Camera lost

※ This article discusses the 11th of October 2016 and the following days.

The 11th of October 2016 was a Tuesday. As every Tuesday I have my presentation. But I lost my voice on the 9th of October. So I wrote my professor an email stating that I can’t hold a presentation and will only raise some questions, I have about the Machine Learning book.

In the morning, I had the orientation for international students. It was postponed from the Wednesday before to this date because of the Typhoon. And because Monday was a public holiday (Sports Day), it was more difficult to get up after the long weekend.

The orientation helped us with basic information about living in Kobe, though most of this information was already given at the Residence’s orientation. Some other information just came too late and deadlines already passed. Anyways, the most useful information was insurance-related. We have a very basic, compulsory health insurance, but for riding a bike or driving a car, an insurance covering more cases is recommended. I unexpectedly met my tutor after the session and chatted a little. Martina’s tutor was with us the whole time.

In the second session, I joined "Speech communication" for the first time. It was astonishing to me, how insecure I can be. Between sessions there are 20 minutes of break to go to the other campus. Then it takes about 10 minutes to find out where the office of the building is. You need to ask for the room number and hopefully you can find the room soon. Therefore I arrived late for class and there were two doors. One had a red arrow pointing to the right handside door. I couldn’t read the Kanji explaining the arrow. I heard the lecturer talking and determined that it should be my Speech Communication lecture. So I wanted to enter using the left handside door because it is in the rear of the classroom and therefore would attract less attention. But there was the red arrow. So I should enter in the front; basically running into the lecturer. I stood there for approximately 5 minutes just to think about how to proceed and whether I really want to do it. Of course, I went through the righthand side door eventually.

Speech Communication seems to be a nice challengine course for me. We discuss how pronounciation works anatomically (acoustics & phonetics) and discuss differences between languages (Japanese, English, Korean, etc). If I study hard enough, I should be able to know the International Phonetic Alphabet by the end of the term. I got curious how all students already had access to the documents. I asked the lecturer and she told me to access BEEF. Apparently the WiFi password will be sent together with credentials for BEEF; a moodle system of Kobe University. So I had to wait to get access to documents including the homework of the last week. I should receive the credentials during the week and as it turns out, this is going to happen on Wednesday.

After Speech Communication, I met with Martina in front of the cafeteria. She already had lunch, but I didn’t. So I went into the shop and grabbed some cheese cookies and joined her sitting on the benches. Martina took care of my stuff in the meanwhile. After chatting and eating a little we split up again and I went to the math department. In the students' study room, I prepared for my bachelor thesis seminar later on. I left my stuff unattended while going to the toilet. I went to the board at 15:10 as usual and asked my professor a few questions related to the book. I sat down to watch my tutor presenting in Japanese. It is really difficult to derive anything just by context, but it is a nice learning experience to hear a few Japanese words and try to remember what the vocabulary means.

Afterwards, we met with Martina again. I wanted to attend "EU-Japan comparative seminar". As the description indicates, the lecture will be about migration policies and three different lecturers will present. We didn’t know where to go specifically, but we guess it takes place in the Economics building. So we changed campus and because we turned around too early, we used additional ten minutes to go back. It was way too late to be in time. Eventually, we arrived and asked at the office, where the lecture takes place. We went upstairs to room I320, but no-one was in there. We had no plan how to proceed, but a Chinese girl had the same problem. She joined us. Martina suggested to go to the Intercultural Building, because the lecturer of today works at this graduate school. So again we changed campus. We arrived there and wondered where its office was. We couldn’t remember. We asked some students and one student mentioned that she took that class last year. She doesn’t know where it takes place, but we could write the lecturer an email. For today we will be too late anyways. We kind of ignored here and found the office.

At the Intercultural Studies office, they didn’t know about this lecture. On the one hand we had no clue how to get there, on the other hand we verified that the information by the Economics office was wrong. We wanted to confirm that and headed back to the Economics building again. When we arrived they told us that it actually takes place in room I230 today. Next week, it will be room I320 again. So eventually we found the room, but had to go a long path between campusses. In class, we sat down and listened the European Union’s definition of a migrant, of a refugee and fundamental Treaties of the EU. We discussed the associated issues in small groups. Right before that, I recognized that my camera was lost.

First, I was not very worried about its absence. I had to put down my camera bag several times during the day to fetch documents from my knapsack. Furthermore after 12 days I got very used to have it with me all the time. I didn’t pay special attention any more. After the lecture I immediately checked the Economics building, but found no camera. At this hour, we couldn’t access the other building and couldn’t search there. The next day I went to the places, I have been, as soon as possible. No camera. I asked at all respective offices of the building whether a camera was found. On Wednesday, nobody found it. As far as the Orientation is concerned, we have been told that the organizers checked for belongings after the Orientation, but no camera [bag] was found. The staff at the office, I am registered at, ensured me they will inform me if the camera is found. On Thursday I informed the Kobe International Students Center and the lady responsible for us immediately phoned all offices again. On Friday, the last woerking day of the week, I checked all offices again and even went along the entire path we took on Tuesday. Without result. I attracted the attention by the administration of the math department. A staff member wrote down its model name and chronological details. We wanted to ask for the camera via phone. However, because one week later, I didn’t receive any notification I assume this was also without result.

So after 3 days of search, I was left without camera and struggled with myself to find a potential reason, why and how I lost the camera. I concluded:

So sadly, my gallery will lack some good photos. Two weeks later, I settled the issue with Felix, who is the actual owner of the camera. Sorry, Felix. Thank you, Felix.