I'm back

My long absence is over now. Life has been very tough on me recently, and the last thing I could think of in the last month was to update this blog. I am slowly recuperating, mentally. There are events in this world one cannot accept, although it is possible to comprehend them to some extent. I have tried to live through that in the last weeks and who knows how many more weeks I will have to fight off certain thoughts. But I am on my path back, that's for sure. Although the world is never gonna be the same.

I have started working part-time as a teaching assistant to one of the professors at the University. The job so far is utterly technical: setting up the computer-projector-speakers and, once in a week, microphones in class; helping the lecturer with showing PowerPoints by literally pressing the button after a signal; passing the cordless microphone from one student to another during class discussions. It's been mostly ok. This month I will also be taking care of one of the seminars, for which I am preparing at the moment a list of readings. I have to come up with a PowerPoint and show it to an 80-odd class of Japanese first- and second-year undergraduates. I am looking forward to it, although I am also worrying a little about the reluctance of the students to speak up in the public, of which I have already written. And will write more, it appears.