Dealing with Details

The listserv for MTP 2005 participants has been open for approximately 5 days; it contains messages in both English and Japanese sent by and in support of everyone registered for MTP. Already, some American members are confused about why they keep getting "garbage-looking" messages.

It's probably time to send out a message reminding folks that, if you want to see the Japanese messages correctly, you will have to load Japanese (Asian) language support in your browser/word processor/spreadsheet/whatever program. Fortunately, it's not nearly as hard as it used to be.

IE/Outlook Express support it with a specific download; Firefox appears to fix it "on the fly" if you tell it to support Asian languages in general. MS Word and Excel fix it with additional install support (included in the basic install CD as far as I can tell); Open Office also has a general support setting that seems to cover it.

Adobe Reader used to require you to install the Japanese version, but they seem to have cleaned up that problem by allowing you to add Japanese language support to the English version whenever you first open a document that needs it (assuming you are connected to the 'Net). You do have to be in admin mode in Win2K or XP Pro.

Now, if only there was a quick fix for learning how to read Japanese. Maybe I will just settle for improving my ability to recognize basic katakana.

(note to self: pull out those language CDs soon......)

And I'm off....

This is my attempt to describe my trip to Japan as a participant in the Japan Fulbright Memorial Fund Master Teacher Program (hereafter noted as JFMF MTP).

This is actually my second trip with JFMF; I went to Japan two years ago and worked with a partner teacher in an elementary school in Komatsu, Ishikawa. It was my first trip outside of the United States, and my first opportunity to work with students in a completely different environment from my own.

I said when my yearlong partnership was complete that I definitely wanted to apply again, so I did. This time, I am partnered with a junior high school in Fukuoka.

Our partnership officially begins in March when all of the partnered teachers meet in Washington, D.C., for orientation and some initial sightseeing.

As I progress through the year, I will keep a journal of my activities here. Stay tuned...