking for a later one. I told him that I have bought an economic fare ticket which cannot be changed. Now I know that it is possible (paying 129 euros) but in his last email he said me that Toshiba will pay me a one-way ticket. I prefer them to pay my old ticket and get it changed.

Now that the money is not a problem, I realize that I wanted getting to Japan at the same time as the Vulcanus do. I am almost sure that I won’t participate in its first weekend in Tokyo. Starting a thing like this together will unite them very strongly and now it will be even harder becoming another member of the group (since I will be working from the very first day, and they will be learning Japanese during four months, together). That reminds me that I have to hurry!

Well, the first problem has been solved but I’m sure that more things will happen, because why should things be as easy for me as for everyone else?

Salut les Erasmus!

Ça va? Ça fait longtemps que je ne dis rien mais faute de trop bosser, comme toujours. Maintenant l’août va bien tôt arriver et je vais commencer mes vacances, mais aussi je laisse mon entreprise. La raison: le Japon. Oui mes potes, je vais faire un “deuxième” Erasmus en Japon. J’habiterai là-bas pendant 6 mois, depuis Septembre jusqu’à Février (les mois que j’ai manqué à Paris). En fait, je vais faire un internship à Toshiba Research&Development en Kawasaki (à 18 km de Tokyo), pour travailler en Robust Speech Recognition. Je vais essayer écrire ici (en anglais) mes expériences dans la terre des samurais. Tout sera complètement différent de tout ce que j’ai appris pendant ma vie, mais c’est justement ça ce que m’incite à y aller.

À bientôt mes amis, et je vous rappel que vous pouvez me rendre visite si vous en avez envie!

東京 カリモチョ

At this point, talking about the beginning of this story sounds weird to me, but I will explain it a little bit for those that may visit my page and do not know what I’m talking about: I’m going to Japan for six months.

Ok, a little longer: I applied for an internship in Toshiba RDC in Kawasaki, next to Tokyo (once again not in the big city, at least this time the small city has 1,200,000 inhabitants, pas comme Orsay ou Bures-sur-Yvette, n’est pas?) and I got it:

Toshiba Research and Development Center (RDC), Kawasaki, Japan, are offering an 6 month to 1 year internship in speech recognition or speech synthesis (signal processing). The international candidate will either be a student or just completing their studies. They will work in the Multimedia Laboratory at RDC. The Center is situated in Kawasaki which is between Tokyo and Yokohama.

Toshiba RDC will provide a dormitory for accommodation and about 1k pounds a month as salary. PC, software tools and other necessities will be provided. Travel costs to and from Japan are not covered by this internship.

I know a guy who has been as a Vulcanus in Japan (2004-2005) that studied in the UPC. Thanks to this I have known the Vulcanus program so I decided to find the “this year Vulcanus” people. I finally found two blogs of two people that have obtained the Vulcanus grant: Fer Martin and History of a Man. They seem as excited as I am with the idea of living in Japan. I am sure that their Japanese level will be higher than mine, because I have not started yet and I’m leaving next month: I have to hurry!!

Sayonara baby.

Kalimocho is the bad translation of Calimocho, an ancient Spanish beverage, used for growing healthy, strong and happy (happy over anything else).

Hola a todos y bienvenidos a Equilibrium Inestabilis.

En este espacio intentaré resumir los acontecimientos más importantes que me sucedan en mi día a día. Ahora vivo en Granollers, a lado de Barcelona. La primera es donde he vivido siempre y la segunda donde me gustaría acabar viviendo (aunque mucha gente opina que la tendencia es huír de las capitales, a mi me encantan).

Granollers está bien como mini-ciudad (sobre todo en la Festa Major), si te gusta el equilibrium entre el campo y la urbe. En mi caso, en esto me pasa como en muchas otras cosas: ¡¡el equilibrium se vuelve instabilis!! Yo prefiero la capital, ¡Qué cojones!

En fin, después de este golpe de equilibrium instabilis doy por finalizado el primer post, eperando que no sea el último.