Rousing interpretation of classroom events brought to you by Anna Blaine.

Monday, May 04, 2015 D-3



All faculty and students arrived relatively on time for class Monday morning, some more worse for wear after the end of the long period of finals the week prior. The morning began with Dr. Dorn van Dommelen, Professor of Geography and the Chair of the Geography and Environmental Studies program at UAA, giving the assembled students a brief overview of the schedule for the first two days of the course. At that time, all present realized that there was not a lot of time to accomplish a great deal before the plane left for Japan on May 7th, and class began!

After Dorn's thrilling introduction, he started right into a general overview on disasters and hazards around the world. His riveting description of some of the dangers were countered by the coldness of statistical analysis provided by quantitative data on the exact cost, in both human lives and damage to infrastructure, that disasters caused every year. He concluded the lecture with a thought provoking discussion on  why people tend to perceive some very unlikely hazards as far more dangerous than hazards faced on a day to day basis. The class learned that a variety of factors influence how people think about the hazards in our daily lives. Dorn ended the lecture with a brief discussion on the classes' averaged risk assessment data, which the students had all completed several weeks prior at the behest of their professors.

After a brief break, the class reconvened to develop a plan of action should any of the events judged most likely or most damaging during the risk assessment occur. With Dorn acting as secretary, the class as whole discussed each of the hazards one by one, from the most innocuous such as the loss of luggage, to the the most deadly up to and including what would happen in the event of a large scale natural disaster or even the death of a program participant. The participation by the group was high and a contingency plan was made with possible by the team effort of the entire class working as one!

After lunch, the class returned ready to engage with Dr. Hiroko Harada's, Coordinator of the Japanese Program in the Department of Languages and Director of the Montgomery Dickson Center for Japanese Language and Culture, lecture on Japanese culture. After first passing out the JR voucher which would be necessary for our extensive travel on Japan's rail system and the itineraries for each student's plane tickets, Harada-sensei opened her introduction to Japanese culture with the following video:

After several more videos detailing the horror and extent of the 2011 Great Tohoku Earthquake, Harada-sensei began a riveting informational on some very poignant (and useful!) pieces of information on Japanese culture. This included information on how to use Japanese high-tech toilets which employ control panels such as the one pictured 

here. Please note the buttons on the very top of the control panel. These buttons are labeled 大　(which literally means "big") and 小 (literally meaning "small.") These will be the most commonly used buttons. Beware, though, most of the other buttons are different types of water controls and you might just come out of the bathroom all wet!

Finally, the students and faculty were given a brief introduction to the new portfolio tool at UAA and given access to the portfolio that all will be utilizing for the program. After verifying all students could log in and had access, some commemorative photos were taken and class was dismissed!

So ends Day One of Orientation.

Tuesday, May 05, 2015 D-2

The second day of orientation began with a fun session of add everyone on LINE, the messaging app designated as a way to contact other members of the group both before the trip as well as during. After this, the group settled in for another lecture from Dr. Van Dommelen who was prepared to give a rousing discussion on the basics behind the science of earthquakes and tsunamis. His lecture, informative as well as entertaining included several videos the class viewed as a group, including the video included below which the class watch no less than three times in total.

After Dr. Van Domellen's lecture on the science behind earthquakes and tsunami, the class was joined by a guest speaker in Dr. Paul Dunscomb, Professor of East Asian History at UAA, to lead a discussion on the resilience of Japanese society as it is built not only into the culture but its language. One resounding example is listed below.

頑張る(v) - ganbaru (rom) - to endure

This verb is often used in its conjugated form as a sort of cheer to encourage.

After Dr. Dunscomb's talk, the class was once again led by Dr. Harada, but this time in a rudimentary introduction to the Japanese language. The class learned essential greetings and politeness phrases that would go a long way to making those students' that do not speak Japanese time in Japan that much easier. After the introduction to Japanese, the class wound down with a discussion of the digication assignment and class was dismissed with the agreement to meet again on Thursday, May 07, 2015 at 5 AM AKST in order to begin their journey!

日本に行きましょう！