Guest Lecture

 I was asked to present some lecture to a group of 2nd year students.  Kaoru Taniguchi is the instructor of the course and she asks each exchange professor to talk to her classes.  It is a chance for them to hear an American accent.  I went easy on myself compared size, college life, and home life.  A reasonable chunk was recycled from some of the Comparative Cultures classes.  However, I expanded on everything quite a bit.  In preparing for this lecture I found the following picture.

 The only significant issue with this map is the city of Sapporo is actually about as far north as Midland.  Otherwise this is good representation of the size difference.  With a proper shift, Tokushima is a little north of Dallas's latitude. 

Students have a good idea of how different the people are in each region of Japan.  Part of the impact of this image is to think about how different people from, say, Boston, MA are compared to Columbia, SC compared to Dallas, TX compared to...  The US can go on and on.

They also have a better sense of how far most of the US is from the ocean.  One look and you can see in Japan you are never more than about 100 miles from the coast.  (It's actually 93 miles according to Wikipedia.)  Most of the US is much further than that.  This means we have dramatic seasonal weather variations.  Particularly in the Central Plains region (which, on its own is about twice the land area of Japan).

On July 7 Taniguchi-sensei and I will hold a joint class meeting where I will talk about some topic and she will translate.  She had three ideas as possible topics - the military and how ubiquitous it is in American society, the prevalence and importance of religion, or public engagement with politics.  I commented "Religion and politics?  Should we throw views on sex in the mix just so we cover all the bases?"  She got the joke and said "maybe, but it's probably not the best idea."

I'm leaning toward religious practices because it will be easier for me to speak on it without getting to tied up with my own feelings.  I think with the military and politics I would find it difficult to avoid saying what I think about things.  At least with religion I can be more "objective" in how I present it.  I have until next Tuesday to make a choice and begin working on it.  In the main this is because we will both meet our classes the following Wednesday and can announce the details.

I am really having fun this week.  I feel like it was right to apply and be here.  In 5 weeks the semester is over and I'll be home.  That's a little crazy to think about.  Since I do not want to feel crazed right now, I choose to not think about it.  Easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy as they say.