Italian dinner Saturday night

We made last minute arrangements to go for an Italian meal Saturday evening. The food was pretty good and it was good to spend a quiet and relaxing time with the girls.

JEAP Departure Greetings

Saturday afternoon there was an orientation to parents and students going abroad on long-term programs from August.

Dinner after a long day

After a long, long day I wanted to thank the students who helped me so much with the open campus and we went out for some Indian food.

PS: Chie, you are not in the photo, but I am very grateful for your help, too!

Open Campus on Friday

It was open campus day on Friday and lots of high school students came from all over Japan to attend a class and meet students and faculty members. It was extremely hot and humid that day, but I hope they went back home more assured of their wish to enter our University.A former student brought a student of hers to open campus and also met with a student from her high school in Fukushima who is now a first-year student at JIU.

Departure Greetings

Students leaving Japan in August on the exchange program and also on the Japan Foundation program met with our President Yanagisawa on Friday. They will all be at our sister universities around the world for a semester or a year.

Students going to Norway, China and the United States with scholarships from the Japan Foundation as teaching assistants in the Japanese program.

Students from my department going to France, Germany, Canada, Norway and Taiwan as exchange students.

Pot-luck with the Extension students

Friday was the day of the last class of the Communication course offered in the JIU Extension and we had a pot-luck lunch. The theme was Italy this time and everyone brought delicious food they prepared themselves.

ANA Crown Plaza in Narita

On Thursday, faculty members from the Center for Language Education and some JIU graduates met for dinner at the ANA Crown Plaza in Narita where a former student works at the front desk. Because of the heavy rain we were not able to enjoy the evening in the garden, but still it was good to have a meal together in the end of the semester--and it was good to see Yuko.

Discussion group at Barbacoa

The theme of our "Discussion" course this semester was food, and we decided to end the term with a nice dinner at Barbacoa in Tokyo. We ate LOTS of Brazilian style BBQ, fried banana, hearts of palm, grilled pineapple etc etc. This was certainly a great way to end the course.

Happy BIrthday, Edgard!

Another surprise on Tuesday: Edgard's birthday. He showed up and told me it was his birthday, so I invited him to lunch at the Faculty restaurant. Nothing fancy but at least a different meal for a change. Edgard is from UC Riverside and has been here at JIU since September. I can't believe he'll be leaving Japan next week already. The year went by way too fast.

Surprise! Eiji Ishida in my office!

I met Eiji when I was working at the Extension Center at UC Riverside 22 years ago. He was a student from Josai University and was studying English there for a year. When I was hired at JIU in 1992, I contacted him and found out he was actually from Chiba Prefecture and was working in Tokyo. More specifically he was from Mobara which is just next to Togane where I was going to be working. So he helped me with this and that when I moved here. We met once in a while, but then he moved to Osaka and we only exchanged New Year cards the past three years. He showed up in my office on Tuesday. What a great surprise. He had driven his sister's children to JIU. They were taking part in a workshop here. I introduced him to some teachers who happened to come to my office while he was here and they were all shocked at how young he looks. I agree. Eiji has not changed in the past 20 years.