De Lu Lu days at IUJ.

Exams have never been my comfort zone no matter how many times I have done it. Since the pre-primary I appeared for the exams until the ultimate RCSC exam yet I have never felt ready or confident.

Today after more than three years I am back in the same zone of anxiousness. However, the exams back home felt familiar if that makes sense but exams at International University of Japan (IUJ) feels more foreign and scary. Students dwell in the study rooms until dawn and rarely have the time to even break for a meal. Although I am not one of them, unable to spare time for a meal, the anxiousness steals away my appetite and hunger. I wonder if all the students in graduate universities study this hard and this long because I don’t remember such a thing in my undergraduate days. Does this mean students in Graduate Universities are making up for the days they have not studied that much during their initial days because now that they have better understanding of the world do they find the meaning of life while studying. If that is the hypothesis then I must be still the immature one cuz I am unable to find the purpose of my life in studies. 

I hopped onto this journey with so much pride and thought I would be on a vacation, away from my work but then life is not at all a vacation here. Lectures and Teaching Assistances keep me engaged from Monday to Friday from 9am to 9pm, only weekends are for shopping but just for groceries and veggies, laundry and cleaning my dorm room and few extra hours of sleep. Then, a few hours in between are for the homeworks, assignments and cooking. Finally, a few hours on weekends and weekdays after 9pm is for the extra curricular activities. So adios to my vacation. Additionally, exams knock on every one and half month.

Having said this, I don't mean that I don’t like my life right now. I figured out a new perspective or an escape to take in all these fast changes without being affected by my surroundings. I am at awe looking at the seriousness of people here with life and specifically time although it makes me question my state numerous times. I wonder how students here, despite the late night studies parties until 6am in the morning during the weekends, surprisingly make it to class on the next day and of course submit the homeworks without a minute of delay. I also attempted the same but it didn’t work for me (lol). That’s why I am here jotting my emotions during the exam week in the study room.

People, place and the experiences at IUJ never fails to surprise me.

A picture memory at study room on 6/12/24.