Great movie, isn’t it? Sadly I haven’t had the chance yet to see Wolf Children yet, but i’ll be sure to go and watch it sometime. Definitely.
Anyway, my summer didn’t feel like a summer break at all. I was bumping between (japanese-style) intern interviews and exams, then the actual interns. I had about zero free time, considering i was going somewhere everyday early in the morning and when i got back in the evening i had something to translate.
Japanese-style internships are nothing like what you’d call an internship in the west. It’s more like a few days of introductions, where you can experience what kind of work they do at the given company, but not really the work itself. Most of the time it’s less than a week and you don’t get paid. As i said, it’s not work… rather a summer seminar kinda thing.
I went to four of them, the first being a Mitsubishi-related IT company in Tokyo. That one was by far the best. Not only was the program very good (we actually could experience project management and the work they do), they also paid for travel and hotel expenses. It was an awesome though tiring week.
Next was the Asahi newspaper, lasting four days, and it kinda sucked. In the four days we had only one chance of groupwork, and even that was boring. Not to mention it was full of arts major students of the worst, retarded kind. I guess it was still worth that cool entry in my CV though (and we had a field trip to Nara too, which was nice)…
Third up was another quite good one, by the SMBC Card company. It lasted five days and the execution was extremely professional. In that regard it was just as good as the IT one was (too bad they didn’t pay for any travel expenses).
Last I went to Yamagata for three days to see how IT and welfare can be connected. The company makes management systems for twilight homes, and I had to realize again that seeing disabled and sick in their own environment isn’t for me. It was fun, because the company is located in the middle of nowhere, and the town where we stayed is full of hot springs (of course i visited one). They also paid for half of my travel and hotel expenses.
On the way home i spent a night with friends in Sendai. It was a few years since i last went clubbing… Thus my summer vacation ceased to be a vacation, but it was worth it… I hope.
