{"id":470,"date":"2010-01-01T15:49:58","date_gmt":"2010-01-01T20:49:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bourdaghs.com\/blog\/?p=470"},"modified":"2010-01-01T23:44:49","modified_gmt":"2010-01-02T04:44:49","slug":"welcome-2010-go-away2009","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bourdaghs.com\/blog\/?p=470","title":{"rendered":"Welcome 2010, Go Away 2009"},"content":{"rendered":"

Can a decade really have passed since we were all in a panic over Y2K? I remember the turn of the century well: we took our children (aged eight and three then) to a friend’s house in St. Paul to observe the moment with a massive balloon drop down the stairwell, after which we returned to my mother’s and roasted sausages and marshmallows over the fireplace into the wee hours. I was still teaching at UCLA, and we were preparing then to move to Japan the following March, when I began a year-long stint as a visiting research at Tohoku University. <\/p>\n

What a decade it was: stolen elections, terrorist attacks, evil wars, brutal politics. Somehow, we survived. It was a tumultuous time personally, as well. I’ve just calculated that my family had seven different addresses over those ten years. That’s too much moving, no? My resolution for the new decade: stay away from moving trucks.<\/p>\n

I begin 2010 with too many other resolutions to list here. One very small one: I’m going to spend some time tidying up my homepage (www.bourdaghs.com<\/a>), so stop by there if you haven’t lately. <\/p>\n

We greeted the arrival of the new year last night by watching the “Kohaku Utaggasen” musical spectacular on NHK. It was the sixtieth anniversary of the annual holiday show. Highlights included a very nervous-looking Susan Boyle, a reunited Alice, Mori Shin’ichi looking quite old but delivering a powerhouse performance, SMAP providing a tribute in dance to Michael Jackson, and of course Wada Akiko. There’s always Wada Akiko: a sign of hope, I think, that we’ll survive the next decade, too. <\/p>\n

Thanks for visiting this blog in 2009, and best wishes to you in 2010. I hope you don’t have to move during the year. <\/p>\n