My new picture

September 27th, 2012

I was in class the other day and a student came up to me and said:

“Professor, will you go ‘aaarrghhhh!!!’ and make a gesture?”

I said, “aaaarrrgghhhh!!! of course”.

And she used her iPhone and took a picture of me.

That might seem unusual to some people, but it happens to me, occasionally. I’m asked to take a photo, say something for a short video, etc.

Later I got a message from Facebook saying there was a new picture of me posted.

It was this one:

Me in manga form

I think the app that was used is called Manga Camera.

Anyway, it’s an interesting picture, I think.

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A “Shining” type moment?

August 18th, 2012

This week while we have a little time left, my wife and I took a trip up to the mountains.

We had a great trip, ate some really good food, saw some beautiful country, waterfalls, mountains, and rivers.

We also had a couple of very strange things happen.

One thing that happened was although we were 3 and a half hours from home, in a small mountain town, on a little backstreet, we met two of our students. That was very interesting. I know it’s a small world, but that was very strange. We stepped into a small restaurant to check out their lunch plate offerings and standing there doing the same were two students from our university and our classes.

That was a surprise, but not that strange, and certainly not a bad thing.

That happened elsewhere 😉

We stayed at the lodge our university owns up in the mountains. It’s built to handle mostly large groups – up to 180 or so people. However, this time of year it’s not so busy.

In fact, no one was there.

I mean no one.

There was one caretaker there – very nice guy, and very kind to us!

We ‘checked in’ and he told us he’d be leaving at 5 and how we could get into the building when we returned from having our dinner.

This lodge is in the mountains, almost a kilometer off the main road up on the mountainside at the end of a dead-end winding lane. It also has no television or internet. I know!

I’ll admit it was a little eerie, but I was up for it. I didn’t think I’d have a Jack Nicholson moment and start stabbing anybody at least 😉

Sulseob was a little less enthusiastic about it the more she thought about it.

It turned out great though. We had a breakfast reservation for 8am and sure enough, we woke up, heard some stirring around, and looked over the balcony into the dining area to see our breakfasts set out on the table. No people though…

It was a little strange, but all in all, not nearly as uncomfortable as I’d thought it might be with strange sounds in the night.

Here are a few photos of our lodge 😉

The Shining... maybe...

Kohnosu Golf Range

August 4th, 2012

While Bynn and Ahn are away, we still wanted to go hit some balls (golf balls, okay?) and thought we’d take this chance to try out a different practice range.

We usually go to Arcadia out near Seto, and we like it. It’s just a little far from our house and the last couple of kilometers of the road are very narrow, so it’s a little inconvenient. Mostly, that road feels awkward at best, even dangerous especially at night, which is when we go most of the time.

Anyway, we went out to Tenpaku to a new place for us called Kohnosu.

It’s only 15 minutes from our house, a definite plus. The road is a main road, right up until you arrive. Also a plus.

It’s a little small though it is 2 floors. I think there were about 25 stations on each floor. It’s also narrow and only deep in the exact middle which is about where we were at No. 16.

Speaking of narrow. I’m pretty sure the individual stations also felt a little closer together than Arcadia. A smaller knit pick was the smoking area was almost directly behind us and it wasn’t a filtered room but an outside place.

Also you could only pay by the ball. It’s usually 12 yen per ball on weekdays and 14 yen per ball on weekends. No ‘uchihoudai’ (all you can hit on a time basis) which is the route we usually take. On top of that, you pay first for a set number – 100, 150 etc but the numbers were sort of odd. We got 247 or something like that. You also have to pay a 300 yen user fee.

On the positive side the atmosphere is very high class, and everyone who was using the range looked fairly serious, and of course, much better than me. Sulseob decided not to even hit because she felt a little uncomfortable with all of that though we originally intended for us both to take turns hitting.

They also had auto club speed and distance gages for hitting off the tee, but they didn’t work for when you were hitting irons off the mat.

Oh, there’s also water right out in front of you. That was kind of interesting. There were pitching targets on both sides of the water, and that was pretty interesting. Funny how just having that water there has such an effect. Of course, I think I was the only one hitting into it 😉

I’m glad we went and it was nice, but we probably won’t go back. I prefer the wider areas and ‘all you can hit’ fees at Arcadia.

Here are a couple of photos of the range, the equipment, and the desert 😉

Last Wednesday Lunch for Spring Semester 2012

July 25th, 2012

Today was hot.

Today was also the last day for Wednesday classes for the spring semester at the Hoshigaoka campus.

I’ve been having lunch with a group of students who took my Web English class last year. We can’t always meet because of their schedules, but we usually get together and today was the last chance for the semester to have lunch, so I’m happy we could do it.

Also, since Bynn and Ahn finished school last week, it’s a little difficult working out our family schedule. There’s only me and my wife (no grandma or aunts around) so when the boys are out of school it can be a little of a problem.

Bynn of course went to the states yesterday, but Ahn is still here. That means, yes, it was ‘take your son to school day’ today, for me anyway.

It’s not our first time, and he’s really good about it.

Of course it didn’t hurt that this group was particularly interested in having him there 😉

Here’s a photo we took right after eating:

Lunch with Ahn and Ikue

Thanks you guys! Hope we can get together next semester, too!

Ahn’s hair

July 24th, 2012

My younger son has been sporting what we call a Padiwan braid for a while now. It’s really starting to get pretty long.

I am the one who braids it, and we usually rebraid it about about every 2 or 3 weeks. Sometimes if the band comes off it’s more often, but usually not.

He started this at the same time Bynn got his mohawk. Ahn also wanted a mohawk, but due to a large cowlick in the front of his hair, that really wasn’t going to work out very well. So… this what he opted for. It took some time to get going, but I’ve been braiding it for about 2 years now.

Here are the latest photos from that: