Where I've Studied
These are schools where I've studied and
taught over the years. In cases where I have
more information, like yearbooks, I hope
to make secondary pages. However, right now
I'm not even sure of those years.
- Unknown school (kindergarten) (1960-1) --
All I can remember about this one is that
it was long and flat, like a ranch-style
house and was somewhere in the same direction
but farther from my home than Rolling Hills.
- Rolling Hills Elementary School (1961-2)
-- Main memory is bad meat. Actually, probably
just mixed with some kind of filler like
soy beans. Was an enormous churchlike building
with some wooden temporary buildings, and
I'm pretty sure it was gone the last time
I passed by.
- Welchester Elementary School (1962-8) --
Another ranch-syle school, and I also remember
having classes in some temporary buildings
there. Big soccer field where I was at least
allowed to join in.
- Gertrude Wheeler Bell Junior High School
(1968-71) -- Surprised how little I remember
of this place where I probably had my first
exposure to computers. Main thing I remember
was the big hill behind the school...
- Golden Senior High School (1971-4)
- University of Northern Colorado (Frontiers
of Science, 1973?) -- Special summer program.
My main contribution was getting injured--twice.
Fell off a mountain and tried to go through
a glass door.
- Rice University (1974-78) -- This is where
I became a pretty good sociologist, historian,
and even a bit of a philosopher. I remain
grateful.
- Marine Corps Recruit Training Depot, San
Diego (1975) -- Brainwashing mostly failed.
Funniest memory is being inspected for graduation.
The general said I needed to work on my position
of attention, which is probably the very
first thing they tried to teach us.
- University of Texas (Austin) (1978-1982)
-- Here they failed to make me a demographer,
an emminent sociologist (one of my evaluators
officially estimated a 1/3 chance when I
was admitted), or a mathematician (though
the very great Professor Greenwood did his
best in the only course I managed to take
from him). They sort of gave me recognition
as a computer scientist, though I feel I
learned most of the basics before I arrived
there and learned most of the substance afterwards.
Not much gratitude.
- Austin Community College (1988) -- Typical
community college, I guess. I took a conversational
Japanese class there. I think it was a night
class in a big high school.
- Kanda Institute of Foreign Languages (Kanda
Gaigo Gakuin) (1990-3) -- My first real stint
on the other side. I mostly worked in the
OA program, which was never as good as I'd
have liked. However, I think I arrived while
the English program was still very strong,
though fading. I left before things got bad
in a massive curriculum reform project, and
I think it was overall not such a good thing,
though my sources are teachers who were mostly
negatively impacted.
- Temple University Japan (1992?) -- Just a
course in history of the English language.
Not even sure which campus it was, though
they seem to move every three or four years.
- Japanese campus of some minor American college
(1992?) -- Can't even remember the name,
or if it was before or after Temple. This
was a classic example of the fad of Japanese
campuses of minor American schools. Not exactly
a scam, but of limited academic credibility
and most of them disappeared fairly quickly.
The idea was to get rich Japanese students
to enroll at the home campus after a couple
of years of intensive English in Japan. I
was actually taking an English teachers certification
class, which was pretty good and taught by
a former RSA instructor. The school itself
must not have been so good, because it soon
joined the vanished.
- Yamanashi University (Yamanashi Daigaku)
(1993-4) -- Japanese students are very good
at collectively studying for exams. Interesting
to watch, though I wasn't able to participate
effectively on my own behalf. The result
was I took the entrance exam for the master's
program twice, and didn't come close to passing.
- Tokyo Institute of Polytechnics (Tokyo Kougei
Daigaku) (1995-9) -- Very minor private university
and I think they're destined to remain as
such. For some reason it reminds me of the
University of Denver where I think some high
school debate tournaments were held...
