Bike Ride Across Georgia 2012

This weekend I start an epic adventure, the 33rd annual Bike Ride Across Georgia. I -- and about 1,200 other people -- will travel about 350 miles (560 km) during the course of a week. I've never done anything like this before, so I'm pretty intimidated; on the other hand, I'm looking forward to what I hope will be a beautiful ride. We average about 55 miles a day, eat cafeteria-style from a mobile catering service, shower in a truck, and sleep en-masse in school gymnasiums. I'm also bringing plenty of reading to catch up on; however, considering how totally unathletic I am, maybe I should just be content to live through it.

Route map, BRAG 2012; click to embiggen

David Slater on Volunteering in Tôhoku

The Asia-Pacific recently published a short article by David Slater of Sophia University on volunteer opportunities to help survivors of the 3.11 disaster in Tôhoku.

Volunteering in Tôhoku 東北で奉仕活動をするには

If you're planning a visit to Japan soon, here's a way to do something to help people who need it.

Asian Heritage at Dekalb County Public Library I

May is Asian-Pacific Heritage Month in the US. The US government site announcing it has a lot of great materials. Their page on education (link follows) includes a link to a nice page on teaching haiku in English:

Asian-Pacific Heritage Month for Teachers
Can You Haiku?

On Saturday I went to the Decatur branch of Dekalb Public Library to to a reading of folktales from East Asia. It was a lot of fun and I hope to do something similar again. The event was sponsored by Laura Hauser of Literacy Services. Here's the program. The call numbers are specific to the Dekalb Public Library Catalogue. Complete bibliographic information is available through the catalogue.

(Event program and finding list below the cut.)