As an academic engaged in research relating to new media, I realise that starting up a personal homepage after two years of writing about how people represent themselves online might seem, to some, to be a bit behind the ball. Honestly, the only reason why I haven’t started an academic blog (in the tradition of most new ‘young, emerging’ scholars) until now is mostly due to the fact that I have been lazy. (Perhaps I should say ‘busy with work?’).

The purpose of this homepage is very simple, it is a space in which I can advertise myself (the so-called 自己PR of Japanese 就活 fame!). I also intend to draw upon this website as a space through which to recruit participants, so if any of you non-Japanese speakers are wondering what the eventual ‘Japanese pages’ contains, this is the main purpose of the site.

Being an ethical individual, I will highlight here that I have ethical clearance from the Monash University Human Research Ethics Committee to utilise my personal homepage for recruitment purposes. Disclaimer finished! (I find a lot of my writing and Facebooking contains these disclaimers since I became a PhD student… how interesting…).

This blog, however, is NOT related to my research project. I will not be publishing any results from my research on this blog in any form.

Within this blog I will be presenting my musings concerning various academic theories, reporting on conferences and presentations I attend (including a fortnightly review of the Monash Japanese Studies Centre’s presentations), reviewing books (mostly of a quasi-academic nature. Serious book reviews will be published in journals!), and discussing my life as a university tutor.

The views expressed within this blog are my own and are not indicative of Monash University, the Japanese Studies Association of Australia or any other organisations which I represent.

For those who are tech-savvy, my blog is organised by category. Feel free to browse. I will be posting most of my random musings into ‘General’, so for those of a more academic bent, please feel free to ignore.

Comments on my blog posts are most welcome.

And now I am back to preparing my ethics proposal. What joy.