Once again I woke up at 2 am and stared at the ceiling for an hour or so, then I decided to watch some movies as I hate to spend/waste time aimlessly lying in bed without any sleep and not getting any rest. There is nothing better than silly comedy when you are under pressure, so Scrubs has made my day, or rather many days throughout January. But not matter how fun the TV show is, it is definitely no fun to get up at 6 am after mere 2 hours sleep. The only thing that can save me during such times is a long hot shower where I can relax and still half-asleep go through all morning rituals.

no photos and not that much to say about the day On my second day I decided to be a proper girl and come to work on time despite still suffering from lack of sleep jet-lag and many other tiny things. So at 7-50 I have passed the guard. I need to complement guards once again. They are really polite, and I mean really polite - they greet everyone and even salute to everyone no matter whether the big boss or cleaning lady is coming to work. First few days I used to show my ID card, but as I am the only blond here I do not do so anymore as they remember me quite well). By 7-55 I was done changing my shoes and cheerfully climbed the stairs to the second floor only to find out that the doors are locked. Ehhh? And what has happened to the idea that Japanese are always on time and workaholic and come early to work and do not leave until late at night??? I checked my watch just to make sure that I am not using Ukrainian time or smth XD and after confirming that I did not mess up time I went to enjoy those comfy sofas on the 2nd floor as there was nothing better for me to do. Around 8-20 the Admin lady has finally arrived and was quite surprised to see me XD. Of cause she had keys and explained to me where to get the key if I am coming extra early. She also explained that CTG people do not come this early so there is no need for me to come as well. Actually it wasn’t until later that I found out that as an intern I can use flexible time. I need to work 8 hours per day and have to be in office during core time (10 am – 4 pm), but the rest I can adjust myself. The huge bummer is that my overtime hours cannot be converted to additional day-off or at least half-a-day off, neither are they paid for. The problem is that I have nothing to do in the morning, but as Japanese colleagues are really slow and only by 5 pm they can finish some data collection that I need to work with, I have to stay after 6pm to finish my work. This was pretty much the case during my second working day.
Throughout the day it was really quite and lazy. I had hard time being awake, especially after lunch! I was starting to think of the places that I’d like to visit during my holidays in Tokyo, but in order to get there I had to take the bus. NY has booked the place for me, but as I had very little idea where the actual bus stop is, SJ offered to show me to the place after work. We agreed that I will stop by the dormitory around 7pm, so that I have tie to go back home after work. As it seemed like I have nothing to do I thought that I can get out of work around 6 pm and get the tour to the bus station. But once the clock stroke 6 my boss came up to me and said that our colleague is having hard time with his work and we need to “support” him. At first I couldn’t understand what they mean by “support”. For me it seems like we need to go and give the poor guy a bearhug or smth XD It turned out that whenever somebody is asking for support, they are basically are asking to help them doing their job. My boss and I went to the conference room on the third floor where one guy was already sitting and counting some small cards. We waited for the “poor guy” for half an hour to come to the conference room as he was running around somewhere. But once he came he said that there is nothing for us to do! You do not know Japanese if you think that it was the end of the story and I could go back home. Nah.. Definitely not! We stayed and had to pursue the guy that we are capable of doing primitive work like checking whether all cards in one pack have the same number and the correct boxes are checked. All that time I was thinking – SERIOUSLY… you think that as foreigner we are not even able of doing such tasks??? As the guy didn’t want to offend his boss to much he told as to wait and rushed out the room. After another 30 minutes he came back and gave as some cards to count. For the next 2~3 hours we were counting these damn cards. And it is not enough to count them once - you have to recount them several times just to make sure and by several I mean at least 6 or 7. Apparently I was running extremely late for the meeting with SJ, so I had to sneak out to go back to my PC to send an email (I bought my cell phone only at the end of January). I got off pretty late and rushed straight to the dormitory. SJ showed me to the bus station and then a short cut for the way back. Then we wished each other happy holidays and went back to pack for the Tokyo Holidays!!!

in the eve you can await a post with photos of my first day in Tokyo) XD