Sigh.
In my American Culture class, the students are currently giving group reports. Groups of four-five students have been researching topics in American culture of their own choosing, writing reports on them, and presenting them in class. We can do two 25-minute presentations plus Q&A per class. I've told the students more than once that they should be on time to class and stay awake in class and pay attention in class, and that doing those things is even more important during their group reports. Well, last Thursday I noticed that during the first reports a couple students were sleeping and one boy came to class fifteen-minutes late, so after that report and before the next I gave them another stern warning, telling them that sleeping and so on during the reports would be doubly bad for their grades etc. And then during the second report I noticed a boy with his head pointing suspiciously down to his desk, as if he were sleeping or something. So I kinda sneaked up on him from behind, looked over his shoulder, and saw that he was reading a manga on his smart phone! I didn't want to disrupt the group's report (about Disneyland, Disney, Disney movies, and Disney Princesses), so I just grabbed his phone and took it back to where I'd been sitting in the back of the room, and returned it to him after class. Next time... next time I'll warn them more severely! But will they listen? Maybe it's because I usually speak English to them and because they are Japanese, but many things I say, I am discovering, do not sink in. I've been telling them since spring semester about plagiarism and so on (using Melania's pilfering of Michelle's speech as an example), and have given them warnings and explanations in handouts and in lectures not to copy paste from the Internet, etc., and so far probably six students in the first six groups have done a little or a lot of that kind of thing. So I've been telling them to do things over a fair amount... I don't want to complain too much about the class or students! They are presenting some interesting information, and most of them have worked hard on their reports (even the copy pasting kids have at least been visiting multiple English websites!). I liked a report trying to explain why American doors, unlike Japanese ones, tend to open inward instead of outward. The Disney report presented a pretty fully rounded picture of the phenomenon. A report on street culture did some neat things with art and fashion and dance. A report on education revealed some interesting things about American schools, like special events. And so on. But gosh I wish they'd respect their classmates and listen harder to their reports and ask more questions or make more comments afterwards!
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Ah, how embarrassing! Yesterday (Saturday 11/19) I attended the graduate school Theme and Method event. For that our first year Masters' students (Hakase Zenki students) make short presentations about the topics that they are planning to write their second-year graduation theses (shushironbun) about, and answer questions about them. In recent years, we also on that day listen to a lecture by someone who in the past attended our graduate school and or taught in it. And then we have a party in the early evening. It's mostly a fun event, and is a good way for us to increase communication and camaraderie between students and teachers, because we are all kind of like a big family. Well, I did my best to dress up a little--I even wore a necktie, which I almost never do... And I had a great time at the party, eating tasty food (sushi, chicken, pasta, etc.) and drinking beer and chatting with students and teachers and so on. And I felt pretty good when I got home--until I walked in our door and my wife happened to see me and say, "Your fly is open!" Eeek! Achaa! I remembered visiting the toilet just before the party, so at least it wasn't open all day, but still--how careless to forget to zip it up! I will have to be careful in future to avoid such lapses in attention to detail. ANYWAY, last week was OK. We had a little earthquake during the Friday introduction to American Culture and Literature class about Where the Wild Things Are, and it was fun reading the picture book out loud to the students. In Culture class we had the first two group reports, one about street culture and one about American education, and they were fine, really, but I didn't leave enough time for questions and answers for the second group, alas. In my graduate school seminar, the three students and I cried over the end of Charlotte's Web. We had a Humanities meeting for nearly two hours, much of which I slept through. And I developed a bad right eyelid twitch! We're two/thirds of the way through Koki. I'm still in shock and disgust over the election... See you next weekend! Well, that was shocking.
I still feel sick and down and worried and ashamed about Trump becoming the next President of the USA. On the bright side (?), Clinton got more votes than Trump did, and he didn't get 300 electoral college votes, and most Americans did not vote for Trump (maybe only 60% who could vote did vote, and about half of those voted for him). On the dark side, he's appointed a man to be the head of the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) who says the Clean Power Plan is illegal, is supported by the coal industry, and believes that global warming is a myth. And that's just one big post... ANYWAY, on Wednesday morning (Japan time) I got to my office and Hillary had an 85% chance of winning (so the experts said). By about noon it had been reversed and Trump was on his way to becoming the next president. In culture class Thursday, I had to laugh to avoid crying... and we spent about 60 minutes doing questions and comments about the election etc., and I told the class finally that after all I'm from California, not from the USA (I even melodramatically tore up my passport before their eyes at the end--and then when they gasped, told them it was only an expired one!). My English conversation class students asked a lot of questions about the Electoral College system: who are the voters in it, why does America do it that way, can they vote against their states, and so on. My two Korean students said that Korea only has a popular vote, and that their presidents can serve for five years with no re-election possible. In Japan, voters vote for politicians in their political parties, and then the politicians in the majority party select the prime minister. I wonder if America could get rid of the Electoral College system and just use a popular vote?? (It'd be too late for Hillary...) I guess I'm most disappointed because the result shows that too many Americans didn't want a woman president and because too many Americans chose a guy who's said such coarse, ugly, false things about women, minorities, immigrants, Muslims, and who whined about "rigged election" and refused to say if he'd accept the result of the election, and who has projected the image of a crude bully. I am trying to hope that the office, tradition, and system of the President will somehow make him a better leader, but am usually hoping that he does so horribly that people won't re-elect him. . . Sigh... Hey, I only had ONE day of classes last week, Wednesday, because of the university festival.
And because last week would be so easy, my wife and I went on a little trip to Matsue, Yonego, and Izumo. Matsue Castle is lovely (check out those amazing stone walls!). Also in Matsue, we went to Lafcadio Hearn's house, where he wrote about his compact and expansive gardens, and also to an Inari Jinja (fox shrine) he liked. The lake at Matsue is also beautiful (though we failed to see the sunset there, which is supposedly one of the three most beautiful sunset spots in Japan). AND we went to Sakaiminato, hometown of Mizuki Shigeru, creator of the popular monster-family manga Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro. AND we climbed up the steep mountain in Yonego to see its stone castle foundation ruins (people in the 19th century burned all the castle structure in their ofuro (baths)). It is really lucky to be living in Japan, to be able to see so many historical, cultural, beautiful, mysterious etc. things. (and the food is great!) This coming week will be back to the usual challenging schedule, until the end of the school year... Let's go! |
Jefferson Peters (JP)
Can you find me in the picture above? Archives
December 2023
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