Greetings

Hi there, and thank you for visiting my blog. 

My name is Jake, and I'm currently working as a college professor teaching English and composition at a small college in Georgia. This is my first semester teaching at the college-level, and I'm also finishing up my MA right, so this is definitely a hectic time for me. 

If you can't tell by the theme here, I'm a bit of a Japanophile, and I have been studying Japanese for a little over a year as a hobby. Though me saying that is probably conjuring up the contemporary stereotype of young Americans who are obsessed with anime or manga, those mediums aren't really my area of interest (though, I do enjoy some of them). Instead, I'm more into traditional Japanese art, aesthetics, and poetry. However, I'm also into some more modern writers like Yasunari Kawabata or film directors like Akira Kurosawa and Hirokazu Koreeda. My hope is to become more fluent in the language so that I can one day read some of my favorite texts without having to read them in translation. 

When I'm not teaching or studying, I enjoy fishing, hiking, and generally just being out doors. Thankfully, I live in the mountains of southern Appalachia, so there are plenty of reasons to get outside and have some fun.

Thanks again for checking out my blog. I look forward to taking a look at some of yours this semester.