Tonight, Typhoon Fitow passes over Tokyo. This Typhoon is classified as strong and has maximum wind gust speeds of up to 55m/s (198km/h). The real heart of the storm is not even over this area yet and the weather is already pretty intense. Lots of wind and occasional heavy rain (getting more frequent in the past hours). The bulk of the storm should pass during the night.
All flights to and from Tokyo have been cancelled; I'm glad I'm not going anywhere.
Makes me realize how boring the Netherlands is. Earthquakes, typhoons, we have none of that nonsense. :-P
Last post I said I would get the official exam results on September 7th. That's still true.
But my professor called me today to tell me unofficially that I have passed the exam. I am now, for real, a PhD student at Tokyo University!
Goukaku shimashita! Ureshii desu! (I passed! I'm happy!)
Officially I start October 1st, unofficially I can start pretty much right now. Of course the big first task is going to be finding a research topic.
Now let's hope life as a PhD student isn't too much like it's depicted in PHD Comics. :P
At last they're over.
Yesterday I had the written exam; today the oral exam. The written exam was difficult. I had to answer three problems. Two were fine, the third one was just the kind I didn't want, and I ran out of time. Not knowing precisely what they want, I'm always hesitant to comment on whether I did well enough. Better assume the worst and be pleasantly surprised than the other way around. Maybe that makes me a pessimist, I don't know. :)
The oral exam went well, I think. This was mainly on my previous research and no one knows more about that than me, so that's always an advantage. Plus I know I'm a good public speaker. They had some other general interview-style questions as well, and those went well too. I have a pretty good feeling about this part, anyway.
September 7th I should find out if I passed. Until then, I reserve all comment. :)
I finally got the results for the TOEFL test I took a few weeks earlier. My score was 118 (out of 120), so that's as expected. :)
If only the entrance exam would be this easy...
No one who lives in the Netherlands would call the weather there particularly good, but at least I had a handle on the weather there. In Japan it's just weird.
For the past few weeks we've had clouds and rain, which is to be expected since it was the rainy season. Then we had a few good days so I was hoping it might be over. But now it's turned to a mixture of decent weather combined with extreme thunderstorms. And I mean severe. It rains like that in the Netherlands maybe twice a year, we've had four such thunderstorms in the past two days.
And there's another Typhoon coming our way (well, to the southern islands, not Tokyo itself) which should hit in a few days.
And through all that, it's still hot and humid.
(This post was brought to you by the Dutch compulsion to complain about the weather. :P )
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