Preparing for Tokyo

It's slightly past midnight as I'm writing this, but it's really been a while since the last time I posted anything on my blog, so I'm giving it a shot again.

Saturday I'm going to Tokyo for a week to visit two woodcraft workplaces and meet up with some friends in the meantime. The timing is perfect as the school will be closed for two week from next week. The rest of the summer holiday - until the end of september - the school is open until 17.00 I think, depending on how eager the security staff is to make their closing round. Sometimes I even manage to stay an hour longer. Probably very few students around, but club activities (badminton) is three days a week from 13.00 to 17.00, so plenty of time to hang out with the club members that I've been getting along well with.

After I come back from Tokyo my parents will stay in Kyoto for two weeks, but in September I'll probably make another trip to a woodcraft workplace in another city.

...continueing the blog the next morning...

As for what I've been doing for the last couple of months. Hmm...
Well, there was the participation at an exhibition in the Osaka City Museum. Sounds really amazing, but my work was too small to stand out there (60x60cm), I didn't took the time to properly invite people and there were quite a bit of comments on how to improve the artwork - which was also the main reason why I wasn't that eager on making people come see it.
Well, that's also what made the event useful; I'm exhibiting there again in September and this time the artwork in going to be really good. Well, I've been asking a lot of people to judge my work, make notes, sketches, ask again and make notes again. Also, the artwork is large enough to show in a museum, but also properly sized to exhibit in a small space and be decorated inside a living room. I've been inviting people and this time I can make a bit more time available to be inside the museum.

Last time the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) was straight after the exhibition, which is a really big deal as passing the test hugely enhances chances to get a job in Japan. In other words, I wanted to do some last minute studying. Two years earlier I passed level two out of five. This time I took level two and the result...!

...will be online in a few weeks. But it felt like the test was going really well! Much better than the last two times that I took level two. So, already studying for level one. If the result in a few weeks is good, the level one test in going to be in December.

Other than that... I've been watching Japanese flower arrangement classes for my research project, visting another workplace for metal decorations in tempels and completed the first temple (for small temple woodcraft). It's mainly staying in classroom from 9am to 10pm to make the research project illustrations and exhibition works. As I'm applying for the master course Illustration here in a few months to pracitice digital drawing skills and make a portfolio to enter a Japanese game company, the style of my free works will be a bit more fantasy-like. Rather than being very skilled in digital drawing, I've been told it's important for the game company to be able to see how the world you're creating can fit inside the games they are making.
Everything is going according to schedule, but it takes up a lot of time. Anaway, the free works are really fun to make and the university buys a selected amount of the illustrations I make for the research project. Rather than talking to the third years students that are sitting in the same classroom (but don't come very often besides classes generally) I'm talking often to quite a bit of the second year students, two of them also being in the same badminton club.

Hmm... I can't think of anything else really at the moment. Plus, I'm hungry for breakfast, so this is going to be it for the moment.
Until next time!