Katakai Elementary School

We received a huge thank-you letter from the students at Katakai Elementary School. They were here on campus last Friday for a visit.

Isabel was baptized yesterday

My niece Isabel was baptized yesterday in Brazil.

いちごの初物

One good thing about living in this area is that we can get fresh fruit and vegetables all year long. I try to buy strawberries directly from local farmers--especially from Kato-san who sells along the 126 bypass. Last year many of us went strawberry picking on his farm. This is a photo of the first strawberries I bought this season.

Not losing my memory....

I've been trying to keep what in the past I was proud of: my memory. I've noticed that I do not have the same skills anymore so I decided to use 5-minute memory games once a day. This is one of them. Note the age on the box.

Happy Thanksgiving to all those in the USA. Sorry I forgot to say that yesterday....

Dinner Party at Yutaka

Most of my 3rd and 4th-year seminar students gathered at Yutaka tonight to celebrate the success of the JIU Festival. We ate a lot of good Taiwanese food and then for dessert we had the "brigadeiros" that I made for everyone (photo).

Chiho at JIU

Chiho came to our Kiso Zemi class today and talked about her career as a cabin attendant at JALWAYS and also about her studies at JIU.

Trying to lose a kilo....

Trying to lose at least half of what I gained yesterday....

Professor John Tsuchida at JIU

Professor John Tsuchida from California State University, Long Beach visited our Togane campus for the first time today. We would like to establish a sister-university relationship with his campus and hopefully exchange students from next year. His visit was very short, but we hope that he was able to have a good impression of our students and faculty members.

Barbacoa

Some of my seminar students and I went to Omotesando today for some Brazilian food. I ate way too much--three huge coxinhas, lots of hearts of palm, and a lot of meat, but some people ate a lot more than I did so I didn't feel so bad.... After that, for some reason, we were still able to drink tea and have dessert at a different place...

PTA in Gunma Prefecture

We spent Saturday in Maebashi for a PTA meeting. We only have one more meeting this year and it's going to be in Togane in December. It's hard to believe that we have already traveled all over Japan (Matsuyama to Yamagata) and that we'll be ending one more year so soon. It's always very nice to have the opportunity to meet with the parents of our students. (Photo: Can you guess whose parents they are?)

New Page

I have added a new page to the blog: graduates. Take a look if you have time.

Katakai Children at JIU

Today a large group of students from Katakai Elementary School (Kujukuri) spent the afternoon at JIU. They arrived and had lunch with some of our international students and then taught different games to each other.

Yuko Tashiro in the 基礎ゼミ today

Today my former student Yuko came to our Kiso Zemi class to talk about her job at the ANA Crown Plaza Hotel and also about her days at JIU. Thanks, Yuko!

本日、少しだけですがお話させていただきました。

まとまらない話で申し訳ないです。みなさんの前でお話できたこと、嬉しく思います。

ありがとうございました。 田代悠子

Marcos' son

It's been really nice to have Alexandre and Kevin here in Togane today. Alex is a Brazilian friend's son. We actually met at JIU when he was here doing research for three months years ago. As Alex is traveling around the world and is going to be in Brazil next August, I hope to be able to see him and Kevin there.

The photo is of the huge "yuzu" that we saw at Takemi today. We had yuzu ice cream for dessert.

French and Belgium Guests at JIU

Hello Japan!

My name is Alex, I was born in Belgium, I live in France for almost 20 years and I'm traveling with my French friend Kevin. After our first week in Japan mainly in Tokyo, today is our first day in a Japanese university. Today was our chance to meet Japanese, Chinese and internationals students and also speak to them about our travel around the world.

It began last September and after 1 month in Nepal and 1 month in India, we are today in JIU!

Next place will be China and thanks to the JIU Chinese students we already have idea about the good places to visit there.

We can now leave Japan because we tried today the very special Japanese meat!

Thank you very much Maria and all JIU students we met!

Sukekata's Birthday

No candles but a huge pizza to celebrate Sukekata's birthday in my office.

Takanori's party

We gathered at Takedaya tonight to celebrate Takanori's wedding. He is the third in that seminar group to get married. Yuto just returned from his honeymoon in Hawaii and Kenji shared photos of his cute son. It was great seeing everyone!

Entrance Exams

It's hard to believe that we are already in the "shiteiko suisen" entrance exams season. We had exams all day Saturday and applicants were from all over Japan and some from other countries.

Ko-sensei in my Extension class

Ko-sensei came to my class today and talked about Takao and about some common difficulties when learning Japanese. It seems that people who travel to Taiwan tend to visit Taipei, but we hope that more people will choose to go to Takao as well.

Professor Huang at JIU

Professor Jau-hsien Huang from the National Kaohsiung University of Hospitality and Tourism is visiting us. He went to Kamogawa yesterday and then came to Togane in the afternoon today and met with the students who took part in the teaching internship at his University in September. Everyone is grateful to his warm hospitality and to the great program they had in Taiwan. I was there myself last May when I was invited to give a talk.

Soba

I went out for soba with two students last night. This is a great place near JIU.

First-year students

Pretty girls eating snacks in my office.

ママドール食べにきたけど、もうなかった（＞＜）

また食べに行きます！

Ayami

Open Campus

It was Open Campus day at JIU today. Luckily the weather was really nice and the campus looked very beautiful.

Beautiful Campus

Camosun College

We had dinner tonight with Dawn Sutherland from our sister institution Camosun College located in Victoria, Canada. It was good seeing her again.

Tea with Sho

Sho and I had some great cake at my favorite tea shop in Tokyo today.

More photos

For more photos of the festival, please check the JIU Festival page (just click "JIU Festival" listed in the box on the right).

Mateus and Isabel

Growing way too fast.

Takikawa-kun's birthday

Cleaning up and celebrating Takikawa-kun's birthday.