Time in Tokyo: Take Two!
Cockroaches Overwhelming
Cockroaches in my bed.
Cockroaches on my head.
Cockroaches in their lair.
Cockroaches everywhere.
-Seiji, On Cockroaches
But not anymore! Shortly after writing my last blog, I encountered a lot of challenges. Both my apartment and the next apartment that I moved into were infested with cockroaches, I was sleep deprived, not eating enough, and feeling completely alone with all my problems in a country brand new to me. I considered going home early for a while. However, with the love and support of my family, friends, and Stanford, I gathered the energy to stay in Japan for the remaining 5 weeks of my internship.
So I’ve moved to Meguro! Somehow, I ended up in the first place that I intended on staying in Tokyo. Originally, I went so far as to put a deposit down for this very apartment! I’m happy to have finally made my way here because it’s pretty much perfect, the criteria for perfect of course being: 1) bug free and 2) I’m able to pay for it. Now I have a nice walk to the train station to get my steps in and only one stop to my destination! Another plus is proximity to the Meguro Parasitological Museum that I hope to visit this weekend. Victoria (the other intern at NIRA) and I have been going on some pretty fun adventures too, from our trip to the inexplicable Robot Restaurant in Kabukicho (pictured below) to the unexpectedly sweaty Mount Takao (pictured further below).
In terms of work, it gets better every day. My supervisor and I have established language-exchange time during the day, allowing me to get to know her better and feel more confident going around the city! My coworkers are amazing and are always happy to teach me about Japanese culture or tell funny stories about their weekends. While I’m on the clock, I’ve been lucky to work with a lot of data while researching the UN E-government digitization index methodology and trying to trace trends on engineer hiring by the U.S. finance sector.
After 2 weeks, all of my problems haven’t gone away, but I’m finding new ways to give myself the ability to address them. I know that the biggest determinants of my mood are the amount of sleep I get each night and whether I’ve eaten recently, so while I can’t help that I still can’t sleep in past 7:30am and I’m too paranoid about cockroaches to prepare a lot of food in the house, I can make sure to start getting to sleep around 10pm and to always stop to grab a bite on my walk home from work. I’m taking a break from Twitter and Facebook as well, realizing that they have recently only served as a time sink to make me feel more alone. In general, I’m trying to capitalize on the energy that an unfortunate exchange with an old high school teacher has given me to be responsible for what stresses me out and change it if I can. Because I’m an adult! And that’s what adults should do! Ganbatte to me, my freedom, and my responsibility!
Written by Seiji Eicher ’20, FSI Global Policy Intern at The National Institute for Research Advancement in Tokyo, Japan.
