The Misadventures of José Faxner

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My Virtua Fighter 5 IC card! (For those of you completely out of the loop, this card is used to store your personal data in the game; nickname, win/loss records, costume customizations and the like.)

So I finally got to play Virtua Fighter 5 in one of the local arcades last night. It’s sweet! Granted, I’m a complete beginner, and aside from some very crude basics I learnt in the (limited) time I’ve spent with its predecessor Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution, I really didn’t know what the hell I was doing. Really looking forward to playing it more though, not to mention learn it properly.

This week it was time for the annual AIU Festival. Pretty much all of the international students had been wondering exactly what the festival would entail, and how things would work… the information (the English information, anyway) had been rather limited as usual, but you definitely got the feeling that the festival was somewhat of a big deal. Apparently there was supposed to be a bunch of things going on; stage performances, contests, exhibits, selling of food… in short a whole lotta stuff.

Since this school is all international and stuff, naturally there’d be stands selling food and stuff from all kinds of countries. Team Sweden was entrusted to take care of one of these stands, and after some discussions it was decided we were going to sell smörgåstårta and chocolate balls. The smörgåstårta was cause for some concern - we did actually manage to get all the ingredients we needed, but after some initial calculations, it seemed very unlikely that we’d be able to make the whole thing profitable. However, after cutting back on some of the more expensive ingredients, and deciding to make the servings smaller, we eventually managed to make the economics work out.

Once the festival started, it started to become clear how things would work out. A stage had been put up, along with a long row of stalls for the various vendors; and with the aid of maps and pamphlets, you could walk around campus for all kinds of activities and exhibits. In one room you could see posters about all the different countries represented in the student body (I really hope I can dig up pictures of ours - they were totally awesome), in another you could watch a movie some students had made, in others some of the school’s clubs were introduced, and so on. Unfortunately us Swedes didn’t have all that much time to enjoy all this as we actually had to work quite a bit at our cake- and ball stand.

The food vending was actually pretty fun. We didn’t have insane amounts of traffic, and the Japanese people seemed incredibly skeptical - some wouldn’t give you more than a look that would make you think the people working were zombies or something (which actually at the end of the day might not have been that far off). Somehow we managed to do pretty decently though, on day one we actually managed to sell out, and after all was said and done we actually did turn a profit (albeit a modest one). I guess I should thank the Japanese people working with us who insisted that we should sell the cake and chocolate balls as a set, as I suspect the chocolate balls were infinitely more popular than the smörgåstårta. Most people who did dare try it seemed to like it though!

After two days of intense food-mongering, the end of the festival was drawing near. The festivities were wrapped up with a small ceremony - a few speeches, the announcement of winners of various contests, and the like. After all was said and done, we were treated to a film shot and edited by a few students before and during(!) the festival, showing some interview and other fun stuff. When they were shooting it I was really skeptical, but seeing the final result I really regretted not showing more interest - the film turned out great, and I would’ve loved to be in it. I really hope I’ll be able to get hold of the film eventually, as it’d really make for a great keepsake to remember the festival (and the school in general) from.

As if that wasn’t enough, once the film ended, we were treated to some really awesome fireworks. Apparently they’d spared no expense - this was undoubtedly the most amazing fireworks I’d ever seen, and this wasn’t even a real holiday or anything! Sadly I didn’t have my camera on me during the fireworks, but if someone managed to get any decent photos I guess it’s possible I could get hold of them and share them.

It was a lot of hard work, and I’m not entirely sure if I’ve fully recovered, 3-4 days later. But all things considered, the festival definitely turned out to be more fun than I’d expected. Not to the extend that I’d want to do something like this every week, maybe, but all in all it really wasn’t bad. And with a little luck, we might even have managed to open up some people’s eyes to Swedish cuisine. Or something.

See my photos from the festival HERE.

Go watch the badass trailer for what’s sure to be one of the most awesome movies in 2007. Do it now.

(click thumbnails for full-size images)