So what's up 2009?

First of all, happy new year to everyone!

So what's been up lately?

Well I've had a long winter vacation, which ends today, so from tomorrow I'm back to school.
Did a trip over the new year's holiday to Hakodate on southernmost Hokkaido, from there we continued by train, passing through the longest tunnel in the world, which connects Hokkaido and Honshu, and went to the Iwate prefecture on northern Honshu. Had a good time staying at nice ryokans (japanese style inns) and eating lots of good food.

The snow is pouring down almost everyday, as usual in Sapporo. Nobody feeling like coming over for a visit of the famous Sapporo snow festival in February and go for some skiing and hot spring bathing? It's the last chance since me and my girlfriend will be moving to Sweden by the spring. The amount of snow that falls here in Hokkaido is just incredible. The snow that falls during a whole winter in Stockholm comes pouring down about every third day here. The ski resorts here on Hokkaido are also very nice.

Currently trying to make some plans for the future; what to study when I get back to Stockholm, finding a place to live and hoping I can get back to my former job at the airport in Stockholm for the spring and summer. In other words, I have some stuff to take care of.

If anybody happens to have a sublease apartment big enough for two persons in Stockholm, preferably around the Solna/Norrtull area available from April, please let me know! I will most likely start working at Sas ground services again, so I need to stay somewhere from where I can get to Arlanda airport easily. Since I don't have a car and don't want to spend money for buying one, it pretty much restricts me to the areas where I can get on the airport bus early in the morning, which is in the city, Norrtull and Solna/Ulriksdal.

I really wouldn't mind staying longer in Japan and especially in Sapporo, it's a great place to live, but I want to study at university when I'm finished with my Japanese language studies and other than getting more practise of using the Japanese language, there's not really any good reason to study at a university in Japan. For those of you thinking about studying at a university in Japan, I'll give you my reasons:

Firstly, Japanese universities are expensive, Swedish ones are free. I'm already taking big student loans to be able to study at the language school and it would not be reasonable at all to take more loans for studying 3-4 years at a Japanese university, furthermore, due to the financial crisis the Japanese yen has become about 45% more expensive in relation to the Swedish crowns compared to half a year ago.

Secondly, there's a big difference between a good and a bad university in Japan. If you have studied at a not so famous university, you'll have a tough time finding a job afterwards. Practically all the big companies in Japan only employs graduates from universities with a good reputation. The famous universities in Japan is not very easy to enter, especially for foreigners. There's a lot of tests and examinations, both of the Japanese language and other subjects to pass to enter a university in Japan.

Thirdly, Japanese universities does in general not hold a very high level. Entering Japanese universities is often difficult, but once you manage to enter the university, the courses are not very intense. This does of course differ depending on what you study, but most of the university students in Japan appear to spend more time on part-time work than on studying. This is a well-known problem in Japan and there's a lot of debates going on on how to stop the decline of the Japanese students knowledge.

To summarize it, there's not really any good reason to spend alot of money that I don't have anyway on an education that most likely is of a lower standard than what I can get for free back in Sweden. I need to get something back for those insane taxes I've been paying while working in Sweden, you know. Also, if I study at a university in Sweden I have the possibility of studying as an exchange student in Japan. Exchange students don't have to pay any tuition fee and the Swedish universities only have agreements with the high-level universities in Japan.

My problem now is just to figure out what to study when I return to Sweden. Slightly regret that I didn't study much at all during high-school and therefore have not too good grades, but I'll apply for what seems interesting and if I can't enter I guess I'll just have to study for the university entrance test (Högskoleprovet) and give it a new try 6 or 12 months later.

In other news, I had my wisdom teeth extracted a couple of days ago at the dental clinic where my girlfriend works, the extraction itself was quite tiring and unpleasant, but thanks to anaesthesia, manageable. The pain afterwards for the first 24 hours or so was quite tough though. It's however getting alot better quickly and I hope my slightly swollen face will return to it's normal slim shape soon.

That's it for now, thanks to anyone who bothered reading this long post. If you have anything specific you want me to write about, post a comment! I've got lots of photos and stuff that I could post if anyone's interested.