Zoom Classes...

 They're the same everywhere.  "You are muted."  "Please turn on your camera."  "Is my microphone still working?"

Yesterday I dropped in on a three student seminar to meet one of the faculty and introduce myself to some people.  This morning I attended a course on Japanese Culture intended for exchange students and professors.  At 1:00 I held my first class for Shikoku University.  We did introductions.  I asked them their names and majors and something they do not like.  When I told them that was the game, several looked up like they were thinking they were not ready for that.  They pulled through.

Horror movies, drinking milk, reading books, staying at home, getting up early, watching sports, all insects, cheese, cola, and bok choy.

It's a pretty typical list.

I had a chance to ask follow up questions and have little discussions.  Some had traveled outside of Japan, but most had not.  All of them want to - or at least they all raised their hands when I asked them if they wanted to.  One wants to go to America to have an American hamburger "because hamburgers in Japan are small, and I think in America they are bigger."  I'm inferring here that this student wants to know if we are as absurd about food as they think we are.  **Spoiler Alert** We are.

Tomorrow I have another class.  Whereas today was 10 students, tomorrow is expected to be 32.  I can't manage 32 at once with conversations in a remote setting.  It was suggested I use breakout rooms.  Since tomorrow's class is Comparative Cultures - the one I'm planning to talk about stereotypes Japanese people have about Americans - the breakout rooms may be useful.  Zoom supports up to 50 rooms, so I can split them into pairs and have them write down ideas they have about American people, culture, life, whatever.  We'll also watch some Buffy, Angel, and Psych in this class.  I don't know how "representative" these shows are, but they are ones I like.

Back to work, I guess.