Devenish

Click to play Well, if I don't start again with something, there will be no posting in the whole month of December. I have resolved, as one does so much at this time of year, to post more regularly in 2013 than I have managed this year, at least to have a photographic record of the changes in our lives. One never knows what may happen, how long one may have to wait...for growth, for development, or inspiration. What is clear is that the time goes in increasingly quickly. Had I 48 hours for every 24 of my family, I could do this job of living rather well: with the first 24 hours taken up by all that needs to be done to help raise three children, the other day-in-a-day could be used to write well, finish chapters, revise lesson plans, generally acquit myself honourably. But you see the priorities, and when I look at these pictures, I guess that other day doesn't really matter much... I had intended to write more in this post, but at least a start has been made. In the m...

It is probably appropriate that this post features something trivial, since my failure to update the blog on more important things—Sean's first term at Canadian Academy , Julian's coming of age ceremony (753) and Justin's second birthday (see pictures), and continuing progress in walking (however hesitantly), the relief (of a few moments ago) of not having a Romney Presidency—is due to these events having been pushed out by matters of less consequence, such as Justin's bringing home a vicious and powerful stomach bug that has laid low the whole family for two days. (My rational self knows that viruses bear no malice, and certainly don't co-ordinate their activities to screw up my schedule; irrationally however, I hate the fact that children's lurgies always hit us on Tuesdays—the only day of the week both Ayumi and I have a full teaching schedule, and wonder how they know this fact). So, today's filling text is an excerpt from a book that I picked off ...

Click to play She used to work in a diner Never saw a woman look finer I used to order just to watch her float across the floor She grew up in a small town Never put her roots down Daddy always kept movin', So she did too. Neil Young Unknown Legend A police car and a screaming siren Pneumatic drill and ripped up concrete A baby wailing, a stray dog howling The screech of brakes and lamplights blinking That’s entertainment, that’s entertainment The Jam That's Entertainment This evening it had been my intention to bring myself and my reader up to date with family news, until I was waylaid by YouTube (sic transit...). The rot, in point of fact, had set in much earlier in the day when I pulled out two cds at random from my collection at work—Friday is my non-teaching day btw—to see if they really sounded better than the so-called 'lossless compression' that is an iTunes AAC file (They do , though only 75% good as vinyl, even with a dull pick-up cartridg...

Most of my teaching these days is pretty low-level stuff: of the five undergraduate courses I teach, only two have explicitly metalinguistic content. The subject matter of the other three is entirely up to me, provided that I teach English reading, writing and something interesting (respectively). (The word respectively was in fact one of the topics that came up in yesterday's Reading class—which shows how hard it is to escape from linguistic concerns). As for the 'something interesting' class (aka Kisoen-shu 'Introductory Seminar'), one of the chosen topics for this year is Singer-Songwriters, in which I introduce my students to (to me) interesting popular music dating from the time that most of their parents—sometimes grandparents—were children themselves. So far we've looked at songs by Harry Chapin, Ralph McTell, Don McLean, Joni Mitchell. I've had a great time, though probably they would rather listen to J-pop or watch paint dry. Too bad, sho ga ...

Click to play I'm learning a few non-scientific truths along the way. If you're older than me, or simply wiser, you'll be familiar with all these already, but I thought I'd share (pro), if only to fill up the space between the pictures with some text. Absente such platitudes, you might have to put up with more nonsensical Latin (... Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua , or some such...), since I can't stand reading blog posts that consist only of poorly placed snapshots. There should be some interesting narrative, I suppose, otherwise one might as well use Facebook or Picasa. So (!), what I've realized in the past few weeks is that time—or perhaps, my experience of it (assuming there to be a difference, I haven't fully given up on realism yet)—is not a local train going about its regular, regulated, business, but a roller-coaster (Universal Studios Style). After a...

Sean and Justin in the activity playground at Chatsworth, Derbyshire (August 2012) After literally years of cajoling, remonstrating, and quarreling with Sean over bedtime ("aw, just a minute, Dad", "But it's the weekend, and anyway I can get up!", "The show will be over in just five minutes, Dad!", "Leave me alone!"), the problem is apparently solved. "My teacher [one at his new school] says we should all be in bed by 10pm", he announced briefly before getting changed, brushing his teeth and toddling off, with amiable punctuality. So that's the secret: don't be a parent. Or don't be this one. Why did I waste all that time arguing, when I could have hired a week-old authority figure? At least it works, for now...

Click to play It's not over, this blog, just a long summer break: some service will resume soon. I remember, as a child, the time each year towards the end of March that my father would pull our unnaturally heavy and unwieldy two-stroke lawn mower out from the back of the garage, dust it off, top it up with petrol, and then try to bring it to life, carefully pulling or pushing the choke, and using a starter cord to wrench the engine into reluctant service. The initial results were invariably fitful, acrid and accompanied by 'dear, dear' and 'let's see' (which was the nearest my father usually came to the kinds of vile imprecation that fill the air when I can't get something to work). Eventually though, after stalling a dozen times, the ill-maintained and little appreciated engine began to run smoothly, and to do its job. The same, I hope, will be true of this blog and its sister sites. Postscript. I suppose it should come as no surprise that there ...

  Click to play Sometimes, students’ exam mistakes bring you up short, when you realize that you really haven’t taught something very clearly. Sometimes they give you pause, have you re-consider the rationale for a particular lecture, the coherence of a certain argument. And sometimes the mistakes reflect a breathtaking egregiosity—my breath, their stupidity—that leaves you wondering whether they are thinking at all, and if so, what about (since it is evidently not the exam question in front of them.) Take yesterday’s History of English exam, for…instance. (Or, on second thoughts, don’t—if you haven’t attended the course). It was meant to be an easy test, allowing for the fact that the course is open to all years, including freshmen, whose English (of any period) is sorely tested. Question 3 presented these students with an alphabetical list of 10 Old English words, and asked them to supply the Present Day English (PDE) equivalents. The set included hūs, land, līf, oðer …and heof...

A propos nothing in particular, I spent a few minutes yesterday on YouTube listening to covers of Ewan MacColl's brilliant love song "The first time ever I saw your face." And had two related revelations. The first is that it is possible for me to listen to Celine Dion without coming out in a rash provoked by insincerity, sentimentality, and saccharine in equal profusion: with this song she almost appears genuine, and there can be no doubt about the beauty of her voice. The other revelation—the corollary of this, if you will—is that Celine is less to be condemned for her talent than for her poor judgment in generally singing really atrocious, emetic songs. Viz . Or maybe it shows that even Celine cannot screw up a work of genius... For all that, Johnny Cash still comes out on top... (I've still to make up my mind about Peter, Paul and Mary, and Roberta Flack)

Kangaroo at Oji-Koen Spent the morning pondering when : the transient becomes the ephemeral. The time past. Nicely. In fact, neither word could pass muster. No stars you see.* --- Spent the morning pondering when the transient becomes the ephemeral . The time passed. Nicely. In fact, neither word could pass muster. No stars, you see.* I love this job. Explanatory note: In order for a word to be admissable in a reading passage for the Konan entrance examination, it must have been awarded two or more asterisks in the Genius English-Japanese dictionary, indicating its high frequency in whatever perversely compiled database comprises their sample of written English. Needless to say, ephemeral is bereft of any such redeeming marks, as is transient . (When is ok, of course.) Sic transit gloria. ..

The title of this piece is misleading, for it assumes that I knew Eugene. In point of fact, I'm not certain that we ever met, Eugene Moloney and me (or Maloney, the BBC doesn't seem too sure of the spelling). What I do know for sure is that he was a very good friend of my brother-in-law Peter, and of my sister Aislinn, and—by all accounts—the most decent and generous 'courtesy uncle' that any child could have for my niece and nephews.  I also know that he is dead at 55, the victim of a casual assault, killed as he walked home in the early hours of last Sunday morning in Dublin. Thanks to the otherwise loathesome cctv, the guards have arrested and charged the alleged perpetrator—one Gary Burch, 21, a trainee mechanic. (I've never figured out why age and profession are relevant in crime reporting, unless in the first case it is to exonerate namesakes who happen not to share birth year, or in the second, the profession happens to be 'contract killer': but the...

'You must be very pleased with him.' This from the director of an integrated education programme from University of Toronto, whom we met the other day when she and her colleagues were in Kobe on a research visit at Shinwa Women's University. Ayumi takes Justin over to this DS group about once a month, one of the many regular visits his condition requires (or allows, depending on the particular appointment). With some experience of Down Syndrome children, she was impressed—as nearly everyone is—at how engaged and communicative Justin has become at 17 months. We are, of course, delighted too that he is doing so well, though we can claim no credit for this; nor blame, when things aren't always as they should be. Recently, one of our friends reported on FB that their son, born a month after Justin, had started to produce two-word utterances; meantime, Justin has multipurpose "ba" and we are still waiting for him to stand unsupported. A reminder, as if we needed...

Click to play I've been trying to make up for my neglect of family photography the past few weeks--parse that as you will--and it's produced some interesting contrasts, like these for example: Seán giving his first public 'cello performance on 16th June (Julian's birthday), and—one week later—in more casual attire; Julian looking around Toys'r'us for some more Lego to add to his stock of premium plastic nonsense. Radio broadcasts of the past few weeks, including the excellent discussion of Ulysses on Melvyn Bragg's In Our Time , have also left me wondering how Julian had got to be six years' old before I realized that his birthday is Bloomsday. Not much of an Irishman, am I, not to know this? (I should tell you something you don't know?!)

Not as puzzled as he looks... So, for some reason this evening, just as I was on the point of doing something else more useful, I heard the "scientist's So" on In our Time and was driven to near distraction, or at least to the point of sufficient curiosity to google: "Why do scientists start sentences with so ?" (Google reminds me constantly that I am not alone, either in powers of observation or ability to rant about things of little consequence.) So, it turns out that other people have noticed this insanely annoying habit of academics—especially those in the hard sciences and engineering—to begin their utterances with "so". It is, as one commentator puts it, more tic than conjunction, and is often self-aggrandizing (whether intentionally or otherwise is less clear).   http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9644000/9644002.stm http://www.celestialmonochord.org/2006/01/scientists_say_.html What is interesting about it, at least for ...

For weeks, I've vowed to get back to this, and till now I haven't found the time. Just one more paper to finish, just one free day without (thankfully minor) children's illnesses to contend with, just a little more discipline before bedtime, and I could have a half-decent post every week. Honestly, that's the goal... Meantime, here are some pictures that show (i) that we've moved quite successfully to our new home—we even have a wonderful name-plate; (ii) that we're all well and—in the children's case at least—growing in the right direction. More, insightful commentary will follow as and when...(also pictures of Ayumi, which are currently wanting):

Sakura at Okamoto Station Turning 50, as I did last month, is a sobering experience. Not literally in my case, though I know people who clamber onto that particular wagon at this time of life, in a futile attempt to smooth out the grim inscriptions of a hundred or more wrinkles—what might have once been called 'laughter lines', a term that now emerges as risible euphemism—or to repair the myriad other external signs of physical neglect and unhealthy eating. We only fool ourselves—though that is, I suppose, no slight achievement, and perhaps a sufficient delusion. No, it is the figurative sobriety occasioned in passing a half-century, evidenced by the tone of these lines, that has been most breath-catching these past few weeks, and not in a good way. This cloying heavy chill has, of course, been exacerbated by the unbearable lightness (to pilfer a nice expression from my youth) of the youth around me at the beginning of a new term in a new university. In one sense, I am...

Blogging is no different from any other activity: once the momentum is lost, it's hard to get going again. So pushing, grinding, out these first few lines is even more difficult than I had anticipated. Yet looking back on the posts from last year, I can see some value in the enterprise, as a family document, and from the fact that some readers come back regularly to browse... So let's begin with the headlines, in brief. After months of torpid indecision, Ayumi and I decided not to return to our professional lives in England—though we spent a very pleasant two months there in February and March—but to give Japan a go for a bit longer. In December last year, I was offered a permanent job at Konan University in Okamoto—Kobe's Hampstead, if Kitano is Chelsea), where I have now started teaching English and Linguistics courses to a delightful bunch of students, in the company of friendly and extremely welcoming colleagues. First day at Konan (Okamoto) The professor I'm ...

  [After only one year, he's able to take Julian down the slope—something I can't do :(] The last piece is still not complete, and nearly a month has gone in. There are good reasons—as well as bad excuses—for the slowdown, which perhaps I'll be able to discuss in the future, but for now at least I can mark Sean's 11th birthday today with some recent pictures, all real, and—since it's his birthday I should say—all representative of the really wonderful person that he is. The miracle, of course, is that he's survived my impatience and criticism for this long: my incessant hectoring over 'cello practice, homework, watching bad television, fighting with Julian. When I look back at my own practice, it's amazing he's turned out as brilliantly as he has. Maybe when he reads this, he'll know just how proud I am of him, despite all the parental harassment. Happy Birthday, Sean！ 誕生日おめでとう! Gefeliciteerd!

First snow of the season: just a dusting, gone by 10:30am I'll start this post in the final hours of 2011, just after putting Justin into bed, though no doubt it will only be finished in the New Year. This is the first time that I have recorded the passing weeks of any year since I kept a diary in my teenage years: whether a coincidence or not, it has also been the most difficult year since then; physically, emotionally, intellectually—supposing, that is, there is anything left of whatever intellect I once possessed. I was listening yesterday morning to Radio 4's 'Book at Bedtime' adaptation of Nancy Mitford's Pursuit of Love . Mitford had many qualities, including wit, self-irony, compassion— considerably more appealing political views than her sisters—but she was not well-disposed towards children, or to parents who brought up their offspring themselves—rather than leaving in the charge of professional nannies and governesses.  'I love children,' she i...