Matriculation at ICU

This morning we had our Matriculation Ceremony (入学式, nyuugaku-shiki) at ICU. It was held in the chapel, as it's the International Christian University. It was quite a strange experience, being in a church environment, but having Japanese spoken to me!


It started at 9.30, so we had to get up at 7 (ugh) and walk the 50 minutes onto campus (I really need a bike for that journey!) We are all One Year Regular (OYR) students, so as we arrived we found the right desk and they gave us our student ID cards, which are so cool! They also gave us a bag with the schedule for the ceremony, and lots of information booklets for different things to do with the University.

The actual ceremony lasted about an hour, and there were some very surreal bits, like we had to stand and sing a hymn I'd never heard before, and "The ICU Song" which was the usual "we love this university" type thing. We also had all our names read out, and we had to stand and reply with either "hai" (yes), or just "yes". It was a bit embarrassing having to stand up in front of everyone, especially as they filmed everything, and the camera was right next to me! I'd like to find out if we can get a copy of the video, or at least see it somewhere.

We signed the Student Pledge, which said that we would abide by the rules of ICU, and the laws of Japan, and then headed out to the lawn in front of the chapel for a group photo. They took about five, so I hope we'll get to see the best one at some point.

After the ceremony, everyone headed to a cafeteria for some drinks and snacks, and some staff introductions. We met a couple of new people and chatted to them. We had met an American girl called Wynne who lives in our guesthouse, and who lived there with Claire, who went to ICU with the exchange from Leeds last year - what a small world!

I also had a very surreal experience - I was recognised! An American guy came up to me and said "Are you the guy who writes that blog?" and I was really taken aback! It was like being a Z-list celebrity!

It was a nice morning, and it was great to meet the people we'd be studying with and see more of the campus. It should be a good year!