In particular, I found the blog hmmn to be really interesting. There was a link to a blog written by an foreign english teacher about universtiy students that was also interesting. I always find the experiences of foreigns in Japan interesting. There is one blog that I read a few months ago by another english teacher in Japan that was really good, but I don't remember the address. I'll have to find it and post it. Teaching in Japan seems to be a stressful, strange, but sometimes rewarding experience. I'm also very interested in pictures because, as they say they are worth 1000 words. Looking over a few, I notice that there seems to be a fashion trend in Japan for multiple really spikey labret piercings. So Flickr is really cool, since you can get pictures of a lot of really random stuff (search for lockers).
One of my best friends from in high school is doing a year long study abroad program in Thailand. He has been in Bangcock since August and witnessed the tsunami first-hand. Sending email accounts each month regarding the status of the people and the land, I have been very interested to follow-up myself. Seemingly, the rebuilding process has proved extremely slow: many of the bodies have yet to be identified or even discovered. Aside from the mass destruction and loss of lives, the reason this tsunami was such a tragedy results from the lack of warning; globally there is need for an emergency warning system. While the tsunami may have been imminent, some of the effects could have been lessened with proper notification and safety precautions. Currently, after much hesitation, tourism is starting to pick back up, but that will also take a long time to rebuild. Sadly, much of Thailand's history was destroyed. Anyway, just some thoughts....
Here's a good website:
http://www.npr.org/templates/topics/topic.php?topicId=1081
I was reading over some of my bloglines today and found some interesting stuff. In the Mark Cuban blog, he makes reference to a movie based on the Enron Energy Company scandal. This company, based in Houston, was responsible for energy blackouts in California among other corporate nightmares. As a dissatisfied accounting major, I found the Enron scandal intriguing because it provided a real world example of the the boring rules and regulations I was learning about. The movie was released on Friday in Houston and New York. It is based on the book The Smartest Guys in the Room. The book is pretty technical but a good read for anyone interested. If interested, visit www.enronmovie.com. Also, can someone tell me how to add a link in the blog, I seemed to have forgotten.
I am actually attending a conference in Japan this summer and already have a specific target in mind for research: A comparative study of the effects of women participation in the workforce.
In my Econ of Japan class, we spent a significant amount of time discussing the economic implications of women working, I decided for my research to focus on the social implications.
After browsing through the websites, I found J-stor to be most helpful, however sometimes its articles are not very recent.
The website from Indiana university East Asian Studies center seems to give alot of useful links but I havent gone through them.
Also the East Asian library from UCLA also provides alot of links and resources.
The Electronic journal of contemporary japanese studies has some interesting articles, but it does have many. Worth making a search to see if your topic of interest can be found there.
I liked Asia times as it had different articles on current issues, from different viewpoints.
Many of the websites can help one find an interest, but does not exactly help in detailed research resources (some require you to pay)