I've been so lazy the I have not made any posts in this blog since last year, but finally I thought I should post something because we just had our University graduation on on Monday, March 19.
Unfortunately, it was a rather rainy day, which often seems to be the case for graduation. But the students were happy and the teachers were sad and happy and it was a nice ceremony and in the evening we had a lovely party. For the ceremony during the day, the female students mostly wear colorful and beautiful traditional hakama with floral patterns, while the male students mostly where smart and dark suits. They have three graduation ceremonies to attend on that day: one for the entire graduating class from every faculty and department held in the big gymnasium, and one for their particular faculty (in my students' case the humanities faculty), and finally one for their particular department (in my students' case the English department). This year because my back and knee were acting up, I only attended our English department graduation ceremony, during which each teacher who had a fourth-year seminar class handed out his or her students' diplomas one by one after making a little speech for the class. In the pictures above, you can see me doing that, and you can also see all of my seminar students holding up their diplomas cheerfully. Then from about 7 PM the students hosted there graduation party in the Hilton Hotel by the baseball dome, and a very elegant and delicious and lively party it was, complete with two different excellent live bands, one country western and one pop/R and B, both composed of our university students, including a few English department students. All in all, it was a fun and moving day and evening, and does provided a feeling of closure for the four years that the graduating students have spent studying and learning and playing in our university and our English department. I will miss my seminar students a lot: it was really enjoyable to spend to intense years together with them, reading many books of children's and young adult literature and watching many movies for children and young adults and hearing their reports and reading their writing about those kinds of things. And nine of my 13 students wrote excellent graduation theses about topics like Peanuts, vampires, utopia/dystopia, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and science fiction. Now I must turn my attention to prime for the new school year, which begins on April 1 in about two weeks!
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Jefferson Peters (JP)
Can you find me in the picture above? Archives
December 2023
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