Getting there

Hi, everyone,
I have been working at the National Archives in Kew Gardens. It's one of the major repository of public documents from about 11th century. It's really tiring and time consuming, but I am trying to read some manuscript materials. I think I will be able to update some of their photos soon. Some of the perchments are taller than me, and it's quite overwhelming!!!
I'll write here again. Take care.
Best,
Koji

On research trip!

Hi there.
I've just begun my two-week research trip today. Now, I'm in London, Kingscross. I'll be here in London until sunday, then going to Oxford, and Wales afterwards. Can you imagine how my research trip will be like?? I really can't. So, I will let you know how things goes, whenever I have both time and an internet connection. See you later!

Spring has come!! (3)

IMG_1742
Originally uploaded by jennywren146.

Browsing my friend's website, I've just found out a photo of her lovely garden! I wish my parents' house back home had a garden like this!! Wouldn't it be lovely to have tea and biscuits in such a garden?

Spring has come!! (2)

Cherry blossom near Langwith College
Originally uploaded by koji yamamoto.

Impressive, isn't it?

Diary: 19 April, 'an evening service'

looking up at the entrance
Originally uploaded by koji yamamoto.

Looking up its magnificent facade, I went into the Minster. I can only speculate why i did it. That evening, I submitted a piece of work (or a mere summary and an outline of one of the chapters of my dissertation) to Natasha, my supervisor. I failed to meet my workload. Perhaps I wanted to take that fact seriously. And I didn't want to go back my flat straight ahead. So I wanted, I suppose, something different from what I would have felt in my daily routine in here. I thus entered, and heard the choir singing. It was irresistible. I found myself asking if I could get closer to listen to it. The person told me where to go, and where to have a seat. Whatever the reason, it now became the first time in my life to go spontaneously to an evening service (or any service whatsoever). For the next half an hour, I saw the rituals being performed; I was a mere passer-by. Yet, it made some difference. On the way back, I enjoyed a little lighter steps than would have otherwise been possible. So, in the dusk I looked back the Minster, with some strange sense of owe, which, perhaps, no committed Christian would dare to feel.

Spring has come!! (1)

ducklings and parent ducks
Originally uploaded by koji yamamoto.

There is a winding lake at the heart of the university. Thanks for the university's apparent "protection of the wild life", we can see ducks, geese, and even a few black swans.

It's been a bit more than a week since I began to come across to ducklings (baby ducks) very often. They are quite active: they can run around, can swin, and often even try to fry!! The best season in York seems to have just arrived.

Chinese lessons

curry paste
Originally uploaded by koji yamamoto.

Grammars, vocabularies, idioms, weird sounds &c &c. Learning a new language can be very exhausting and time consuming. But, there surely is a surprising moment when we see a chain of strange sounds begin to make sense. This sense of surprise is, for me, one of the biggest pleasures I used to enjoy when using English. Probably, I am now lucky enough to have that feeling again, and perhaps, even a bit more than that.

In the last several days, I tried to practice Chinese with my flatmate. Well, it is not entirely a new language to me, since I studied it for a year when I was in high school. Yet, the knowledge I acquired several years ago have almost gone in the wind. So, now I feel as if I were learning a new one, without having the trouble of spending much time for grammars etc. It would be great to do some more practice, because it's a nice surprise to see my tentative words actually carry their proper meanings. But not just that; it even reminds me of the profound difference that our self-confidence can immediately bring about.

When I practiced my awkward Chinese yesterday, I felt a massive psychological pressure, and often ended up in using English. But even so, it gave me a little sense of confidence and empowerment. I think this is important and isn't just about learning languages. When raising a question in some formal discussions in the History Department, for example, I often feel more confident about myself once I see that my questions make sense and somehow contribute to the discussion. This drop of confidence often becomes the cause of further action and confidence. So, there is a sort of upward spiral: your action improves your self-confidence, thereby stimulating further improvement that can bring even further sense of empowerment, etc.

For sure, Everything wouldn't be as straightforward as this optimistic vision. Yet, the language practice perhaps captures some truth: our self-confidence can make a real difference, even if our confidence itself is often painfully unstable. I wanted to write about it, rather than dismiss it in my mind as a cliché . For, whenever I am stuck, it is all too easy to forget about it, while forgetting the very fact that I forget it. But I don't want to forget, but rather wish to remember and cherish the moment when I feel myself empowered. Learning language has such a side-effect. I think I have a good reason to try my Chinese again.

Diary: 5-8 April

5 April:
Doing my own research is like getting used to a new pair of glasses. I found it quite interesting to read newspaper. I don't remember when I last read it regularly. This time, I found myself looking at articles just as I am looking at my primary or secondary materials in my research topic. Keep studying changes the way I see things.

6 April:
Badmington, with Yoshi, Wanyu, and Yushan. Reading primary sources.

7 April:
Sent an enquiry to an archive in Swansea, Wales.
Completed the applicaiton form for a college tutor.

8 April:
Submitted the application. Got a fascinating reply from the archive. I will make a play to visit there. Had a teatime with Kei and Yoshi. Coming back to my flat, I managed to eat Wanyu's fabulous fried-rice. Several friends of mine happened to come around. We found ourselves making Samurai hats out of newspaper (that I haven't perhaps read yet).
Had some chance to talk a bit about career-related things. I do need to step forward, and then I can think about it again.

Be positive, and keep yourself upright.

You can do what you believe you want to do.

Economist in social context

Browsing through Financial Times, I came across to an article by John Kay, an economist. This is the second time. I felt curious and visited his website.

His writing looks pretty wide ranging, including, but not confined to, issues on economic trends, business strategy, and their relation to society. He seems to be well equipped with analytical (often academic like) language; and although I hardly know anything about these subjects, his view is clearly difined. For example, in his introductory remark, he briefly contends that success/failure of a company must be analyzed according to what he calls the capability as a corporate body. By doing so, he rejects conventional assumptions that either key figures in a firm or shareholders can be seen as the single decisive factor of explanation. For John Kay, therefore, designs and influence of CEOs and shareholders are not equal to the company they represent or patronize.

This is a part of his more general committment that the age of grand designs (or sanguine modernism) has gone. In the sphere of corporate governance, it means that any designs of CEOs or shareholders cannot adequately explain the fate of their firms. The same applies, he contends, to global economic system as well. There is no sigle standerd by which economic policies of all contries ought to be governed. Hence his critisim of the 'Washington consensus' and his emphasis on the notion of 'embeddedness'. Thus, both capability of a firm and the market must be seen in conjunction with local contexts. This looks similar to a recent sociological trend. Using the notions like 'embeddedness' and 'governance', they are deconstructing the conventional dyads of libertarian market vs state, market vs tradition etc. Of course, I am not in a position to judge whether this theoretical trend actually owes anything to Kay.

Meanwhile, as a cultural historian, I feel that what they mean by local contexts is crucial for this trend: is it implied that there is a single identifiable 'local context' according to which all companies and economic issues can be understood? This may be an implausible position. Yet more crucially, understanding any given local contexts is not equal to judging what is desirable in each context: description and prescription can be overlapping, but cannot be one and the same. What is, then, a role of economists like John Kay?? What are they doing when they are analyzing firms and economics in terms of social contexts in which they were embedded? Are they objectively depicting what is a relevant social contexts; or, are they - be it willingly or unwillingly - involved in value judgement (and thus political acts) of any kinds?

I will leave this as an open question for us to think about. We should watch out how social contexts come in to play in Kay's and others analyses. If the task of economists should inevitably involve not only analysis of, but also value judgement upon, a given society, then such a task would conjure up a whole branch of social science and humanities, ranging from sociology, philosophy, history, and perhaps even literature. This is not simply to say that economists now have to appreciate socio-cultural issues. This even suggests that disciplines supposedly separate from business and economics have much to discuss with someone like John Kay (and by implication, the society at large). By declaring the end of modernism, therefore, John Kay is also declaring the dissolving of the disciplinary boundaries, which itself is a product of the modernity. In so doing, he is perhaps marking the beginning of the age in which not only knowledge of economists, financial analysists, and politicians, but also that of sociologists, historians, and literary critics should play cooperative role in making sense of specific and technical issues in contemporary society.

Diary: 4 April

I have spent several hours on browsing and gathering information about weblogs. I was looking for some better weblog hosting system with facilities like sitefeed, keywords and trackback. But I got lost because (I suppose) I couldn't tell the difference between hosting systems, of which blogger.com is one, with a chank of softwares used for blogging, for example, Pivot, and Serendipity. Now I think they are different things; am I right???
I feel that it will take hours and hours if I try to change the hosting system. It would be better stay for a whie.

Had a spicy pasta for dinner, and worked on some published proceedings of a mining company in early C18. I will write revised version of an abstract of chapter one tomorrow.

Read Seiya's homepage. I don't remember when I last checked it; it's been quite a while. I happened to meet him twice during my trip across Canada. We had some beer togather, overlooking a famous castle-like hotel in the walled part of Quebec City. He is a very interesting guy, now in the undergrad final year in computer science in Victoria. He's recently secured his job for (half) a year later (that is called nai-tei in Japanese). As always, I enjoyed reading his diary a lot, not just because I like his way of seeing things, but perhaps also because I'm about to do some job-hunting now.

Diary: 1-3 April

3rd April:
Played Badminton with friends. Good fun. But I was quite exhausted in the end.
Had a dinner with Kunio. Have some chat afterwards. He suggested me that it would be better not to spend too much time on the chpater one I have been working on. I think this advice is important for me, because I often stick to details, thereby causing a big delay in my overall plan.
I can start working on to the second chapter in a few days; ok, I would say from Wednesday onwards.

2nd April:
Reading in the RB Library. Master thesis written 50 years ago.
Went to Kunio's to have some Sho-chu.
Moved to my room and sang some songs with friends. Pope passed away this day.
At the end, we sang Ozaki's 'I love you' hoping that it may pay some tribute to the great man who (we suppose) well deserves to the love of people.

1st April:
Went to the King's manor to meet Mark Jenner. I asked him some specific questions about his comments on my paper for the TAP meeting. But I also wanted to talk generally about the planning of my whole dissertation. I feared that the first chapter become monstrous and I might end up in revising and developing that chapter over and over again, being unable to move forward. Well, I will avoid this.