Well I’ve been a bit delinquent in posting, but not because I don’t love you. I find it very hard to have any semblance of a schedule around here. Granted my classes always start and end at definitive times, but once I head back towards the AP Houses things just tend to get whack. In any case, here goes:
I awoke Wednesday morning to this:
That is no trick of the camera mind you. We were quite simply smack dab in the middle of one monstrous cloud. I think in these cases “fog” is a bit of an understatement. At sea level, yes, one would call it fog. But on top of a mountain I think it’s more appropriate to simply call it “big giant cloud.” So when I woke up, all of APU was bathed in these white-out conditions. That picture is looking out my window directly at the gym, which is completely invisible. You can barely even see the road at the bottom, and that’s no more than 40yds away. Awesome.
Wednesday was a very relaxing morning, as the only thing I had on my plate was my first graduate research meeting at 4pm. I grabbed a rain jacket on the way out the door, and strode through the swirling mists towards campus. Personally, I find the elements invigorating. I’d take a raincoat over an umbrella any day of the week in order to feel the rain on my face. In Japan, at least at APU, I stand alone in this opinion. I actually had several people offer to share an umbrella with me, despite the fact that I was quite clearly wearing a rain jacket!
At 4:05 my inaugural research meeting began, and it was a *doozy*. There are 6 professors who oversee the research theses for the EPA group, 3 of which I’m currently taking classes with. It turns out that this semester there are only 3 new EPA master’s students, myself, my friend Shamik, and another young lady who I did not find terribly impressive. The professors explained that every year the department balances shift, and that this year there was an especially big group of public administration majors. That is fine with me, folks, because now I have one-on-one advising for my research, which, in word, rocks.
To begin the meeting us 3 students talked at length about our backgrounds and our research interests and hopes, and then were grilled(but in a friendly way) by the faculty as they tried to narrow down our foci and figure out with which advisor we would best be matched. As I told you in my last post, I was eager to land Prof. Fellizar, so you can imagine my abrupt horror when after I had concluded my summary the first name on the table was Prof. Paiboon’s. Having had 2 classes with the man, I like him immensely, however, at this point I had a choice between two excellent professors, one of whom speaks English as his native language. There is simply no question. Prof. Paiboon’s area of focus is coastal conservation in SE Asia, specifically mangrove estuaries and their relationships with local fisheries and watershed pollution. Since I had mentioned my background in wetlands mitigation in Florida they were leaning me towards him. Prof. Fellizar has a forestry background, and if I became his advisee I would be focusing on mountainous, undeveloped areas of the Philippines and Indonesia, which I very much want to do. So, thankfully, after answering a few more questions I was able to steer my advisee-ship right into Prof. Fellizar’s lap. To say I’m excited is to say that sometimes it’s cold in Siberia. It shall be glorious.
I need to take a minute to come back to Prof. Zhang Kunmin though. I spent a few lines praising this guy in the last post, but it wasn’t enough. He’s also one of the EPA faculty, and when the meeting adjourned and he hadn’t received any new advisees I actually felt sad for the man. He is far and away the most important, most brilliant faculty member in the International Policy program, if not the entire university. Along with a laundry list of other accomplishments, he headed China’s Environmental Protection Agency for 18 years. This man is singlehandedly responsible for starting the Asian environmental movement, and here I am sitting several feet away from him in a classroom. I am not worthy of his presence! Currently I’m taking his class on Theories of Sustainable Development. This is roughly equivalent to taking European Politics with Winston Churchill, or physics with Steven Hawkins. The man has come here in his twilight years to sit back and help groom the next generation, and I am deeply honored to even be in his presence. Simply amazing.
Wednesday evening I headed down to the Daie, which is a more upscale supermarket than the other one I’ve been going to, Marushoku. At the Daie I even spotted a handful of American-style foodstuffs. Provided you can overcome the sticker shock, Guinness can be had for about $2.75 for a 12oz can.
Failing that, one can always have breakfast with Tony the Tiger and some tasty Corn Frosties… provided you’re willing to pay almost $3.75 for a very small box!
While I didn’t buy either of those two items, to my delight I did find this little gem.
Compared to Cajun or Tex-Mex, most Japanese food is decidedly bland. I am now much happier, and my tongue is much more satisfied. You have to give the marketing department points too, only in Japan would a slogan as lame as “Use it!” be acceptable.
Thursday was another round of classes, punctuated by an early morning wake-up from the Japanese Self Defense Forces. Somewhere nearby up in the hills is a base / live fire range and they were firing what sounded like a very high ROF, large caliber machine gun. Perhaps something akin to what’s on the A-10 Warthog. So at 9am my peaceful rest was forever broken as the staccato zoooooot, zooooooot permeated all corners of my room. Thank you, army guys.
Lately I’ve been enjoying a traditional, and super easy Japanese breakfast that I thought I might share with you. As this is an Asian country, I can buy about 900 different types of ramen at the store, but really any type you like will do. Get a nice medium sized bowl that you can use in the microwave and put the ramen brick into it. Now gently crack an egg on top of this, and then fill the rest of the bowl with water up to the level of the ramen, being careful not to let the egg slip off the ramen brick and into the water. Now cover this with saran wrap, and microwave on high for 3min. Ding goes the timer, and you’ve got yourself a super easy, no clean-up, tasty breakfast. Just thought I’d share.
And that brings me to today, Friday. Once again the SDF have woken me up earlier than I intended to rise. First a low flying jet was kind enough to pass right over campus with its thundering turbines, and now deep, resounding booms are intermittently traveling down from the mountains. Either the base is conducting artillery practice, or someone’s blasting out a new road or some such thing. Heh, there goes another one. Either way, I’m awake!