I Believe

Uesaka Sensei.

I had heard so many things about her. Some good things, some bad ones. But in the end, it belongs to myself to make my own opinion of her. And after months of looking at her work and do the things she does... I realized that I honestly think she's amazing. Always prepared for class, always ready with concrete examples, always prepared to all kinds of eventual (and sometimes random) questions. And when she doesn't know something, you can be sure she'll take a note and come up with an answer the next class. She's passionate about teaching and about learning about the material she's teaching as well. And strict, so strict in class... but so sweet one-on-one, so understanding and most of all very caring. She doesn't just pretend to be interested in her students, she genuinely worries about them as if they were her children.

I remember I was somewhat scared the first day of class. The first thing she said was: "Japanese level 3 is tough and if you didn't get a A- last term, then don't bother taking it. I will also expect you to prepare to class and if you don't, I'll ask you to leave so that you don't waste your time nor mine". After hearing that speech, I was terrified. One day I forgot to prepare, she found out and she did get pretty angry at me... but she was right to do so, so I never held it against her. I like that she did so though. That means she cares enough about me as a student to worry about the amount of work I'm putting in the class. That's more than I can say about most of my profs.

I am participating in the Japanese speech contest this year and being my teacher, she offered to correct my speech and coach my pronunciation. We spent a few hours talking in her office about the speech and then about different things and I feel like I finally got to know the person under the prof's image. This peaceful lady who loves her job and is passionate about learning, the one concerned about the people surrounding her, the one who believes in destiny and who enjoys life in her own ways... The language prof who is desperately wanting to learn French but has no time to focus on it... And then somehow through her eyes, I saw a form of unexplainable loneliness that kind of broke my heart just for an instant... and suddenly, I wanted to become this extra family member for her. Strange feeling. But anyways, I think she's as amazing a person as she's a prof. And I wish for an opportunity to get to know her better.

You know, I complain about McGill and what not... but just for meeting professors such as her, Hasegawa sensei and A. Hurley, it was worth the whole 3 year pain and all the frustrations I underwent. Because those three meetings have affected me and I believe will still be determining in the way I view things in the future.

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