kdblog

Hi all, long time no blog. Things are going well. We had a nice, quiet Christmas. Some students came over on Christmas Eve and we watched the traditional Christmas classic, Office Space.

A couple of days before, we went to a pottery town called Mashiko about three hours north of Tokyo by train and bus. There was a lot of pottery of all different styles and prices. We spent several hours looking at the pottery and certainly saw only a small part of what was there. We bought several pieces that we liked and then went to a Japanese vegetarian restaurant. In Tokyo, vegetarian restaurants are rare and it is difficult to get any vegetarian food in most Japanese restaurants—mostly because of the use of dashi as a soup base and fish used in many sauces. So we were rather pleasantly surprised to find this restaurant in Mashiko. The food was excellent, interesting, and tasty. It was so good, in fact, that we lost track of the time and almost missed our bus back. There are some pictures in the gallery.

Yesterday we decided to get on a bus close to our apartment that we hadn’t taken before. It went to Ueno park. The park was not crowded (perhaps because the ginko tree fruits rotting on the ground are particularly bad smelling this time of year) and we walked a lot. We wanted to go into the Tokyo National Museum gift shop without paying for the museum. This is possible and Karen asked how. We were told to go north a short distance. Well, we went a short distance and there was no way to get in. We continued to walk all the way around this rather large park and there was no way in. When we got back to the regular entrance more than half an hour later we saw the place we were to go a mere few steps away.

We then walked to Akihabara and bought a USB hub for all the geeky equipment we got for Christmas. Oh yeah, for Christmas Karen got a set of speakers to play music on. The laptop computer speakers just aren’t good enough anymore. We’ve been listening almost non-stop ever since. We connect them to our computers, my Creative Zen Nano MP3 player, and Karen’s Olympus digital voice recorder to listen to music. We also connect them when watching DVD movies. It makes them sound as if we are in a theater compared to the computer speakers. Other geeky gifts– a new USB hard drive—250 GB and a computer video camera so Sophia can see us while we see her. We’ve been using Google-talk, Skype, and Skype-out to talk to everyone. Now we’ve started using Festoon to see Lisa, Ben, and Sophia. If anyone else has a camera and wants to see us, we’d be glad to. If you would like to or need to use a different program rather than Festoon, let me know what it is. My email is dgourd@gmail.com.

David and I started taking Japanese classes in November. We only study one hour two times a week with our teacher, but it was a good decision for us! We are seeing an improvement in our Japanese language skills. We sure have a long way to go, but we just were not able to pick up the language and study on our own when we could easily go for days without ever needing to use Japanese. Now we have a teacher who expects us to do our homework and we are able to ask her questions, so we can make sense of things we see and hear. It has been very useful.

It is also interesting because David and I are such opposite language learners! He is an oral/aural learner, and I learn through reading and writing. He can memorize things easily—even random things with no context. I can’t memorize easily and need a context—even a random one will help—before I can memorize things. I cannot even remember my name in katakana, while David can say MacDonald (as in the hamburger place) with ease! I have no desire to say MacDonald, so even if I learn it for one class period, it’s gone the next! However, ironically, I seem to remember many words longer than David. We have analyzed this as my not remembering anything through short-term memory, so I only remember it by moving it to long-term memory. My approach is to move things to long-term memory as soon as possible. David, on the other hand, has an excellent short-term memory, and he relies on it. If he uses things regularly, they slip into his long-term memory, but if he doesn’t use them, he forgets them very quickly. The result of our analysis is that we are much better at speaking Japanese together because then we can use the strengths of both of us. Mutual dependency!

Our classes are expensive, and we had thought about stopping them after a couple of months, but we have seen so much improvement (we certainly study more regularly) that we decided to continue indefinitely. Interestingly, our teacher this week suggested that if after one hour of lesson, it is not a convenient stopping place, we can go over our time. The one hour does go quickly, especially because we usually have a lot of questions.

I have already written many times about how much I am enjoying my work with Japan Study and teaching at SILS, but things just keep getting better, and I want to return to this topic.

The Japan Study Program director made his yearly visit to Waseda and was pleased with the operations this year. Michiyo, the Program Associate, and I have been telling him we have great students and no major problems, and he saw for himself how well things are going as he met many of the students. It is a very positive work environment in JS at SILS, and Michiyo and I have been able to collaborate easily. I am thrilled to have a wonderfully competent colleague who works hard and cares about the students and the program. When issues come up, we are able to talk through them together, and when we disagree, we keep talking until we find a solution that we both can support. Naturally one of the reasons we have no major problems thus far is because two minds is better than one; we have been able to act more effectively and efficiently be collaborating. Also, Gary DeCoker, the director of the program, is very competent and collaborative as well. Good communications are essential to an effective program!

Another positive note professionally is that I applied for an academic position that I am quite excited about. After several years of considering dropping out of academia completely, I did not expect to apply for another academic position. This was the only position I have found interesting in the listings in the Chronicle of Higher Education, and although my living abroad this year may be a liability from the search committee’s perspective, I am happy to be enthusiastic about a job possibility!

A few days ago, I received information from one of the editors, Reva Joshee, of a book in which I have a chapter. Reva let all of the authors know that the book had been through the final external reviewer process and would be moving forward in the publishing process. She forwarded some of the comments of reviewers. The book, editors, and authors were all praised! The books is well-conceived and creative, as well as much-needed. (The focus of the book is multicultural policy. It has a unique organization with each section having three chapters–one chapter on Canada’s policies, one on the US’s policies, and one that critically discusses the issues raised in the previous two chapters in order to move the descriptions and analyses to a broader theoretical level. Ingenious, right!?)

My chapter is in the language policy section, and is the third chapter of the section. I was able to draw the connections between Canada’s and the US’s language policies, to discuss the similarities and differences, and to raise critical questions about language policies.

Among the statements made by reviewers were that the scholarship in all of the chapters is impeccable and the writing is of exceptional quality. All of the reviewers said they would buy and use the book. (One said the book should have been published last year!) I am feeling very happy for the editors, Reva Joshee and Lauri Johnson, who indeed deserve the praise, but I am also feeling very proud to have my work included in the book and to be working with such great people!

Continuing speaking about great people I work with, I am currently working on a research project with Professor Masakazu Iino at Waseda University in the School of International Liberal Studies (SILS). SILS is a new school within Waseda University and has some unique features that piqued my interest even before I came to Tokyo. Three primary distinct features of SILS are (1) an international focus, (2) a liberal arts program, and (3) language instruction in English. Students from Japan and other countries (mostly China, Korea, and Taiwan) earn a four-year degree and students from other nations (many from colleges in the US such as the Japan Study students) study at SILS for 1 term, 1 semester, or 1 year. Professor Iino and I are investigating the students’ experiences in SILS. I am doing interviews with students and learning a lot! Today, we just found out that we can apply for some research funds from SILS so we can pay to have the interviews transcribed! HAPPY!

Life is good!