Japanization

I swore that the program is trying to turn us into Japanese. The Institute is turning us into Japanese planners.

For our incoming one-week intensive research period when we have no class, we have to create our research plan by ourselves, but we must obtain permission from our advisor in the Institute. So far so good. The time-consuming characteristic of this process is we have to write down our travel and accommodation plan. In particular, the travel plan is most time-consuming. We have to write down every station and the train company that we use (every transfer), along with the train fare for each transfer. The return trip must be written out one by one. This explains why it took me over 3 hours to make two separate plans (things happened). I am currently on my fourth/fifth research plan because of the train/bus and/or the library closing days (national Bon dance holiday). I hope I can finalize my plan by Monday so I can buy my Shinkansen (from Osaka to Tokyo) and bus (Tokyo to Osaka) tickets.

I heard a second-hand info that "Japanese love to make plans." I have always been in the habit of making plans to the last detail but with flexibility, and without much formality (as in typing out on an excel spreadsheet). The program provides the excel template, but we have to fill in each cell with care. We must submit the form next week in order to get travel and lodging money. After we return from the research period, we must submit the actual travel route (train company and station names with fare amount) and what we actually did in each library/archive.