I was talking to this girl who I found interesting and she mentions that she really likes the new seasons of The Simpson’s and Family Guy. I told her I also like the shows but only the earlier seasons, to which she said she’s never watch them because she thinks they were boring.
I had a Seinfeld moment and suddenly my mind was simply occupied with “boring? BORING??” And thinking about what kind of person finds modern simpsons entertaining
That sounds pretty fucking cool. What kind of visa program let you swing this kind of gig?
it was through an "independent" study abroad i put together while i was working on my bachelors as a 30 year old college kid. basically, through a full professor (born in japan, dual citizenship) i knew socially who had the juice to handle the administrative side of creating an independent research class just for me. she assigned a grad student (international student from japan) to help me find a farm to work on based on what kind of operation/production system i wanted to see. they helped me correspond and figure out the timing/logistics/expectations.
ostensibly it was a for-credit study abroad, so i had health insurance through the university. i also had to pay tuition and describe myself as a "researcher"/"student" at border control in japan and not mention that i was doing "work" on the farm in exchange for housing, etc. i got the distinct impression what i was doing was in a grey area if not illegal and the border control guy in japan definitely was suspicious of me, but it was probably too complicated to try and unravel so he just waved me through with the generic travel visa with a look of "fuck it".
i had to prepay for everything, even though i was applied for and won some significant scholarships to cover my travel. the actual money wasn't released until the following semester, which is when i had to write like 10,000 words on my experiences and do a few presentations.