Things I love about UIUC!

This weekend I decided to write about my life at UIUC because I figured I never really wrote about how awesome it is to be an Illini! I guess we just get so used to living here everyday that we often forget how precious it is to be a part of this campus. So, this post is all about my life at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign - because it's special! :)

Alma Mater always greets you with love and blessings

It has been almost 1.5 years since I joined UIUC, but it feels like just the other day that I got here! I remember I fell in love with this campus and the people here from the very first day. The people here in this twin city are so kind, welcoming and helpful that I never felt out of place. 

Places I love on campus - I never get enough of the gorgeous architectural structures here. Starting it's journey as Illinois Industrial University in 1867, and named as University of Illinois in 1885, the university will soon turn 150 years old [1]. I love how all the beautiful historic structures tell the stories of the past, especially the Altgeld Hall (commonly known as Math Building) and the Foellinger Auditorium. Both of them are more than 100 years old, and Altgeld Hall was added to the National Register of Historic Buildings in 1970 [2].

Backside of the Foellinger Auditorium in spring

Another very special part of the university is the library. UIUC holds the pride of having the largest public college library in the nation holding 13,158,748 volumes, and ranked as the second largest college library after Harvard [3]. The Main Library was actually the first place I visited on campus on my very first day since I'm working as a Graduate Assistant (GA) here, and it totally blew my mind away. It has a great environment and I especially love the main reading room on the second floor. During my first week of GA orientation, even before our classes started, I luckily met the coolest people there - Katrina, Alonso, Nate, Madison to name a few. And I'm glad that I can call these awesome people my close friends, who made me feel special here from the very beginning :)

I also like the lake side on the engineering quad, especially during spring and early summer. Busking in the sun while reading book, playing with the dandelions by the lake or just have a slow walk around the quad after work are probably my favorite things to do there.

Engineering Quad

The next thing I must mention is my department - Graduate School of Library and Information Science (soon becoming the iSchool at Illinois). I should write a whole post on that because it's a super awesome place to be! It's great program with lots of resources ranking no. 1 in the nation, and all the people - students, professors, staff - everyone makes it special. I feel like I had a lot of opportunities to grow in last 1 year, and definitely met some of the greatest people here, who I know I'll keep in touch even when we graduate. It wasn't an easy decision for me to leave my comfort zone in Japan but I believe I made the best decision by coming here, which I'll never regret.

Fun things to do - Fun time is really something precious when at grad school :-/ Being full time student and working half time doesn't really leave me or most of my friends with much free time but we do fun stuff here. Krannert Art Museum and Spurlock Museum on campus provide us with the opportunity to enjoy art exhibitions. There are always many cultural shows and performances at the Krannert Centre of the Performing Arts. We have two nice movie theatre in downtown Champaign - the Art Theatre and the Virginia Theatre. I absolutely love the vintage look of the Virginia Theatre! And there are often concerts at the bars like Pizza M or Iron Post. 

Having brunch at Radio Maria, or dinner at my favorite restaurant Seven Saints with friends, going to movies and concerts or just having fun time at home with some good food, good music, and good people - these are enough to keep my spirit up :)

The gorgeous Virginia Theatre 

Concert night at Pizza M 

We also get a lot of stunning sunrise and sunsets here, probably one of my favorite things here. So, my camera is full of sky photos. Also, we have pretty cherry blossom in spring, gorgeous fall and beautiful snow during winter. May be I'll write about them and post those seasonal photos on some other post. I'll wrap up with two photos I took at the arboretum this morning. The sun was peeping through the trees and lighting up the lightly snow covered grasses, and they were dazzling brightly like small pieces of diamond. That scene just made my day, and these are the precious things that make my everyday life special here :)

UIUC Arboretum 

Sparkly grasses

Reference

1. "A Brief History of the University of Illinois." A Brief History of the University of Illinois. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Dec. 2015. <http://archives.library.illinois.edu/features/history.php>.

2. "Mathematics." History of Altgeld Hall, Department of , University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Dec. 2015. <http://www.math.illinois.edu/History/altgeld_history.html>.

3. "The Nation's Largest Libraries: A Listing By Volumes Held." ALA Library Fact Sheets. N.p., n.d. Web. <http://www.ala.org/tools/libfactsheets/alalibraryfactsheet22>.

First week in Oxford

From the title of this post it's pretty obvious that this post was due long time ago. Before coming here I thought I'd write something everyday. I just work till 5, no homework, so should be easy, right? However, in real it went like this- jet lag, settling in the new city and fatigue. So, almost one week is over and here's my first post from Oxford!
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After wrestling with packing and moving all my stuff till the last minute, I finally flew from Chicago on 4th of July (I know it's not the best day to leave U.S. :p) and reached England on Sunday morning. Though I was pretty tired, the journey was rather fun. I met some cool people on my way, we even exchanged contacts.

* Every time I travel somewhere alone, I always get to know some interesting people, that makes me realize that there's something special about everyone, we just need to know the right way to approach them *

Anyway, landed at Heathrow safe and sound but was still a little worried about getting to dorm safely, mainly because of luggage. Usually I try to travel light but this was the first time I had to pack for 6 weeks for going somewhere other than home and it was NOT easy..phew (>.<)

So, the first day was pretty much spent on sleeping and eating. I went out to hunt some food on evening, and because of my "exceptional" sense of direction couldn't make it home straight :-/ But could return eventually, didn't have to sleep on street luckily!

Second day was our orientation day, starting from morning. We met at Oxford e-Research Centre, which is my workplace, followed by lunch and going to meet Bodleian library staff. Meeting around 50 new people can be a bit overwhelming, but my supervisor said I did a great job dealing with that. I give most of the credit to my tiredness though! I guess my senses were getting pretty numb to the level that I couldn't feel anything anymore! But it was nice meeting everyone, especially people at OeRC are really nice and fun to work with.

Campus store at Argos Oxford City Centre

Rest of the week was spent trying to get the grip of my project, understanding and getting familiarized with the dataset, planning, attending meetings and some events, which include launching ceremony of Digital Bodleian and talk by famous HCI scientist and professor Alan Dix.

In the mean time I had to visit the city centre to get few things for survival and made a record of not losing my direction! (Yay! :D) Especially, the weather was really nice on Wednesday, so I took few photos of surroundings as well. Posting few of those.

Radcliffe Camera, landmark of Oxford

One week was well spent but I do miss my friends here and for some reason it feels longer than a week. Five more to go! Tomorrow I'm going to Blenheim Palace! Hope to come back with some good pictures and good memories :)

Squirrels - Adorable Faces of UIUC Campus

Squirrels - Who doesn't love these cute animals? They are not afraid of humans nor do they cause any harm. And we have plenty of them at our UIUC campus, specially at the Quad area. With their small bodies and proportionally big fluffy tails, they move swiftly from branches to branches or play on the ground. To me they are the most entertaining creatures on campus, cause during breaks most of the students go home and any human being can be barely seen around. But the squirrels are always here, adding more life to the green nature and entertaining with their adorable faces.

I always enjoy watching the squirrels playing. But I was wondering how did they get here and how did the population of squirrel grow so big at this campus area? According to University of Illinois Archives, there were not many of them here before 1900. On May of 1901, University President Andrew S. Draper along with Professor Geology Charles W. Rolfe took the initiative to increase their number by constructing breeding cage with several compartments on University lawn. And today we definitely feel thankful to them as their step towards securing the number of squirrels resulted into a more lively campus life of today's.

From University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana Photo-Gravures, ca. 1912

(This image is in public domain)

I personally love taking nature photos and animals are part of that. But I did not have much time during weekdays to walk around campus and take photos since I started grad school here. On this Christmas day the weather was really nice and I thought I would take a walk around the quiet campus and enjoy company of cute squirrels. Then I could capture some photos of them. And one of the squirrels looked so curious as I was taking photos that it looked straight at me and gave a pose for a moment. I really adore that photo and it turned to be the first photo of mine to get Explored on Flickr!

Definitely that was quite motivating to take more photos of them :)

My first Explored photo on Flickr 

Finding Financial Aid for International Students in Japan

I just thought that I should write a note on how to find financial aid or scholarships in Japan while I am here, so that if anyone who is searching for such information can refer to this. Here I will write about the names of important scholarship foundations, time to apply, scholarship rate etc.

So there is a good number of scholarships given to international students in Japan, while the range of scholarship rate varies from bachelor students to graduate students, it also depend on the scholarship foundation. Of course the bigger scholarships are harder to get, the percentage is often 1~2%. But if here is the tricky part, in case of private scholarships, if you get a small one, like less than 50000 yen/month (app. 500USD) then you can apply for another small scholarship. But if you receive the big ones like 100000 yen/month (app. 1000USD) then you have to be satisfied with that.

There are two types of scholarships, Government one and private scholarships.
1. MEXT Scholarship provided by Japan Government which is the best option to study in Japan and you get paid the most. Though the rate is decreasing every year, I have received around 1200USD per month on average for 5 years for my total bachelor course, including one year in language school. And that amount is paid mainly for living expense. Government pays your tuition fee, so you would not have to worry about school fees. Of course graduate students receive higher amount, increasing from Masters to Post Doc. You can apply for extension when you finish your course and want to continue studying. If you have a really good grade, recommendation and your research plan is outstanding then you might receive extension.
For MEXT, usually people have to apply when they are in their home country. Here's the page:
http://www.mext.go.jp/a_menu/koutou/ryugaku/boshu/1319066.htm

2. Honjo Scholarship is one of the biggest private scholarships given to graduate students, mainly to PhD students. It is extremely hard to receive this scholarship unless your research is extraordinary and contributing greatly to society. The amount is around 2000USD (1 USD = 100yen) per month.
http://hisf.or.jp/english/

3. Ito Scholarship is also pretty big. The monthly allowance is 1800USD (1USD = 100yen) and is given to 10 students only.
http://www2.itofound.or.jp/schoalarship-program/scholarship-fs-d/about-program

4. Sato Yo International Scholarship pays the similar amount as Io foundation. They recruit scholarship students twice a year. For each time they recruit around 6~8 students, totaling to around 15 students per year. The scholarship is open to both bachelor and graduate students, though the amount is higher for graduate students. Here's the link:
http://www.sisf.or.jp/

5. Tokyu Scholarship is the next big one after Sato and Ito. They pay around 1600USD per month for 2 years and recruit around 15 students per year.
http://www.tokyu-f.jp/

Other than these there are other smaller scholarships like,

6. Nitori Scholarship which pays around 1100USD per month. And they recruit a lot of students but their total recruitment procedure is less inclined to research work and more towards office job. Students receiving scholarship also has to do part time for certain number of hours as a condition of receiving scholarship. It is open for both undergraduate and graduate students.
http://www.nitori-shougakuzaidan.com/

There are many other scholarships, sometimes only recommended from university, like Rotary scholarship or Kyoritsu International Scholarship and the amounts vary. More information about scholarship can be received from international students office at each university. For example, University of Tsukuba's International Student Office's website regularly update about scholarship news. Application time varies depending on scholarship foundation but the earliest one is around late October to receive scholarship from next year April. The total procedure consists of 2~4 steps including document check and couple of interviews.

Hope this information was helpful. Best of luck! :)

Sakura at Tsukuba University - A Piece of Heaven on Earth

Though I am pretty late and the sakura has left already but I gotta write this pending post.

I just found that I have not written any post on my university despite of the fact that I absolutely LOVE this place. University of Tsukuba has the largest single campus in Japan and anyone who loves nature will instantly fall in love with this place (like I did). I remember one of my friends who visited from Tokyo said that this place has got too much green! Tsukuba is not that far from Tokyo; if you get into the rapid train of Tsukuba Express then you will reach Tokyo's Akihabara station in less than an hour. But this place is a much better one to live, especially for students. Cause I don't have to get into rush hour trains to go to school, it is very beautiful and peaceful here and it has got the perfect combination of urban and rural characteristics.

So let's get back to the sakura (cherry blossom) talk. This year the weather had been really nice compared to last year as it rained a lot during that time. And we got the news that it will bloom earlier this year because of heavy snowfall. There is a scientific explanation that the cold temperature caused by snow wakes up the flower buds early. I still have to read the scientific paper to understand the mechanism.

I was waiting eagerly for spring this year, thought I will visit all the beautiful places as this could be my last year in Japan. Then everything was scattered in my life in a single night. When I came back to Japan on 4th night I saw the cherry petals floating in the air and lots of petals on the road. Then I was dead tired and jet lagged till the next day and the following day it rained. So I thought there is no chance that I will be able to see cherry blossom this year. But to tell the truth I did not feel that urge either...

But probably we were meant to meet!
After my father left I got very sick from the panic and shock. For unknown reason I used to get chest pains and it started to occur very frequently. I tried to stay calm as much as possible but nothing helped..I could not sleep at all and I also had severe chest pain while my journey back. So after coming back to Japan my mom and sister kept telling me everyday to visit doctor. I did not feel better as the days passed, so when I got some free time on the day before my class started I went to visit the health center of university for the first time.
And that is when I found this small piece of heaven on earth! The place is near Amakubo Ike (pond) at our campus, on the opposite side of Art faculty（筑波大学 体育芸術専門）.

There was pink and white sakuras, lovely flower petals were beneath my feet and touched my face while floating in the air. Mild breeze touched my hair and late afternoon sunshine touched my face. I have seen many beautiful places in last 5 years, but the difference with other places in Tokyo is, no one is fighting to get a place under sakura tree for hanami, only few students sitting here and there, chatting, singing. I also found a place by the pond and felt that our lives are same as these flowers, with different time span...nothing will last forever but as long as we are alive we should give our best and make full use of our time. Someone said that it doesn't matter how many years you were alive but what matters is how many years you live after you leave this earth. That afternoon was not very long but the image will stay in my mind for a long time as it helped to relief my bereaved soul. I also wrote a letter to my dad thinking that he is doing well in a much beautiful place than this.
Sharing some more photos of that beautiful  place :)