Thursday 21 September 2017

Day 262, 19 Sep 2017: And so it begins...

Day 262: ...at 9.00am

The timetabling gods weren't smiling on me this semester. Two classes starting at 9.00am, means a 5.00am up and at it to begin the 90minute commute about 6.00am. Yes, by that calculation I do get to work by about 8.00am but I've never been one of those lecturers who can walk from the car park to the lecture theatre (as it were). I like to check over notes, double check the IT (in this era of mostly inconvenient IT breakdowns) and just breathe. 

We have a new-fangled roll-taking system now too (which went on the blink half-way through) and our 'new' class management system (another bit of annoying IT intervention invention) isn't quite fully operational. Bit awkward for getting the material to students on time...

Japanese university classrooms are a lot less tech-oriented than Australian university classrooms. When I left the Australian classrooms, almost every student read facebook posts in class worked off a laptop; lectures were expected to be a kind of techno-bravo song and dance session. Japanese student still take notes the old-fashioned way, pencil and paper, and might occasionally look at their smart phones. And yes, of course chatter and/or sleep all the way through. Some things remain the same.

That early light

Speeding this way...

Floating that way...

I know that feeling


Just like the port. Some boats might look a little worse for wear, just like the teaching staff, but, they keep on working through whatever, the timetable throws at them.

[Camera : Lumix TZ-85, 8.23am, 2.48pm, 4.05pm; 19 September 2017]