So, I know I was supposed to eventually post all the wonderful photos I took of the snow and ice sculptures at the Yuki Matsuri, but that isn't going to happen, and you can blame Blogger for that. Their editing program for pictures is so incredibly inconvenient and unpredictable, I'm just not going to deal with it anymore. First it was the video, now it's the pics. So sorry, but no more. Instead, I will be including the photographs in my presentations promoting studying abroad at CMU in the fall. I hope you come and see it; the photos are really amazing.
I am also sad to report that my spring break is pretty much over (weeps inconsolably). Yesterday, all of us exchange students had to take this semester's placement test. It was less stressful than last time, as I knew what to expect. I also felt much more prepared, since it had only been two months since my last Japanese class, instead of four months at the last test.
Afterwards, my friends and I went to Rappongi Hills to go see Watchmen in the theater. There are several theaters in Tokyo that show American movies, but we chose Rappongi because a) the theater is SUPER nice and b) they have the cheapest tickets for exchange students. Seeing a movie in Tokyo is usually ridiculously expensive- about $20 for one adult. But at Rappongi Hills, it's $18 for adults, $15 for students, and an amazing $10 for foriegn exchange students! All we had to do was show them our Keio student IDs and our alien registration cards. Huzzah!
By the time I made it home last night, our dorm's welcome party was about to start. About a third of Willing Setagaya's residents moved out, and though we will miss them, we got a lot of new students last week. Oddly enough, nearly all of them are from France or Scandanavia (Norway and Sweden). They are all very nice people, and I really look forward to hanging out with them this semester.
I especially hit it off with the four students from Paris; I took four years of French in high school so I was able to exchange a few greetings with them and follow a bit of their conversation (and they were kind enough to translate whatever they said in French for Maggie and me), and they were fascinated by my Texan background, even making me talk with an accent for them! None of them know very much Japanese, so I'll help them a bit with their Japanese and they can help me relearn a bit of French.
Tomorrow, I will find out what level I tested into, which will also determine which optional courses I'm taking- my plan is to take as many classes on the same days as possible so I have several days off a week. That way, it will be easier to continue at my internship during the semester.
I'll let you know what classes I'm taking as soon as I find out. Cheers, and Happy Easter!
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Prescription for Sleep
Hey everyone! I'm happy to announce that the application for the iPhone and iPod Touch I worked on is finally available for download. It's called Prescription for Sleep, and you can re
ad about it here: http://www.apptism.com/apps/prescription-for-sleep
It's a really great program that helps relax your mind so you can fall asleep more easily. As the Quality Assurance Intern, it was my job to watch all the simulations multiple times to look for errors or bugs, and to play around with all the different features. It was fairly easy to test, but using a sleep-aid application for four hours is not easy to get through. It certainly had the intended effect on me: even with 7 cups of coffee, I was still yawning the whole time!
There is a free trial version on iTunes that you can check out before purchasing the full program for $2.99. Make sure to read the About page- my name is at the bottom!
ad about it here: http://www.apptism.com/apps/prescription-for-sleepIt's a really great program that helps relax your mind so you can fall asleep more easily. As the Quality Assurance Intern, it was my job to watch all the simulations multiple times to look for errors or bugs, and to play around with all the different features. It was fairly easy to test, but using a sleep-aid application for four hours is not easy to get through. It certainly had the intended effect on me: even with 7 cups of coffee, I was still yawning the whole time!
There is a free trial version on iTunes that you can check out before purchasing the full program for $2.99. Make sure to read the About page- my name is at the bottom!
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Let the games begin!
I decided to put off this post until I finally got to do some work, and today is that day!
About a month ago, I signed on for an unpaid internship at Mission One, an entertainment software and ap
plication developer here in Setagaya, Tokyo. I had met the founder and president, Marc Cellucci, last October at a Halloween party at Keio's Hiyoshi campus. Also a native Texan, Marc spent many years working for Sega both in America and Japan before starting his own company. Marc mentioned that his company needed testers in the near future, so we exchanged business cards. At the beginning of my lengthy spring break, I shot him an email, he offered me an internship, and I was onboard.
My official title is Quality Assurance Intern, which is really just a fancy way of saying I'm an unpaid game and application tester. But honestly, I would clean the entire office if it meant learning about video game development. Though he can't pay me, I have been getting fed, and everyone knows how much college students love free food!
The main part of my job is to test out the software that Mission One develops to see if there are any technical, design, or typographical errors and bring them to Marc's attention. Marc has also taken it upon himself to introduce me to the process of how entertainment software is designed and developed. I really could not ask for a better introduction to the entertainment software industry.
The application I tested for Mission One today will hopefully be available next week worldwide on the iPhone. I can't disclose the name of the app before it is released, but I will post it here asap. My name is actually in the credits!
Here is a link to Mission One's website, which is available in both English and Japanese: http://mission-one.jp/index_e.html They already have one game for the iPhone available for purchase: a pachinko game called Sho Chiku Bai. Though based on the widely popular Japanese slot game, the download is also having a great deal of success amongst Americans. Try it out- you're sure to get addicted!
I'll post any exciting developments in my internship here, so stay tuned. Watch out, video game industry! Katherine's coming!
About a month ago, I signed on for an unpaid internship at Mission One, an entertainment software and ap
plication developer here in Setagaya, Tokyo. I had met the founder and president, Marc Cellucci, last October at a Halloween party at Keio's Hiyoshi campus. Also a native Texan, Marc spent many years working for Sega both in America and Japan before starting his own company. Marc mentioned that his company needed testers in the near future, so we exchanged business cards. At the beginning of my lengthy spring break, I shot him an email, he offered me an internship, and I was onboard.My official title is Quality Assurance Intern, which is really just a fancy way of saying I'm an unpaid game and application tester. But honestly, I would clean the entire office if it meant learning about video game development. Though he can't pay me, I have been getting fed, and everyone knows how much college students love free food!
The main part of my job is to test out the software that Mission One develops to see if there are any technical, design, or typographical errors and bring them to Marc's attention. Marc has also taken it upon himself to introduce me to the process of how entertainment software is designed and developed. I really could not ask for a better introduction to the entertainment software industry.
The application I tested for Mission One today will hopefully be available next week worldwide on the iPhone. I can't disclose the name of the app before it is released, but I will post it here asap. My name is actually in the credits!
Here is a link to Mission One's website, which is available in both English and Japanese: http://mission-one.jp/index_e.html They already have one game for the iPhone available for purchase: a pachinko game called Sho Chiku Bai. Though based on the widely popular Japanese slot game, the download is also having a great deal of success amongst Americans. Try it out- you're sure to get addicted!
I'll post any exciting developments in my internship here, so stay tuned. Watch out, video game industry! Katherine's coming!
Monday, March 2, 2009
March of the Penguins
Hey readers! Sorry about the lengthy pause; I've been quite busy applying for various honor societies/programs/grants at CMU. I've also ended my creative writing hiatus. Yay for being productive!
On the second day of our vacation in Hokkaido, my friends and I took advantage of the free transportation provided by our travel agency to go to the Asahiyama Zoo.
Asahiyama is the most popular zoo in Japan. It is known for the diversity of their animals, which come from as far as Africa a
nd as close as the surrounding mountains, and the design of their enclosures and attractions, which allow visitors to get a closer view than is normal for zoos.
But Asahiyama is probably most famous for its "march of the penguins". A couple times a day, all the visitors in the park line up along a marked path around the edge of the zoo to see a half-dozen zookeepers herding a dozen or so penguins along in the snow. My friends and I arrived at the zoo just before the procession began, so it was the first thing we got to see.
It was a once-in-a-lifetime up close and personal moment with the penguins, especially this little guy, who insisted on investigating the crowd every few meters.
Probably my favorite animal in the zoo was this red panda. I had not known before that there was a different variety of panda, but there you have it! It actually looks nothing like the Chinese panda, but to me, resembles a raccoon or tanuki. I wasn't able to get any pictures of them, but there were three babies sleeping high up on platforms and in trees. 超かわいい！
I was also very excited to finally get to see a tanuki and Japanese Macaque, or snow monkey. In high school, my friends and I founded a manga/Japanese culture club, and we chose Tanuki as our mascot. Though a real animal, in Japan, Tanuki is revered as a spirit of fertility. And I had been waiting to see Japanese snow monkies since I had first learned about them on some national geographic show a long time ago. Natives of Hokkaido, Japanese macaques spend a great deal of their time relaxing in the region's hot springs. I generally don't like monkies, but I wouldn't mind being one if it meant lazing around in an onsen all day!
There were also a few animals from Africa, like this lion. To be honest, seeing him in the snow made me kind of sad; he seemed restless and spent a lot of time just standing on this thin piece of plywood the zookeepers had placed next to the window; he would stand there and roar. I don't think he was very happy in the snow.
This gira
ffe, however, looked perfectly happy. For the first three minutes we watched him, he was licking up snow on top of a box. The rhino waltzed right up and gave us some really great shots, as well.
I also got to watch the seal being fed. He was rather reluctant to come out onto the ice, but he did get half-way out.
The trip from Sapporo to the zoo was three hours each way- it was an entire day of just animals! When we returned to the city, we found a restaurant that specialized in soup curry, a delicious hybrid of curry and stew, served here with rice and chai tea. Hokkaido is a really great place to find deliciously spicy food!
On the second day of our vacation in Hokkaido, my friends and I took advantage of the free transportation provided by our travel agency to go to the Asahiyama Zoo.
Asahiyama is the most popular zoo in Japan. It is known for the diversity of their animals, which come from as far as Africa a
nd as close as the surrounding mountains, and the design of their enclosures and attractions, which allow visitors to get a closer view than is normal for zoos.But Asahiyama is probably most famous for its "march of the penguins". A couple times a day, all the visitors in the park line up along a marked path around the edge of the zoo to see a half-dozen zookeepers herding a dozen or so penguins along in the snow. My friends and I arrived at the zoo just before the procession began, so it was the first thing we got to see.
It was a once-in-a-lifetime up close and personal moment with the penguins, especially this little guy, who insisted on investigating the crowd every few meters.
Probably my favorite animal in the zoo was this red panda. I had not known before that there was a different variety of panda, but there you have it! It actually looks nothing like the Chinese panda, but to me, resembles a raccoon or tanuki. I wasn't able to get any pictures of them, but there were three babies sleeping high up on platforms and in trees. 超かわいい！
I was also very excited to finally get to see a tanuki and Japanese Macaque, or snow monkey. In high school, my friends and I founded a manga/Japanese culture club, and we chose Tanuki as our mascot. Though a real animal, in Japan, Tanuki is revered as a spirit of fertility. And I had been waiting to see Japanese snow monkies since I had first learned about them on some national geographic show a long time ago. Natives of Hokkaido, Japanese macaques spend a great deal of their time relaxing in the region's hot springs. I generally don't like monkies, but I wouldn't mind being one if it meant lazing around in an onsen all day!
There were also a few animals from Africa, like this lion. To be honest, seeing him in the snow made me kind of sad; he seemed restless and spent a lot of time just standing on this thin piece of plywood the zookeepers had placed next to the window; he would stand there and roar. I don't think he was very happy in the snow.
This gira
ffe, however, looked perfectly happy. For the first three minutes we watched him, he was licking up snow on top of a box. The rhino waltzed right up and gave us some really great shots, as well.
I also got to watch the seal being fed. He was rather reluctant to come out onto the ice, but he did get half-way out.
The trip from Sapporo to the zoo was three hours each way- it was an entire day of just animals! When we returned to the city, we found a restaurant that specialized in soup curry, a delicious hybrid of curry and stew, served here with rice and chai tea. Hokkaido is a really great place to find deliciously spicy food!
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