Indeed, what is blog?
Ryo said:
What’s blog??
Hello!
I am not good at using computer
…and I always fight against a keyboard and monitor.
…I almost hate it.
But I started this blog without any knowledge!
It’s a big challenge for me.
She then went on to blog very well thank you very much: better than your humble narrator has recently.
(more…)
Looking for a job is ten times worse than working. Interviewing is by far the worst part of job hunting. And, interviewing again is worse than the first time around. At least that is over and done with for a while.
So, I put on the interview suit yesterday and trudged over to Obirin very early in the morning. Students who never even see me wear a tie were pretty shocked to see the transformation from scruffy teacher to presentable teacher- maybe even more than presentable. After all, I was going to be interviewed by the president of the university. (more…)
Et-chan and I had to run some errands out in Nishi-Ogikubo yesterday, so we decided to take advantage of something we’d done by mistake once before; we went to Takadanobaba for dinner. (more…)
Welcome to WordPress. This is the first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
Or, in this case, continue blogging. I guess I got started on K5, then used Blosxom, tried my hand at MT very briefly, and have now wandered into WordPress land. Why? The main reason is php. I’ve dabbled in it a very wee bit, but I’ll need to learn more soon. Why double the amount of work I need to do? Any work I do on mastering php will apply equally to Moodle or WordPress.
Glad to see you finally figured out how to express yourself. I’d give a more coherent response, but I doubt you’d understand.
I must admit that this Movable Type blog thang has been relegated to third, fourth, or even fifth place over the past few weeks. Little things like work, job interviews, and endless volunteer stuff that I get myself into have pushed themselves to the top of the stack.
Oh, and the fact that I couldn’t get the damn archives to work properly kind of put a chill on my willingness to commit bits to phosphor. Yes, I was having trouble with Movable Type. Endlessly scrutinizing permissions, and playing with paths was getting me nowhere. Actually, I just needed about ten minutes with a clear head, and the search field on a support forum to get it sorted. Now I have archives and a reasonable expectation that all my momentous writings will live on forever (or, at least as long as I pay my hosting company, which may bear a substatial similarity to forever). Functional comments are next on the list. Then, look out!
Just in time, as I am off to the Pink Cow in about an hour or so to attend a Tokyo Weblogger meeting. Now I will not have to beg for MT advice, so they will never know what a newb I am. Now I will have an astounding three, count ‘em, three entries on my blog! The fact that only one of them is of any substance at all does not worry me too much at this point, as traffic to this blog is unitary.
Well, enough geek bloggery wankery. Time to pack this up and go, especially as they just announced that the university library will close early because of yet another mega-typhoon.
If this poster weren’t so creepy, it would just be childish.The red letters say, “Somebody is watching you!” and “We’re gonna tell!”
If you spend any time around Japan, you’ll get used to little pandas and crabs warning you not to stick your fingers in the doors of the train, anthropomorphic raccoon construction workers warning you to watch your step, cartoon elephants asking you not to litter, and a cutesy-woo recorded female voices everywhere reminding you to sit quietly, not forget anything, not use your phone, and to remember your umbrella. The constant sloganeering and reminders of “Safety First!” bothered me at first, then they became amusing, then they just disappered into the background radiation of the crowds, the advertising, and the chatter.
Maybe it was the fact that I had been back in the States for almost two months this summer that lowered my resistance, or more likely the aggressive imagery of this poster that really made me pay attention. That, and the fact that the first one I saw was hanging across the street from my apartment on a bright, sunny, weekend afternoon. I’ve since seen them on my way to the train station, near the post office, and on my neighborhood beer machine. I’ve only seen them in and around Gotanda- nowhere else in Tokyo yet.
All-in-all, I live in a pretty boring area. Despite the popular conception of Japan as the safest place in the world, crime does happen, just not in my neck of the woods. The hint of arson in the flaming pupils on this poster has no connection to reality. Nobody in my building has been burglarized for at least the last three years. There aren’t any bosozoku racing up and down the street. Gotanda does have a fading red light district near the station with its attendant yakuza gangsters and tough looking hoods. The last thing these guys want is any really serious crime to bring the police down on their vice territory. Gotanda is a quiet and safe area where I almost never see anything worth remarking on.
I think the posters bother me even more because of the constant paranoia in the States these days. I’d just spent two weeks traveling with students through endless security checks of dubious value. The conventions over the summer and the constant harping on terror and security back in the good ole US of A were really depressing. I had been so looking forward to getting back to the “safety country” of Japan, that the unreasoning fear across the street just bothered me that much more.
Just like a little kid, some petulant bureaucrat at the Osaki Police Department is gonna tell his mother.
This is mic number 1
This is mic number 1
This is mic number 1
Isn’t this a lotta fun?
Just testing out this new MT install. Nothing to see here. Move along.
The weather, the food, the people, and Tokyo were all perfect this weekend. Too bad it’s almost over.
(more…)
Powered by WordPress