仕事に出かける時の自分、どんな顔してますか？

今日は日曜日だけれど、マイクは朝からHTML5 Conferenceという会議に意気揚々として出かけて行った。その晴れ晴れしい顔。見ている方まで楽しい気持ちになる。この人は、本当に仕事が好きなんだなあ、とあらためて感じる幸せな瞬間。思えば、「情熱が持てる仕事に就くことの重要さ」を教えてくれたのは、他でもないこのマイクだ。

今から６年前。私は３０歳。９年ほど住んだアメリカを去り日本に帰国。ほどなく友人が慶應義塾大学のとある団体の研究室での事務職を勧めてくれた。空から降って来たような話だった。その研究室に居たのがマイク。彼の専門はWebで、何も知らない私に色々と教えてくれた。でも私の仕事は専ら事務や雑用。仕事にはすぐ慣れたし、同僚は皆親切だったが、いつしか私は退屈な毎日を送るようになる。その傍ら、マイクや他の同僚は仕事に熱い。熱くなれる何かと毎日向き合っている。そんな人達に囲まれて仕事をするうちに私も考えるようになった。私も私にしかできない、そして私自身が本当に熱くなれる、情熱が持てるような仕事に就きたい。

At W3C Keio SFC office. Look how BORED I look!! :)

Flirting? Yes :)

それから私は再び渡米をし大学院で３年間、言語学の勉強をしながら、学部生に日本語を教えることになる。正直、かなりハードだった。言語学の基礎的な知識も無い上、日本語を教えた経験も皆無だった。もう３２歳になっていた私は一回りも若い同級生に体力の差を感じながらも、負けず嫌いなところだけは群を抜いていたので、頑張りすぎる日々が続き、体調を崩したり、情緒不安定になることもあった。その間もずっとマイクは応援してくれた。嬉しいことがあった時には喜びを分かち合い、壁にぶつかった時には最善の策を講じてくれた。だから、そうして取得した修士号はマイク無しでは語れない。

Graduation. Purdue University. May 2013

今私は自分が本当に熱くなれることをして、お金をもらえている。初めてのことだ。こんなにも幸せに満たされた気持ちになるとは、想像もしなかった。ケンタッキー州に住んでいた時に大学でピアノレッスンをしてくれたミスター・ルイスが口癖のように言っていた言葉を思い出す。先生はその時７２歳。歩くのもままならないようなおじいさん先生だった。でもまだまだ現役でピアノを教え続けたい。この仕事からは一生引退したくないんだ。と言っていた。英語では、"I love my job, and I never want to retire!!" だったかな。もの凄く印象的だった。当時私はケンタッキー州にある自動車工場で購買やプランニングの仕事をしていた。それなりにやりがいもあったけれど、辞めたくない仕事なんて存在するのか？と懐疑的だった。今、ミスター・ルイスの言葉がホンモノだったことがわかる。私も日本語教師という職からリタイアしたくないと強く思うから。一生続けていきたいと思える仕事に出合えた幸せを噛み締めて、この気持ちを忘れずにいたい。

Jolly Chimp

I was wrong. Well, I'm constitutionally wrong about many things, but I thought by now, I would be kicking back, relaxed and doing lots of random things for fun (what I mean by fun = doing lots of leisure reading, organizing the closet to dig out spring/summer clothes, doing the silly dance with "Sexy and I Know It" alone, cooking some rirakkuma shaped inari, etc) after I get done with my thesis defense.

Wrong...I was so wrong! I got done with my thesis defense more than a week ago, but I've been still busy calling and emailing manga publishers to clear out copyright issues. I've asked them to give me a permission to use some of their manga pages on my thesis. Luckily, the publishers I've spoken with have all been very nice and helpful, and I heard back from 4 of them already and only waiting for one more. I just need to translate their emails into English and use them as written permission. What's taking so much time and what's so ridiculously annoying is...thesis formatting. I really don't know how to skip page numbers...or how to merge some separate PDF into my main thesis PDF...or how many single spaces are 2 inches...and I'm beginning to be very impatient and starting to re-hate Word and this genius non-metric system in the U.S. Well, no, hate is a strong word, and I don't hate anything or anyone, but sadly I'm beginning to really dislike this whole process and want to just get it out of my way.

Writing the thesis was fun, and I miss writing every day, but I will not miss this formatting process. It's certainly  a big waste of my time. I can be spending time on something more useful and important, like trying out my new Uniqlo leggings and indulging a self-fashion-show or skyping with nene! Speaking of nene, when I get back home in May, I probably need an entire day dedicated just to hang out with nene, and another day would be doing absolutely nothing but just staring at the "jolly chimp" for hours...(attention please: I 'hate' monkeys.) My daydream can keep going on and on. OK. Until that day, I just need to keep working...and I know, I know I'm really nearing the end...

Oh aye Friday night!

Ahh...Friday night! The best time and day of the week! I was waiting for it all week. I've made it. I'm celebrating it with a real matcha, strawberries and leftover Valentine's Day chocolate. Ah, life has just become a bit more beautiful now.

This week went fast, and mann, I was busy! I don’t remember which day, but one day this week, I was getting ready to go to school and I was in the bathroom, putting some make-ups on or brushing my hair. I realized how untidy the bathroom was; clothes laying on the floor just as I took off before taking a shower, all the cosmetic stuff, earrings and rings were all mixed up, lying scattered next to the sink. I sighed looking at the mess and looked at myself next. I looked tired and stressed. I was running late, and I didn't have time to tidy it up or lament the current state of being. I said to myself in the mirror, “Why am I always so busy, doing million things at a time! When will I ever be not busy???” When will I ever have time to read all the books I want to read that are on my kindle? Or movies I want to watch? The DVD’s on my dining table keep piling up. The list of things I want to do when I'm free piles up while more new duties pile up even higher, catching up and eventually overtaking and swallowing all the fun part of my life before I know it.  

I couldn't afford for just standing there thinking about it all day, so I grabbed socks (of which took forever to find the matching pair) and left my apartment. By the time I got to school, I realized that all my life, I'm always either really busy or sunk by absolute boredom, so I'm always on either side of two extremes, never comfortably busy or comfortably not busy. Well, I don't know if anybody can possibly relish the state of being "comfortably busy", but it's ironic that when I run out of things to do, meaning when I'm free,  I don't know how to be "comfortably not busy." It should be easy, right? but I really don't know what to do. I only manage to glance at all the books and movies I'd put aside when I was too busy to do so, in hopes of indulging myself into them when I have the time to do so. Strangely, when I'm actually free, I don't feel like it anymore and kind of become unsure of what to do with all this free time in hand and sort of miss having million things to do and the state of busyness all together. Yeah, it's nuts. 

Well, tonight, I tried to enjoy this state of being comfortably not so busy but ended up tidying up my room a bit while listening to Gotye, my recent discovered gem. Talked with mom and dad on Skype and later with mike. I will have to finish Chapter 4 tomorrow, so I'm gonna be hella busy again, and no, I won't complain. I will enjoy the state of busyness while it lasts and keep looking forward to next Friday.

Valentine's Day ritual: green tea cupcake-making

Here comes my Valentine's Day ritual...yup green tea cupcake-making! This morning, I had mil de cosas hacer, like reading four chapters for the evening class, preparing for tomorrow's class, typing up my thoughts for the group project, etc., and I had to do all that before 1pm. I tried to ignore that it's Valentine's Day and attempted to complete the assignments but when it was past noon, I put the books down and shut off my computer. Forget it. It's Valentine's Day for god's sake! I couldn't resist it any longer.

I dug out the recipe I used from last year and started cooking. It took only 30 minutes or so for the entire process. I only managed to make 8 of them though. I ate two (yeah I had to taste two of them to examine carefully if they're edible, right?) and gave the rest to my friends.

The photos below green tea cupcakes are homemade fish-shaped chocolate from my former students. They stopped by my office in the evening. How sweet...! It is delicious, and I'm munching this all up with strawberries as I type :)

Hope everyone has had a happy Valentine's day today!
Sending much love to you all...

Ochazuke on rainy Sunday

Rainy Sunday. I didn't go out, but not because of the rain. I love the rain and always have. I have a perfect pair of moss green rain boots and a cute polkadot umbrella, but that's not the only reason why I love the rain. I love the rain for many other reasons. I like the sound of rain hitting my umbrella while marching in the puddle with my rain boots and feeling epic. I like watching the rain outside the big window from my bed and pondering random things. And of course I like listening to the rain when I'm dosing off at night.

I woke up around noon. I wasn't planning on sleeping in today, but I stayed up until 4am, watching mike and other speakers at the HTML5 conference in Japan live on UStream, so I guess I was pretty tired. I only had some cold rice from last night in the rice cooker, so I decided to make some ochazuke. Inside the shelf, I luckily discovered some homemade pickled ume that mom had sent me before, so I sprinkled the ume flake over my ochazuke and poured genmai green tea on top. That was such a brilliant idea. The pickled ume certainly added a nice flavor to it. I enjoyed ochazuke and felt the kind of serenity, which is usually what I gain from eating Japanese food.

There are so many tasks to be cleared away from my To Do list, and the list seems to accumulate every hour or so. My first priority for the weekend was finishing Chapter 4 of my thesis. Yesterday, I was at the computer lab on campus and worked on it for 6 hours. I wrote about 10 pages and complied some data. I haven't finished the chapter, but I feel like I've accomplished for the weekend, so I didn't feel like writing my thesis today. I managed to finish grading students' essays though, which was the second priority. My students in Modern Japanese Civilization are all motivated individuals who tend to get involved in the topics. So their journals end up being novels, which is great, only if I didn't have to grade them... I'm glad I've got it done though and marked it off from the list.

Other items to be completed by early this week are...(I do this so that it becomes visual and public and I can't cheat or get away from it!):

• finish Chapter 4
• write a recommendation letter for my former student
• finish e-filing taxes (I'm so close to finishing! I just need to enter my freaking bank info)
• update the course schedule and post on Blackboard
• submit my paper to Purdue Literary Award
• buy gifts and cards to people I love & ship them
• go to Walmart (yikes!) and get a coaxial cable (so that I can watch this year's Academy Award—to see Eddie Redmayne, specifically)

Well, something like that...hopefully by my next blog entry, the list is shorter. 

Until next time.

Ranting in the shade of Chomsky’s tree

I found a nice catchy sentence in the last chapter of my SLA textbook: “Language is the most pervasive and powerful cultural artifact that humans possess to mediate their connection to the world, to each other, and to themselves” (Lantof and Thorne, 2006, p.205). Language exists to let us communicate with others so that we can get connected to each other. Very nicely put, and you’d have a hard time finding anyone who doubted that statement—it’s almost common sense. But there are some places where common sense sometimes doesn’t seem to apply, like the world of Second Language Acquisition.

              Before I took this SLA course, I didn’t have the slightest doubt in my mind that language exists to help us communicate with other people. Then I met with other linguists in class whose views are more inclined toward generative linguistics, and I came to realize that not everybody shares that view about the purpose of language. I came to realize that there are many linguists who treat language somewhat similar to mathematics, which is wired up by numbers and by common patterns with some predictable rules (formulas). They spend time drawing trees to analyze sentences that nobody will ever utter or hear in the real world. They also like to draw trees for all kinds of things. General problem solving? Draw a tree. Pattern finding? Defining errors? Draw another tree. It seems like for them, language exists so that they can draw trees, and the more roots of the tree they can draw, the more satisfied they become. (Okay, I maybe overstating things—but to some extent, that’s the honest impression I get from generative linguistics point of view.)

             To the generative linguists, Chomsky is God. Whatever he says, no matter how inconsistent his views are, for he always speaks the Gospel Truth. Chomsky’s Universal Grammar is their Bible. Of course not everyone shares their views; some fifty years after its debut, the topic of Universal Grammar often leads to heated discussions. Some even view it as the cause of a linguistic “war.” The recent article Angry Words by Tom Bartlett goes into some details about that war. The topic of the article relates to the work of Daniel Everett, a linguist who studied the indigenous language called Pirahã, and his controversial findings that, if true, would seem to undermine Universal Grammar. The article describes the fury with which Chomsky’s camp has reacted to Everett, and the wider ongoing linguistic war between those who question Universal Grammar and those who seem unable to. The “war” has gotten pretty nasty at times; it’s another of those things that make us realize that everything really is political. In this article Bartlett mostly seems to take a balanced view, though in the end it comes across as being quite critical of the Chomsky’s Camp; it closes with a pair of quotes from Ted Gibson and from Chomsky. The first is the following from Gibson about Universal Grammar: “The question is, ‘What is it?’ How much is built-in and what does it do? There are no details… It's crazy to say it's dead. It was never alive.” And the last is the final sentence of the article; in paragraph that Bartlett begins by noting that Chomsky “has a history of outmaneuvering and outlasting his adversaries”. Bartlett closes the article with these words from Chomsky: “I probably do, despite my best intentions, hope that I turn out to be right… I know that it is not scientific. But I would be a hypocrite if I didn't admit it.”

           After reading the article, my mind became busy sorting out a list of questions: Does Universal Grammar really exist after all? Do we really have a unique, innate language ability wired up in our brains, one that is supposed to separate us human beings from animals? What if some animals also have a highly complicated language system that has recursions and all, but we have just not observed it yet? Why do we assume that Pirahã people are living in the present only due do the lack of past or future tenses? Why are we deciding they are a “happy” people because of that? Isn’t it imposing Western ideology? Why does Universal Grammar, after all these controversies, retain such a firm hold on many linguists’ mind, to the point that some seem to have made a religion of it? What, after all, is Universal Grammar anyway?

           As you might have guessed already, I am not religious about Universal Grammar.  I remain skeptical. (I am not crazy about drawing trees, either…) I understand that Universal Grammar is relevant to native speakers’ inherent competence in their native languages, and is not really applicable (and not intended to be applicable) for L2 learners. But some SLA researchers seem so overly fascinated with UG to the point that they want to have SLA make some use of. As a result of that, UG seems to have found its way into the SLA literature, despite it not being applicable. In fact, our textbook devotes a whole chapter to discussing Universal Grammar. What grates on me the most is the assumption of researchers working on SLA from the generative perspective that Universal Grammar should play a role in SLA in some way—for example, to achieve so-called “interlanguage competence”, with another assumption behind that being that L2 learners will never attain “native-like” competence. Some researchers even talk about “Universal Grammar Surrogate”, so that L2 learners can enjoy the benefits of some second-rate knock-off of Universal Grammar designed especially for L2 learners. I think that the concept of Universal Grammar has the side effect of contributing to notions of the mightiness of “native speakers”, because UG feeds into the whole paradigm of an idealized speaker-listener relationship that places being a native speaker as an ultimate goal—but that ideal automatically forces L2 learners to remain learners forever, always reaching in vain toward an unrealistic and unachievable goal. If that whole native speaker-hearer paradigm remains a dogmatic ideal, the future of SLA is looking pretty bleak. In order to see the light of day, we should climb up on a tree to view what really is happening out there, instead of digging a hole around the tree in search of its roots…

Sources:

Bartlett, T. (2012). Angry Words. The Chronicle. Retrieved from http://chronicle.com/article/Researchers-Findings-in-the/131260/

VanPattern, B. & Williams, J. (2006). Theories in Second Language Acquisition. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Lost in translation and Japanese obsession to the West and “their” English - why does Haruki Murakami choose not to write in English?

When discussing credentials for Standard Canadian English versus Standard American English, the professor asked the class, “What about Japanese English? What criterion does Standard Japanese English need to have? Who speaks Standard Japanese English?” We came up with a vague idea that it’s a variety that many educated Japanese people speak, with a Japanese accent. Some suggested that we might find features of Standard Japanese English in translations and interpretations in literature. It got me thinking.

The majority of Japanese novels, as far as I know, are translated by American English speakers or British English speakers, or other Inner-Circle speakers—usually not Japanese English speakers. I can’t think of any well-known Japanese authors who directly write in English either (in the way that Ha Jin does). We are beginning to see the emergence of Chinese English writers, Indian English writers, Thai English writers, etc. But not Japanese English writers, yet.

Haruki Murakami is by far the most popular and can be considered to be the most influential Japanese writer today. His novels and stories have been translated into English and forty other languages. All of his work in English is translated by American translators. It seems that he particularly likes using Jay Rubin as his translator (Rubin is currently a professor at Harvard). There are many quite well-known Japanese translators in Murakami’s own country who are his Japanese cultural contemporaries and who grew up in Japan along with him and who intimately understand the shared culture and background of Murakami’s work. They would love to translate his work. So why doesn’t Murakami choose them?

The flavor of the original text can vary from one translator to another. Moreover, by using translators from outside, some important cultural concepts/ideas, certain subtleties, and other intentional ambiguities may be lost in translation. It’s true in any editing work as well. When it is filters through a moderator, your work naturally becomes less original. Murakami doesn’t seem to mind some features of his originality getting lost in translation. He instead, he seems to worry about the readers in the West getting lost in some peculiar Japanese English and its rich characteristics. If he used Japanese translators for his work—or if he wrote his work in English (he has translated all works of Raymond Carver and about 20 other books from English into Japanese, so he is clearly a skilled translator)—it would be a great opportunity to use his fame to help raise awareness about Japanese English, as a variety of English, to rest of the world. However, it seems that Murakami couldn’t care less of sharing Japanese English, nor does he see any value in doing so.

“Wild Haruki Chase” (2008) is a collection of literary reviews of Murakami works, and the first chapter, “To translate and to be translated” is written by Murakami himself. There, he states that he never re-reads his own works, because he finds it embarrassing to take his own novels in his hands. Instead, he said he would rather look forward and think about his new novels. This may be the legitimate reason why he does not translate his own works. However, then, why does he seem to prefer American translators to Japanese translators? Later in that chapter Murakami states, “I have tried to write my novels using prose that I have constructed by first converting Japanese… into a mock foreign language in my head—that is, by clearing away the innate everydayness of language that lies in my self-consciousness” (p.30). It becomes obvious now that, to some degree, Murakami does not really want to sound Japanese. He rather wants to clear away the everydayness—in part, really, the Japanese-ness, of his writing. By erasing that everydayness, he is actually devaluing his own cultural background, because he thinks it’s too mundane, less worthy—and he perhaps feels a bit of shame in sharing “warts and all” features of his own culture.

In Clark (2011), the pianist Mitsuko Uchida says  “there’s a lack of confidence about tradition because the Japanese are still enthralled with western culture (Clark, 2011, http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/50eb01f4-f3fc-11e0-b221-00144feab49a.html#axzz1b1ybrWli). I think that is a plausible observation. I would like to find out why Expanding-Circle speakers—especially Japanese people—are still fascinated to the Inner-Circle variety of English and fail to acknowledge their own varieties. In the research paper, I would like to explore historical and cultural background of Japanese English and how to overcome its negative self-perception.

In defense of American Japanese

                Kachru and Nelson (2006) state that Inner-Circle speakers are not used to the “code-mixing” phenomenon, and so, for example, using an English word in a French language class tends to be treated as a mistake (p.257). It made me think of what I do in my Japanese classes and how I treat code-mixing phenomenon among my students.

Since the scope of English borrowing in Japanese is phenomenal—8% of the total Japanese vocabulary consists of borrowed words from English—I have had many interesting opportunities in my Japanese classes to “teach” my students Japanese loan words originating from English. It feels odd to teach them English loan words pronounced and written Japanese-ly. For example, the equivalent of the word “basketball” is basukettobōru, and the equivalent of the word “McDonald’s” is makudonarudo. The worst of all is when I have to correct them if they pronounce a loan word in an Anglicized way. I feel guilty not because these words originally belonged to English—which is “their” language—but because I feel like I fail to recognize the legitimacy of their Japanese. My students are speaking English loan words in Japanese with their American accent, and if I correct them, it means I am being dismissive toward their variety of Japanese, which is American Japanese.

            However, when it comes to intelligibility, there comes a problem. If my American students say “hamburger” too American-ly to a Japanese person, there is a high chance that they will not be understood, nor get any hamburgers. They need to say “hanbāgā” to get the meaning across—and, most importantly, in order to actually get a hamburger to eat.

            One of my American friends who lives in Tokyo told me an interesting story. He has lived in Japan more than 10 years now. He uses English at work but he knows that he cannot speak “proper” and “authentic” inner-circle English when he speaks with Japanese people. He says over the years he’s learned how to adjust his English to be intelligible, depending on whom he speaks with, so usually he is successful in communicating with Japanese people. However, he was in a meeting with Japanese people the other day, and they did not understand when he said “Microsoft Silverlight” (a product name). What got them lost was the way my friend said “Silverlight.” He said it in the normal way he would say it to another inner-circle speaker. Usually, my friend knows how to pronounce English words Japanese-ly, but this time he stumbled at trying to remember how to say “Silverlight” correctly (in a Japanese way). The conversation collapsed and after having to repeat himself several times, he ended up writing out the word on a whiteboard. 

            I realize that in my Japanese classes, I actually teach a lot of Japanese English through English-origin loan words. In addition to the value of actually helping students learn the words, it also gives monolingual inner-circle students opportunities to get a grip on a strategy of code-mixing in a Japanese context, and to understand the utility of code-mixing. In doing so, however, I seem to dismiss the legitimacy of American Japanese as a legitimate variety, and to have the effect of encouraging students themselves to not consider the possibility of American Japanese as a legitimate variety. Though American Japanese may not have much demand, or very little practical usage, it should not be downgraded or ignored completely—because it surely does have value in some contexts. And some will still argue that Japanese people should just pronounce English loan words in “proper” English way instead. The study of World Englishes still gets complicated when we start considering “whose” language it is, and I wonder if we can completely let go of the certain possessiveness we have over what we consider “our” language. Perhaps it’s a natural characteristic of language in general that we feel a kind of ownership of the languages we speak natively. Maybe we can’t avoid feeling that way.

Counting small happinesses :)

A cute stranger in the parking lot smiled and said hi to me :)
Took a nice walk to the library
Completed the paper work for the summer job
Read one article for my thesis
Revised the questionnaire
Started a new survey form
Ran into Rose on campus and promised a coffee or a photo shoot soon
Was able to open the wine bottle *all* by myself!
Cooked risotto with asparagus and mushroom and was an absolute success
Got an email with photos from my best friend back home

So little things, but it's sure nice counting these small happinesses and not forgetting to be grateful.
Ever since my sister-in-law lost her baby, I've been grateful just having this very life, and I want to give this life all I've got to give. All.

We, after all, rich or poor, young or old, have only one life to live.
So let's not do anything but living it, fully.

『焼きたて』の抹茶カップケーキ

昨日はバレンタインでしたが、日本語を教える日ではなかったので、学生には特別に何もしてあげられませんでした。なので、今朝早く起きて、抹茶カップケーキを生徒全員分焼きました。この間の授業中、「先生、焼きたてってどういう意味ですか？」と聞いてきた子がいたので、このカップケーキこそ、焼きたてよ！と説明できるな〜なんて考えながら作りました。

日本語の先生をし始めてから早１年半。今まで考えた事もないような事を質問されて困ることも多々あるけれど、毎日毎日、楽しい日々です。何よりも学生の目がキラキラしていてかわいい！日本語や日本のことが大好きな子達の集まりなので、どうやってこの子達を楽しませようか、笑わせようか、どうやってわかりやすい説明をしようか、と常に考えるようになりました。

抹茶カップケーキは少し固くなってしまったけれど、まだほんわり温かいまま、生徒の手に渡りました。「あ、あたたかい！」とみんな嬉しそうでした。「そう、これが、この前説明した、『焼きたて』だよ。」と言うと「おぉぉ〜！」とみんな感激した様子。教師冥利に尽きたような１時間でした。

やさしい気持ち

今こんな空が広がってる。

やさしい気持ちで過ごせた日だから
いつもより一段と澄んで見えるのかな

今日は大学の近くのCafe Viennaに行ってきた
アルメニア人の友達、タトに会って、コーヒーを飲んで、しばし院生ネタのゴシップをして
それから彼女はスペイン語のレポートを、私は日本語の宿題を採点した
その帰り道にスーパーで食料品を買って、今家に着いたところ

静かな土曜日の夕暮れ

これから何をするかというと、、、

昨日ウォルマートで買ってきたこのベビー服を親友（およ）に送ろうとおもって
添えるカードを書こうかな、と思ってる
予定日は９日だから、早く送らないと！

待望の女の子だし、名前は「さくら」ちゃんだから、ピンクの服にした
あ〜かわいい
何故か、もうそのさくらちゃんの顔が浮かんでくる
およに似て、色白で睫毛が長くって、おちょぼ口
目は旦那のくりっとした目かな

冬に帰る頃にはもう１ヶ月ちょっとに育っているはず

さ、何を書こうかな

やさしい気持ちを、そのまま言葉にしてみよう

夜明け前

今朝の朝焼け。
ブラインドを開けて不意にこんな景色が一面に広がっているのを
目撃すると、本当にそれだけで贅沢な気分になる。
最近はベッド脇のテーブルにカメラを置いていつでも写真が撮れるようにしてある。
今まで色々な所に住んできたけど、こんなに景色がいいところは初めて。
思えば、東向きの建物も、4階の部屋に住むのも初めてだ。
一部屋に台所と居間とキッチンのあるstudioで、決して広くはないけれど
この絶景のお陰でとっても気に入っている。
嫌なことがあったり、塞いでいる時も、家に帰ってきて窓の外を眺めるだけで
不思議と気が晴れる。
最近夜明けがだんだんと遅くなっていて、今朝の日の出はなんと８時過ぎ。
確か、今週末から冬時間が始まるんだっけ？
インディアナの、長く厳しい冬はもうすぐそこです。

天窓

土曜日の朝。寝坊してもいい日なのに目が覚めたのは８時を少しまわったところ。
あーもっと寝たい、と二度寝を試みたものの、天窓からさし込むうっすらとした光が邪魔して眠気はますます遠ざかっていく。
私のアパートには申し訳程度だけど天窓がある。よく晴れた日にそこから臨む青い空と、ゆっくり伸びて行く白い飛行機雲を床に根っこがって眺めているのが好きだ。
朝にはそこからの光で自然と目が覚めるのでありがたい。
でも週末こうしてそこから入ってくる光のせいで目が覚めてしまうと、その存在さえも責めてしまいたくなることもある。

頑張って無理に目をつむっていることに疲れたので、ベッドから出て、外の天気をうかがってみた。
雨。灰色の空。少し肌寒い。ピーンときた。これは完璧な読書日和だ。
家に閉じこもって、最近読みたかった本、友達が貸してくれた本を読みあさろう。
何の予定もない、こんな土曜の朝が好きだ。
自分の好きなことだけをする、とても贅沢な時間。

私が選んだのは、昨日友達が貸してくれた、リズム、という日本の本。
著者は森絵都さんというひと。
聞いたことがない。
正直、最初のくだりを読んで、その稚拙な内容に、これは大人が読む本ではないのでは？と疑ってしまったけれど、それはページを追うごとにひとつずつ裏切られていった。
難しい言葉や聞こえの良い表現を並べてあるから、いい小説とは限らない。
平凡な言い回しの中に、忘れがちな問いかけが散りばめられていて、心の深いところにある、一番繊細な部分に訴えかけてくる内容だった。
そしてなんだか懐かしい気分にさせてくれる小説だった。
小学校や中学校の頃のこと。
もう遠い昔のこと。
それからこれからのこと。

私が一番生きている、と感じられることは何か。
植物のように、その自分の好きなものにまっすぐ向かって伸びて行くこと。
自分のリズム、自分だけのリズムを大切にすること。

そんなことを考えさせられる小説だった。
主人公は13歳の女の子。ふと先月13歳になったばかりの彼の子のことを思った。
そうだ、この本を贈ってあげよう。

灰色の雲の隙間を一生懸命くぐり抜けてきてくれた太陽の光と、それを届けてくれたこの小さな天窓に感謝。
自分の心の声に耳を傾けて自分が好きなことだけをする一日にしようと思う。

A summery afternoon in November.

Whew, I really needed some time like this, just sitting at a cafe, sipping a cup of coffee, browsing internet, and updating my blog post.  Since this August, it seems like I have been always swamped with grading, homework, exams and the preparation for my Japanese class, and I need to admit that it has been a bit too overwhelming.  At the same time, it is hard to believe that it's mid November already and that this semester is close to end.  

I just finished my linguistics exam today, and I feel like I can finally breathe.  I completely bombed it last time, so I needed to do better this time.  I studied until 3am last night, cramming morphology terms into my head and drawing syntactic trees on the notebook.  By the time my right arm got almost numb from writing so much, I stopped everything I was doing and found myself suddenly starting to feel that this very state being very so precious.  Teaching Japanese at college and going to grad school was something that I had always dreamt of, and look at me, I am doing exactly what I'd longed for, for a long time.  I took a while for this to become reality, but I am convinced now that dreams tend to come true as long as I don't give up.

I truly enjoy teaching.  My students never cease to amaze me by their improvement and unthinkable and creative mistakes.  I am still thrilled when I am called "Ishikura-sensei."  I feel extremely happy when students ask me which section I will be teaching next semester, because they want to take "my" class!  I am so proud that my students who did not even know hiragana at the beginning of the semester now know how to say and write "There is a cat underneath the table."  They know more than 10 Kanji's too.  When I am teaching, I feel the happiness that I have never experienced.

I just realized the beautiful sunset outside the window.  It's Friday tomorrow!  I should do something fun with my friends.  I haven't mentioned about my new friends at grad school on my blog yet, so I will have to create one post just about them, because I am surrounded with so many lovely friends here, which I am absolutely grateful for.  Life is good, still good, and it will continue to be good.  Wow, it's getting dark quickly after the daylight saving time ended last week.  I should head back home now.  More later!

Autumn already

Here I am at Greayhouse coffee shop, my favorite cafe in the entire world, listening to the spontaneous live piano performance by a undergrad student at Purdue.  My love is sitting across the table, working and sipping a cup of tea.  We went to the German film night earlier and watched "A friend of mine."  We then went to a Lebanese restaurant on campus and had some light supper.  It's Thursday night, and I only have to go to a Spanish class and teach two Japanese classes tomorrow, so I had some free time writing a postcard to my parents.  Thanks to the nobel prize winner, Dr. Negishi, Purdue University has become famous all of a sudden in Japan.  Actually, it was my mom who told me the news on the phone yesterday morning.  She wanted to make sure with me that it was indeed the university I am studying and teaching at, so that she could boast about it to her friends :)  So, I thought mom would be happy to receive the postcard with a picture of Purdue campus on it.

I realize that my previous blog post was back in August!  Jeez!  Time is really flying.  It really has been nonstop; never ending homework, projects, preparations and teachings.  I am surprised that I am still alive and surviving after these continuous sleepless nights for months!  More surprisingly, I have no stress...yeah I am busy, but I am not stressed out at all.  Pimples on my face completely disappeared, and I feel greater than ever.  I can say aloud to anybody that I am happy, really happy about what I am doing right at the moment, which sounds simple, but I honestly could not say that I was happy for many years before.

One big worry, the long distance relationship with my boyfriend in Japan is actually going super well too.  We must be the most frequent Skype users in the world for sure.  We start and end our days with Skype.  Sometimes, we leave Skype on while I start studying and he starts working.  We remain silent and keep doing our own things but have a sense of closeness that we are connected online.  We stay too busy and forget to eat often, so we sometimes decide to go to the kitchen, cook something and come back to the computer in 15mins or so with some food.  Skype is on the entire 15 mins or so we hear each other doing something in the kitchen.  We come back with food and eat together, on Skype.  The funny thing we have both realized is that we talk a lot more now than when we lived together.  One factor is neither he or I am much of a talkative person to begin with, but more importantly, I didn't have much to say in general before when I was not doing anything challenging for my life.  I  was not doing something I had passion for, so I was apathetic about pretty much everything.  Now I feel like I am finally doing something I have wanted to do for a long time, and interesting topics are pouring onto me, every single day!

Now, we are back to my studio apartment, and I can hear my love snoring.  I should dive into the warm bed and snuggle up with him!  He will visit my Japanese class for the first time to meet my students, so it will be fun!  Life is good, and I am happy, so truly happy.  More later...

You always tell me what I want to hear, my darling

It was late Wednesday night.  I was at Greyhouse Coffee shop, talking with my boyfriend online with tears constantly running down the cheek.

"You are going to end up being the most popular teacher there.  Believe me about that.  Your students are really going to *like* you.  They will look forward to your class and look forward to talking with you in Japanese.  You will make them smile and laugh and feel happy, like you do with everybody.  People *like* you.  You don't have to try hard to make them and if they like you, they will want to learn from you.  You will find a way to teach on your own.  *Your* own way, and it will work."

I am still sobbing...and he continues.

"Trust me, I know you.  You are like a cat."

I look up for the first time and say "A cat?"

He said,

"Somebody can hold you up way high, and drop you, and you will always hit the ground feet first, all four feet, smiling.  I really love you.  You are a very special person, and nothing can stop you when you set your mind to it."

Earlier that day, I had to perform a teaching demonstration to a couple of faculty members and other TA staff.  Because I was inexperienced and nervous and all, I did poorly on that, and I was becoming negative about everything.  I simply did not think I should have been a teacher to begin with, so I was crying and saying that this was end of the world.  

My boyfriend is always very good at calming me down, when I am all worked up like that.  He knows and tells me what I want to hear the most.  After I stopped crying, he did not forget to tease me.  He asks, "Do you remember when you were trying to get your driver's license?"  I say yes.  He says, "Remember how you cried and how hard it was?"  I say, "Oh did I cry for that???"  He laughs and says, "That is what you will be saying later about this." 

He is very true.  I cried when I failed my Japanese driver's license test four times, but it really wasn't a big deal.  I can laugh about it, and now it has become a good story to tell.  

He also told me this,

"When you are teaching *real* students, you will shine.  The thing is, you genuinely really, really *like* people.  That is something that most people don't have."

I felt like I was ready to go teach *real* students then, and here comes this morning, my very first Japanese class, JPNS 101.