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.

Professor Orbaugh

I had the chance to meet Professor Orbaugh from the University of British Columbia for the first time and coincidentally it was her birthday on Monday. We bought her a cake.

Dr. Plutschow

Sunday was exactly one year since we said good bye to Plutschow-sensei. I went to his house to pay my respect and was able to listen to his last speech which he gave in Izu during golden week. We miss him.

Preparations for the JIU Festival

On Saturday we started testing the food we'll be selling at the JIU Festival this year. We cooked and ate a lot in my house!

Extension Page: Jonah and Seiji

Jonah and Seiji came to my Extension course on Wednesday. I have uploaded a text on that in the "Extension Page."

Mostow-sensei

I was finally able to invite Mostow-sensei to dinner at Ichiriki tonight. He is here from the University of British Columbia, Canada, to teach two intensive courses--one in undergraduate and one in graduate school. We enjoyed our sushi and on the way out with saw this "semi" coming out of its shell.

See you in Budapest, Nora

Nora came to say good-bye today. She'll be flying back to Hungary on Monday. I cannot believe her year here is coming to an end! I remember when she arrived and we went to Tokyo An for soba and it feels like it was only last week. I think she is a lot more confident in Japanese now and I was glad to hear today that she had a great year. I'm very much looking forward to seeing her in Hungary in the near future.

Dr. Akira Mizuta Lippit

Students taking Dr. Akira Mizuta Lippit's intensive course on film culture enjoyed a casual lunch hour with him at the Center for Language Education on Thursday. This is the first time he teaches a course in the All-English-Program and students expressed their wishes to have him back again for more courses next year.

New Disney Blog

Here's the new blog for the students taking part in the Disney Internship this year: <http://jiuatdisney2011.blogspot.com/>. They'll be uploading texts and photos on a daily basis from tomorrow.

Dinner with all juniors

We had dinner at Yutaka last night. The organizer was the new "zemi-cho" Hanako Nakayama. Most students had Taiwanese food for the first time, but I'm sure they all enjoyed it. The photo was taken before everyone ate their dessert: the famous "kakigori-looking anindofu."

Ateneo de Manila at JIU

Nagai-sensei from the Ateneo de Manila University visited us on Tuesday.

Chiho

Chiho came visit on Tuesday but I felt bad as I barely had time to talk to her. I had other appointments and also a guest that day besides having to teach my regular classes. Chiho: please come again and thanks for the delicious pudding! Thanks also for talking to my first-year students. I was so glad you are flying all over the world and that you are well.

Disgusting? Pretty?

This is the tiny octopus that was served at Ichiriki Saturday night. I was surprised at how it kind of stared at me so I decided to share this photo with you.

Takikawa-kun's visit

On Saturday Takikawa-kun came to JIU despite the heat and all. I was here for two TOEIC courses in the morning and Open Campus in the afternoon, so we were not actually able to spend much time together, but we did eat lunch and were able to catch up a little. I was glad to hear he's been working hard and more importantly that he is enjoying his work and the new environment in Osaka.

Intensive TOEIC Course

The Intensive TOEIC course started last Monday and the test itself is going to be this Saturday.

Edgard and James in my Monday meeting

Two weeks ago Edgard and James attended my Monday meeting during the lunch break. It was the day we had to talk about the USA and I took the opportunity to introduce my favorite artichoke dip to members of the class. They liked it a lot--or at least they tried to be polite and ate it all.

Lots of beautiful sushi

That's not what I had but I decided to take a photo of the beautiful sushi prepared for the people next to us....

Apologies

Unfortunately I caught a bad cold and haven't been able to write for a week. When I get home at night, I go straight to bed trying to get as much rest as possible. I'll be writing again soon!

ANA at JIU

Today Satoko and Kaoru came to JIU to talk to students about their work as ground staff at Narita Airport. It was great seeing them and I was especially happy to hear Satoko is now a married woman. Congratulations, Satoko! (I'm sorry I forgot to take photos.)

First pay-check

I was so happy to receive a gift from Maki today. She bought me a very special type of tea at my favorite tea shop with her first pay-check. I feel very honored.

Norway day

It was a pleasure having faculty members from the University of Oslo visit us on Thursday. We are looking forward to receiving more Norwegian students on our campus from September.

Coincidentally Moet's family visited us at JIU the same day. She is going to Norway as an exchange student from August and she was able to meet the Japanese teachers--lucky!

University of Tennessee

We had a guest from the University of Tennessee in Togane on Tuesday.

Summer vegetable tempura?!?

We went out last night to try to eat some healthy food and gain some energy. I had this unique tempura that contained a lot of ginger in it. I ate it with salt and green tea powder. It was really crispy and good!

Disney Internship: Departure from Narita Airport

The ten students who will be taking part in the UC Riverside and Disney World Internship left Japan yesterday. They flew to California where they will spend the first two weeks taking classes on hospitality at the University California, Riverside. After that, they will fly to Florida where they will study and work until January 13. Good luck to all of you!

Lots of family members and friends came to say good bye.

Students from the Department of International Exchange Studies.

Farewell Dinner to the Disney Group

We got together on Thursday to wish the next Disney World Internship

group good luck in California and in Florida. They leave Japan this Sunday.

A mixture of meat and vegetarian dishes.

My vegetarian friends.

I guess she did like my Brazilian dessert!