School for International Training

Earlier this month I sent off an application to the School for International Training. I'm applying for their Master of Art in Teaching with an emphasis on teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL).

As part of the application process, I had to write a 1500 word essay on an international experience or cultural exchange that was important to me. It took me months before I decided on an approach, but I finally settled on giving a brief overview of my life in Japan.

If anyone would like to read my essay, please click here: SIT Essay.doc

It's not the greatest thing I've ever written, but it's the first time I've actually summed up on paper the impact Japan has had on me, and I'm very grateful to my good friends Cem & Alexis for proof reading it and giving me constructive criticisms and ideas.

Thank you.

花見

BOOZE!!!

Lessons learned:

1. Flight, fight, or Jesus
2. Aaahhhh... comfortable
3. Scooters are bad

Wired News: Betting On a Green Future

Wired News: Betting On a Green Future

Venture capitalist John Doerr made his name and fortune with early investments in Netscape Communications Corp., Amazon.com Inc., Google Inc. and other pioneering tech firms that went from scrappy startups to household names.

Now Doerr and his firm, Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers, are placing big bets on an emerging sector he calls "green technology," one he believes could become as lucrative as information technology and biotechnology.

Rolling Stones: Bigger Bang Tour

HOLY MUTHA F$@!K!ER!

The only way I can describe the Rolling Stones Bigger Bang concert in Nagoya Dome is with a string of expletives unfit to print here. To say I'm still buzzing or walking without touching the ground would be a mild understatement.

Before the show, I met my friend Toku, his girlfriend Nami, his colleague Motoshi, and a local promoter that goes by the name Go-Low. The night before, Toku and Go-Low went drinking with some of the Stones roadies and received an offer to come backstage. I got to tag along!

Check out the photo gallery here: Rolling Stones: Bigger Bang

We met Pierre, the Stones chief sound technician, who escorted us backstage and gave us a tour of the area. He took us past Mick's dressing room, all the guitars, and up on the stage. I actually walked around on the Rolling Stones' stage!

Eventually, Pierre passed us off to Mike, Charlie's drum tech. Mike told us to bust out our cameras and he started talking pictures for us. He gave Motoshi a set of drumsticks and everyone else got guitar picks.

Check out this video of Mike showing us the drums:



The show itself was fun, but the Japanese audience was a little too conservative. Believe it or not, they didn't even serve beer in the place. Totally mind-boggling.

It took a little while for the audience to really get into it, but the latter half of the show was really fun.

Here's a short video of Honky Tonk Women:



After the show, we all went to a restaurant to chill out, get something to eat, and finally drink a beer. While we were eating, Bernard, one of the back-up singers came and sat down near us.

The whole night was surreal, as it should have been.

>>> Site Syndication <<<

With the boom of blogs and podcasts, RSS feeds are becoming increasingly relevant to Internet users because it's an easy way for users to subscribe to websites and receive notifications when those sites are updated. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication.

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In my opinion, the easiest way is to sign up for subscription by email. If you enter your email address below, you will receive an email anytime I post a new entry.

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I hope ya'll find this useful and it saves the time of checking for updates and being disappointed if I'm too busy or lazy to make posts.

Peace.

Almost Spring

Spring is slowly setting in, but the cherry blossoms look like they’re gonna take another week.

For April Fool’s Day, I went to Inuyama with my friends Cem, Yuki, Ethan, and Alexis for a festival. We spent the afternoon walking around casually eating all the usual matsuri snacks: choco bananas, yaki-mochi, squid, various meat sticks, butter potatoes, etc.

Check out the photo gallery here: Inuyama Matsuri

Here’s a video of Ethan demonstrating how to give a kancho:



If you don’t know what a kancho is, I suggest you read Wikipedia’s explanation here: Kancho

The following day I had plans to go to a cherry blossom party in Okazaki, but the rainy weather forced the party inside. Regardless, we still had a good time, and a couple from Okinawa brought a shamisen and performed a few songs.

I put a few pictures on my Flickr account that you can scroll through here: Okazaki Pics

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Simpsons film confirmed for 2007

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Simpsons film confirmed for 2007

Twentieth Century Fox has confirmed that popular animated TV series The Simpsons is to be made into a film.

The movie will be released in the United States in July 2007.

A 25-second trailer for the film has been shown to US audiences at screenings of Ice Age: The Meltdown, promising to introduce "the greatest hero in American history".

It then cut to Homer Simpson, wearing only his underwear, who admitted: "I forgot what I was supposed to say."