…you find yourself making powerpoint slides on a Friday night… Gah. Anyhow, this is the life I lead these days. Tuesday afternoon is the last group presentation in Prof. Zhang’s Theories of Sustainable Development class, and it just so happens to be my group — big mistake. While all of my group-mates are intelligent and can satisfactorily articulate their ideas in English… well, for the scam we’re cookin’ they wanted someone who could take the heat and take it like a pro.
Tag Archives: Environmental Policy
The Aftermath
My first research presentation went off without a hitch, and the day ended up far more exciting than I ever could have predicted. Solely for matters of record, I submit to you the powerpoint file itself. As zipping it only reduced its size by a paltry 5%, I’ve left it as is.
( tentative-research-thesis-outline )
How much content you can derive without my riveting running commentary I do not know, but I’m sure some of you are curious. I should also note that when judged as a document outlining my focus of research and by extension my thesis, it is already sorely out of date. Treat it instead as an explanation of the themes I am chasing, the actual work waiting for me has since changed dramatically – see below!
Graduate School – The Breakdown
Monday was my first official day of class as a graduate student here at APU. I had two classes, Introduction to the Asia Pacific Region II, and The Environment and Natural Resources in Monsoon Asia.
Odds and Ends
Lots of odds and ends to tell you about today, try and keep up. First off, yesterday I finally broke down and bought a rice cooker. Scoff if you want, but in Japan it’s not as simple as waddling down to the local Walmart and grabbing a $20 box off the shelf. Here, it’s more akin to buying a car. One must first decide what features one wants in said cooker. For me, I’m simple, all I want is something into which I can put water and dry rice, and out of which comes tasty sticky rice. As I found out, there is not a single rice cooker in Japan that *just* cooks rice. At the local Yamada Denki, which is basically a Best Buy with more home appliances, they carry over 30 different models of rice cooker. In fact, if you’re so inclined, they’ll even let you pay upwards of $550 for one. I don’t know what else a $550 rice cooker does besides cook rice, and frankly I don’t want to know, because for that price it better be something naughty or else you’re getting ripped off!