最近よくおかしな夢を見る。夢は映像的でほとんど言語的ではなく、鮮明さとピンボケが同居している。今日見た夢はまったく破天荒だった。 曲がりくねってはいるが路肩がないので見通しは悪くない車線の広いきれいに舗装された山道で昼間に車を走らせていると…

Today a new driver license was malied to me, though I haven't yet passed the driving skills test which is scheduled on August 21st. I've been hoping this should happen, because it's definitely a DMV's mistake that I was asked to take both …

大学図書館のイーストアジアセクションの開架部分に週刊少年マガジンが創刊号から1997年まで揃っていた

I'm going to take a written test to renew my driver license. And it's extremely boring and tiring to study for it. I don't remember when is the last time I did this sort of "study" (memorizing somewhat arbitrary rules and numbers by heart-…

鼻風邪に悩まされメイドインUSAの安い日本酒をあおり吉本隆明に読みふける反動的な夜

気がつけば朝の5時、鳥の鳴き声が聞こえる

アメリカでひとり暮らしをしていてごくたまに風邪をひくとなんとなくとたんに弱気になる。

ジョイスの牽強付会と博覧強記と衒学的神学と言葉遊びと豊穣な下ネタのアナーキーに構成された世界に日本語でもっとも接近したのは南方熊楠ではないかという気がする。

grading is done!

I'm just wondering how much power a teacher can exert only by getting attention from students. Is it sometimes necessary for us to become invisible in a classroom? During student presentations I took a seat at the back of the room where no…

The more I teach, the more paranoid I become. An obsession possesses me that I shouldn't let students go without having them understand subjects as I think they should do so. This domineering tendency intensifies despite my desperate anarc…

Do I look so unhappy or troubled as to make a lady stop me from behind, ask me to put off the earphone, and then hand in a pocket-size salvation brochure? I glimpsed its frontispiece when she drew it from a handbag. It was the same brochur…

I'm wondering how drastically the burden of grading would decrease if we had only two categories, "A" and "non-A." Or if this is too simplified, how about four options ("A," "B," "C," and "D") with no pluses or minuses?

雨が降る頭が痛む酒を飲む

Today my HCC discussion section had a primary source workshop at Langson Library and I had a chance to ask a person who manages the special collections and archives if Derrida's manuscripts could be ditigalized and become available online …

雇用契約や不当な労働条件に抗議するためUC全体におよぶストライキが打たれた。他のキャンパスでは昨日今日と二日がかりのところもあるが、うちでは今日のみ。とはいえ、どれだけのTAやファカルティーがストに入っているかは不明。見張り役のキャンパスポリ…

Grading is done! But where is the spring break? The spring quarter begins tomorrow, doesn't it?

Today I did write something. And as I typed keys slowly but fiercely for hours, I came to realize that I did not dislike writing. To my surprise, a revelation hit me that I could love writing as I love reading! Another discovery is that wr…

How many calories the brain consumes when one writes intensely for hours? For some reasons writing makes me extremely hungry and thirsty. I have a plenty of hot drink, water, and snacks beside my laptop, but still need to leave the desk ho…

I learned a great deal from the grad conference these two days, though in a deeply selfish way. I mean, I stopped listening to the presentations at some point and concentrated on observing explosions of my own thinking ignited by some idea…

I finished grading fifteen midterm papers in three hours! Yet I have another set of essays to grade...The quarter system is crazy.

All the grading work is done! Although this may sound strange, my reading speed is fairly constant, whether I'm reading challenging theoretical texts or badly written student papers. Of course I don't read their papers as closely and slowl…

As I was grading exam papers in drinking coffee at OC Mix, a middle-aged guy spoke to me that he used those bluebooks in the 1970s and was surprised but really glad to see that we're still using them today.

I wondered for a long while why I had such a difficult time in teaching undergraduate courses and finally hit on an answer today: I do not remember any professors who impressed me so much so that my life had changed ever since. Well, there…

35分は車を走らせて行ったブックオフでロレンスの『息子と恋人』の翻訳が1ドルで売っているのを見つけ90パーセント以上の確率でダブり買いになると確信しつつ10パーセントの前回買わなかったかもという疑念を拭い去ることができずまた1ドル無駄になっても35…

Okay, I finally wrote about ten pages that, when properly polished and evidenced, might serve as a first rough draft of the prospectus and a part of the introductory chapter. I'm not at all happy with the quality of this fragment or free w…

"I don't believe that I believe in myself," not "I do believe that I don't believe in myself," probably best describes the dilemma I am in these months.

I'm very curious to know where some of my students got a crazy idea that Machiavelli's The Prince is a novel.

スタバでずっと学生レポートの採点。座った席が空調の真下でコートが脱げないくらい寒かった。そのせいか、家のドアを開けたとき、「ああ、うちはあったかいな」と思わずつぶやいてしまう。もう５年近く住んでいる学生寮だが、この場所を「いえ」ではなく「…

幻聴に聞く蝉の音か