Kern's Back-From-Japan Blog

It's a great, great day

Thu, 6 Nov 2008 00:20:10 -0500

I feel remiss for not posting this earlier. As you all must surely know, Barack Obama is going to be the next President of the United States of America. I couldn't be happier.

My family all got together to watch all the election results as they rolled in, and drank champagne together when CNN announced that they were declaring Obama the winner.

I had to poke my brother a little bit to keep him awake; nobody was allowed to sleep until we'd heard Obama's acceptance speech.

So much has been said and written about this election in the roughly 24 hours since Obama was declared the victor, so I will keep my own comments brief. I will just say that Barack Obama is much, much more than "just" a black President (although it would be a mistake to underestimate the importance of that fact).

He is a champion of change, and a living example that anything is possible.

Last night Barack Obama brought down a wall that was, to my mind, stronger than the Berlin wall, and centuries older.

Anything is possible.

I watched Jesse Jackson weeping, and felt like I was watching the beginning of the realization of a dream.

I never really believed that last night was possible, outside of movies.
It's still hard to believe it's real.

I can't wait for the inauguration.

Practicum and More

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 22:31:23 -0400

I have a bunch of updates that I should have posted about a week ago, but never got around to. It's been a busy week.

First of all, Practicum (Practice Teaching) placements have been announced, so I can now say that (failing a last-minute change) I'll be doing my first session of practice teaching at East York Collegiate Institute, teaching mathematics. It's an exciting (but scary) prospect; I'm really looking forward to it.

We have a couple of days of in-school orientation next week, and then start as practice teachers the week after (which means we're in-school, all day, monday to friday for four full weeks).

Of course, just as when I was teaching in Japan there's a limit to how much I can post about my experiences at school in this public forum, but I'll try to give a general idea of how things are going.

One other little update; I played basketball for the first time in a long time this week (unless you count playing against elementary school kids in Japan). It's an intramural league (I think that's right); it was us teachers-in-training against a team of Pharmacy students. They kicked our butts, but I'm going to go ahead and attribute that to steroids.

It was fun, but hard work (I'm much older, and in much worse shape than most of the other players). I'm hoping to make it out every week.

And finally, I leave you with another interesting TED Talk. This is an old one, and those of you who have studied psychology may already be familiar with it. It's psychologist Barry Schwartz explaining why the idea that giving people lots of choices in life doesn't necessarily make them happier. We tend to equate choice with freedom, and freedom with happiness, but it doesn't always work out that way, even if this explosion of choice means we have a genuine opportunity to get better "stuff". Really cool talk. Enjoy!

Election Madness

Mon, 6 Oct 2008 23:54:23 -0400

With elections on the way in Canada, the U.S., and (I'm guessing) Japan, I thought I'd do a quick blog entry on interesting stuff I've encountered recently related to politics.

I've really gotten into the TED (Technology, Education and Design) conferences. It's basically an event where lots of cool, smart people get together to other smart people talk about whatever it is that they're passionate about. Topics include the future of the internet, the One-Laptop-Per-Child program, school lunch programs, the nature of creativity, the nature of God, DNA computers... and so on. The topics are limited only by the imagination of the speakers.

Today I watched a very interesting presentation on the moral underpinnings of the Conservative and Liberal ethics. As a staunch Liberal, I've always kind of assumed that being Liberal was right and that most Conservatives were Conservatives because they just didn't know any better. Staunch Conservatives likely have much the same view of people like me; well-intentioned, but naive and dangerous.

This talk, by psychologist Jonathan Haidt, eloquently makes the (in hindsight obvious) point that it's not nearly as simple as all that, and explains the moral impetus behind each of these viewpoints. Incidentally, the talks are also available in a free podcast if you're interested; that's how I keep up with them.

Psychologist Jonathan Haidt discusses the moral roots of Liberalism and Conservativism

Okay, next bit.
I was absolutely shocked this week to hear of an event I never thought I'd hear of in Canada. It's the kind of thing that we normally except to hear about in countries whose democracies we laugh at (like Iraq).

In Toronto, there have been 26 cases of serious election-related vandalism over the last couple of days. Specifically somebody (they believe it's just one person) has been targetting the homes of people displaying Liberal party signs on their lawn.

If this were just normal vandalism it wouldn't be so... horrible. But this criminal, this complete-despoiler-of-democracy is not just writing rude signs on their garage doors or something. He is instead, cutting their phone lines, their cable lines, and in several cases, the brake line on their car. That goes beyond vandalism, and into the realm of attempted murder. Although I haven't seen it mentioned in the press, it's possible that this could qualify as a hate crime.

Finally, although most of you who care have probably seen it already, here's Tina Fey expertly poking fun at the Conservative Vice-Presidential candidate (in the American election) Governor Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live. The video below is the first spoof they did (which got rebroadcast on regular news programs for about a week afterward). Their most recent skit, poking fun at the Vice-Presidential debate is here (they've disabled the ability to embed it in other webpages).

Oh Happy Day!

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 23:38:59 -0400

I came home after classes today to a wonderful, wonderful surprise. All the stuff that I sent myself from Japan is here!

It was a lot faster than I thought; I was prepared for it to take up to three months, but in the end everything arrived in just over a month. That's two boxes of books, two boxes of toys, a box of video games, DVDs and CDs, and one long narrow box containing a Kendo training sword and replica Samurai sword.

Having sent them in a hurry, I did a terrible job of itemizing the contents of each box; I just wrote things like "Personal Effects: Books". I made no attempt to count how many books, or assess their monetary value. It seems that somebody took the time to do it for me. I assumed at first that it was Canadian Customs that did it, but the values are all written in Japanese yen... but that could just be because most of the things in the boxes were purchased in Japan, so their price is written in yen. At any rate, the customs forms now indicate exactly how many CDs, books, games, etc. are in each box.

Incidentally, I have it on anecdotal authority that Canada has one of the strictest customs procedures in the world. True or not, if this is the perception in Japan, then it's possible that they opened the boxes and itemized the contents, believing that Canadian customs would automatically reject packages that were not meticulously labelled.

Japan Post, by the way, is awesome. Much has been said about Japan's excellence in customer service, but this takes the cake; I had to send half a dozen large boxes to Canada. I had no car, so getting these boxes to my local post office would have been a time-consuming chore; one I did not have time for. Then I learned that it was unnecessary. You can simply call the post office, and they will send somebody to your door (in my case within two hours). This person will bring a portable electronic scale, weigh your packages on the spot, calculate the postage, provide you with all the appropriate customs labels, apply all the appropriate stamps, take your money, and cart your packages away to the Post Office for you.

It just doesn't get more awesome than that.

You Can't Go Home Again...

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 23:57:35 -0400

Well, it's been almost exactly a month since I returned to Canada, so it seems like a good time to give a run-down on how life in Toronto differs from life in Osaka, as well, as how the city has changed in the four years since I saw it last, and the five since I last lived here.

From Japan to Canada (MEGA-UPDATE)

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 23:57:40 -0400

Here's a fairly large picture posting, intended to more or less cover my last days in Japan, and my first days back in Toronto.

We'll start with me bidding farewell to the land of the Rising Sun, and some of the friends I made there.

It's probably good that I left before I got any weirder

[Warning: This is a long one. Pictures galore]

I'm back!

Thu, 4 Sep 2008 12:44:57 -0400

Well, the guy from Sympatico just left, and I'm officially online, right here, right now, in my very own bedroom! Yay!!! (<--- tears of joy)

The first thing I did, upon getting internet access? E-mail my girlfriend in Japan.

The second thing? Look up how old Eric Braeden is. Weird, I know.

Well, I've got about a million other things, some trivial, some vital, to do now that I once again have the world in the palm of my hands.

To quote Chancellor/Emperor Palpatine:

"Power! Unlimited POWER!!!"

Back online (almost!)

Tue, 2 Sep 2008 14:52:19 -0400

To those of you have feared this Blog had been abandoned, or forgotten, and to those who wondered why your e-mails went unanswered, the truth is I've had only very intermittent internet access since I got back to Toronto.

Today, I picked up my University of Toronto student card (slickly named the T-Card), which allows me to use any of the computers on campus. Like the one I'm using now. I had to line up for about an hour to get the card, but it was worth it.

Unfortunately that means that, at the moment, I only have internet access if I'm on campus (which, since school hasn't started yet, isn't very often). But on thursday, I'm scheduled to get internet access at home (in my very own room, no less!), at which point I'll have the anyday, anytime access that I've grown accustomed to (i.e. can't live without).

Got other plans to get to today, so I'm going to keep this short, but here are some highlights/nostalgic moments just from coming back to UofT (from which I graduated 11 years ago!!!!) to get my T-Card:

Seeing large clusters of people wearing identical shirts sure brought back memories; f!rosh.

A group of students in a crappy apartment playing music way to loud, totally blowing off the campus cops (known as mice; Mickey Mouse Cops --> Mice)

Hearing people in line talk about how crazy f!rosh week is, especially those wacky engineers!

Hearing two Engineering f!rosh being told by library staff, "No, I'm sorry, if you've dyed yourself completely purple, we will not be able to issue you a T-card on that day. We won't take your picture while you're purple"

Being in a lineup, and actually understanding the conversations around me, completely, and without effort

Walking down the street and having two foreign visitors ask me for directions

Seeing a Chinese student (as in actually carrying a Chinese passport, not Chinese-Canadian) get turned away because their two pieces of documentation had different name order (a difference which the student considered trivial, but the library staff did not; in Japan it is common for westerners to run into trouble because one piece of ID contains their middle name, and another does not - a difference we might consider trivial but in a country where middle names do not exist, the two pieces of ID are often treated as non-matching)

Buying and eating a massive sausage on a street corner

Okay actually, that last one hasn't happened yet; I'm off to get that sausage now.

See ya!

Back in the T.O.!

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 14:20:41 -0400

It's official, I'm back in Canada!

I'm pretty excited to be here... or would be if I wasn't so tired. I didn't sleep much for the week before I left (too busy packing and stuff), then spend a total of about 24 hours on planes and in airports to get here.

Here's my plans for the next few days:

Thursday: REST!
Friday: Wander around town.
Saturday: Party!

See y'all s...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz......

Contact

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 22:26:10 -0400

Well, it's almost time.

I'm getting closed to being "packed" and ready to go (I'm horrible with moves; I leave absolutely everything to the last possible moment; by my standards I'm doing pretty well this time).

In the next day or two it will be difficult for me to reach or be reached by anyone. My Internet service will end on Monday, my computer monitor will be gone Sunday or Monday, and my cellphone will be cancelled probably by Tuesday.

Still, the idea that by the middle of next week I'll be in Canada just doesn't seem real to me.

I've had some wonderful farewells; thanks to Hana for arranging a great farewell dinner, and to all my dear friends for coming out to say goodbye. I meant what I said; my time in Japan would not have been the same without music, and I owe so many of my best memories of Japan to all of the people who made music with me.

And thanks, of course, to my girlfriend Saki, for whom this is not goodbye; for her the real adventure starts in a few months when she comes to join me in Canada. 咲、早くカナダに来てね。待ってるよ。

So, I probably won't be updating this Blog again (or checking e-mail) after today until I'm back in Canada.

But to remind everyone; the Blog will continue at this address, and my e-mail addresses will also remain the same, so I will be in touch once I'm set up on the other side.

To quote everybody's favourite, loveable, futuristic android killing-machine-turned-Governor; I'll be back

YouTube clip from my last show in Japan. Yuka's uploaded a ton of video from both the Reggae band and our acappella group, so check out some of the other clips as well.