The Biggest Game Project on this Planet

There and Back Again.

Man, I'm bushed.

Getting up early is something my body was not built to do (I was born at 00.30 AM, which is when I normally wake up) so getting up at 07.00 AM and having to spend 8 AND A FRIGGING HALF HOURS at the Japanese Embassy is not exactly exhilirating either.

So, today was the big day and I am absolutely no more or less certain about getting this scholarship than I was before. There were actually a lot more people than I had expected. 11 to be exact, including myself, from all over the country with the most diverse backgrounds. I was the only Japanologist there, but I already knew that, and this definitely works in my advantage, cos it means I scored the absolute best at all the tests.
Basically, everyone, except for one die hard girl who had some self-taught Japanese skills (she became second at this year's Speech Contest actually) left the room after 5 minutes for each test, so I'm a shoe in as far as that was concerned.
The girl in question was very nice, although a bit flaky. She kinda reminded me of Phoebe from Friends in that she seemed kinda absent when talking to you, and I think she was only 19 or something, and when she started talking to me she said 'you'!

Wait, that doesn't really make sense in English does it? Is English the only language on earth then, that doesn't have a polite form of the second person?
What I mean is, she used the polite Dutch "U", like German "Sie", French "Vous" and Swahili "Ngambtombi". Silly Negroes!
That made me feel really really OLD, I've been called that by young kids etcetera, but never by a young adult I think. So I had to slap her. Don't worry, I washed my hands afterwards.

During the interviews the Jury (TWO PEOPLE!!! And no professors) was quick to point out that my test results (I was amazed they had checked them so fast) were, and I quote: "prominent and impressive". Lovely Ms. Ikeno of the Japanese embassy explained that test results ARE very important in this case, since any selectee will have to study Japanese classes in Japan, amongst Japanese, which makes me a VERY good candidate.
On the other hand, one's Research Project, motivation and whatnot are of importance as well, and this is where I feared I might not be totally able to convince the Powers that Be. So a lot of it was to come down to the Interviews at the end, and I'm not too sure how well I did there.

Funnily enough, before the interviews started we were talking a bit about what kind of stupid questions they could ask us, and we were jokingly throwing the most predictable questions around like "Why do you want to go to Japan?" "Why that field of study?" and worst of all "Where do you see yourself in XX Years?".
And sure enough the girl before me got the first two questions, and the female committee member asked me "Where do you see yourself in 4 or 5 years?", one of the most hated questions of all time. For students at least.
So I told her "IN YOUR PANTS!!", and I think that went down well.

Secondly she asked me "what do you hope to prove/achieve with your research?", another golden oldie, that. So I gave some vague, non-committal answers (I'm good at that) about linguistics and communicative science etc. and then she asked "And who would be interested in that?" and I was like "Well, shit, LINGUISTS!? WHAT DO YOU THINK!? Janitors? Shoe-salesmen? YOUR MOM!?". So I'm pretty much good for gold, here.

Anyway, I'm not too sure how I handled the interviews. On the positive side, they seemed satisfied with my answers because I made my points of view clear (they never said if they agreed with them though), and they didn't pursue any of my answers with "Yes, but WHY!?", which was something that did happen to a guy before me I think.

So, I'm still kinda in the middle here, like I was before. I know I aced the language tests, and I know that's definitely important, but I'm still not sure what they think of my project, so I'm not really sure where to stand. I'm cautiously optimistic though, and I definitely consider myself to have a good change, but I'm not getting my hopes up too high. Only time will tell, I guess.
In two or three weeks I should get a letter telling me whether or not I passed the FIRST selection criteria, and then there's round two, where we get to see if I can actually go or not. Apparently this will take several months, so things can still go wrong, but let's not be gloomy.

Ingen go sleepy now.

posted by Ingen! @ 8:37 PM