The Wall

Last Sunday I attended my son's sports festival at the school field.  Tents were set up around the perimeter of the field.  The sky was cloudy and we were intermittently hit with light showers.  The event started at 8:30am but I found out later that parents would go to the school field and claim spots under the tents and in the gym for their families and friends by spreading out a picnic sheet.  This being our first time attending at a big school (600+ students) we only  went early enough to claim a spot in the gym for lunch.  As the races began my daughter, wife and I found a spot between two tents.  Being "between" two tents it was of course uncovered and vulnerable to rain when it fell.  The spot was more of a strip of ground about a foot and a half wide at the front "V"ing out to about a yard wide at the back.  We purchased a large picnic sheet from a local convenience store (large was the only size they had), folded it to fit the strip of ground and sat down.  As we sat, we were very careful not to encroach on our close neighbors.  It was fine for the morning session. 

We had a fun lunch in the gym with all our family.  Then my son raced off to get ready for the afternoon session.  Just before 1pm we went to our little piece of land only to discover a wall of bags bordering our claim.  We were literally walled off from our neighbors.  Our neighbors put all their bags, baskets, backpacks, etc.  on the edge of their sheets to block us from creeping into their space.  The wall was erected during lunchtime.  I was wondering... why?  Why build the wall?  Were we that bad a neighbor?  The thing that really got me was the people were only sitting on a little more than half of their picnic sheet. 

What happened to charity?  What happened to kindness?  What happened to basic human courtesy?

Time Difference

Again so soon?  

Yeah, well, I just viewed my first entry and realized that the time stamp is wrong.  I guess it is because the server is in the USA (I assume).  It says the entry was posted on Sunday, but actually I posted it on Monday afternoon.  So please take that into account.  Generally, my posts will be a day later than the date stated on the entry.

JST (Japanese Standard Time) is 13 hours ahead of EST (Eastern Standard Time).  So when it is 5pm in the USA in New York, it is 6am in Japan.  And yes, Japan has only one time zone and no daylight savings time.

See you next time!  (Pun Intended)

Never thought I'd do this!

This is my first blog entry on this site.  I am not starting this because I really want to write, in fact, writing is not my cup of tea.  I started writing this blog because I am teaching a class called "Media English" at my university and I am going to make my students start their own blog.  So, I can't really tell my students to do something that I myself am not doing.  So, here I am.  This is not my first blogging experience, though.  I do have an active blog on another site, but that blog is focusing on personal fitness.  I write on that blog about whenever, through, or because  something happens in my exercise program or I have a question about diet, you know, stuff like that.  This blog, however, does not have any real focus.  So I do not foresee writing here everyday, but I will write when I have epiphanies or waking visions of some weird idea that I want to keep for posterity.   Sometimes, things happen in my life that I am really POed about and I can't "vent" to anyone.  So, I may vent here.  I don't know, but I am sure there will be times that I just want to type or something like that so I'll just gab.  WHATEVER...

I am so thankful for spell check.  My spelling is terrible.  I grew up as a product of spellcheck.  I have heavily depended on spell check in all my major works.  Works being my graduation thesis, and my PhD dissertation.  Also, the few articles I wrote for publication in my university research journal.  It really shows when I have to write something on the whiteboard in class.  I question even the simplest of spellings.  I should re-learn my spelling.

As you can see, I am not a focused writer, if in fact I can call myself a writer.  I am sort of a scatterbrain of writing and the various topics I hit on have not connection.  Things just jump into my head and I write/type.  Finally, I don't think anyone (outside of my students) will read this, but if you do, leave me a note!  I love to know if anyone has read my rants.  Yes, I am going to require my students to read this. LOL!  What a mean teacher, right.

Okay, back to class.  I am sitting in the classroom/computer room of my schools English Lounge.  This is where the class is supposed to take place.  What am I doing writing this if I am in the middle of class?  Well, I checked the class list today and as of today (registration started today) only on student is registered for this class on that student, for one reason or another, did not show up for class.  So, I am sitting in the most popular computer room in the department all to myself for the last hour or so.

One last thought, I am a PC man.  I grew up on Windows.  Actually, I was born into the computer world with DOS and then Windows 3.1.  The computers in this room are Mac.  I'm going to have to get used to this pretty quick.

Good luck, ME!