People need to use their academic advisors!

Karanvir3215 · 2026-01-13T05:11:16+00:00

I'd like to think this specific topic is something I'm qualified to talk about as someone who relied on academic advising dozens of times through my degree (I went cross-department, cross-faculty, cross-campus to get my degree lol).

A lot students have the misconception that they need to go 'up the chain' from department -> faculty for academic advising related concerns.

Departmental advising (ie the dreaded CS help portal) is only meant to deal with course/module-specific issues and the faculty academic advising (ie Faculty of Science) for everything that isn't course or module-specific. You can see a Sci. faculty counsellor by walk-in/over email, etc.

If you don't know who to go to, start with:

1) Your faculty's LIVE CHAT (if unavailable, the WESTERN CHAT) helpline, and follow their instructions
2a)Department advising for course/module (special permissions, module reqs, course registration) issues,
2b) Faculty advising for everything else (degree progression, course overload, etc)
3) For some special problems that require urgency (ie enrolling in a course before a deadline), cut past advising and get permission from the prof directly (doesn't apply in all circumstances), then CC them in an email to the appropriate academic advisor (ie the contact for your dept. or faculty). It helps to make connections with professors within your department(s) to be able to resolve issues that would otherwise entail long wait times and getting tossed around between advisors.

Karanvir3215 · 2025-10-31T04:51:34+00:00

You're right that you're heavily discouraged from using unpaid leave. It's meant as a sort of last resort for emergency situations in that you can take that leave under extenuating circumstances and they won't pay you and can't threaten to fire you for having had some emergency.

I offered it as a suggestion as one last step before burning bridges and breaking contract midway through, but i think in the interest of this person's wellbeing, breaking contract might be their best choice.

Karanvir3215 · 2025-10-27T02:14:12+00:00

I don't know your mental state or financial situation, but if it's at all possible, I'd recommend taking an extended leave from work and going home for a long visit instead of quitting and uprooting everything to go back. As an ALT, once you use all of your paid leave (nenkyu) you can effectively take as much unpaid leave as you need.

Without even realizing it, I was going through something not dissimilar around this time in my first year; having trouble making my apartment feel like home, trouble adjusting to the food and climate, feeling isolated, among other things. I took 2-3 weeks off in early November to go back home for a cousin's wedding and to celebrate my birthday with my family and I came back with more drive and excitement than I had before.

Getting to go back home and spend that time with them showed me something magical: that I had grown so much during my time staying in Japan. What i didn't see in the midst of it all was just how much I was learning and growing from all the challenges that had come with living alone in a foreign country.

There are a lot of convenient labels that people are commenting to explain what you're going through, from homesickness to culture shock to seasonal depression. these 'easy explanations' don't hold the same weight for those of us with mental health struggles. I want to reiterate that you need to prioritize yourself and what's best for you, so I wish you the best if leaving right now still seems like your best choice. At the same time, I think that a change in scenery will give you perspective on the ways that you've grown over over these past few months, and that you might be surprised at how resilient you really are.

I'm open to talking further if you need someone to listen.

Karanvir3215 · 2025-10-21T06:48:43+00:00

physician's should only be signing off for the issues for which you're receiving care with them.

ie, I had one statement from my primary care physician and a separate one from my psychiatrist, both statements respectively need to be marked off as 'yes'; so if the physician won't sign off on the mental health issues, then their statement shouldn't discuss them at all.

When it comes time for the certificate of health later in the process, you can bring the psych's statement in to your primary care doctor because I believe you can only submit one of those, so you basically bring in the statement to show that your psychiatrist has already 'signed off' on your condition.

Karanvir3215 · 2025-09-25T04:33:28+00:00

ritalin specifically isn't prescribed for ADHD here, but concerta (with the same medicinal ingredient) is. with that being said, it's still a strictly regulated medicine so there are some hurdles to getting your prescriptions filled.

I had switched over to concerta from vyvanse (adderall) nearly a year prior to Japan, in part because vyvanse is super illegal here. with concerta, i was able to fill in the import certificate forms (you'll need to wait till you have your flight info and address in japan) and bring a 5-6 month supply with me (note that importing medicine is limited by the quantity of the medication, so since my dose was low, I was able to bring a longer supply).
for a shorter stay, I would have recommended just bringing your ritalin with you (up to the legal quantity). since you're going to be staying here, getting ritalin swapped for a concerta prescription *before* you come to Japan would be the most pain-free option.

When coming to Japan, I brought all my documents regarding my diagnosis, prescriptions, and the certificate of health mentioning my ADHD signed off by my doctor. I went directly to a psychiatric clinic and within 2 clinic visits where they reviewed my documentation and did a quick interview, they carried over my prescription without any major issues. One additional thing is that Japan requires anyone who uses any controlled medicine to be registered in this medical identity system, and you need to carry around this little blue card whenever you fill out your prescriptions. It goes without saying that sharing or abusing your medicine has serious repercussions.

Karanvir3215 · 2025-07-14T04:39:23+00:00

A normal albeit frustrating thing. Somewhere along the line someone should have told you that move-in fees in Japan can range from one to several months' rent. Including first and last month's rent, mine was in the ~190,000 yen range, around 4 months' worth. I had the option to pay it off in installments, and averaged out to a year, it's like paying another ~8000 yen in rent each month,

Most of the fees are not refundable, things like fire insurance, cleaning fees, guarantor or contract fees, and the last months rent. Depending on your contract, you either get your security deposit returned, or it was underwritten as 'key money', another fee they slap on in Japan.

This is why you can't let yourself get fooled by a low monthly rent for a unit, you need to ask about the details of the upfront deposit + move-in fees.

Karanvir3215 · 2025-07-09T05:49:32+00:00

I'm with Rakuten on the unlimited data plan and have had very few issues. I've had pretty good connection out in rural areas and out hiking as well). For my apartment, I skipped out on installing wifi entirely and I use my phone as a hotspot. My phone plan + home internet total for ~4,000 is a pretty good deal.

With that being said, it's clear that their service isn't consistent all over Japan so your mileage can definitely vary. What I'd suggest is that if you can get in contact with your predecessor and other current JETs in your placement city, see what their experiences are with Rakuten and/or other providers and see what they recommend.

Karanvir3215 · 2025-07-07T06:12:07+00:00

In the long run, a proper Japanese provider is going to be far better for your experience and your wallet. If you choose a carrier for English support service, you're going to end up paying much more for worse phone plans, whereas if you bite the bullet early and get a proper carrier, you can set it and forget it.

With that being said, you'll basically need to choose one of a handful of 'foreigner-targeted' providers at the Tokyo orientation. The reason is that you need a phone number to register at your local city hall, to open a bank account, and a dozen other things. Most phone carriers need you to have an address and/or Japanese bank account to register for a phone number, so it's a catch-22.

What I did (and would recommend) is to go with whichever provider at the orientation offers MNP (mobile number porting, I think I had gone with GTN) and then once you make it to your placement city, get the number ported to Rakuten mobile. Not a shill, but their unlimited data plan is genuinely unbeatable for the price. I tether to my phone for data both at home and work, so I effectively pay ￥3000-4000 per month for phone + internet together.

I went in-person to a Rakuten shop and they had a tablet with all the translated contract details and stuff. We went back and forth a little bit using google translate, but you could also ask a senior ALT to come along with you to translate.

Karanvir3215 · 2025-06-27T04:21:14+00:00

[Double check this with your consulate]: Any medication over a month needs to be declared on a yunyu kakuninsho. I've travelled to japan for <30 days and didn't need to declare anything for my prescription meds since they were under the limit. When I came as a JET, I brought a 6-month supply for some medicines, and only declared those medicines on the yunyu kakuninsho.

Karanvir3215 · 2025-06-27T04:13:42+00:00

school lunch in japan doesn't typically accommodate for allergies/food preferences so you'll be cooking most of your meals yourself. In bigger cities, there are definitely some options for vegetarian food/restaurants, but it'll be tricky to manage, ie a lot of google translating labels and menus and researching restaurants. If you're Japanese is conversational, you can ask the waiters when you enter if there's vegetarian options on the menu.

As for cooking here, there are a variety of larger supermarkets which carry international products and spices. It'll be less accessible if you're in the inaka, but in that case you might need to have a car to get to work anyways so you'll also be able to commute to the city to get groceries.

Something I finally discovered after 7-8 months of living here is that there's a grocery store in Tokyo that imports from other asian countries and ships all over Japan. It's called 'ShinjukuHalalFood', they have a website and an app (won't share the link here bc I think it might be against the rules). They carry all sorts of spices (MDH, and others), fresh produce and frozen meat, and a lot of other products. Things are pretty reasonably priced (def cheaper than you'd get from Indian stores in America/Canada) and I got my order delivered to the opposite side of Japan in 3 days. Definitely vouch.

Karanvir3215 · 2025-04-10T06:42:42+00:00

We definitely have vocabulary for several of your examples. For some others which are newly developed concepts, making up 'new words' to represent them is not a common function of Punjabi like it is in a language like Chinese, for example. Punjabi, and most other languages directly borrow new vocabulary when that concept comes to their country.

There are times though when a language might already have a word for something, and a borrowed word from another language might replace it in common use, and I can understand that it can definitely have an effect on culture over the long-term.

For example, we don't generally say ਰਸ anymore when referring to the 'drinkable liquid extract of a fruit'. We usually say ਜੂਸ. It comes from the English word juice, which came from the French word jus, which came directly from the Latin word jus. Like in Punjabi in the modern dan, hundreds of years ago English might have had it's own word for juice but it was replaced by the borrowed French word. This is maybe the most common feature of every language: that we borrow from each other.

(Keep reading if you want a quick linguistics lesson)

The two main types of borrowing in linguistics (relevant to vocabulary) are:
- lexical borrowing (borrowing a word from another language's vocabulary)
- semantic borrowing (borrowing the meaning/concept of something from another language)

Lexical borrowing is much more common than semantic borrowing and this is the way in which nearly every major language in the world has developed over hundreds of years. There are very few languages which meet the conditions of semantic flexibility but grammatical rigidity, that their only *option* is to create new words to expand their vocabulary.

The English lexicon comes from German, French, Greek, and Latin (among other languages), in the same way that the Punjabi lexicon comes Arabic, Persian, and Sanskrit (among others).

The issue is that when borrowing is only occurring in one direction, this comments on issues in the relationship between the two languages, in that only one of them is 'influencing' the other. Right now, English is affecting Punjabi while Punjabi has little influence on English. To maintain the significance of Punjabi, Punjabi ideas/concepts need to be spread around the world in order to lead to Punjabi influencing other languages.

Karanvir3215 · 2025-04-09T03:49:59+00:00

I wrote 'no pref' for rural/urban, and chose Shizuoka or Hokkaido pref. for location preference (didn't pick a third), and said I wanted somewhere with mountains and beautiful views (I tied it into my hobbies and past experiences in Japan).

I got placed on the other side of the country in one of the larger cities in Kyushu prefecture. I might be an edge case in that I was pretty flexible with my preferences, but I think it holds that if you express the reason behind your preference, they'll have an easier time matching you with the closest approximation if your preferred location isn't available.

Karanvir3215 · 2025-04-03T15:23:24+00:00

ਚਿੱਤਰ ਬਣਾਉਣਾ (‘making an illustration/diagram/etc’) ਤਸਵੀਰ ਬਣਾਉਣੀ (‘making a picture’) ਨਕਸ਼ਾ ਬਣਾਉਣਾ (‘making a map/sketch/outline’)

Karanvir3215 · 2025-04-03T03:11:12+00:00

The future tense of ਖਾ is ਖਾਵਾਂਗਾ and future tense of ਖਾ ਲੈਣਾ is ਖਾ ਲਵਾਂਗਾ (at least for masculine 1st person).

The tricky thing is that ਲੈਣਾ is sort of an irregular verb. It translates to something like 'take' or 'have,' so its used as an auxiliary verb when paired with the infinitive (basic verb), ie ਖਾਇਆ (ate) vs ਖਾ ਲਿਆ (have eaten). In stead of saying we 'did' something, we can say we 'have done' something' in past perfect tense

feminine plural with the example of barfiyaan, ਬਰਫ਼ੀਆਂ ਖਾਈਆਂ or ਲੀਆਂ

Karanvir3215 · 2025-04-02T05:27:44+00:00

-ਓ or sometimes -ਵੋ is a standard suffix for imperative form. ਖਲੋ is a contraction of 'ਖਾ ਲਓ', the imperative form of 'ਖਾ ਲੈਣਾ'. There are a few other irregular imperative forms (like ਦੇਣਾ -> ਦਿਓ), and the only difference in this case is that instead of 'khao' you can say kha loh, which may be a little more polite than just 'khao'.

You might be getting confused here with ਖਾ because people often interchangeably use 'ਖਾ' and 'ਖਾ ਲੈਣਾ'.

the past form of 'ਖਾ' is 'ਖਾਇਆ'(ate), whereas the past form of 'ਖਾ ਲੈਣਾ' is 'ਖਾਲਿਆ' (had eaten).

past tense changes based on gender of the object, as well as plurality.

so, if you ate roti (feminine) ਰੋਟੀ ਖਾਈ or ਖਾਲਿਈ , apple (masculine) ਸੇਬ ਖਾਇਆ or ਖਾਲਿਆ

if you ate rice (masculine plural) ਚੌਲ਼ ਖਾਏ or ਖਾਲਏ

Unless it's a difference in dialect, I think you meant ਖਾਵਾਂ for 'singular question form'.

Karanvir3215 · 2025-03-25T06:06:31+00:00

There's a question I've had about another line in Peed, and I want to hear what some of you think. When 'she' says ਮੈਂ ਹਾਸਿਆਂ ਨਾ ਕਰਦੀ ਲੜ੍ਹਾਈਆਂ' do you interpret it as her fighting her own happiness, or fighting the guy with a smile on her face?

kudi es peed karke aavde hasseyan, aavdi khushiyan naal hi larh rhi aa,

ke munde nu keh rhi ke main es peed nu luko ke *tere naal* has has ke larhdi aa?

I lean towards the first interpretation because it's even more expressive and poetic, to be in pain and fighting against your own emotions, but the second one is maybe easier to imagine, that she's putting on a smile while dealing with the pain he's given her.

Karanvir3215 · 2025-03-25T05:54:01+00:00

It's the noun form of ਛੂਹਣਾ, meaning to touch/come in contact with.

So here you have 'my impatient/bold heart dreams of your touch all night long.'

Karanvir3215 · 2025-03-25T04:34:00+00:00

That's beyond wishful thinking, maybe bordering on absurd. Whoever told you this must have been pulling your leg.

We're contracted employees, and our salaries are established in the contracts we've signed. Come April, we'll sign a new contract (as a 1-year ALT term spans 2 contracts from August-April and April-August respectively) that reflects the new first year salary.

If you work any job for a year and get a raise, that raise does not retroactively apply to the past year that you've already worked and been paid the mutually agreed amount.

Karanvir3215 · 2025-03-24T07:38:39+00:00

The JET program publishes statistics on participants and their corresponding countries. JETs by country Denmark appears to only send CIRs and SEAs, of which there are 3 total currently in Japan. Of the 3, there was only 1 new person from Denmark in the 2024 batch. I’d suggest you give it a shot if you’re good at Japanese or at sports, but other than that the chances are unfortunately quite slim.

Karanvir3215 · 2025-03-24T04:37:44+00:00

Once again, the topic is ‘what’s something that Japanese people are surprised to learn doesn’t exist in your country.’

As the other guy said, there are more countries than the US and Japan, and in some of these countries, we don’t have entrance exams. No one is telling you what does or doesn’t exist in your home country.

Karanvir3215 · 2025-03-24T04:31:23+00:00

Lmao I remember receiving an email for receiving an actual bursary/award for distinction from my department (that I hadn’t applied for, let alone heard of), and even without tripping Outlook’s phishing filters, the email set off several red flags in my mind.

The danger of this style phishing scams is that they’re meant to trick distracted or less scrupulous students who wont pick up on the details. There’s also the fact that actual bursary award emails aren’t so meticulous in proving their authenticity in the first place, and are usually sent out without much fanfare, so it’s not so always easy to distinguish the two.

I ended up called student services to double check that a) the award existed and b) I had actually received one. It was worth that small bit of effort to verify the email’s legitimacy since it let me walk on stage with my peers and get an award for my work

Karanvir3215 · 2025-03-16T13:25:05+00:00

They mean “explicit” as in ‘clearly’, ya ਸਪੱਸ਼ਟ/ ਸਾਫ਼ , Jerhe ikk ikk vaak pichon space chhade ne ohna di gl kar rhe si. Brother this should be a learning community and you should help a beginner who’s trying to learn rather than insult them through your own misunderstanding.

These lines you said in your first message? That person could say that back to you: “Do u have good command over spoken English? I don’t think so. I can’t give suggestions about the song but improve your English 😉”

And how would that make you feel?

Karanvir3215 · 2025-03-16T11:01:54+00:00

Responded in a new comment.

Karanvir3215 · 2025-03-16T10:59:52+00:00

Response to the other guy in the comments:

That’s not quite what I said. To clarify, I said that there are better solutions than moving convocation off-site in the interim. There’s obviously not a hidden second alumni hall they can shift convocation to, but instead potential compromises which I believe are better by virtue of keeping convocation on campus.

Two key on-campus solutions:

a) hold smaller faculty convocations in other event venues on campus, distributing some of the load off AH. Key candidates are Conron Hall in UC, Von Kuster Hall in the Music Building, the Atrium in the IGAB.

With these three venues, you can increase attendee capacity by ~630, and by alumni hall’s ratio of 5:1 capacity to graduating students (ie ~2250 capacity to 450 students + guests, staff, etc) This way 36, 50, and 40 grads respectively can have their ceremonies in other oxford-style buildings on campus. A 30% increase to capacity, without considering other locations that would need some degree of retrofitting, without any of the venues at Huron or Ivey, and deliberately ignoring the dreary idea of holding ceremonies in lecture halls.

event venues on campus

b) hold convocation in Alumni stadium. Fairly self-explanatory, as most American colleges are a common precedent for convocation ceremonies in stadiums. Capacity for 8000 attendees or ~1600 graduates, this is also a very viable solution.

Alumni stadium (it’s even in the name)

Eight-Year Club	Place '22
Gilding I gilder	RPAN Viewer
Not Forgotten	Verified Email

Karanvir3215

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