Welcome to rainy season: the wonderful time of year when most of Japan becomes very humid, gray and wet. My first experience with rainy season was in 2003. I was a Thursday night Dj at the time, and all month my friend and I had no more than a few dancers come around to hang out at our humble Shibuya club. Tough times. Some good came of it though.

First, the bartender taught us how to mix some drinks. Nothing too fancy, but good fun. We routinely drank a lot; especially when there weren't many people listening closely to our mixes. Besides, we (myself, my dj partner-in-crime Scott, and the bartender Jeff) were responsible for that club from 10pm to 5am. That's too much time to fill with sobriety. We also taught Jeff how to mix records. No great results (it takes some practice) but he definitely got into scratching records.

Second, we all started drumming. We had all done some drumming in university (hand drums) but now here was our chance to drum along to recordings of the best funk and jazz musicians ever! Sometimes our girlfriends would come visit and join the jam. Ruby Room had a full drum kit hidden in a back room, to which we had access.

Most nights (well, mornings, really) were rather anti-climactic. Scott and I would hop on the shihatsu from shibuya, headed back to the quaint town of Ootorii. We talked most of the way, about music and Japan, and the girls we were dating. We also noticed that none of the other passengers were awake! In fact, riding the train in the early early morning showed us a different slice of Tokyo's population. We really couldn't imagine anyone signing up for a job that required them in a suit and on a train before 6am! I still can't believe it.

And now, many years later, I'm no closer to understanding the work ethic in this country. It's depressing. As is rainy season. My strategy to avoid rainy season blues this year is to watch some comedy everyday, and wear yellow-tinted sunglasses to simulate sunlight.

▼▽▼▼【講師】Sandy先生のバックナンバー━━━━━━━━
・【Beautiful Losers】2010.03.31 (Wed)

水曜日更新担当の講師チーム"Zen and the Art of Aptitude"から
今日は講師・Kurt先生の更新です！
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Lately we've had increasing numbers of non-Japanese students enrolling for test preparation. One interesting fact that keeps coming up is that many of these people are second-generation Kaplan students! The parents reached their educational goals with the Kaplan method, so they are now recommending it strongly to their children. It's nice to know that we're helping so many people succeed in life!

▼▽▼▼【講師】Kurt先生のバックナンバー━━━━━━━━
・【Test Prep and Academic Success】2010.04.21 (Wed)

I've written a few times about formal logic, and its importance on the LSAT, GRE, GMAT, and SAT, but informal logic is also very important to those tests. The difference between formal and informal logic is that formal logic is more mathematical, while informal logic is more rhetorical; that is, in formal logic we use symbols and shorthand to help us isolate variables (such as the truth, falsehood, or unknowability of certain premises), while informal logic is based upon generally agreed upon rules for what does and does not constitute a persuasive argument.


The difference in these two skills is probably most pronounced for LSAT students, since the logic games section relies heavily upon formal logic skills, while the critical reading and logical reasoning sections depend mostly upon informal logic. For instance, strengthen, weaken, assumption, paradox, principle, and especially logical flaw questions hinge on the student's ability to recognize and articulate violations of the rules of informal logic. Flaw questions, especially, can be tough for non-native English speakers, because the answer choices often come off as vague and confusing. One reason for this is that every answer choice--even the wrong ones--articulates some logical flaw; only one answer, however, will be the correct flaw.


As I always tell my students, however, many flaw questions also have a hidden "cheat code" built into them: Flaws often have specific names (sufficiency vs. necessity, unexamined alternatives, ad hominem, etc.). To accurately describe the flaw, the testmakers almost have to put the flaw's name in the correct answer choice. Hence, if you learn to recognize the flaw when you see it, you can often just scan the answer choices for a single keyword.


If you're interested in reading more about informal logic, I recommend the book Informal Logic: A Pragmatic Approach by Douglas Walton. The author analyzes actual arguments which have been made in the public forum, and uses clear, simple explanations to discuss each one. Also, the book moves nicely from simpler arguments to more complex ones, and points out how to recognize and articulate common logical fallicies. Whether you're a young student bound for college, or a more mature adult ready to start lawschool or grad school, informal logic is an invaluable tool that will sharpen your mind and make you less vulnerable to specious rhetoric.

▼▽▼▼【講師】Douglas先生のバックナンバー━━━━━━━━
・【Study Like a (Good) Dog!】2010.04.14 (Wed)

My Dear Kaplan Students,

Maybe some of you have already heard, I'll be leaving Kaplan very shortly. May 22nd will be my last day. The reason for this change is mainly my getting married. Our wedding will be in Florida, so we're going to fly back for that in about 2 weeks. Afterwards we will be back to Japan, but at that time will do a bit of traveling. I guess the specifics aren't so important, I just want to say that the reason I'm leaving is just that the changes in my life call for it. (And what exciting changes they are!)

I want to say that I've had a wonderful experience here at Kaplan. The best thing about this job really has been you students, because you're who I spend most of my time with here! Yeah, whenever people ask me if I like my job I always say that the students are great and so the job is as well. I've only been in Japan for about 3 years now, and almost all of it has been spent here at Kaplan. So this job and the people here have really kind of shaped my experience in Japan as a whole. It's been so wonderful to see different students achieve their goals and pass tests that they were studying for. It's been really rewarding to be a part of that process. I've really enjoyed hearing all of your different opinions in the discussion classes. And I've also just really enjoyed teaching English. It's great fun for me to try and figure out some grammar point so I can teach it.

As my husband-to-be is Japanese, I'll never really leave Japan for good, and that's a really comforting fact to me. I really do love Japan. If I had to leave here for good it'd be a very sad day for me indeed. So while current circumstances are leading me away from Kaplan and eventually even Japan (we plan to start our married life out in America), the future is full of possibilities.

Let me bring this to a close. I'd just like to thank you for helping make my experience in Japan so rich.

Amberly Sullivan
(soon to be Amberly Sugihara :)

Maybe some of you know, my wedding is coming up pretty soon. It's in about six weeks now. I'm getting pretty excited about it and so those of you who take the time to read this are going to have to hear me talk about it. Well, not about the wedding per say, I'd like to share the story of how me and my fiancé met/started dating.


First, how we met was an incredible chance meeting in my opinion. I met him in my 5th year of university. Normally people don't have five years of university and I shouldn't have either if I hadn't have changed my major a couple of weeks too late. I wouldn't have even ended up at that university if it weren't for a faint acquaintance who had had an interest in it and took me with him to visit it one time. (He never ended up going there.) Even then, I almost didn't end up at that university because until like 2 weeks before the start of my first semester there I didn't have housing. If I hadn't have gotten it I would have gone to another university. So back to my 5th year. I happened to share my interest in Asia to another acquaintance of mine, Sam. She happened to know an exchange student from Africa, Gunpun. One day Gunpun was talking to his Japanese classmate, Takumi. Sam happened to run into Gunpun at that time and met Takumi. She told him about me and how I wanted to go to Asia and said he should come meet me at a dinner with a bunch of her friends - there weren't many Asians at my university :( He didn't really want to, but later he told his Japanese friend Takeshi about it. So now Takeshi, who didn't know anyone at this dinner or even what any of them looked like, came to meet me. Now Takeshi's my fiancé. Let me also add that the year he came was absolute perfect timing. Because I was almost finished with university, it was very easy for me to follow him here the following summer. But if I had ended up at a different university, if I had changed my major a matter of weeks earlier or if Takeshi had happened to come to Florida any other year, if my friend hadn't have happened to run into Gunpun at the moment he was talking to Takumi, if Takeshi hadn't have wanted to go to dinner with a bunch of strangers, we never would have met. In my opinion anyway, the timing was pretty incredible, besides the fact that one of us had to travel half way around the world to meet. And now we're getting married. It's really crazy to think about all the small things in your life that lead up to moments of monumental changes.


Second, how we started dating. I'll never ever forget this. We had been out to dinner a couple of times and he was pretty interested in me if I do say so myself. So he asked his English teacher how he should ask me out. She told him to say, "I was wondering, would you'd like to be my girlfriend?" So one night after we had been out to dinner at my favorite restaurant, we were walking along a river reflecting the city lights. It was cold, he had given me his jacket. It was a kind of a romantic scene. We sat down on a bench and he asked me, "I was wondering, would you like to be my boyfriend?" .... I had to wait a minute and try really hard not to laugh. Then I said, "Umm... I don't think I can." (I COULDN'T be his BOYfriend because I'm a GIRL.) But I don't think he got the joke. Well, I continued to say that it was pretty fast, we didn't really know each other very well, blah blah blah. I did like him at the time, but I just thought it was all really impractical. He was supposed to be going back to Japan in another 4 weeks or so. So my answer meant no, but because of his lower English at the time he didn't understand me. He thought I said yes!! This made for some further interesting situations, but it also led him to behave in a way that brought about our eventual real relationship, namely extending his stay in Florida another 4 months. By the way, we never did discover this mix up until about 1 or 2 years later. At that time, after laughing like crazy at how funny it all was, he said that had he understood me he probably would not have extended his stay and we wouldn't have ever really gotten together.


So, in my mind, our relationship, soon to be marriage, is due largely to incredible timing and his bad English. Well, it's due to a lot more, but you get what I mean.



▼▽▼▼【講師】Amberly先生のバックナンバー━━━━━━━━
・【On a Personal Note】2010.04.07 (Wed)

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Posted By: Amberly Sullivan on May 12, 2010