My computer at work is totally infected with viruses! It's so frustrating, because now, I don't have any internet access in my office, because my computer won't work on the internet anymore. The Kansai Gaidai mail server is totally infected with viruses. I wish they would hurry up and fix it. I wonder when I'm going to have the internet in my office again. I never realised how dependent I was on the internet. I use it so much for my work. Whenever I want to get an article or check on some facts, I just turn to the internet, and I expect it to be instantly available to satisfy my needs. It's amazing how much the world has changed in less than 10 years. In the old days, you had to go to a library to find out information - now it is at our fingertips. Unless of course you are me, and your computer has crashed big time because of viruses.

However, eventhough I have lots of viruses at work, I can still use my computer at home. Hmmmm, maybe this is a good thing because now I have a good excuse to always go home early :-)

I just saw a very interesting article on the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) website called "Hating Japan"

http://www.cbc.ca/news/viewpoint/vp_yu/20050411.html

If you agree, disagree, or just want to make a comment, click on "send a comment" near the bottom of the article, and the CBC might publish your comments on their website. Contribute your 2 cents!

Hello everyone, I found a great picture of a girl from Kiribati:

http://www.gadling.com/entry/1234000190040027/

Talk to you later!

I can't stop thinking about the protests in China. I blogged about it a lot in my other blog (www.kansaigaidaienglishtwo.blogspot.com). I found this poem on the internet, and I hope the author doesn't mind if I put it in my blog. It really made me think.

Dried Cuttlefish on a Persimmon Tree

by Nishimori Shigeo

When he was taken to China as a young soldier,
the first education was to stab a Chinese prisoner of war with a bayonet.
He was tied up to a persimmon tree and stabbed by forty-seven Japanese soldiers
who stood in a row one by one.
When N couldn't stab him, he was slapped on the cheek.
He was told, "Are you really a Japanese soldier?" in an angry voice.
He tried to stab him with set teeth closing his eyes.
He shivered and the point of the bayonet hit the air.
It grazed him.
The Chinese man was hanging like dried cuttlefish by the time
forty-seven soldiers finished stabbing him.
N stabbed him with his eyes open for the second time.
But both times it was as if the sky was suddenly overspread
with dense clouds, and the thunder rolled.
We shouldn’t do bad things, he murmured.
Whenever he saw a persimmon tree, it reminded him of the Chinese young man.

(Nishimori Shigeo, Partisan Before Dawn, Kochi: Grass Roots House, 1995, 74-175)

Hello IES Class! Here is a great website for your poster presentations:

http://education.yahoo.com/reference/factbook/

Click on countries and then you should be able to find all kinds of great information.

Another good website is the New Internationalist Magazine. Scroll down to the NI Country Profiles and look for your country.

http://www.newint.org/

There are millions of places on the web . . . this is just a start. Good luck!

It's Sunday, and I'm sitting at home thinking about doing some work for school. Whenever I don't feel like doing any work, the first thing I always do is check out my blog. Blogging is so great because I can feel like I am working, when I am actually enjoying myself too!

I just bought a new BBQ! I can't wait to try it out. I think the first thing I am going to make is barbecued chicken wings. My BBQ was really cheap, and I noticed that it was made in China. It seems like everything is made in China nowadays. I just hope that it wasn't made by slave labour. I always feel a pang of guilt whenever I buy anything from China because each time I buy something from China I think about Tibet, or human rights abuses, or people who are paid slave wages in clothing sweatshops. The problem is that I keep on buying stuff. But on the other hand, I don't think there were any Japanese made BBQ's in the store, and there certainly weren't any Canadian BBQ's there.

I have been thinking about China a lot lately. There was a lot in the news today about the anti-Japanese protests in China this weekend. It's front page news in the Canadian newspapers (www.globeandmail.com). I wonder what my IES students think about the protests in China. Any comments?

My Goals

Hello again! Actually, right now I am in the computer lab with my IES students. We are all blogging about our goals for this semester. This is the last time that I am ever going to tell my students what to blog about! From now on, everyone can choose their own topics, but I thought it would be cool for us to see what everyone really wants to do this semester. As for me, I guess I have a few goals. One thing I'd really like to do is finish the textbook in just one semester. We are reading the textbook Global Issues: An Introduction. Last year my class and I took two semesters to read this book, but, as you know, I am moving back to Canada in August, so I want to finish the book before I go back to Canada! Anyway, that is my first goal. My second goal is for everyone to really start thinking about global issues, and to use the blogs as a safe place where they can talk about their opinions without having to worry about stuff like grammar, spelling, vocabulary, etc. I can't wait to read what my students have to say about global issues, and I look forward to making comments on my students' blogs. I hope some of the students make comments on my blog too!

Hmmmm, what other goals do I have . . . I guess I will see what my students goals are first, because another one of my goals it to help my students' fullfill their goals.

Later!

Welcome to Global Issues at Kansai Gaidai!

Hello world!

Welcome to the "Introduction to Global Issues" course at Kansai Gaidai University in Osaka Japan. It is the start of a new semester, and I can't wait to meet my new students on Friday. I hope that we are going to have a lot of fun blogging. I am sure that we are all going to learn quite a lot from each other.

If anyone is interested in my blog from last year, please check it out here:

www.iesglobalissues.blogspot.com

We sure talked about a lot of stuff last year, and I am sure that we are really going to have some great conversations this year too.

Stay tuned for more blogging soon . . . .