May 31th

today was the last day of May...
time really flies i can't believe how fast it does!

today, we had a discussion about politics.
perhaps all the things rab had told us are closely related to what I'm trying to write about in my next essay
which, i haven't clearly decided yet..
what i said about my essay topic in front of everyone was true
however, to tell the truth, I had just decided that topic only 20 or 30 minutes before the class.
anyways, we had discussions about whether we would go to vote even if theres no good candidate at all, is it okay to ignore people who didn't actually vote even when that number accounts for majority of the whole and all those kinds of stuff.

before today's class, i was thinking
that it is still important to go to the election to vote even if there's no good political party at all
because it is our rights to go for vote and choose the candidate most likely to be good.
i believed that's the democracy should be.
however, after today's class i began to doubt this belief....
well, it's really a hard thing to think about
but my essay's gonna be about these things. media, politics and democracy stuff.
i think people especially in Japan are controlled by the media too easily!
i thought Naoko's topic looks so similar to mine.

good night^^

May 30th

okay...where should i start

first of all, I think I should once again apologize rab for not being in Friday's class.
I'm sure he held an other interesting class since it was computer class and some guests have came!
I went to the Thursday's class but because of rab's mother-in- law's unfortunate bike accident, rab couldn't come to the class. I hope she and rab's son Kiyo get better soon
well, I'm looking forward to see rab tomorrow and CB guys as well!!

second, I really want to thank again those of you who came to see my performance on thursday.
more than ten icu students came to see the play and I was so surprised and happy that i was almost about to cry...
for some of you couldn't come, it was too bad...
i don't know when we'll have the next show, (or maybe there won't be any forever...dont know.)
but IF, IF, IF!!, I have a chance again to perform, please come!!^^
Fumika, Tomoaki, Miki and Nastuko, you guys are awesome! thank you very, very much for coming!

and finally,,,,
i have to apologize whoever reading this blog, for lying in the previous blog entry.
what I wrote in that blog was what i actually want to achieve in this spring term... in other words, that is my goal.
my goal to cope with both succeeding the play and working on all the studies in school at the same time
still don't know i can achieve this, but i did quite well on the former one.
June will be a really hard month...but i think i can do this. i mean, I will.


I'm working on the criterion essay right now,
so today's blog became kind of like essay structure!(??haha)
anyways, gotta get back to work! see you guys in NP tomorrow! bye!!

May 26th

thanks to shantonu for reminding me this blog post about why we are the best student..


well,

There's one big obvious reason why I should be regarded as the best student in the class.
I've been working really hard to cope with both the ELP home works and the tap-dancing&acting practice.
Just think about it, who else have hard practice almost every day after school untill 8 or 9' o clock?
I even go to Rikkyo Niiza campus which takes almost an hour to get there.
Practice began in the middle of April and at that time it was 3 to 4 days a week,
but from two days before the day we had PWT test, we've been having the practice everyday!
Actually, although i began the study for PWT the day before 0:00 at midnight because i got home so late and was really tired, I worked really hard and didn't have much trouble during the essay test.
I mean, I know some of other students have joined circles and club activities, I'm sure they don't have practices everyday like I do. So it should be easy for them to do their works done by date.
Despite the hard practices, I finish reading assignments and manage to post blogs almost everyday.
ICU wants us to seize the day and take every chances available, and I'm the only person who's acting like that, thus, that makes me that I'm the best hardworking student in section CB.

May 25th

I really feel sorry for not going to today's class...
the reason why i couldn't go was not that i didnt want to do the P&D.(it's true that im not good at giving speech in front of everyone though..
I had to go to the practice.

well, yesterday we had discussions about our next essay topic, and half the people had presentations about it.
it was interesting to hear everyone's essay topic, but that made me feel ashamed because at that moment, I haven't actually decided the topic yet.

but i think I'll write about the radical democracy which I learned in the poli-sci course.
I want to connect that to the question why Japanese tend not to protest or demonstrate.
I think I'll be arguing whether it is okay or not okay not to fight against the government's misjudgements.
most importantly, i want my essay to include why people are not so much interested in political issues and are easy to accept every facts shown on tv news.
aaaah that's just too ambiguous to be a research question!
I'm still not sure whether I'm going to relate this topic to cultural difference thing or media thing.

anyways,
the reason why I'm choosing this kind of talk is not only Rab had been teaching us these stuff, but I'm also interested in this sort of studies, like how people actually react to political issues.

May 21th

in yesterday's class, Rab tricked us again
when he was angry for us being lazy, i kind of doubted that he was acting,
but this time, i totally believed that there is a war going on in the world.

as he mentions, we have to perceive things and see things deeply through the surface of the object just like we observed stereograms in the class.
well, i really like friday's computer classes because we can learn many new stuff and often have discussions too!
after the class, i didn't go to the swimming class, but went to the practice.
right now, i have practice for the tapdancing and the play everyday...
some of the CB members said that they could come to the see show, so i will do my best.
in fact, i'm pretty much sure that i can do well and people would definitely enjoy it.

then i met with some LAMBS members at izakaya. I still don't know why Yuga was there....
but anyways, it was really fun talking with lambs members. you know, everyone in lambs are soooo nice and actually that was the biggest reason why i chose lambs.

im so sorry for being too sleepy that i can't post interesting blog right now..I've gotta wake up early tomorrow too....;

May 19th

Today we practiced how to give good presentations..
it's not that I'm only not good at speaking English, but I'm not good at talking infront of many people even if it was in Japanese.
So presentation is really challenging for me...but I'll do my best

after the ELP class, we gathered at the lobby and talked about the PWT questions.
and Yuji made a google document shared with everyone in CB.
i think we can corporate and i hope everyone can get good scores!!

i hate rain because i can't wash my clothes!

Chapter 6 - Is the World Made Up of Nouns or Verbs?

From my own experience, I was thinking that there's a difference between Japanese and Americans
that while Japanese prefer complicated, difficult and complex stuff, Americans prefer more simple easy-to-understand stuff.

Nisbett mentions in 6th chapter that westerners prefer to see things in categories that are represented by nouns which is easy to understand,
whereas easterners prefer to think relationships are important that involve verbs which are more difficult to learn.

for instance,
i think americans love actions and SF movies, which have quite easy story and even childish, compared to Japanese who prefer to watch movies that are more emotional, complicated and hard-to-understand story. i totally reject them but i don't know why people in Japan love Miyazaki Hayao's Jiburi Film. there're just boring!

well, what I've just said might be completely off the nisbett's point...
but i think his theory about westerners and easterners are some how all connected
and that makes his argument strong and persuasive.


ok , I'll go back to Fisher now..

May 18th

today was such a busy day...i mean, i felt busy.
but it was n't actually busy because today i woke up in 11:10AM, exactly the same time when the 3rd period began, so i didn't go to the class...;
this was the first time missing the class, but i don't wanna repeat that again.
what i did after that, i went to the practice for tapdance in Rikkyo univ.
we practiced outside because the weather was really nice today!

in class, rab introduced us another psychological test again!
Although yesterday's test was interesting, i thought the picture one was also accurate.
i want to try these tests to my other friends cause it's so interesting!

well about Barna...
she mentions six stumbling block when communicating and one of them is the "Tendency to Evaluate". i thought its the most important stumbling block.
i think it's obvious that Nisbett is doing this thing in his book.
although what he says is true and based on many surveys and tests, he is definitely assuming things in some extent. and his assumptions are not always applicable to us.

after the class, i biked to kichijoji to buy some stuff..
and after that, the worst thing i've ever had in my life happened when i got back home around 8:30...
i got home, turned the lights on, and put backpack on bed, then i saw it crawling up on the wall right next to my bed....a cockroach.
at first i couldn't literally believe what was happening there.
i was like, "is that it?? is that really it?? maybe it is... no it can't be it" but it was, indeed, it.
I mean, at least i keep my room clean all the time and since i live in an apartment where meals are served, i don't need to cook, so there's no Namamono in my room at all.

well, i borrowed this bug killer spray from a friend in the apartment, but while i was out, cockroach disappeared. so i couldn't kill it.
you know, that thing moves really fast!! i haven't seen them for more than 10 years, so it was truly shocking...... ohhh i wanna die(;o;)

May 17th

today's class was really fun compared to the boring NP lecture.

what Rab taught us in the first half of the class (though i don't know it was really half...)
was quite meaningful to me since as you know, my vocabularies are so childish and that's one of my concerns when writing essay...
the worksheets we did was actually hard for me...;; i couldn't really solve it on my own
i definitely need to read more and increase my vocabularies!

and the second half.....!!!!!
I'm pretty much sure that i was the one who enjoyed the psychological test the most
because, to tell the truth, i thought the result of the test was almost 95% correct.

it was funny for me to see rab in a hurry when we were working on the paper about writing style, because what he really wanted to do in class was not to introduce how to make our essays formal and academic, but the psychological test. Thanks alot to him i really enjoyed. and i can't wait till tomorrow's test too.



well um... about the retreat,
at night I've spent many time with new people except for Fumika and Yumi.
we did many things and despite the fact that i don't really remember their name, I've made lots and lots of new friends! i really enjoyed talking with people who haven't met before.
there are many interesting people in ICU. people have various kinds of backgrounds and i think that's one of the greatest things about this university!
yeah, thats all i have to say about retreat. it was really fun overall!!

May 11th + a little bit about democracy...

Today's class was so exciting. Rab gave us many explanations about other country's religious, historical and cultural backgrounds which were completely new to me.
during the discussion, the woman from publishing company was in our group,
but i didn't really care because she didn't say nothing at all!!
but i saw her many times covering her mouth not to laugh out loud with the Rab's jokes.
well, I think practicing how to examine assumptions is about learning critical thinking.


and today i want to talk few things about the democracy we've been discussing in our class.
I'm taking the Introduction to Political Science class
and today's lecture was intriguing since it was all about democracy.
Rab has been asking us why Japanese don't protest or demonstrate compare to other countries despite the fact that Japan is a democratic country. and he said that's not a real democracy.

however, what i learned today from the poli sci teacher were the two different types of
democracies:
Participatory Democracy is a classic form of democracy and it is more pure(?) democratic system. what i meant pure here is that under this type of democracy, it is more likely to achieve the direct participation of literally all the citizens or members of the society. therefore, this democracy was only applicable to a local and small level of region. this democracy was not suitable for a big and national level of society since it was unrealistic for all the people in the country to participate in political discussions.
on the other hand, Liberal Democracy was introduced after the participatory democracy and this new type is what we call representative democracy in other words. this time, people are still involved in the political participation but in a more indirect way by having votes to elect small number of people who represents people's opinions. this one is applicable more to a modern and national level of society.

I don't want to say this, but maybe it's kind of impossible to achieve the perfect democracy since its too idealistic.
I understand that it's not good to take for granted what the professor says, that i should be thinking more critically,
and I know that the Rab's point and what im talking right now are not exactly the same,
but i thought it is important to remember that democracy is not always the same.
the form of democracy might change as the people of the society change.

but anyway, i also know that i'm not that informed enough to challenge rab especially on this subject, but i simply wanted to know how he react to this idea...^^;

May 10th

today's class was quite interesting for me.
we went over LBH and covered how to write a good introduction and conclusion.
we already learned that we shouldn't leave the belief without any reasons or evidence in the previous classes,
what surprised me was that we are allowed to use emotional factors and reasons in our essays to support the belief.

also Rab gave us further explanations on"assumptions" which had been troubling us since the first essay.
important thing I've learned today was that the problem we have to concern the most about assumptions is not whether we include or avoid assumptions but whether those assumptions are valid or invalid.
rab gave examples that are easy to understand to explain what kind of assumptions are valid or not.
I got an idea that this valid assumptions might be the emotional assumptions, which its validity depends on the audience of the essay.
so whether people believe your assumption is valid or invalid depends on whether the audience share the writer's assumptions or not.



I know some of you know it,
but I'm a member of the Rikkyo University's theatrical company. I also tap dance.
I've been practicing 3 or4days a week and its so hard to get my ELP assignments done
our play is coming up on May 27&28 so if you have time please come. im not so good at dancing but the play's whole quality is really, really good.

Chapter 5 - "The Bad Seed" or "The Other Boys Made Him Do It?"

I think it is interesting to think that westerners and easterners have different ways and views when reporting something.
Nisbett explained this using example of a mass murderer reported by New York Times and World Journal. American reporters concerned more to the murderer's individual personality, whereas Chinese reporters preferred to focus on situational factors such as Chinese society, context and environments that surrounded the killer.

but I dont think the same thing can be said to Japanese media. though I haven't watched tv news recently, as far as i remember, I think Japanese TV news talk about both the criminals' personal flaws and their relationships.


i thought examples of soccer reporters, ball-dropping cartoon and fish experiment were interesting and was able to understand Nisbett's point easily.
also, the differences in negotiation strategies between Americans and Asians really caught my attention. it is said that Americans are more likely to fight against opponents. I have a feeling that westerners prefer more and also superior at debating than Asians, especially Japanese.

well, i think what nisbett says is interesting, but it is obvious that his theories do not apply to everyone.
at least the people in CB class, because many of us had lived abroad, we might think things in ways that are not distinctly western nor eastern way. I'm sure all of CB students have their own thoughts, which are mixture of western and eastern thoughts, that can not be described easily by Nisbett . I don't know why but that makes me feel exciting...^^


by the way.....today, when i was riding my bike to the campus to go to the library, I crashed into another bike at a crossroad in residential street. Fortunately, the old man (i think he said he was over 80...) who i crashed with was not injured at all, but i had broken his bike's front wheel. I had to pull the bike to the nearest store to have it fixed... and i also had to pay for that....my sanzenyen......it was the most tiring sunday I've ever had since the school started

Chapter 4 and friday's class

It is really interesting to learn from the Nisbett's reading and to watch videos about demonstration and democracy at the same time because we could compare those two and have an opportunity to think about our own country.

according to ch4, Asians are less concerned to control situations, rather they prefer to adjust themselves in situations.
I think this may be the one of the reason why Japanese don't tend to protest or demonstrate.
Japanese often tend to adjust themselves to the harmonious society even if it is negatively affecting Yuga explains in her blog.

the video we watched yesterday was really shocking but it also meant a lot to us.
It is our right and duty to obtain real information using not TV but Internet too.

well, I really thank Rab for teaching us this kind of class.
I'm sure other program C classes don't teach about media and democracy this much.
what rab shows and explains to us is not only about learning English but it's also about how to see things critically which must be emphasized more in every classes.

Chapter 3 - Living Together vs. Going It Alone

I founded quite easy to read this chapter compared to chapter 1&2 because Nisbett provides many examples, stories and pictures that are easy to understand.

When Nisbett mentioned in page 49 that Asians tend to emphasize maintaining harmonious social relation than achieving personal goals, I immediately remembered popular Japanese phrase "KY" which is the short of "空気　読めない" This means that people who are called KY are not cooperative or harmonious with others. Even if that person was right to say or do such thing, they would be criticized by others only because they had broken the good mood. (btw, I'm super KY so be careful)

Nisbett said that there are no Japanese word for "self esteem", and he said we use "serufu esutiimu" in page 54, but he's totally wrong. None of us had heard of such phrase. Instead, there's "jisonshin 自尊心" which has the same meaning.
But what he argues here is correct. It is obvious that Americans concern and like to think good of themselves than Japanese, and if Japanese speak something good of themselves, others often criticize that the person is a narcissist. Moreover, I found interesting to know that there no indigenous word that has exactly the same meaning for Japanese word"自慢する". In English, people say "speak proudly", "have a good opinion of oneself". I think this means that Japanese
think it is not a polite thing to boast of oneself, whereas for westerners especially Americans, it is very natural and normal thing to say good of themselves.

I think his argument is getting interesting. He understands that he has not been making a biased judgment, but what he says about westerners and easterners is really true and convincing.