Hey y’all,
This week was certainly a very exciting and interesting week: it was the week of our research convention! In the Japanese programme at Middlebury, all students regardless of level do an independent research project (mine was on Naoshima, discussed more in Week 8 Blog Post). Basically, that Friday we gathered in this auditorium and we were all given little cork board plaques in which we placed our presentation slides. We did presentations in four rounds where you would watch for three of them and present for one.
The first thing that hit me when I was viewing everybody’s presentations was the variety of topics covered by the students within the progrmamme. For example, I went from a presentation on counterfeit Ukiyo-e prints straight to a lecture on gendered language in Stardew Valley (a popular video game). Furthermore, it was amazing to see how passionate people were about their presentations and how much everybody had improved. My friends in Level 1 who didn’t speak a lick of Japanese prior to entering the programme were absolutely amazing at the convention. As well, the people in my class’ research was so fun to listen to and view because up until then, we weren’t really given time to see each other’s research.
We ended the little convention with a huge group picture which was a nice ending to the whole event.
In regards to other events that happened this week, we had a badminton match against the Chinese School that one of our Bilingual Students (who are like TA’s for the department…I think), graciously set up. Each pair of Japanese students were matched up against a pair of Chinese school students and in the end, whichever school won the most games overall were declared the victors. The Japanese school won! And with that, our department chair got to pie a professor of the Chinese department.
Overall, it was a pretty good week.
Yours truly,
Will McC