University Daily Kansan / Monday, December 10, 1990
9
Professor stretches stay in U.S.
One year turns to 20 to study languages of American Indians
By Tatsuya Shimizu
Kansan staff writer
Akira Yamatoo came to the United States to study English. He originally planned to stay one year, but his extended for more than 20 years.
He decided to extend his stay to study more linguistics after he took an English class at the university.
Yamamoto first studied at California State University in Long Beach, Calif., in spring 1966.
Yamamoto, professor of anthropology and linguistics, taught English in a Japanese high school for three years before he came to the United States.
"It that opened up my eyes to not just English, but more about the relationships between languages, cultures and societies." Vamato-mo said.
He transferred to Indiana University in Bloomington and pursued his interest in languages and cultures. He taught English to go back to Japan to teach English.
In his third year at Indiana, he took a linguistics course taught by an American Indian language specialist. The instructor used American Indian languages as examples in his class, and Yamamoto was attracted by the languages, in which he found such native with his native Japanese language.
"It was a kind of beginning of getting into American Indian languages," Yamamoto said.
Since then, his interest in American Indian languages has kept him in the United States for more than 20 years.
For about 10 years, Yamamoto has
Akira Yamamoto
Indian languages, she said.
Brown has been working with Yamamoto to develop teaching materials of Kickapoo, one of the Native Indian languages common in Oklahoma.
"He is well-accepted among Indian people," she said. "Kickapoo Indians just loved him. They jokingly call her a queen." She feels like he is a part of their family.
Yamamoto has been active in trying to protect American Indian languages with legislation, she said. He was one of the trustees of the language institute who drafted the resolution that supported the legislation of the Native American Languages Act, which became law Oct. 30.
"It gives us rights for the first time in the history to use our own languages, to exercise rights to preserve them and to protect their use." Brown said.
Yamamoto said he would stay in the United States because of his interest in American Indian language.
expanded to include Japanese culture in general.
"Until I came to the United States, I didn't pay too much attention to who I was and what Japanese culture might be." Yamamoto said. "When you leave my house, while you begin to appreciate what you have, your own heritage."
Stephen Addiss, professor of art history, worked with Yamatto to prepare exhibitions of Japanese art in 1980 and 1985. Next semester, he and Addiss will prepare for another Japanese art exhibition, "Humor in Japanese Arts," which they plan to display in 1993.
"He has a wide knowledge of different cultures around the world." Addiss said of Yamamoto. "He is able to combine the best parts of Japanese culture and the best parts of Western culture together."
Yamamoto has been observing Japanese economic success from the United States. He is glad about its progress and is confident in its recent aggressiveness, he said.
Yamamoto becomes uncomfortable when Japanese companies become too aggressive to do their business. Japan criticizes Japan too much, be said.
"We don't know each other very well." he said.
Yamamoto hopes that he can foster mutual understanding between the United States and Japan by teaching them how to know about both countries, he said.
Another thing that keeps Yamamoto in the United States is the atmosphere at U.S. universities, he said. Compared with Japanese universities, the U.S. has a stronger relationship between professors and students in the United States, Yamamoto said.
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FALL FINALE
Procrastination: put it off
that question tomorrow?"
sked if she procrastinated,
Barbara Kollmeyer said,
tongue-in-
cheek, "Can I answer
n tomorrow?"
Kollmeyer, Derby senior, is one of thousands of University of Kansas students who puts off studying and other daily tasks, figuring there will always be enough time to get the work done.
Procrastination does not afflict students exclusively; all types of people in society have this "disease." Every year, people throughout the United States flock to the post office on April 15 to finish mailing their taxes before the midnight deadline.
Kathy Hill, assistant director of the liberal arts undergraduate office, said procrastination could have serious consequences for people.
"I think procrastination is pretty common and typical," she said. "It gets people in trouble a lot. After they put it off, circumstances come up that they didn't expect, and they aren't able to deal with it."
Hill said that human nature is the primary reason why people procrastinate.
Kollmeyer said pressure was the reason she procrastinated. As a journalism major, she said she was used to meeting deadlines and doing things at the spur of the moment.
"I'm always up late the night before a project or a test," she said. "I need a little pressure before I get something done. It keeps my life interesting."
While Kollmeyer has never missed a deadline finishing a project, she said procrastinating on reading assignments has hurt her on tests.
by David Garfield
"I would let a lot of time go by and not do my reading," she said. "I would do poorly on the test. I tried to change, but it's a vicious cycle."
"It's that last-minute pressure we have to motivate us," she said.
Pat Wilbur, Lawrence junior, said he had also paid the price for not keeping up with his reading. He recently waited for the night before his anthropology test to skim the chapters. He got a D.
Wilbur said that his lack of work ethic and laziness were the basic reasons why he procrastinated.
"Why do today what you can do tomorrow?" he said. "If there's no urgent need to get it done, I don't feel like I have to do it."
Because he usually has good grades, Wilbur said he didn't feel the need to change his study habits.
Jennifer Drage, Loveland, Colo., senior, said she tried to plan ahead for her school assignments. She said she would write down her assignments at the beginning of the semester but would end up procrastinating about doing the work until the last minute.
"I'll open my calendar and it'll say "poli-sci paper due Wednesday," and I'll laugh," she said. "I made an effort. I guess I'm procrastinating about the effort."
Drage said she that she actually procrastinated more outside of school. She said she procrastinated because she dreaded doing particular tasks and had better things to do.
While she laughs about the incident now, Drage said she paid the price during that time. On the second night, she said she ordered a pizza and then began hallucinating that she was falling down the stairs and rolling past the front door.
The clock strikes midnight and the cold, howling wind blows outside. The students reach for their third or fourth cup of coffee and look up at the ticking clock. The time is now 12:01 a.m. There is no time left to procrastinate.
Last semester, Drage said, she had an "experience from hell" in school. She had 120 pages of essays due at the end of the semester for her political science class. She said she started to write the essays regularly during the semester but then stopped.
As finals loom ahead for KU students, people like Drage, Wilbur and Kollmeyer cram to finish projects and study for tests.
Drage ended up staying up three nights in a row finishing her assignment before the due date.
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