Hugh McGuire (ASIJ 2020)

Episode Summary

Nancy Kroonenberg (ASIJ High School Assistant Principal 1996-2013)

Episode Summary

Interlude episode  

Miguel Gen Ortiz-Cañavate Ozeki (St. Mary's 2009)   

Bruno Kenji Ortiz-Cañavate Ozeki (St. Marys 2011)  

Episode Summary

Michael Thornton (ASIJ 2006)

Michael Thornton is a historian of early-modern and modern Japan, with a particular interest in urban history. In his dissertation, “Settling Sapporo: City and State in the Global Nineteenth Century,” he analyzed the planning and construction of Sapporo across the nineteenth century. He argued that the city was built as a settler-colonial capital, playing an instrumental role in the Japanese colonization of Hokkaido. The city was in turn heavily shaped by its colonial position and functions.  ​More broadly, Thornton is interested in the transformation of Japanese cities between the Tokugawa and Meiji periods, including the development of new forms of social and political organization and municipal administration, with an eye to lessons that the rest of the world might learn from one of the planet’s most urbanized societies.  Thornton grew up in Kobe and Tokyo before attending Yale, where he received a BA in History in 2010.

Episode Summary

Frank Streigl (St. Marys 2002)

Frank is the owner at Finom Inc., operating the brands Tokyo Ramen Tours and 5 AM Ramen.  Essentially, he has one of the best jobs in the world. He eats ramen for a living.  After St. Mary's, he majored in Sociology and minored in Law at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. His first job was in Tokyo, where he worked as a Nikkei stockbroker. After finance, he found himself working in tech, chiefly in sales and business development roles. From this point onward he would continue to work in sales, including at the online booking website Agoda.  ​In January of 2018, he started offering ramen tours to inbound tourists, immersing himself in the world of ramen full-time.   

Tokyo Ramen Tours https://www.tokyoramentours.com/

Episode summary

Harukiya - Ogibukubo Station

Taishoken - Eifukucho Station

Tanaka Shouten - Rokucho Station

Santora - Edogawaa Station

Robin Lewis (ASIJ 2006) ​​

Robin is the Co-founder of mymizu - an award-winning initiative to reduce consumption of single-use plastics.  He is also the Co-founder & Director of Social Innovation Japan - a platform for social good focusing on the UN Sustainable Development Goals - and is a Consultant at the World Bank (Climate Change Group).  He has 10 years’ experience working with inter-governmental organisations, social enterprises and NGOs, and has managed humanitarian operations in countries such as Haiti, Nepal, Vanuatu and Mozambique.  ​In 2017, he took on a sponsored expedition, walking 600+km along Japan’s disaster-affected coastline to document the recovery from the 2011 Fukushima nuclear crisis. Robin is a Board Member of the Shibuya QWS Innovation Council and graduated with an M.A. in International Business from the University of Edinburgh, UK.

Timestamps

Websites MyMizu - https://www.mymizu.co/home-en

Episode 46 (Episode 45 delayed to next week)

Anna Novic (St. Maur 2008)

International Educator / Writer / Runner

Anna was born in Seoul, Korea, in 1989 to a US Navy family.  After spending the first 18-months of her life between Seoul and Vermont, her family moved (back) to Japan (her family had lived there before she was born) in 1992.

Following in her two older brothers’ footsteps, Anna attended local Japanese public school from Kindergarten through ninth grade. After finishing junior high, Anna’s mother, a professor at Keisen Women’s University in Machida, took a sabbatical to North Wales, where Anna experienced her first school with English instruction. By the time she got over the culture shock a year later, it was time to return to Japan. She attended Saint Maur International school from 2005-2008.  She attended Harvard (C’2013), where she studied Sociology and Psychology. She completed the Undergraduate Teacher Education Program and has a Massachusetts teaching license in Biology.

In high school, Anna was best known for her academic and running career. She broke the Tama Hills Girls’ cross country record 2007 (it has since been broken, and rebroken…). At Harvard, Anna competed for the Greater Boston Track Club, setting personal bests in the 5k (17:53), 10k (37:30), half marathon (1:23:05) and the marathon (2:56:23).

Anna returned to Japan in 2013 and has been teaching IB Biology and General Science at Saint Maur ever since. She is also a member of the college guidance team and coaches cross country. She has been a bilingual IB examiner since 2016.

Outside of education, Anna works as a translator, researcher, and writer. She is working on a novel, which she hopes to finish before she is 80.

She lives in Hayama with her two cats, dog, and partner. She continues to train and race competitively with the hope of running an Olympic Trials Qualifier (2:45:00).

Episode Summary

0:43 - Introduction

2:50 - Annas Book

5:27 - Maintaining a high level of writing in both English and Japanese

13:35 - Attending a Japanese public school and being the only "Yankee" at a school in Wales

24:50 - How Anna as an educator sees her experience as a student affect her management of a heterogeneous classroom

34:35 - Tama Hills, Olympic Trials Time and  Kanto Plains Cross Country with the St. Maur Cross Country Team

51:44 - The IB program

1:04:40 - Anna and St. Maur

1:10:30 - What is to come in Annas life in the next few years

DJ Taku Takahashi (member of M-Flo) (St. Marys 1993)

Time Stamps

Steven Lobianco (Former ASIJ Faculty 1998-2013)

Time Stamps