NewsletterVol. 5 Spring
April 2005
karizumi@bama.ua.edu
For Alumni
and friends,
I think the Sakura trees are blooming really late this year. We had our
19th Annual Sakura Matsuri and the trees were still bare. Anyway, I saw
some of our graduates at the McFarland Mall enjoying all the activities
and booths including
Nozomi Daiko
playing.
Despite the fact that some other foreign
language programs have shrunk, the UA Japanese Language Program keeps
going strong thanks to the support of you, our alumni. I am glad that we
have many students with great potential.We are receiving many questions about our program from prospective
students from MS, NC, OH etc. All the faculty and GTA are trying hard
to strive for a high quality program in Japanese. Please spread the word
about our program.
We keep trying to the reach the highest level regarding speaking,
reading and writing proficiency in Japanese in the South.
Dr. Koji Arizumi
ALUMNI: Jake Terrell (graduated with Japanese minor)
Jake
Terrell, who graduated from UA in May 2002 with Japanese minor,
and was in Fukuoka for a little more than 2
years, passed
Japanese
Proficiency 2kyu test
.
He also accepted in the Linguistics-MA program at
the University of Hawaii, Manoa. He will be studying documentation
of endangered languages of South East Asia, and continue to take Thai
courses, and begin studies in Khmer (Cambodian) and Vietnamese as
well and of course Japanese and Korean on his own time.
Charlie is a graduating senior
with a major in Quantitative Finance and minors in Economics and
Japanese. Charlie spent one year studying in Japan at Chiba
University as part of his minor.
He will be working for Maersk-Sealand as a part of the Finance MISE program beginning this summer. The program is a two-year training program including practical experience and academic work in the US and Denmark. At the end of the two years MISE graduates will accept positions in overseas offices; Charlie will ideally head to one of Maersk's Japanese branches.
Sean Sylvia,
who had been in Japan teaching English and studied at Nihon University,
College of Economics,
passed Japanese
Proficiency 2kyu test this year.
Sean is an Economics major/Chinese minor and was recently selected to participate in a National Science Foundation research trip to study the environmental impact of economic development in Shaanxi, China this summer. He was also recently awarded the Senior Faculty Excellence award for Economics.
As
a native of Tuscaloosa, Alabama I decided to attend a college near home
to continue my education. Originally, I studied accounting and international business in the Business College. After an exciting six
weeks visit to Japan, I decided to changed my major to International
Studies and minor in Japanese.
I have studied the Japanese language for about three years.
Volunteering and working in various programs offered through the
Capstone International Department (i.e. the Japan Culture and
Information Center and the English Language Institute) has allowed me
the opportunity to meet many Japanese students. These fun and
educational experiences have also helped to enhance my knowledge and appreciation of the Japanese culture.
After graduating from the University of Alabama in May, 2005, I will
have the wonderful opportunity to work as an Assistant Language Teacher
through the JET Program.
Being a dance major, I never really
thought I would be able to do a semester abroad that would give me
beneficial experience towards my college career. But traveling abroad
last semester in Japan was a life-changing experience for me, and opened
up opportunities within my dancing that I never knew I had. While I was
in Japan I not only worked to improve my Japanese language skills, but
tried to deepen my knowledge of Japanese traditional arts such as
Japanese dancing, martial arts, and kabuki. Once I came back to UA, I
used this knowledge I gained overseas to put on a dance performance,
which was so generously funded by the McWane Undergraduate Research
Foundation. I incorporated the experience and knowledge I gained
overseas into my dancing, and choreographed a show that I luckily was
able to put on in conjunction with the Sakura Festival. Even though I
must admit working for three months straight to put on a show by oneself
is a very stressful experience, I think I have learned a lot from my
endeavors. I am so glad I got to do this performance and would do it
again in a heartbeat.
Now that I am graduating I am striking out to find what I would like to do in the future. For the month of may I will be interning with the Children's Dance Foundation in Birmingham, AL and after that I will spend six weeks up at Duke University for the American Dance Festival, the premiere modern dance intensive in the nation. After that I plan to take a year off working in internship positions and teaching dance. I hope to return to graduate school after year. With further education I hope one day to be able to work at a job that fuses my knowledge of the performing arts with my knowledge of Asian culture, and work with dance and theatre foundations to bring international artists to America. I think everyone should have the chance to be exposed to traditions of other cultures, and I believe one of the best ways is through the arts. I am glad I have had the opportunities that I have had, and hope other students at UA find ways to travel abroad and see the world as well.
A
native of Birmingham Alabama, Stephanie has been studying Japanese for
four years at the University of Alabama. She will be graduating in
May of 2005 with a degree in International Studies and a minor in
Japanese. After graduation Stephanie will participate in the
JET Program
as an Assistant Language Teacher, and later plans to attend law school
in Illinois.
To those of you who want to share your recent activities, Please write me for next issue. ua_japanese_arizumi@hotmail.com
Dr. Koji Arizumi