The Ends Have Come

After spending most of my Sunday writing a paper, I am now officially halfway finished with my first course for my Master's Degree in Education from ACU. This paper I wrote today was a challenge as my brain just wasn't having it, but I worked my way through it and produced what I would consider to be an acceptable essay.

The course has been quite a beast up to this point. For the degree program I'm basically taking one course at a time. There are 10 altogether. The one I'm taking now is called Negotiation and Mediation. It's been interesting. There was always a stigma in my mind about online degree programs. I think that's the same with most people. When I tell people I'm earning my Masters online the response is usually something like, "So...like Devry?" I can't speak for some of the online Bachelors degree programs like Devry and what not, but I can say this - judging from the first 4 weeks of this class, this ACU online degree is legit. I've worked extremely hard. Kelly can attest to that. I spend several hours reading and writing each night, and my Saturdays and Sundays are almost completely devoted to doing school work. I don't know what this will bring for me in the future, but I now know that once I get my M. Ed. degree it will be just as legit and hard-earned as one I could have gotten by going to school on campus. Maybe even more so because I have to balance a day job in the meantime. I'm feeling really good about it at this point.

One of the interesting things about it is that since we're not in a classroom, the professor has to be creative about how he teaches. There has been a lot of group work and a lot of videos. This past week, there was a podcast featuring a mediation simulation. I thought the voices of the actors sounded familiar. After a few minutes of trying to place them, I realized that it was Adam Hester and Gary Varner from ACU theatre. After all these years, those two are still contributing to my education.

Well it's series finale season in the world of TV. This year is going to be especially tough as my two all-time favorite shows will be having their series finales on back-to-back nights. Lost, as everyone in the world knows, has its finale Sunday night. We'll be cutting off all communication wih the outside world starting tomorrow morning so as not to be spoiled. We're going over to Dion's tomorrow night to watch the finale with a small group of devoted fans. I've been a dedicated follower of Lost ever since the very beginning. I remember being at the lakehouse and seeing a commercial for Lost and thinking, "That looks kind of interesting. And it's got the hobbit from The Lord of the Rings, so I guess I'll watch it." I watched the premiere with my mom a few weeks later, and I remember getting to the end of the Pilot episode and thinking, "Wow. That was awesome. And what the heck killed the pilot?" I can't believe it's coming to an end. It's going to be crazy.

In addition to that, 24 will have its finale on Monday night. Though I feel 24 has declined in quality drastically over the past few seasons, I've been a devoted fan for a long time. I didn't see the first season when it aired because I was still at ACU and a theatre major has no time for watching TV. But when I was living with Andy the next year, he recommended that I watch an episode of season 2. I did and I was hooked. After season 2 ended, Andy and I went back and watched all of season 1 on DVD that summer. I believe that season 1 of 24 remains to date one of the best all around seasons of television ever. They've jumped the shark a bit since then, but I'll watch the finale this week and bid farewell to a great series and an awesome character.

I've been having a lot of dreams about Lost and 24 lately because of these finales. There's going to be a big void when the Jacks in my life (Bauer and Shephard) are no longer around. I'm going to have to find some new TV to watch. Any recommendations?

In honor of the 24 finale, here is an example of how it is popular even here in Japan. You ever wondered what Jack Bauer eats during his 24-hour days? The answer: Calorie Mate.

Food and drinks

In my final few months in Japan I want to start posting some pictures of random things that I eat, drink, see, etc. regularly. Here are a few for this week:

First, here is a coffee drink that I bought from a machine at work. In Japan, you can buy all sorts of drinks from vending machines. It's not just cokes and sports drinks, but coffee, chocolate drinks, orange juice, tea, flavored tea, etc. This is Kilimanjaro Blend Coffee, or キリマンジャロブレンド. It's a sweet coffee that I get every once in a while when I'm feeling extra tired in the morning. During the winter, it came out of the machine hot.


This is one of my favorite items from the bread stand at work. It's a cheese bread puff thingy. When I get it I just point at it and say, "Kore." (This) It's pretty delicious and most definitely bad for you.


This is a new dessert they've started selling at the bread stand. I didn't know much about it, but I saw the strawberry icing and I was sold. It's a pastry and it had some type of cream cheese type substance inside. Very nice, but only a once a week indulgence.


This is one of my favorite drinks to get from the machine. It's mikan juice. Not 100% but still very good. Mikan is mandarine orange. This is what I buy when I want to be refreshed but need more sugar than water or tea can provide.


That's all the food and drink pics for this week.

Here's a funny picture though. I've been reading my textbooks for my first course in ACU's Higher Ed. Master's Degree program. Caspian decided one night that he might like to get his Master's degree too.


Happy weekend!

Spring has arrived! (finally)

Kelly has posted a bunch of Trailwalker pics on Flickr. Check 'em out if you haven't yet, and if you have, check 'em out again!

Almost two weeks removed from the Trailwalker I can look back on it as a really good experience. It almost kind of seems like the whole thing never happened. Like it was all one big dream. On of the most amazing things about the whole experience is how I never really felt tired the whole time. I was tired physically of course, but never sleepy. And my mind was completely alert the whole time. It wasn't until we crossed the finish line and went into the cabin and sat down that it really hit me. I was asleep shortly thereafter.

Physically I'm mostly recovered. There's still one spot on the back of my left heel, the achilles really, that hurts. But other than that, it's like it never happened. I've even gotten back into my regular running and working out routine. And it's very nice to have my weekends free from hiking and things like that. I feel like a normal person again.

We just finished up Golden Week. The weather was absolutely beautiful. By far the best weather we've had since probably October. No rain the whole time and warm. I even busted out my shorts, t-shirts, and flip-flops. It's funny because many people in Japan believe that you shouldn't start wearing short sleeve shirts until June, no matter how hot it is. It can be 80 degrees on a beautiful May day and if you're wearing short sleeves, they'll ask you, "Aren't you cold?" But we gaijin don't always adhere to these "rules," so on Sunday I was on the train going to Dion's house for a barbecue wearing shorts and a t-shirt. Everybody was sitting around in their long pants and light jackets and sun hats staring at me like I was crazy. And I just stared right back. It's springtime people! Enjoy it!

I didn't do much during Golden Week. As I said we had a barbecue at Dion's. Kelly and I rode around town one day taking advantage of the nice weather. We went to a really good sushi place on the other side of Fuji called にこにこ (Niko Niko.) And on Tuesday, John and I went to Tokyo for a Giants game. That was fun as always. The Giants won 5-1 over the visiting Swallows. Heroes of the game included 阿部 (Abe) the 1st baseman, ラ三レス (Ramirez) the left fielder and ゴンザレス (Gonzales) the starting pitcher. As you can see, the Giants are very multicultural.

Back at work now for a short 2-day post-Golden Week work week. It would be nice if they could make up another holiday and actually turn Golden Week into a week instead of a 5-day weekend. But it's Friday now, so we're almost finished. No major plans for this weekend. I think we're going to some sort of classical concert in Shizuoka tomorrow. Should be fun.

Well, back to grading diaries!