Kars4Kids

Sis says the family trait is to do things the hard way. It's a path that entails stressful steps but eventually works out in the end. Sometimes it is coincidental, sometimes it is through personality disorders. Case in point: I'm a procrastinator.
　I have an old Maxima that I inherited from my mother after she passed. After 17 years, our move to Japan has compelled me to finally let go of the car and so I decided to donate it to Kars4Kids but I didn't contact them until the last minute--I mean, their radio jingle says they could even pick it up the next day, right? Well, not so at the end of the year. I call Dec. 24, ask for the car to be picked up by the 28th, but they couldn't until the 30th. "I won't be home..." They told me that they often pick up cars without the owner present; leaves title and keys in glove compartment and the door unlocked. So I did just that, but not knowing if they came for the car had me worried for a couple of days. Rats! All I had to do was call them a week earlier, like when I was in the middle of packing and frantically cleaning the house and rushing to grade finals and contacting dozens of companies to close accounts and end services.
　Fortunately I just got an email saying that they picked up the car and appreciated the donation. Whew! Worked out in the end. One load off my mind.

Kakehashi Project: Day One

Left Dulles on time and arrived in Tokyo on time. Although getting everyone together after getting our luggage was a bit of work. This is the first time I'm meeting about half of the students and it is surprising what you can learn about a student by how they react to requests or instructions. Some listen happily 素直, some frown and show reluctance, some feign various levels of unawareness to establish in their own way a sense of (youthful, self-indulgent or naive) independence.
　Oh well. Variety keeps me on my toes.
　Anyway, after we gather our luggage and exit into the Narita Airport lobby. we met Ms. Yasuko Yagi, our coordinator for the Kakehashi program in Japan. She gave me a run down of the program and our schedule for the next seven days on the bus to the hotel. We arrived at Sunshine City Prince Hotel and checked in. Some students couldn't wait to explore Tokyo. The Kakehashi program prohibits drinking and sets up a curfew. But all I could do was tell them to be careful and "try" to be back by curfew. *sigh*
　My colleague, associate dean Elizabeth Chacko, and I got a bit of an orientation from the JICE group and we retired to our respective rooms. But my card key didn't work.
　Stuff happens, and a quick meet with the JICE coordinator and hotel staff settled the situation.

Finally, I can relax in my room! I try to open my suitcase but it wouldn't open. Upon closer inspection, I realized there was a three-number combination lock.
　Combination lock?!?
　Crap. Why didn't I notice this when I was packing? But no sweat. I was borrowing my wife's suitcase so I LINE her to ask her what the combination was.
　"What combination?" she said!
　Gulp...
　"Let's see," she chuckled. "Did you try 0-0-0? Or maybe 1-1-1 then..."
　"Ooooooh." I finally get to the right combination. Whew! Second complication fixed.

So I settle down and eat the box lunch they have prepared for us. It was a 9 compartment box that was quite delicious. Three different types of rice and proteins and veggies.
　After eating I get ready to go to sleep and do what I usually do, set up to recharge my computer and my tablet... but... but... my tablet won't recharge. At home, I usually plug my tablet into the wall but to save even a little bit of space/weight on this trip, I decided to recharge the tablet with a USB port. But it wouldn't work. "Did I bring my tablet just to not be able to use it after a day or two?"
　Thank God for Google. A quick search revealed that the Samsung Galaxy will charge on a USB port if the tablet is turned off--it has something to do with saving the battery. Or something. It's beyond my technical capabilities. As long as I can recharge. Anyway, three temporary setbacks, three quick fixes.
　Whew. What a way to start a trip. Hope things go more smoothly going forward.
#KAKEHASHI2018 #JICE #JAPAN

About me

I'm a former assistant professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures at The George Washington University. I taught Modern and Classical Japanese Language, as well as Classical Japanese Literature.
My duties as an instructor focused on enhancing the reading abilities of advanced students. This included reading contemporary fiction that is relatively easy to comprehend: 村上春樹 Murakami Haruki, 星新一 Hoshi Shin'ichi, etc. I also encouraged students to learn bungo, or classical Japanese; besides reading the Classics such as 伊勢物語 Ise
monogatari or 方丈記 Hojoki in the original, bungo is a must for those who want to conduct research in Japanese history, political science or economics using pre-World War II sources.
My research interests continue to focus on the influence of texts and contexts on reading, particularly as they pertain to Heian court poetry.

Once upon a time at UCLA: Clockwise from back left, Hillary, Terry, Stephanie, Alan, Weiyon, Masaya, Roger Ebert, Kim, Yuka, Tsukasa, Yan, Yasuko, Ken and unidentified. (I can't remember her name. Can someone remind me?)

Brief Bio:

Born in Los Angeles, CA. Graduate of Loyola High School, East Los Angeles Community College (AA), UCLA (BA and MA), and Stanford University (PhD). First learned how to speak Japanese effectively at age 17 at Mikawaya, a Japanese confectionary in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles. Learned to read and write Japanese during college. Research interests include Late Heian poetics, renga linked poetry, and Japanese film and pop culture. See Curriculum Vitae for more detail.

Exercising in spite of a tough year on the body

This year has been awful physically.

In February, I suffered the worst flu in I don't remember how long--with a fever over 102, I even canceled classes!

In March, I strained my ankle because my right foot supinates quite a bit and it became obvious after I started running outside more. I now wear orthotic inserts to counteract the supination but I did not run for about a month.

In June, I experienced a brief bout of plantar fasciitis when my left arch began to bother me, perhaps a reaction to adjusting for my right ankle, resting it for about 5 days.

I also found out in June I have cataracts and so had surgery in July and August. While the surgery did not stop me from exercising, I was told not to over-exert myself for a week, so it was more walking than running/jogging.

Then as I started to speed up my pace a bit under the beautiful autumnal weather, by December I had developed patellar tendonitis which forced me to stop running for two weeks. So as I slowly began running again after my birthday, I came to realize that the time off was going to prevent me from reaching my exercise goal for the year.

1200 miles. That's a goal of 100 mile a month.

In all honesty, I should disclose that my mileage is a made up number. I mean, my walking/jogging/running numbers are actual miles--or at least as real as I can calculate by using Google map--but a significant portion of my miles (40%?) are guesstimates based on metabolic equivalents (METS) associated with aerobic exercises. For example, a typical work out for me would be 10.5 minutes of medium impact aerobics to warm up, the 25.5 minutes of high impact, then 10 minutes of high intensity interval training (HIIT), then finishing with 12 minutes of core/abs work. This is 58 minutes of aerobics exercise that totals a METS of 6.2--each exercise has its own METS number depending on intensity and each number has an equivalent in miles. My high impact aerobics equals a METS of 7 which is the equivalent of jogging 4.7 mph, so the 25.5 minute exercise equals 2 miles of jogging--although I always think that high impact aerobics feels harder that jogging 4.7 mph.

Yes, this is not an exact science, but it seems to me to be a relatively fair estimate of actual miles run and I so include it into my calculations.

In any case, what I wanted to say was that I've been exercising intensely since I graded finals and found myself doing more than 23 miles since Christmas Eve and as a result, I just might hit my goal by New Years Eve!

1200 miles, here I come!

Christmas Memory

I haven't seen my daughter in a while--has it really been more than 10 years? I wrote about her a few years ago in an earlier post and am not inclined to write about our situation. To be honest, I'm not even sure there's a situation to write about anymore. But I do have memories and I thought I'd write about one that I recalled recently when talking to friends about Christmas.

Back in December of 1991, when I was in Japan for my dissertation research, my daughter, K, had serious doubts about Santa coming to visit our home. In the States, before we had gone to Japan, K spent her first three Christmases at my parents' house where there was a seven-foot Christmas tree set up in the living room near the fireplace. But in Japan, most houses--let alone condos--are small and do not have fireplaces. There is also little room for a ceiling high Douglas fir or Scotch pine, which they don't sell in Japan anyway. In our small, modest abode, we had a small artificial tree--the kind you'd see on a counter at a business office. This was the norm in most Japanese homes.

Well, you can imagine K's skepticism. She wanted a bicycle for Christmas and even wrote a letter to Santa asking for one, but was unsure about delivery of such a large present. It would be difficult enough for Santa to bring a bike down a real chimney. "How could he deliver a present to a house without a fireplace?" she'd ask.

All I could do was shrug my shoulders and admit, "Good question."

"He couldn't get through the mail slot in the door, right?" I had to agree. She even glanced at the vent over the stove. But then she looked back at me, and we shook are head in unison: "No way."

Of course, being the devious father that I was, I was simply setting up my daughter for the Christmas surprise.

I should note that K did not doubt the existence of Santa; she just couldn't figure out how Santa could get into our home. As for me, by sharing in K's skepticism, I had removed myself as a suspect in any phony Santa charade. If K did get the present she wanted, it could only have come from the real Santa, not the dad who seemed to doubt Santa could actually fit through a mail slot. So I bought a bicycle and kept it hidden in its box unassembled until...

Christmas eve: I told K to set out some milk and a cookie, "Just in case." K was still doubtful. "Do you really think he can come here?" she asked over and over. But she must have held out a sliver of hope because she set the treats with care on a table next to the mini-Christmas tree. By 9 PM, K was fast asleep, undoubtedly exhausted from all the hoping.

I assembled the shiny red bike, attached the training wheels and headlight, and placed it next to the table next to the mini-Christmas tree. I am no mechanical engineer so assembling it took me more effort than I want to admit, but I did an adequate job, accomplished after some trial and error over the course of a couple of hours. Exhausted bleary-eyed, I plopped down next to the table, reached over and took a small bite out of a cookie that had been sitting there unattended on the table for a few hours. I grimaced at its staleness and, still bleary-eyed, reached for the room-temperature glass of milk next to it. "Oh crap!" I muttered. A mouthful was enough to bring me to my senses. I'm lactose intolerant, you see, so I put down the cookie and milk, moved quickly to the kitchen sink, spit out what I could and rinsed my mouth with water. Without a thought of what I had left behind on the table, I trudged off to bed and fell asleep worrying that I'd get a stomach ache from the milk.
And sure enough I woke up with a sudden pain in my stomach. "Oh crap," I muttered again. But when I opened my eyes, I realized that the pain in my stomach was not from the milk. K was straddling my stomach, jumping up and down. With a fistful of my T-shirt in her hands, she shook me fiercely. "He came! He came!" she screamed. What are you talking about? I was so groggy, I don't remember if I said that or was just thinking it. But it didn't matter. K quickly jumped off and ran out of the bedroom still screaming. She returned in a flash.

"Dad! Dad! Come and see!" she commanded from the door.

"Who came?" I asked still trying to get my bearings.

"SANTA!" she screamed in that high-pitched voice that only a four-year-old girl can muster.
Ah, the bicycle, I smiled. When I entered the living room, she was sitting on the bike pretending to pedal it.

"Wow, did Santa really bring you this?"

"Yes!" she said beaming. "I know for sure he did."

"Oh? And how do you know that?"

"Look!" she said.

My eyes followed in the direction in which her finger was pointing and, sure enough, there was a half-filled glass of milk and a half-eaten cookie. K jumped off the bike and scooted over next to me. "Look at that," she said outlining with her fingertips a jagged semi-circle in the cookie. "You see that? Those are Santa's tooth marks."

My eyes widened as I slowly recalled the sequence of events that culminated in K's discovery. But I just smiled and nodded in acknowledgment. Who was I to question such irrefutable proof of Santa's visit?