University in Australia vs. College in the States

Posted on February 19, 2015
by Krissy O'Farrell

On my decision to come to SUNY Oswego for an exchange semester, I knew that things would be different, but I assumed that more or less Australian and American university life and culture would be very similar. I was wrong. I have outlined the main differences below. Enjoy.

College is love

1. College is love, college is life. Literally. Since beginning college my days typically consist of eating all my meals with friends, going to class, going to the gym with friends, doing homework with friends, watching Netflix with friends, and sleeping. This is vastly different to my university days at QUT as everyday would always be completely different. In Brisbane some days I would go to work, others I would have class, and others I would do absolutely nothing but hang out with friends. I like the structured format of college in the states because I am forced to be more dedicated to my studies and I actually feel like I have time for things (such as working out) because everything is on campus.

2. Homework and pass grades. At QUT in my course, to pass a subject you simply need to get 50% or higher, which is simple and makes sense to me… Here it varies on the subject. For instance one of my subjects is 60% and another is 70%. However it is easier to get marks here (from my recent experience anyway) as professors tend to give out marks for attendance and small homework tasks. Which brings me to my next point; homework. Per subject at QUT I would have two exams during a semester and 1-3 large assignments, and class work/homework is completely optional. Whereas at SUNY Oswego I actually have to keep up to date on course work by submitting graded homework tasks weekly. I like the feelings of always being on top of my course work here, and it gives me reassurance that I will pass and do well, but I do miss weeks of procrastination and doing things last minute as I work well under pressure.

3. Structure of classes. At QUT all of my weekly classes are made up of two parts: one being a lecture which takes place in a hall and is run by a professor, and the other is a practical session in a classroom environment which may be run by a professor or a researcher. At SUNY Oswego all my subjects are in a classroom environment. I feel as though I am back in high school at times. I prefer my university’s style of teaching because a lecture might be one day, and the practical session the next, so it gives me time to digest the information. However I feel as though I have the potential to develop closer, more meaningful relationships with professors here as the contact is more personal and regular.

Snow storm

4. Classes are cancelled if there is a snow storm. This is vastly different to what I am used to. It doesn’t snow in Brisbane, but when we do have extreme weather, scheduled activities are rarely postponed (the exception being sporting events). I was surprised that classes were cancelled when there was a blizzard because most students live on campus and have the warm clothes needed to withstand these conditions anyway.

5. Not everything will kill you in the states. I was bitten by a spider two nights ago and I did not die; I initially thought it was a mosquito bite as it was itchy, small and hard, but turned out it was a spider bite. If this had happened in Australia I probably would have gone straight to the ER. I am enjoying the fact that I do not need to fear for my life when I encounter bugs and reptiles here.

6. American’s have awesome accents. I am always interested in what my peers and professors have to say because I cannot get enough of the accent.

7. American’s have a different definition of thong. I was telling some new friends about my regular encounters with spiders and how I kill them with my thongs (flip flops), and they thought this was hilarious because they were imagining me killing them with a g-string. Lol.

College food

8. Dining halls. At QUT we do not have any dining halls, rather we have food courts, cafes and bars, where items must be purchased in $AUD. When I arrived at Oswego the whole dining hall and dining dollars thing was so foreign, amazing & like something from an American movie. I love that there are so many dining halls on campus and their hours are long and flexible. I wish we had this culture at QUT.

Peace Out

Clubs and Organizations: Providing Unique Opportunities to Diverse Individuals

Posted on February 11, 2015
by Riley Ackley

Shaun Cassidy Fan Club: A Home For Comedy

Growing up one of my favorite things to do was make people laugh. I never realized until high school though that I could elaborate on this through talent shows and organizations. So throughout my high school career I absorbed every opportunity to expose myself to the comedic world. I would watch comedic shows and movies, stand-up specials, and attend stand up performances by real, working comedians at the local college.

Upon entering Oswego, I had never realized I would choose to continue, in any form, my comedy. In addition, it’s important to note that I, by no means, am here to say that I am the most expansive or interacting comedian here at this college (If you’re looking for that, you can find my friend Sarah Benson). Still though my love for this campus only grows through the visible opportunities that exist for comedians to flourish. Through things like Open Mic Night, Shaun Cassidy Fan Club, and various talent shows, the SUNY Oswego campus is welcoming to all sorts of characters.

Let’s talk Shaun Cassidy Fan Club. Similar to “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” Shaun Cass performs weekly shows in the campus’s auditorium. With audiences ranging anywhere from 50 students to five (when Hockey is in season), we are given the opportunity to hone comedic skills. Completely free and uncensored, I feel as though I can speak for all of our members and say that the troop loves being a part of this organization. Every Sunday, we hold practices open to the most experienced and the newest of comedian hopefuls. It really is a family atmosphere.

Spending every weekend with these people and practicing for almost a year before entering the shows allowed me and others to build off of one another and develop our own specific style of comedy. We were able to all be our own comedians with our own ideas, characters, and personalities and coexist along others seeking the same thing. During the shows, through our variety of audiences we are able to see what works and what doesn’t while still maintaining both a sense of teamwork and autonomy. It has turned me into a better speaker, listener, and creator.

Student Athlete Guide: What To Expect

Posted on February 9, 2015
by Lizzy Marks

Making the transition into becoming a college athlete is an exhilarating process. There is no better feeling than putting on the jersey and becoming a representation of not only your team but the school and the community.

However the transition to playing a collegiate sport can also be an overwhelming process. The game is faster, the players are stronger, training is tougher and on top of it all, you are also balancing the demands of being a college student. I have been in your shoes before and know how nerve racking it can be in anticipating but I have learned some valuable things along the way that will be beneficial for all of you.

So before you take the jump into the best four years of your athletic career, keep in mind these three things:

1) Time Management

Time management is everything when it comes to being a student athlete. It’s the same thing as having a full time job. There are days when you will have 6am practice followed by a full day of classes and the only thing you want to do is go home and take a nap (naps are an athletes best friend) but alas you have 3 hours of homework to get done. Just reading that over makes me exhausted.

However with having such a rigorous schedule all the time means that when a time frame opens up to get work done you immediately take advantage. It helps build a routine. I find that I get better grades when I am in season than when I am not because I know I only have X amount of time to get it done.

As a student athlete you need to keep a cumulative GPA of a 2.0 or higher in order to compete in your sport. That being said the athletics department offers study hall to all the athletes.

So when you get a day off take advantage of getting ahead in your school work trust me it makes life so much easier. Binge watching Netflix will always be there for you when the season is over.

Romney Field House

2) Love The Game

Like I stated above being a student-athlete is a full time job, you will put in about 20-30 hours a week training/competing in your sport and if you don’t love the game it’s going to be a long season. Although it can be stressful I would not change being a student-athlete. When you first step foot on campus you immediately gain 20 or more new friends in your teammates. You already have a place were you can belong and your teammates truly become your second family.

I have had some duel sport friends quit one of their sports because they just didn’t love the game and were just miserable. If you dread going to practice or seeing your teammates maybe that’s a sign. You are only at Oswego for 4 years so sports or no sports it is worth it go out and find something that you love to do and look forward to everyday!

3) You Are A Representation Of SUNY Oswego

As athletes we take great pride wearing the green and gold during competition. It gives us a chance to show not only our competitors but our community what it means to be a Laker (which we don’t know exactly what a Laker is but that’s beside the point). That being said as an athlete we have that extra responsibility of being a representation of our school and what others and prospective students might think of us.

The thing about being a student athlete is that even when you are out of uniform people on campus and around the community know who you are. Character and how you represent yourself is everything, so take pride in yourself and your team! The campus and the community show so much support for our athletics so the least we can do is return the gratitude back.

Open holiday skate with the Lakers. Oswego State men’s and women’s ice hockey team members. SUNY Oswego 12/07/2014

From 104 degrees, to 3.2 degrees in a day.

Posted on January 30, 2015
by Krissy O'Farrell

G’day!

I am Krissy, the new SUNY Oswego student blogger all the way from Brisbane, Australia. I am spending a semester on exchange here and have been at Oswego for nearly a fortnight now, and loving it! I’ll give you a quick background on my journey and what it entailed for this first blog post.

Background

My favourite spot at QUT

In Australia, I study a bachelors of Information Technology at QUT (seriously an awesome university and friendliest place on earth) and am currently in my third and final year of my degree. I decided at the very beginning of my second year (early 2014), that I wanted to participate in the exchange program with one of QUT’s partners. So the research began. I could waffle on more about this, but essentially I chose SUNY because it has a highly regarded Computer Science Program, and Business School, which is exactly what I am into and subjects I would be taking. And of course because I have been in love with the idea of living in America and in the snow since I was a child. Prior to attending SUNY I had only seen snow on ski fields or on mountains in the far distance.

Trip from Australia to Oswego

soaring from the west to the east

It still feels surreal that I am actually in Oswego, on exchange and 9482.75 miles away from home. During the lead up to going on exchange it always just felt so far away, when I received my acceptance from SUNY in October it was still a good 3-4 months away and I just could not picture myself actually there. As time creeped on, I actually moved to Sydney over summer for an internship and was working full-time at Atlassian. This kept me occupied and as a result I didn’t really have much time to reflect and think about the long, exciting journey ahead of me. I left Sydney on a Friday, spent the Saturday and Sunday in Brisbane with my family and friends, then flew out on Monday morning. When I was on the plane Monday morning, it was the first time I was actually like “Wow this is actually happening”. I think this was a good thing because I was super excited and felt the flights didn’t take too long. In total I travelled about 26.5 hours to finallllllllllly arrive at SUNY Oswego. Before I left Australia we were in the midst of a steaming hot summer. I’m talking like 104 degree days and nights – it was painful, then when I stepped off the plane in Syracuse it was like 19 degrees, then Oswego was 3.2 degree – farrrrr out.

Arriving in Oswego

Hanging out in the cold

Driving from Syracuse to Oswego was incredible! I had never seen that volume of snow on roads, footpaths, grass, trees etc! And seeing so many dead trees was crazy – they are beautiful! I remember I was also very shocked by how warm is actually was inside vehicles and shops – in Australia, in winter, I am constantly freezing my butt off because we don’t have central heating 🙁 so I thought this was fantastic. When I arrived at Oswego I moved into my dorm which is in Hart Hall – this building is very central which is fantastic. I found making friends very easy because SUNY organised heaps of orientation events which gave me a chance to meet new international students like me, as well as new in-state freshman. I am having so much fun and seriously never want this semester to end!

Take it easy

Krissy x

Two Lives: A College Student and a Traveling Musician

Posted on January 26, 2015
by Luke Parsnow

Everyone has that side of their life that’s separated from the mainstream “What do you do for a living?” part that normally is the core of our personal definition. I believe it’s the same with college students.

We all can’t be studying for tests and writing papers all the time. We need to have some kind of escape from all of that, and maybe that escape isn’t exactly well known to people other than yourself.

Over the last four years of my time at college, a lot of people have come to me and said “I didn’t know you sang!” and “I didn’t know you were in a band.” Well, I am. I’m a traveling musician and singer/songwriter with two different bands, and that’s my other life.

I’ve been doing it since I was 18. I’ve played in front of many different audiences in many different places. I’ve traveled almost 15,000 miles, from Canada to North Carolina, and lots of places in between, playing and singing for people. It’s a lot of fun, I’ve met a lot of great people doing it, I have lots of great stories to tell from it, and the money I get from it pays for my textbooks.

Which leads to a question I get often regarding it: What’s it like being a traveling musician and college student at the same time?

It sure isn’t easy at times. When I announced I was going to college, a lot of people actually assumed that I was going to school for music. But I’m not, and I’ve never taken a single music course. I’m here to make a career.

Luckily, most of my shows are during the summer so college never really gets in the way. There have been a number of times though where I’ve missed a few classes to leave early for long journeys or have gotten back to Oswego at 2 a.m. after riding back from Virginia, and then work on an assignment that was due for my 8 a.m. class. Yeah, that was fun.

The routes I’ve taken to get to shows during the 2014 season

This past summer was quite a challenge. I was doing an internship in Albany for three months and would often have to make a three hour trip back home, then a multi-hour trip somewhere to play, and then somehow make it back to Albany by Monday morning. This resulted in hitching rides with a lot of people, running to counters at train stations as the last one was leaving, spending all night in bus stations, and I even slept on a bench one night because I had nowhere to stay and my bandmates weren’t in town until the next day.

One weekend turned out to be difficult, but quite an adventure. I was scheduled to play just outside of Ottawa, Canada on a Friday and Saturday night with one band, and then had to be in State College, Pennsylvania by noon on Sunday to play with the other band. I rented a car in Albany and drove home Thursday night, carpooled with my bandmates to Canada Friday morning, got off stage Saturday night at about 11:30, rode five hours back to Syracuse, got back to Syracuse just before the sun rose, then jumped in my rental car and drove another five hours to State College. I made it and played a show with my other band, then drove another six hours back to Albany, getting there just in time to go to work Monday morning. Yeah, I was awake for two and a half days. I know it was very stupid and dangerous and did I say stupid to drive 700 miles without sleeping for that long amount of time, but it’s the sacrifices I have to make if I want to build a career and play music at the same time.

Now I, of course, have always put my schooling first. I’m still highly involved and I still make the Dean’s List every semester. I stayed in Oswego to take my Spanish final instead of going to Tennessee. And my bands have turned down offers to play in Georgia, Florida, and on several cruises to the Bahamas because it would require too much time away. Writing is my career and music will be always be just a strong hobby—not a lifestyle.

I understand that eventually at some point, I will come to a crossroads where I will have to leave my music and focus solely on my career. People ask me all the time when that will be. The answer is simple. I always respond with, “Well, so far I’ve been able to make it work between the two. Whenever I can’t make it work any longer, that’s when it will end.”

I love college and my goals, ambitions, and dreams in college are my top priority. Although I have been able to squeeze music into college itself, like playing at Open Mic Night or my songwriting seminar I put on once a semester in a poetry class. But that’s it.

It’s my other life—and that’s where I would like it to stay.

Alyssa Explains It All: Sleeping in College

Posted on January 10, 2015
by Alyssa Levenberg

A Self Titled Life- Everyone’s Story (Day 10) ((It’s the final countdown))

Posted on December 13, 2014
by Ally Costanza

Welcome to my last blog post. I will get home today by way of trains, planes and automobiles. I’m on the airplane right now that left from the Narita airport in Japan and is headed for JFK in New York. The arrival countdown reads 3 hours and 4 minutes until we touch back down to Earth. Believe it or not, we shaved some time off this trip compared to the last one. A whole 5 minutes. When we took off the countdown was 11 hours and 57 minutes so look at all that progress! I’ve watched a few movies, wrote a final paper, and about two hours ago I tried to write this blog post. Then I gave up and watched another movie. I finally got around to watching the Amazing SpiderMan Movies- highly recommend. Anyways, I have just enough time to write a blog post before I watch the last movie I’ve been saving. That’s the great thing about these posts- all you get to see is the final product so it doesn’t matter how long it takes me to muster up the words to write these posts or how many personal early morning dance breaks I take in between paragraphs. So for this post I’m throwing in all the honorable mentioned photos that didn’t make the cut the first time around. I laughed while picking most of them out.

HI. LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT THIS LITTLE MONSTER. One day I bought these individually wrapped cookies and I kept them in my pocket to eat throughout the day, so I called them pocket cookies. This little boy’s mom took our picture and he threw such a temper tantrum (throwing rocks) so I tried to present him with an extraordinary pocket cookie and he hung his head so low that it almost snapped off his neck. Then he finally took the cookie AND VIOLENTLY HAULED IT FULL FORCED INTO THE GROUND. I actually gasped out loud. I just, I had to walk away. I had to leave the scene. I couldn’t control myself around that kind of inexcusable behavior. wow. Just WOW. (breathe, Ally, breathe.)

This was the shrine of a thousand and one buddhas. I got the picture the day after that blog was posted and well here you go.

According to my Mom, one needs a college education to work this toilet. It looks like you could use the bathroom while participating in a medieval torture chamber.

This was a vending machine full of crepes. What more do you need to know.

I’m having a hard time trying to figure out exactly what it is that I want to say or how I want to sum up all of these blogs along with all the things I’ve done in the past ten days. I’ve put a pretty substantial amount of time and effort into these blogs. I’ve dedicated a few hours a night to writing them all and I’m really happy that I did. On the bright side I know my mom reads them all so at least I have an audience other than myself. I have this tendency to buy a journal before a trip so I can write about all that happens and then I get on the trip and never open the book. At least I’m consistent. Well, the same thing happened on this trip. (In all fairness I had the journal long before I knew I was going to be blogging the trip. I’ll save the journal for spring break so I can neglect to use it then too.) I’ll admit though, I always did these posts late at night and sometimes the thought of having to stay up and write a blog as well as find pictures was enough to make me reconsider all of my life choices. However, I would remember nothing about this trip if I didn’t have this blog. Squat. We just did so much it was hard to keep up with it all so it’s really cool to have it all in one place with pictures. How nifty. Maybe even swifty.

I have absolutely no idea what is going on.

Somebody call Vogue.

The Kabuki Theater. The theater, the lovely theater. The picture was better but there is actually a bus that barged into my picture.

Today was a pretty nonchalant day. Although we did participate in a traditional tea ceremony and we got to wear kimono, drink green tea- the whole shabang. We wore these socks that look like goat feet. There one little part for your big toe and then another little part for your other toes with a divider in the middle. It’s like wearing mittens on your feet. (side note- thank the heavens for spellcheck because I spelled kimono ‘camono’. I had to google it to figure it out. Hello, I go to college.) It was interesting to see/ participate in all of these traditional customs that are part of the Japanese culture. Not just the tea ceremony, but also to visit places like Old Tokyo or any of the temples. America is such a young country and we don’t have a lot of these kinds of long-standing traditions. At the same time, that’s what I love about America. We don’t have a lot of traditions. It’s kind of a make-it-up-as-you-go society. In my family we have this birthday hat that looks like a cake with candles on the top. It’s not an American tradition , but in my family you are obligated to wear this hat on your birthday when you blow out the candles. These are the kinds of traditions that I love. You get to create your own traditional origins and pass them down to whomever you please. I really took the time on this trip to appreciate the world that I live in just a little bit more. I really think that going somewhere new and learning about someone different teaches you more about yourself than anything else. I like that America is loud and that we have rules but generally ignore all of them. I like that no one is the same and people aren’t afraid of being bold just because they want to be. I feel like America is made of a lot of brave people. We tend to look at differences as a positive attribute rather than a negative divide between people. Okay, hi. The plane is rocking back and forth and it’s getting hard to type so I’m going to finish this in the JFK airport. (See what I mean? You would have no idea I even stopped writing. The internet is a magical place.)

Mamacita, donde esta Santa Claus.

I’m wearing the goat socks in this picture.

To the windooow, To the wall! (to the wall). Stop singing I’m with my Mother.

IMG_1098 -PLEASE right-click this video and open it in a new tab. You’ll understand. I promise. It’s legendary.

Guess who’s back, back again? I’m in the airport and determined to finish this blog. I don’t really have a favorite part or thing that happened. Although my least favorite was the deer that tried to mull me to death. Besides that I think the people I met were my favorite part. It was just so exciting. So get this- I was able to visit Japan, present at an international symposium, make international friends, escape an almost tragic wildlife death, wear a kimono, and create my own blog all because I took a class by accident. It wasn’t so much an accident as it was ‘i couldn’t get into any of the classes I needed and this class happened to be open at the time so I took it’. That’s pretty bananas.

The animals from hell.

STOP. My American is showing.

There were purple trees on the streets. Like, hypothermia trees.

These past ten days have been some of the most incredible times in my life. I don’t really know how to say thank you for all that has happened. I’m so grateful to have gone to Japan. I’m also so grateful to all the students at Kansai University who were so sweet I still don’t believe they’re real. I’m so incredibly grateful that my Mom was able to come on this adventure because frankly, she’s a wizard. I’m so so so grateful I was on this trip with people who were not only willing to try new things, but excited to do everything possible. I’m also grateful she had a camera that took beautiful pictures and then emailed them to me every night. I’m so thankful that the Japanese people were so kind and willing to help in any way that they could. I’m grateful all the plane rides (thus far) have been solid trips and safe trips. And finally I’m thankful for all the sock stores that Japan had. I’m telling you, my future sick ass sock Saturdays are going to be killer.

IMG_1126 _This video is of the doorbell in out hotel room in Tokyo. First, I don’t think I have ever stayed in a hotel room with a doorbell. Second, this doorbell sounds nicer than the doorbell to my house at school, which sounds like a taser. Right click the link and open the link in a new tab!

My one true talent in this world is snipping terrible pictures of my Mother. She fought back on this trip.

But so did I.

Then she kicked my ass. (If I’m being honest, I actually prevailed in this battle, but the picture I took is so great I refuse to put it on the internet. I’m keeping it forever. Mom, you can have this one. Congratulations. You’ve come far, young grasshopper.

I don’t really know what else to say here. I’m excited to have had the experience because had I not taken this class, none of this would have ever happened. This experience has made me a more conscious communicator and a more educated international traveler. The most important thing I have gained from this experience is that there is no rule book to life. You can plan and plan and plan some more but, there is no way to know what is going to happen. The world is a crazy place and there’s no way it’s ever going to make sense. Maybe it shouldn’t. I like not knowing what is going to happen in an hour, or tomorrow, or in fifty years. All I know is that I’ll always be Ally, I’ll always have sick ass socks, and I went to Japan.

It’s been real. It’s been fun. It’s also been ten days.

Thanks Japan for all the adventures. I’ll miss you dearly, but hello America, I’ve missed you more!!

Stay weird forever more.

Ally Costanza

Current wish- that Tyler Oakley would be my best friend.

International traveler

Feral wildlife survivor

Sock enthusiast

Future cat lady.

A Self Titled Life- Black and White Re-runs (Day 9)

Posted on December 11, 2014
by Ally Costanza

I woke up this morning with the goal of ditching the city life in Tokyo. It’s a cool city, don’t get me wrong, but it’s too much like any other city. It’s has lots of people, buildings, cars, but not the dirt. I realized the other day that the streets don’t even have as much as a cigarette butt on them. There also is an extreme lack of garbage cans. And by extreme lack I mean none. Another side note- there are hardly any benches here. There’s nowhere to just sit and rest for a minute. Sometimes I’m so tired I genuinely consider laying on the sidewalk 1. because there’s nowhere else for me to go 2. it’s clean and 3. no one can stop me.

This entire country looks like ‘Divergent’. I won’t let it go. I refuse, I refuse, I refuse.

Out of ten days, today was the only day it rained. We got pretty lucky.

IMG_1004 This is a video of what the train station music is. The little jingle I talked about. It sounds like it’s straight out of Mario Cart. It works best if you right-click the link and open the link in a new window.

So we went to Old Tokyo (at the request of the bassist we met last night in Starbucks.) It really was the raddest place. It was local shops and bakeries that lined the streets. Walking around was like going back to what Tokyo would have been like 40-50 years ago. The first shop we went into was dedicated to cats. Excuse me, it was fantastic. I went into a bakery and ate this asparagus and bacon pizza that probably changed my life for the greater good. Old Tokyo was filled with all the things I hoped I would find while in Japan. I found vases, tea cups, and even wooden painted earrings (which I didn’t exactly imagine prior to coming to Japan, but what are you going to do.) It was filled with things that are a little out-of-place and unique. Walking around the streets was like escaping what is to become apart of what was.

We were in this little tea shop and found Twisty the clown.

There is one vending machine for every four people in Japan. I just happened to stumble upon one with Dr. Pepper.

This was someone’s walkway up to their front door.

Stopped in this delicious bakery (with the pizza) and it had all of these superhero figurines. Lights would love it here.

Passed by this shop with hundreds of lanterns hanging from the ceiling. Geez, it was beautiful.

The cemeteries are just really impressive here.

This sweet woman worked in the bakery we stopped in. When we asked for her picture she just giggled and couldn’t believe we wanted her picture.

Street view of Old Tokyo.

After leaving the 1950s, we took a train to Takeshita Dori which was this giant outdoor shopping mall/street/hoopla of people. I think a lot of the things you could buy there you could probably find in a lot of places. It was more for commercial shopping. BUT they did have a sweet sock store where I did, in fact, buy some pretty nifty sick ass socks. I’m pretty stoked about them.

Just a casual street sign.

We stepped foot in the most MASSIVE Starbucks I have ever seen. It was enormous. This was just a small section of the outdoor patio. Claire, we’re moving.

The view for the customers was of the downtown city. We saw the store because of the logo imprinted on the windows six stories up.

What I liked about Takeshita Dori wasn’t the shopping, but the place itself. It seemed like the only place I’ve seen in Japan where people seem to let their hair down. People seemed to walk a little more to their own beat instead of the same beat as everyone else. Also, their was a lot of street art all around. Street art is my favorite kind of art, especially to take pictures of. It was almost like visiting a little piece of America while still being in Japan.

It’s hard to tell but this sign looked like it was made out of thousands of balloons.

This is amazing to me.

This actually might have been in Old Tokyo but I’m not positive.

This was actually the first piece of art I saw.

IMG_0981 Walked by a store and I was SO excited to hear Fifth Harmony all the way in Japan. That’s all this video is. If you open it I would again,be best to open the link in a new window.

It’s pretty hard to believe this was my last full day here. Sometimes I go on trips and they fly by so fast I feel like I never even left home at all. This trip wasn’t that way at all. We’ve been gone for ten days but it feels more like 10 months. It seems like 30 years ago that I spoke at the symposium which is crazy because I’m only 20. On the other hand, it seems like just yesterday I was on that airplane pretending I wasn’t crying over every movie I watched. I feel like I was able to see so many incredible things, meet so many people, and learn so much about a new place that I didn’t have time to think about all the time passing by. This trip and this place was worth every second of time spent feeling like coming to Japan was just a simple thought or a shot in the dark.

My people in Japan.

Google Japan. It’ll be so strange not to see this for a long time.

Took a shower and the window of mirror in front of the sink was designed to resist fog. Japan is on point 300% of the time.

Stay Weird.

Ally

Current temperature- I’m sweating to death in this sweatshirt.

Marissa’s Japan Adventure blog post #3

Posted on December 11, 2014
by Marissa Sarbak

COIL Day!!! Today was the entire reason for our trip to Japan- the COIL International Symposium hosted at Kansai University in Osaka. Japanese people really have a way of making you feel important. When we arrived in Osaka, they had sent someone from the travel agency to pick us up from the train station- sign and all! And then when we got to the University on the morning of the symposium, they had a conference room for us with gift bags, name tags and coffee!

A warm welcome from Kansai University!

Reserved seating for the Americans!

The day started off with a couple of talks about Japan and the COIL program in the morning, followed by a Japanese style lunch. In the afternoon portion, it was our turn to present all of our hard work and show the audience of university administrators, professors, and business men and women what COIL is all about. Our professor and the Kansai professor that we worked with spoke about the COIL program we used in our class, the assignments we had and how they were able to incorporate it in to their coursework. During this part, myself, Ally, and some of the Kansai students got up to explain the benefits and personal challenges we had experienced over the semester. Originally, our student testimonials we not supposed to be very long, but it turns out that the audience had the most questions for us out of anyone speaking all day! They really wanted to hear from the students and what we honestly thought of the program. They asked us about each of the assignments, how we stayed motivated to do it, whether or not we think what we learned would help us in the future business world. It was great to feel like people wanted our perspective the most, because if they decided to incorporate the COIL program into their classes and universities, then they wanted to know how students would react and feel about it.

Oswego/Kansai teams after our presentation

The cross-cultural competence class we worked with at Kansai was made up of students from Japan, and teaching assistants from the U.K. and Australia, so this really was a completely intercultural experience. After we finished the presentation the Kansai students gave us a full tour around the campus and then took us on the train to Shinsiabashi, a huge shopping area that is basically the Times Square of Osaka. We had pan fried Japanese noodles called “yakisoba,” which I have discovered is one of my favorite things to eat here. I also love the shrimp tempura and dumplings! Some of the girls got “Takoyacki” which is fried octopus! Tacko means octopus and yacki means fried. So there you go. I was truly too full from dinner but I will definitely try one soon! They are also really big into fish here, way more than us, which I like, but I have yet to try “shashimi” or raw fish. Surprisingly, they don’t really eat any sushi here, as the foreign exchange students we have met say it’s more of a special occasion food! And here I am thinking they eat sushi for breakfast, lunch and dinner over here in Japan, boy was I misled. But they do like to have fish with breakfast… quite a bit of it.

Shrimp Tempura

I really like to try different foods, and love what they offer for lunch and dinner, but as for breakfast? Well, I really need my American food, as do the rest of the people in our group it seems. So I’ve been acting in true college student form and making do with what I have. Every morning before we get on the train to go somewhere, we stop to get food for breakfast, and I buy pancakes in a plastic package, and a small syrup container. I get a tiny ice cream spoon and pour the syrup in the pancake package. And you’re good to go! Now I realize how desperate this sounds (and looks), but a girl needs her pancakes in the morning.

Stay tuned…

-Marissa Sarbak

Marissa’s Japan adventure Blog post #2

Posted on December 7, 2014
by Marissa Sarbak

Day 2: Osaka

Everyone. is. so. nice. SERIOUSLY EVERYONE. Take our waitress for example- I asked her how to say “water” in Japanese and because she wasn’t too sure of her English, she found someone to help her and she drew a picture to explain it to me! She really went out of her way to try and help me, something I’ve noticed many people here do, especially in Osaka. We are also having a difficult time with the trains here because everything is basically written in Japanese characters… and no one in our group can read any of it. Problematic, yes I know. Every single person I have asked directions from on the trains can’t speak a word of English, yet they all go completely out of their way to try and help you! We have had people walk us right over to the platform we needed because they couldn’t figure out how to say it in English. Slightly different from the train stations in New York, huh?!

Now today was the day we got to actually meet the Japanese students, so needless to say I was pretty excited! In all honestly, I was kind of nervous as well, because I didn’t know what they thought of our students, or Americans in general. As a culture, Japanese people are pretty polite and they are not blatant at all in what they say (generally unlike many Americans). Sometimes this is kind of nerve-racking because you aren’t sure whether they actually like you or if they are just being nice… I am much more equipped to deal with people who tell it like it is I think! However, I could not get over the overwhelmingly positive response we got from the Kansai students!! It was such a relief. They aren’t really a hugging kind of culture… it is actually part of their culture to bow when they meet people. But after we introduced ourselves formally they came running over to meet us and hug us! I physically couldn’t stop smiling because it was such a warm feeling. Everyone was also so excited to talk to us and practice their English!

Kansai University

Ally and I were invited to stay and have dinner with the students on campus, and they were so awesome that we ended up staying for two hours talking, getting to know one another and our cultures, and just having a good time. Best part of the day? The Kansai students wrote my name for me in Japanese characters!! What I didn’t know is that there are actually two different ways to write it in Japanese, and a third way to write it in Chinese Kanji. (what they call the characters.) So here is a picture of all three! COOL RIGHT?!?! They made my day!

It was pretty incredible to see how infectious all of the smiling and laughing was as we got to know each other and the different things about our cultures. It really goes to show that no matter what language you speak, some emotions are just universally understood! Stay tuned…

Marissa Sarbak