国立情報学研究所〔九〕

Nine months in Japan — last review:

Given I already felt like on my way back towards the end of last month, my last weeks felt pretty relaxed. Rather than squeezing a lot of activities into the short time left I was able to pretty much go with an everyday pace. Nevertheless I ended up doing some stuff I’m really happy I was able to do before I left.

• general
  • I decided to write a German Wikipedia article on flick input. Given the corresponding Japanese article, which I used as a base, was lacking references, I went on a hunt through Japanese papers on the topic. Several works on specific related matters cited a paper with the title タッチパネル搭載ケータイにおける入力方式の評価 for their general explanation of what flick input is. Unfortunately, the paper was nowhere to be found online. Given that CiNii, the bibliographic database where I at least found the paper mentioned online outside of the reference sections of other papers, is a service by the very institute I was working at, I decided to check out our library. Even one of the library personnel checked for any trace, but to no avail. No printed matter available and no online access in any of the subscriptions of the NII. What do you do at that point? Easy: hop on your bike and pay a short visit to one of the largest libraries in the world. (Tokyo’s awesome in some aspects.) So after finding out the シンポジウムモバイル研究論文集 2010 (the journal containing the paper) wasn’t available through NII, I looked again online and found out the 国立国会図書館 had a copy. So, go there, get a library card made, file a viewing request for the journal, finally get my hands on the thing, read the paper to make sure it’s actually something I can use as a reference, file a copying request, get the copy, take a sneaky blurry picture to commemorate my success and return the journal.
  • met a friend from Matsuyama who was awesome enough to come all the way to Tokyo
  • played some Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun
  • finally found a case/bag for my Vortex CORE — it’s for lenses and thus has a circle profile but apart from that fits the size perfectly
  • found a ギザ十
  • visited a Escher exhibition where the audio guide was spoken by バカリズム
  • was surprised to reach the gate and find out I was going to fly home in the BB-8 ANA JET
• at the institute
  • had some meetings that, for a change, were in Japanese
  • was able to help with the technical setup for a art history class at 東大
  • got my certificate for completing the internship

All in all a really enjoyable finish to a, looking back, invaluable 9 months. From a professional perspective: great. Japanese progress: surprisingly satisfactory. Sports: outright neglect on my part. Note for next time: establish a sports routine early on.

On to the … well, I’m sure I’ll be back in the foreseeable future. :3