One more week

Man oh man oh man… no pun intended…
School is almost out! Just one more week. Then I can look forward to grading finals and then doing research over the winter break. Whooppee!
This semester has gone by soooooooooooooo fast, I can’t believe it. Did someone speed up the space time continuum and forget to send me [...]

I Hate Battlestar Galactica…

Because it’s so frackin’ good.
Saturday night, the SciFi channel aired Battlestar Galactica: Razor. This story is supposed to satiate us while we wait for the final season of BSG due sometime in 2008. But it backfired. This story did not satisfy me one iota. All it did was whet my appetite for more, MORE, MORE [...]

Happy Thanksgiving

I’m tired, but I’m cooking… at least part of the meal. I am currently soaking the turkey in brine and I made the cranberry sauce a couple of hours ago. Oh yeah, I also made some Rice Crispie squares for the kids who will be visiting us for dinner.
Anyway, have a good one everyone.

Literature in Translation

And here I thought I had caught up with all my work
Excuse me while I prepare for next semester, even as I struggle to keep pace with this semester. I will be teaching J-Lit in Translation, as I always do, and am considering adding a few new books, so I will be listing books that [...]

An interesting day… for a Monday

I met my third Xangan today, Sunjun. He actually goes to the school where I teach, and probably takes classes from people I know. o-mi-god! He had dropped by and left me a note quite a while ago–a year ago? Two? I forget. But we finally met. Hope he wasn’t too disappointed. If I [...]

Lazy Sunday

There should be a law, or rule, or somekind of religious commandment that states you must be lazy and do nothing once a week. I’ve been grading all weekend long–Literary Japanese and J-Lit in Translation midterms. It hasn’t been too bad, as I’ve come to appreciate the benefits of multiple choice questions. Much easier to [...]

As if I weren’t there

Talking behind someone’s back is not very good form. But it would seem to me that talking in front of someone as if they weren’t there is probably worse and pretty rude.
Of course this is just my opinon.
In a recent proseminar class, one of my students responded to a classmate during a discussion on “Differance” [...]

As if I weren’t there

Talking behind someone’s back is not very good form. But it would seem to me that talking in front of someone as if they weren’t there is probably worse and pretty rude.
Of course this is just my opinon.
In a recent proseminar class, one of my students responded to a classmate during a discussion on “Differance” [...]

Going unconscious

There is just too much work. They should have an anti-over-worked-teacher law on the books. I am exhausted. I just finished grading the midterms for my readings in modern Japanese course. Today was the J-Lit in Translation midterm, so I have a brand new stack of exams and essays in front of me. And I [...]

Feedback

Recently, I wrote a bit about how English is difficult for many Japanese. I thought I’d respond to some of the (edited) comments I received.
There are so many different shades of “fluent” that the more proficient I become at Japanese, the more I know what I actually don’t know. If I were to [...]