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+--- Thread: Senior Project (/thread-2534.html)
Senior Project - Tamoki - 2009-02-04
Hello.
My name is Zach and I'm an American high-school student in North Carolina.
Last semester I took the first of four Japanese courses offered at my school. Prior to this course, I had little interest or knowledge of Japanese, but afterwards I had grown to appreciate the culture and become very fond of the language and also our teacher. Our Japanese teacher is a native speaker from Japan where she earned a degree in Japanese Linguistics, she is very nice and a very good teacher.
Our high-school has a graduation requirement called a senior project. The senior project is completed in the twelfth grade as a component of English 4. For the senior project you must choose a topic to do a research paper on, and also a topic for a physical project. Some examples of projects are things like: cooking, martial arts, SCUBA diving, etc. Each student must have a mentor for their project. The mentor should be an adult, but not a family member.
Currently I am a Junior in my second semester, but I am already considering what I should do for my senior project. I recently decided that I would like to do something Japanese-related, and have my Japanese teacher as my mentor.
Some of my ideas for projects are:
Organize and make a website for local Japanese-American community events;
-There is already an event at a local church called Table Talk where Japanese and Americans meet and eat dinner together.
-I'm also skilled with computers, so this would combine two of my interests.
Maybe write a children's book in Japanese?
Maybe some kind of cooking/culinary project, but I don't think my teacher is good at cooking.
I quite like the first idea, but I would also like some input from the members of this website.
Any and all help is appreciated.
Thanks.
Senior Project - musigny - 2009-02-04
Zack,
Does your city have a sister city in Japan? If so, maybe you could develop a bilingual website promoting cultural exchange between the two cities. I think any city in Japan might be quite interested in such a site. If you could get some involvement from Japan, that would really get the site rolling. I think international involvement would make your project stand out. Who knows maybe you could visit that city or someone from the Japan city will visit yours.
Senior Project - Dustin_Calgary - 2009-02-04
Hmm, my city has a sister city in Japan as well! That sounds like a great idea, I'm going to get right on that ^^
Senior Project - kioku3 - 2009-02-04
I second musiqny's suggestion to encourage everyone who is fortunate enough to live in an area that has a Japanese sister city to get involved in some way. I'm pretty sure that you will find people eager to support your interest in Japan and the Japanese language. I was lucky enough to teach English in my Japanese sister city, living in a "Sister City House", and made many friends that I am in close contact with today. I guess the primary reason I am studying RTK and continue to study Japanese now years later is to keep that experience alive in my life in some way.
Senior Project - thelooseteeth - 2009-02-04
What part of NC? I here kids talking about senior projects all the time here in Sylva...
Senior Project - stoked - 2009-02-04
How can I find out if my city has a Japanese sister city?
Senior Project - kioku3 - 2009-02-04
I googled and found these addresses/telephone numbers for North Carolina. If Zach or anyone finds them useful, that's great...
http://www.atlanta.us.emb-japan.go.jp/SisterCity.htm
North Carolina Sister-City Organizations State Coordinator
600 E. 4th Street, Suite 950
Charlotte, NC 28202-2870
Phone: 704-333-3399
Fax: 704-336-6587
Durham-Toyama (Toyama)
Duke University, Asian Pacific Studies
2111 Campus Drive
Durham, NC 27708
Phone: 919-684-2604
Fax: 919-681-6247
@ stoked: If your city has a webpage, it might list Sister Cities there. If not, perhaps you could call the city offices and ask them.
Senior Project - stoked - 2009-02-04
I did a google search and I think no Swiss cities have sister cities.
This is (mostly) a US thing it seems. Sucks
I like the idea...
Senior Project - woodwojr - 2009-02-04
Must not entirely be a US thing, as US cities tend to have sister cities not in the US
List for Switzerland
List for Japan
~J
Senior Project - kioku3 - 2009-02-04
@stoked:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_twin_towns_and_sister_cities_in_Switzerland
This link lists Japanese sister cities for:
Arosa
Brienz
Grindelwald
Interlaken
Montreux
Romainmotier-Envy
St. Moritz
Yverdon-les-Bains
Zermatt
Most of the cities listed though are European--not Japanese...
Edit: woodwojr beat me to it!
Senior Project - stoked - 2009-02-04
Oh...my...wow. This is amazing. I totally missed the sister city thing. Makes me feel like I lived on the moon or something. Grindelwald? Funny. We'll go there for snowboarding in March...
Awesome. Thanks!!
Senior Project - musigny - 2009-02-04
stoked Wrote:Oh...my...wow. This is amazing. I totally missed the sister city thing. Makes me feel like I lived on the moon or something. Grindelwald? Funny. We'll go there for snowboarding in March...Stoked, I'm surprised you haven't heard of this. In France many villages have the names of sister cities posted on signs at the entrance to the village. Many of the wine villages in Burgundy for example are sister cities with wine villages in Germany.
Awesome. Thanks!!