kdblog

Our not very old Fuji Fine-pix 810 is broken. The LCD broke sometime in the first few weeks of our being in Japan. We could still take pictures, but couldn’t see them until we transferred them to the computer and we couldn’t make any adjustments–forced flash for example. Then just after Lisa, Ben, and Sophia arrived the pictures began coming out with lines and having light problems. It got to the point that the camera was not usable. So we bought a new camera. We liked the size of Lisa and Ben’s Canon Digital IXUS (Powershot Digital ELPH in the USA) and the picture quality so we bought one–the Canon IXY Digital 60 which is called the Canon Digital IXUS 55 in Europe and the Canon Powershot SD450 Digital ELPH in the USA.

One of its features is to take a series of shots and stitch them together. I did this from our Balcony and the result is here. To view it copy the URL below into a browser.

http://www.nerdylorrin.net/gallery2/d/35194-2/From_our_balcony_in_Tokyo.jpg

Finally we have our wireless network working. This was a long process. We arrived in Tokyo on August 17 and had an ADSL modem. We could get internet, but only through a wired connection and only one at a time because we did not have the ISP connection numbers to set up our router. Also, the connection was in the previous resident director’s name and he didn’t cancel it as a favor to us. The program agreed to pay the monthly fee and change the billing to the program, but the busy program associate forgot to do it. In the meantime we ordered a wireless router from the States which Lorrin and Tina kindly shipped to us. When we received it we went to the program associate for the numbers we needed only to find out she had forgotten about switching it over. She then did it right away, but the numbers didn’t finally arrive in Karen’s hands until Friday. This weekend through a lot of trial and error and finally finding English instructions I got the wireless working. It isn’t quite perfect yet because it is not encrypted, but that should not take much longer. So, this blog entry was done wireless.

Friday we bought a stroller because we did not know when the luggage would arrive. There is a Toys-R-Us at Sunshine City in Ikebukuro, Tokyo. The stroller was on a good sale and therefore a very good price for the quality. We visited Ueno park yesterday where we went to the Tokyo National Museum. We saw a pottery exhibit that traced the history of pottery in Japan. It was great. We also saw some permanent exhibits on painting, clothes, other pottery, and military gear. Today we went to Asakusa where there is a large Buddhist temple and lots of small shop shopping. We also ate at a sushi place there. The food was terrific. These kind of sushi places are a lot of fun. The sushi plates go by on a conveyor belt. You take what you want and at the end they count up the number of plates of each kind of plate and charge you accordingly. The chefs making the food take orders and interact with the customers. We also came across a “Brazilian” parade that was really awful. The dancers were bad, the costumes were bad, the whole thing was bad. More later

Lisa, Ben, and Sophia arrived a little late and without luggage, but we are ecstatic about them being here. We stopped and picked up Sushi and had a great lunch and later went shopping in Ikebukuro. Sophia did very well for such a long day and jet lag.

The luggage is still in Paris. There is a baggage handlers’ strike that Lisa and Ben were not informed of. Consequently, they had very few of many needed items–baby items, clothes, contacts, power cords for camera and laptop, and toiletries to name a few. It appears that the luggage may not arrive for a week or more (possibly not until they’ve returned to England) since there is such a large pile of luggage.

So some of today (Thursday–the day after they arrived) will be spent shopping for more essentials. Fortunately, they will be reimbursed for much of this as they had purchased insurance.

This is the title of the course I am teaching in the School of International Liberal Studies at Waseda University. Classes started on Friday September 30th. I had 14 students registered but only 11 showed up on the first day. I was concerned about the low number, but then heard that many courses had only 4 or 5 students. I decided 11 would be a great number of students and we would get a lot of work done, everyone would get lots of speaking practice, and I would be able to give them lots of individual attention. Only two of the eleven students are native English speakers. We had a great first class, and I became even more excited about the course.

Today, my second day to teach the course, all 11 students returned, the three students who had not shown up on Friday came, and six more added the course. The class nearly doubled. I was a bit surprised. Still only two students are native English speakers. I believe that one or two of the students who were new today may be Korean. The students are interested in social justice! It feels so good to be teaching students who want to study social justice.

After the initial shock of the increased number of students, we got down to work, and although class didn’t go as smoothly today as last Friday, it was okay. (Many students had not read the assignments or participated in our first day activities to prepare them for today.) I am a bit concerned that I might have many more students on Friday. Friday is the last day to add classes.

Most of my students are first or second year students. That is to be expected because SILS is only in its second year. The two students from the US are both older. One is a junior at a school in the US and is in Japan for one year as part of a program (not Japan Study, the program I am connected with). The other student from the US is intending to earn a second bachelors from Waseda. He is an independent international student—not in Japan on a specific program like, Japan Study.

Students in the course are not only interested in social justice, they are also interested in education and social justice in developing countries and are excited about reading about Tanzania and the opportunity to study other nations. I had been warned (not by anyone from SILS) that the students would probably not be interested in Tanzania, so I would probably not have a large group of students. Consequently, I was pleasantly surprised by their interest in Tanzania.

I tried sending out a link to our apartment from Google Earth. It is cool for me to zoom in and see where we walk to everyday. I’m not sure the link I sent on email is working so here are two links to photos of where we live from Google Earth. Unfortunately, one can’t zoom in or out from these. These photos are also in our October pictures. To get there just right click on “Our area of Tokyo from Waseda University to Takadanobaba Station” below and left click on “view image”.

Karen, as you know, has been working as program director and Waseda University visiting professor almost since we arrived. I, on the other hand, have not had a paying job since my last paycheck from Knox College on September 1st. I have therefore been working at my employment. The first problem has been that I am on a “dependent” visa that doesn’t officially allow me to work in Japan. All written policies say this, and all the information about this has stated that if I found a company that was willing to employ me, I could bring documents from the company to the immigration office and apply for a permit to work part-time. So I did put my resume out to some places that I thought I might want to work for. One was Temple University’s Tokyo campus. Of course by the time we arrived, they had their fall semester set. Nevertheless I was called about an introductory marketing course when the adjunct professor scheduled to teach the course backed out. I interviewed there and it seemed to go well, but they offered the course to someone else. Marketing is not a strong area of mine, but they mentioned the fact that my being on a “dependent” visa was a problem. I also suspect that my ponytail didn’t help. However, the interviewer mentioned that there had been a change in what was necessary to obtain permission to work on a “dependent” visa. Basically, I only needed to apply for the work permit at the immigration office. This I did, and apparently I will soon get permission to work. Last week I began email discussions culminating in an interview on Friday with a human resources consulting firm– Phoenix Associates. www.phoenixassoc.com/html/index_e.html The interview went well and I have been offered a position there. The job entails working with multinational and non-multinational firms in Tokyo in training and development. About 10% of the work is English teaching. Most of the rest of the work is either specific skill set training depending what is needed or working with executives to keep their English language skills up. There is also miscellaneous other work that is somewhat hard to classify. The job pays well and the amount of work is flexible. Also, if it is a good match and if I desire it, Phoenix Associates can easily do the paperwork to get my visa changed from a “dependent” to a full-working visa. The only concern the interviewer had was my ponytail. He personally didn’t have a problem but thought some of the clients might. I should start next week sometime, although I still need to go through an orientation and do some paperwork.