LL-L "Members' news" 2007.11.10 (10) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

L O W L A N D S - L  -  10 November 2007 - Volume 10
Song Contest: lowlands-l.net/contest/ (- 31 Dec. 2007)
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From: Mike Morgan <mwmosaka at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Members' news" 2007.11.09 (02) [E]

Ben Bloomgren <ben.j.bloomgren at gmail.com>  asked:

> What're ya gonna be doin' down in India?

I will be heading an NPO, started in 2005 but only now expanded enough
to require a director. Quoting from our home page, our "main aim is to
improve the educational achievement of Deaf children and adults in
India. We are establishing educational networks in order to run
continuing education classes, distance education programs, and
literacy improvement courses. All of our courses are taught using the
medium of sign language. Our ultimate goal is setting up full-fledged
tertiary education streams for deaf students. We are associated with a
number of national and international organizations and individuals who
are closely involved with the field of bilingual-bi cultural education
programs for the Deaf."  (Setting up things on the Indian side for the
start of the fiirst univeristy-level course in 2 years leading to a BA
degree in Sign Language Applied Linguistics (through UCLAN in England)
will be part of my duties as managing director.)

Anyone interested in more details can ask me off-list ... or can go to
the Ishara Foundation website for more details, including an
introduction in Indian Sign language by one of our founders and board
of directors (and a friend of mine), Sibaji Panda:
    http://www.ishara.org/

> What were you up to up in Japan?

How to answer? The short answer would be: teaching at university (by
preference, anything but English (most specifically  Russian); by
necessity/demand, mostly English ... hence my general joy at moving
on), but that would MISS ALL the important things. And the important
things are (in no particular order)
1) drinking Ebisu beer (a label produced by Sapporo beer company, and
named after the only indiginously Japanese of the Seven Gods of
Fortune ... indigenous also in the sense of his Ainu connections) [NB:
all my FREE beer, however, comes from a friend who works for for a
competing beer company, Suntory.]
2) using Japan as a base for LOTS of travel, especially to Asia (NB:
to SOME, uniniated, Japan IS a part of Asia ... to whom I respond:
Yeah, and England IS a part of Europe! ... In your dreams!!!)
3) eating zaru-soba (cold buckwheat noodles) with REAL (i.e. freshly
"ground", NOT out of a tube) wasabi  (see my comments some time ago
about the comparative virtues of the fresh vs tubed root)
4) doing sign language research, and being active in the local Deaf
community in a variety of ways
5) becoming ever more cynical about the state of the world (something
that perhaps comes naturally to many of us in  this day and age!)

> You haven't forgotten the good oal US of A have ya?

No, and every time I return to the US of A I remember many thing I had
tried so HARD to forget ...making me, thanks in part to the PATRIOT
Act (but actually more to the general environment that produced that
act), as Ron so aptly described me, an EX-pat(riot). [NB: exaccerabted
by the fact my name (or rather someone else with the SAME name) is on
the watch list. I feel like I did in highschool whenever I got that
OTHER "Michael Morgan"'s (MPM not MWM!) report card at Rantoul
Township High School ... yes, my mother knew the difference, but the
shock of seeing all those letters WAY down the alphabet was still
real!)

STILL, sometimes the longing to see family and friends gets me to go
through all that hastle.

[ASIDE: As of Nov 20th (the day AFTER I leave Japan), Japan will adopt
yet another western practice and start fingerprinting and photographic
ALL non Japanese at the airport ... though, as always, they will apply
the Japanese principle of "borrow and improve": unlike the US who
exempts non-citizen residents (Green-card holders, etc), Japan will
apply the new requirements to ALL foreigners INCLUDING permanent
residents (except for permanent-resident Koreans ... I guess in
unspoken acknowledgment that their Japanese citizenship was illegally
stripped from them by act of Diet in the late '50s.)

Anyway,  I will see all of you in India! (on the list, if not in person)

MWM || マイク || Мика || माईक

================

Dr Michael W Morgan
Managing Director
Ishara Foundation
Mumbai (Bombay), India

++++++++++++++++

माईकल मोर्गन (पी.एच.डी.)
मेनेजिंग डॉयरेक्टर
ईशारा फॉउंडेशन (मुंबई )

++++++++++++++++

茂流岸マイク(言語学博士)
イシャラ基金の専務理事・事務局長
ムンバイ(ボンベイ)、インド
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