elijah

elijah zupancic


It is difficult to create a personal homepage without being unduly narcissistic. As I write this I am searching for the correct words to describe myself. However, I am at a complete loss – I can describe the events of my life, my persona, and even passions, but somehow expressing in writing this ā€˜I’ that I experience in my consciousness is impossible for me at this time.

This website is intended to be a place where I can share my thoughts, reflections, and dreams with the world. However, I do realize that the world is not necessarily interested in me. Nevertheless, I do feel that it may be beneficial for those who know me to see some of my works of creativity.

As for the role that I play in this world – I am a young white male with blue eyes and brown hair. I speak Japanese and am currently studying Chinese. In June of 2002, I graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in Japanese and in March of 2005 I finished my Japanese Minsistry of Education sponsored scholarship graduate research program. My interests include: linguistics, history, karate, mysticism, and learning language.

links


All of these links are some how related to me. Anyways, If you want your link added to my list please send me an email.

Link Pages

  • Japan Links
  • Links to Friend's Pages

Spirituality

  • The Society of Christian Sufis
  • Dai Bai Zan - Cho Bo Zen Ji

Past Work

  • The Japanese Language Information Exchange Page
  • LizardTech Express Server

writing


Below is a collection of various writings, reflections, and poetry of mine. Please write me and tell me what you think of these works.

  • The Bella Lou Highway to the Stars - A dream. Hundreds of miles under the earth, people are trying to live in a hostile environment that is literally sucking the life out of them
  • The Cavern - A dream. From Africa, to heaven and back down to hell. In this dream I am all over the place.
  • The Woman in the Dunes (Chapter 1) - This is my translation of the first chapter of Abe Kobo's haunting novel 'Suna no Onna' (???)
  • An Incomplete Short Story - A short story that I never got around to finishing
  • A Short Introduction to Kanji - A work in progress
  • A Book Review of Lets Learn Kanji - I wrote this review for kanjiclinic.com some time ago

pictures


Below you will find my collection of digital photos. If you have any photos that you would like to share please send them to me.

  • Japan 2001-2002
  • Japan 2003
  • Friends
  • Seattle
  • Coffee Ceremony

Elijah Zupancic


objective

I am looking for a position in which I can use both my language and software skills.

background

I grew up in the Pacific Northwest of the United States and have also lived in Tokyo for more than 3 years. Currently, I live in Nagoya, Japan. I have a diverse background of both educational and work experiences. Furthermore, I have been told that I am a good communicator and have a knack for getting different types of people to work together without problems.

In college, I majored in Japanese and studied linguistics intensively. While in college, I worked full-time as a software developer for LizardTech Inc in both the USA and Japan. I have been deeply involved in IT since I was a young child. However, when I entered college I decided that I wanted to study something that I did not know about - something that was new and fresh, so I decided on majoring in Japanese. I spent an extra year in college so that I could go to college in Japan on the University of Washington's exchange program with Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo, Japan. There I studied translation and tried to improve my Japanese ability. Later, after finishing my bachelor's degree and returning to the USA, I attended classes at North Seattle Community College, in order to learn Chinese and database administration skills.

In March on 2003, I deceived a scholarship from the Japanese Ministry of Education. I moved back to Tokyo and started an Graduate Program doing independent non-matriculated research on how to effectively teach Kanji (Chinese characters) to non-native speakers of Japanese (in particular foreign doctors). During my research, I developed software for learning Kanji, edited a Japanese language textbook for medical processionals and gave presentations at academic conferences.

At one conference, I came in contact with the proprietor of a small language school that was interested in my software. The school was teaching English to children and was interesting in hiring me on as a language teacher and software developer.

To put my background in a list of succinct keywords, I have experience in software development, education, linguistics, translation, interpretation and editing.

education

  • University of Washington - Bacheolor Degree in Japanese Linguistics
  • Aoyama Gakuin Daigaku
  • North Seattle Community College
  • Tokyo Medical Dental University - Independent Research in Second Language Acquisition

work experience

  • LizardTech
  • Contemporary Inc.

skills

  • Fluent Japanese
  • Basic Chinese
  • Translation/Interpretation
  • Java
  • Perl
  • PHP
  • SQL/Postgres/Mysql
  • Visual Basic
  • Web Development HTML/XHTML/DHTML/Javascript
  • XSL/XML
  • Hardware Installation/Repair
  • System Administration (Linux/OpenBSD/FreeBSD/Windows)

   home       links       writing       blog       contact       nihongo