Connections

I have been thinking a lot about a good friend I worked with at SMC - she is a Japanese language professor as well as the Language Proficiency Coordinator. I know she still has family in Japan, but my sense is they live in the south and the mountains. Hideko made this origami paper crane for me when I retired.

I both loved and hated the summer freshman registration that our office conducted every July - it was a wildly busy, extremely concentrated and (barely) controlled chaos of testing, advising and course choosing for the incoming class. Since students were assessed in second language proficiency, Hideko had a huge job on those days as well. We would giggle that the week of registration took care of our exercise program for the summer since we did so much running around. Sometimes testing rooms would be spread out over campus and Hideko and I would meet in hallways or stairwells, exchange information about missing students or computer breakdowns, and dash off with a wave of the hand. Or she would appear at my office door, out of breath and laughing about something, and give me a little bow before collecting paperwork or whatever.

Hideko is only one of the great people I worked with and miss at St. Michael's, and I'm hoping all is as well as can be with her family. --cds