A few more weeks to go!

1101 has been shrinking into almost a dozen regular attending students especially after the spring break as expected. 1102 still has about 35 students in two classes of which 15-20 students seem to continue to get into 2201 in fall and that is good. 1102 may not make it in fall due to the lack of students yet some current 1102 students may join! One excited thing is the new Learning Community Course (Interdisciplinary experience) between my Japanese 1100 (Culture/Civilization of Japan) and Political Science 2220 (World Politics) taught by Christian Goergen. Political Science 2220 will be on Tuesday night (7-9) and Japanese 1100 will be on Thursday night (7-9) and students must register both classes. We will virtually meet with Japanese students in Hiroshima real-time and discuss several global issues!!

Spring Break has passed! Dinner will be on 4/8!

Last one month of the semester is now left. Each class has a couple of chapters to go in the textbook. Because of recent events in Japan, summer study abroad group got a bit smaller with 15 students, which is still nicely sized! April JCC/GTS dinner is coming up this Friday (4/8). I hope to see many friends there.

Conference in Hawaii!!

Association of Teachers of Japanese will have the annual conference in University of Hawaii this weekend in conjunction with the annual conference of Association for Asian Studies. As GTS is one of the conference organizers, I am in Hawaii now to be ready for it. Since I am in Hawaii, indeed, I am having some fun now at North Shore, Kailua, Dole Plantation, etc. I did swim with 2 daughters under nice sunshine! Last visit to Hawaii was summer 2005, so 5 years have passed. Hopefully I can come back here in Hawaii in 5 years again! Refreshing at least now!

Disaster after Disaster in Japan!

The Great Eastern Japan Earthquake and Tsunami cost over 20,000 human lives (as of now 23,000) and I am sure that it took the same number of animal lives as well. And it happened with in an hour. Right after this natural disaster, nuclear power plants got in trouble. AND I believe this is NOT a natural disaster but this is rather from human error (miscalculation no matter how unpredictable it might be). Oh, well most of American Students who are in Japan as a official study abroad students from universities in the US are required to return to the US because of uncertainty of those two incidents. Sad Sad Sad.....
GTS students are going to Japan in mid-June as scheduled since Kyoto has no effect from those incidents. We may plan something special there. 16 of us will have the special educational experience there in summer.

3・11Easten Japan Great Earthquake!

First news of the earthquake came in Thursday night here in Chicago and to me it is quite usual to hear this kind of news from Japan. But when Tsunami news came in, I got so shocked before even looking at any photos as I was a civil engineering major at college and little better idea. Fortunately our family and relatives are all in Western Japan and did not feel any earthquake and Tsunami news is quite foreign/distant to them. COD Study Abroad will be in Kyoto and there is no negative effect from this disaster to the program and all the host families. The Western Japan centering in Kobe/Osaka had a similar devastating experience about 15 years ago but this once in 1000 year disaster really devastated Japan! Besides Japan is now suffering from 'Nuclear Power Station Trouble ' Throughout my high school and college time, I as well as many of my comrades, opposed to built 'Nuclear Power Station' as we know Japanese and many Asian people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of WWII have been especially suffering from radiation by A-Bomb and accidents/natural disasters are inevitable. I sincerely hope that no innocent citizens be hurt by current situation in Fukushima, Japan. The earthquake 15 years ago killed about 6000. The number of this earthquake' victims seems to be reaching over 12000~13000. Japan and people in Japan (not only just a Japanese nationals) will rise again!

Polarization in 1102 began!

Upon finishing up the notoriously difficult test for 1102, the polarization in class began. One group of the class will score probably always about 80% or higher and another group of the class will score about 50% or less. There are some in between but mostly everyone belongs to either group. Student ability of language skills cannot be determined by the score but their memorizing skill and application skill can be shown. It is quite interesting!! Well, I rather don't want to give such a test but...... Summer Study Abroad seems to be finalized with 17 participants!

GTS/JCC dinner this Friday night!

The regular monthly dinner is coming back to the first Friday of the month and it will be this coming Friday. I will be there at about 6:30pm to be ready. Past few days have been busy for assisting Consulate General of Japan at Chicago for its interview process for JET program and annual Japanese language speech contest initial screening process. Now I have to be spiritually ready for the Annual Conference for Association of Teachers of Japanese held in Honolulu during COD Spring Break. As I am a member of conference program organization committee as well as Conference Proceeding Editing committee, I will become super busy soon. Oh, I have to prepare the summer study abroad program as well. Summer program seems to become one of the largest groups in its history with some 18-19 students!! Airfare is super expensive, dollars are super weak, but students hopefully super GENKI!