Strikes in Southern California By Stanley Henderson “We are not asking for anything more then what we already had,” that’s what’s being said by the employees of Albertsons, Ralphs and Vons who are protesting recent changes in their contract. A few months ago the work-ers’ contracts expired and CEOs of the 3 grocery chains created a new contract. An employee explained, “In this contract em-ployees would be required to pay increased co-payments, and place caps on payments for prescriptions and surgeries. All of this would amount to a 50% cut in medical benefits that would shift almost a billion dollars in health care cost onto the workers over the term of the contract.” Many employees believe this is being done so that their employers will be able to compete with Wal-Mart who just re-cently expanded internationally and started supplying groceries. The solution to staying in the competition was to take away the work-ers’ medical benefits so that money would be

saved without having to lower prices. Now previous workers of Albertsons, Ralphs and Vons are protesting hoping to put a stop to the changes in their contracts and get things back to the way they were before. Another employee explained that, “The strikes have been going on 24 hours a day 7 days a week, with a minimum of 3 people outside of an individual store and a maximum of about 40 people. For participating in the protest workers receive $300 for 40 hours from the union” The union, which is called United Food and Commercial Workers, is supplying the workers their money from their fund. This fund, however, is beginning to run low and it was said that if they are depleted they will have to begin deducting pay from employees in the union that are still working in the stores. The strike is having a great effect on the stores. Sundays can be considered the busiest shopping day for the 3 stores with some-

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Inside This Issue

Letters 2

Building Trust 3

Feature: Soka Artists 4-5

AIDS Walk 6

Sports 7

Language Lab 7

Quotes 8

Horoscopes 8

The Pearl strives to emulate slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl’s efforts to bring out the human side of every story. Following his cou-rageous model, The Pearl opens channels of communication in an endeavor to articulately and respectfully express differing opinions. The con-tributors of The Pearl reports intentionally on issues of concern for the campus, the local community and the globe, aiming to unify the campus towards the realization of the mission of Soka University of America, Aliso Viejo.

On Your Mark Get Set Go Soka Sports! By Emily Frausto Get ready to get wet and sweat. Under the direction of two new coaches next fall, Soka athletes will officially compete against stu-dents at other universities. This marks the beginning of what will hopefully be a strong and respected NCA division III athletic pro-gram at SUA. Dr. Dave Salo, and Scott Slade are responsible for expanding SUA, AV’s athletic department. Until recently, the athletic department in-cluded Athletic Director Keith Shackleford and his assistant Mike Moore. The new addi-tions to the team bring enthusiasm, experi-ence and impressive credentials. Slade is the founding head coach for Track

and Field, and also the Program Coordinator for SUA’s Physical Education pro-gram. Because of his degree in Physical Educa-tion, Shackleford

thinks Slade’s experience and knowledge will really improve our program. With Slade head-ing the P.E. program Shackleford will be able to focus more on other aspects of directing athletics at SUA, AV. Slade moved all the way from New York to work at Soka. “I was intrigued by the unique opportunity; the concept of education at SUA

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Photo by Edward Chen

Photo by Shalini Kapoor Dave Salo

Letter to the Editor: Majority Rules? Students swarm the cafeteria in excessive numbers to grab their lunch after a harsh morning lecture. As I sit with a group of stu-dents outside the cafeteria, I can’t help but notice a discomforting sight. A group of stu-dents sitting at a table, eating and conversing together, bursting and laughing heartily. But alongside those students, a couple students who do not understand a word of their lan-guage, sitting in silence and trying to grasp the conversation through their body language and facial expressions. Although they can’t com-prehend the language, the students continue talking, enjoying their pleasant conversation, ignorant of the pain they are inflicting. As I sit in my class, a foreign language perme-ates the room, frustrating both students and professor. As I sit in my language class, an ignorant student shouts to the class in a foreign language, isolating the students who do not understand the language. While I scan the

room, I notice students who sit irritated, try-ing to be indifferent. I notice the professor staring at the students, wondering what is going through their minds. Have you ever thought twice about a student who couldn’t understand your language? Have you thought about how much adversity other students have endured through another’s ig-norance? Have you realized students avoiding a conversation because they couldn’t under-stand the language that group is conversing in? I feel that at SUA, we’ve somewhat prevailed over this dilemma, but in an apathetic way: through indifference and passiveness. Before, many students have had “dialogues” and con-versed about this conflict, showing deep con-cern about what could be done. But how of-ten have we “dialogued” about this clash re-cently? I believe this is why it is vital for each of us to reexamine our “self.” If we are to talk about “raising global citizens” and becoming “the leaders of the 21 st cen-tury,” we, as students and “leaders,” should

consistently make efforts to incorporate every-one. We should strive even harder to speak in English, even though the group we are situ-ated in is the majority. We must be able to feel for another student and understand the situa-tion on a deeper level, rather than thinking and acting superficially. If we are to go out in society and make a difference, it is through our actions at SUA that we can learn to actual-ize harmony in our environment. If we lack awareness and act in oblivion, how are we to go out in society and make a difference? It is through our actions today, through our ac-tions tomorrow, which will make the differ-ence in our lives as well as in others.

-Virgil’s cousin, Han *This article is in no way aimed to single out a particu-lar group. This article is in-tended on reflecting on the natural tendencies we all have of associating ourselves with a specific group.

Letter from the Editor: Represent By WuLa Dawson On Wednesday December 3, 2003, yet another Soka first occurred. The first class’s first study abroad students returned to SUA, AV. After traveling by bus and plane for nearly 33 hours Toshikazu Akaishizawa (‘05) and Nathan Gauer (‘05) returned to Southern California from Buenos Ares, Argentina. While the absent junior class returns home one at a time, the rest of the first class will gradu-ally leave—jet setting all over the world. Their arrival makes study abroad more of a reality for the rest of us. While juniors continue to go out and set Soka precedence in Barcelona, Communist Cuba, Mandarin speaking Taiwan and China, the students still here in Orange County will con-tinue to grow and set precedence here without us. This year has been a remarkable year of growth and realization of many aspects of life at SUA,

AV. We could have never even imagined in 2001, when the first class arrived, that our campus life would have grown this much in two and a half years. Things that were one student’s vision or a couple of student’s pas-sion like Soul Wings and Outreach Depart-ment are now developed and healthy. Now we have reached the point where it is impossible to know everyone’s name, let alone all the gossip. Dozens of students regularly attend sports activities where we compete with other schools. The art forum is actually inter-esting and inspiring and we have a culture de-partment! Where there was construction, there are smoothly paved walkways and fragrant orange trees have matured and filled out with more blossoms and fruit. The dorms are finally animated with eclectic music, strange smells, activity and life when previously it felt like a ghost town here. I just wonder what new clubs, activities, art and movement will develop while the rest of the juniors are abroad. Will our founder visit? Will there be murals in the staircases? What will the new faculty be like? Will stronger bonds of trust develop between the students,

staff, faculty and board? How will the newspa-per grow? In this issue of The Pearl we report on some of SUA, AV’s recent growth. You will read about the Physical Education department expanding, intramurals and Board members connecting with students. In order to highlight news out-side of campus, we also cover the recent fires and striking grocery employees. As we have been doing all this year, this issue showcases the talents of new writers. Most exciting though is the new centerfold including stu-dents’ artwork in color! This will be the last issue this academic year that many of the pioneer, foundation-laying, newspaper staff members will contribute to. Thank you everyone for your hard, hard work up until now. In conclusion I would like to say welcome back to all the juniors who have been abroad. You guys are going to the love the talented and illustrious class of 2007. We juniors have done our best in the past four months to represent the first class now it is your turn.

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Building Trust with the Board of Trustees By Ravi Raghuram Over 50 students met with Board of Trustees members in the Ikeda Library reading room for a dialogue session organized by the Shared Governance Department on November 1. “Whenever we meet with the Board, our goal is to build trust.” Cecilia Ocampos (’06), the committee chair for the event, said. “The idea of Shared governance is to share the decision-making process. Every time we meet with them, we get one step further in building the trust necessary for that to be possible.” Students enjoyed anecdotes from the seven board members in attendance, and then they all got into small groups. Students seemed engaged in the groups and when the time came to end the discussions, it was difficult to pull the board members away to their next meeting. Dr. John D. Montgomery, Ford Founda-tion Professor of Interna-tional Studies, Emeritus, a professor at Harvard Uni-versity since 1963, ex-plained that he believed there were five gen-eral areas of academia. In terms of having a purpose and developing people, he felt that Soka was doing a great job. He said that its clearly defined mission led to the strong de-velopment of its students, who apply the ideas of thinking globally while working locally. In the area of the quality of teaching, he re-marked that Soka was, again, performing well, but was lacking in the areas of scholarship and culture. In order to improve Soka’s scholarship, he said that SUA is deciding to reestablish the Pacific Basin Research Center, which provides opportunities for scholars to do research focused on the best policies, for example, for human rights and authority. In the area of culture, he said that although it was “lacking,” it had made progress, citing the examples of SOCCO and the work of the music professors In comparison to last year’s meeting between the board and students, Tommy Tomiyama (’06) said that “more kids came this year, and Shared Governance made a great effort to involve students.” He also noted that “the

atmosphere was more positive, optimistic.” Dr. Lawrence Edward Carter Sr., the first Dean of the Martin Luther King Jr. Interna-tional Chapel at Morehouse College since 1979 and a tenured Professor of Religion, College Archivist and Curator at Morehouse College—the newest member of the Board—was a favorite of attendees. About his experi-ence with him, Tomiyama said that “Usually, when people talk about peace, it’s really vague, but I feel like he was really serious about creating peace in the community and about nonviolence.” In addition, Tomiyama felt that Dean Carter “redirected [his] focus to the mission of this school.” The meeting accomplished its goals—as Te-tsuo Motoi (’06) said, “because the Board now knows that there are so many students who are sincerely thinking about the future of their school, the decisions that it makes will be influenced.”

Following the tone set by the meeting, President Habuki sent the entire stu-dent body the min-utes from the Board’s most re-cent meeting, ena-bling students to more fully under-stand how the indi-vidual decisions of the Board fit into its purpose and function. Like us, our

neighbors, UC Irvine and Saddleback College, have Boards of Trustees. Board’s are generally appointed or elected, and serve in order to objectively make decisions about the univer-sity’s policies, keeping the university on track to meet objectives. In our case, the board is helping the school become a full-fledged uni-versity. Soka’s Board differs from the norm. The average college student does not know their Board of Trustees by name or face. They are anonymous to the Board of Trustees as well. There is a separation of the people who have decision-making power and the people whom the decisions affect. This allows the decision makers to be protected so they can “objectively” make their decisions—meaning without full knowledge of what the people whom these decisions affect think about them. The recent meeting of the Board of Trustees with Soka students closed the chasm between decision-makers and decision-affected.

Wildfires Ravage SoCal; SUA, AV Gets a Taste By Ryo Eugene Kondo Southern Californians faced the worst wildfires in its history during the last week of October. Although untouched itself, Orange County was virtually surrounded by fires that devastated our neighboring counties. The string of major fires started first in San Bernardino County on Octo-ber 21. After over a week of fighting 30-foot high walls of flame and winds over 50 mph, firefighters were finally able to contain all of the major fires. The largest chains of fires were located in the counties of San Bernardino, Ventura and San Diego. These fires combined destroyed a total of 3,998 houses and burned through 745,000 acres of land. Orange County itself is only 510,848 acres. Twenty lives were lost due to these fires, includ-ing the death of one firefighter from the Novato Fire Protection District in Marin County. Steven L. Rucker, 38, died on Wednes-day, October, 29 when Cedar fire overtook him and 3 others in their fire engine in San Diego County. A fund has been established for Rucker’s surviving wife and 2 children: Novato Fire Protection District, c/o Bank of Marin (415) 899-7338. Firefighting resources were stretched thin among the 3 major areas. With the aid of un-predictable winds and exceptionally dry weather, the fires continued unabated for just over a week before the weather began to favor the firefighters. On October 30, firefighters started to gain measures of control and contained the remain-ing fires in the following days. During the week, over 14,500 firefighters were called to duty. Total financial losses have been estimated at more than $2 billion. Although the record-breaking fires never en-tered Orange County, the ash filled the air and the smoke was visible on the horizon. Many members of the SUA, AV community had trou-ble breathing and for several days were careful to keep all windows closed. But on Halloween, as the firefighters continued to gain control of fires elsewhere in Southern California, a fire started here at SUA, AV. According to George Wesson, Director of Envi-ronmental Health and Safety, while the Haunted House was happening, the fire started in the can-yon about 100 yards away from the water tank visible between Founders Hall and Dorm 300. A student noticed the fire, and campus security had several cameras on it immediately.

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Photo by Edward Chen

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Celia ROCHA / Childish Alter-Ego This painting represents my alter-ego which is a child. In the process of creating this image, I asked myself: “how do children draw?, how do they see the world?, how do they repre-sent it?” I went to an elementary school to see children and their drawings. The struggle

was to bring back that child-ish quality into my own per-sonal expression, because I’ve been conditioned to draw and observe in an educated way. So I had to go back to my own childhood, remember how I used to draw and how I represented my life then, just let go of what I learned and enjoy painting, which is what children do. Thank you, Sally, Daniel and Andy Marcos, for your wonderful support!

>> Jai FUKUTA / Frustration All my art works are like my chil-dren. They are part of myself. Emo-tions, moods, energy, mental conditions, thoughts...everything is in there. I feel like I'm giving birth everytime I start painting. (although I've never given birth... hahaha) My Alter Ego painting is titled "frustration." I believe that true happi-ness comes from overcoming strug-gles. It is always frustrating to face my weaknesses... but with strength and hope in mind, I have to overcome hardships in order to develop myself. We are here to become global citizens.

Leilani NELSON / Into the Depths of My Soul This piece really reflects everything that I was going through at this particular mo-ment. It shows that our “true” selves have a very important role and things are always changing. We shouldn’t focus on changing our outward appearance, but to grow on the inside as much as we can. The large abstract curve that floats down the center, sort of represents life in gen-eral, and it is reflected in how it is the strongest aspect in the painting.

What You Don’t Know About Eight Soka Artists

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Eight talented painters become involved in the process of dissecting one’s individual hidden self, or many hidden selves as it turns out. The project was called Alter Ego, an assignment given to the Advanced Painting class by Pro-fessor Daniel DuPlessis. The term Alter Ego means another side of oneself, a second self. When asked for the purpose of this assign-ment, Daniel says it was “to give students in-sights into how complex concepts can be ex-pressed through painting,” that the reality of the self can be extremely complex. Here are the products of all students accompa-nied by their thoughts of inspiration. As you see, the results are incredibly unique and personal. Professor DuPlessis was also satisfied, “everyone reconsidered the conven-tional ideas of self-portraiture, producing works that were visually stimulating and also challenging at a conceptual level” And as this is only a peek to the real thing, Check back in upcoming issues for more infor-mation about the winter exhibit.

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Culture Dept & EatArt would like to announce that the theme and location of the Dorm Mural have been an-nounced: Theme: Ocean. Location: Dorm 375. Please contact Gigi Schroeder (x4808, gschroe-der@soka.edu) if you’re interested in sketch-ing, now through winter break.

Sally MacWILLIAMS / Meine Kinderfarbenbergwelt The girl is five-year-old me, who in a lot of ways, I still am now. The mountains in the background are the Alps, which I can see from where I grew up in Germany. I put them in the picture be-cause they are the most beautiful place in the world to me. I’m not exactly sure what the picture means, but it has something to do with me creating my life as I go along, in a self-absorbed, childlike way.

Sunny SEO / in the process Apparently I see myself constantly changing, but the core of who I am, which I tend to forget, as my life becomes routine, still remains deep inside of me. This project reminded me of the core. Even though environment is one of the biggest components that construct who I am, without the core I wouldn’t be who I am now. This pro-ject is about a combination of the core and the environment, and how the two create(d) who I am in the past and in the present.

Atsuko MUROGA / Princess Atsuko Since this was the first project for the Advanced Painting class, and I was not used to "conceptual thinking", it took a long time for me to come up with this idea. The girl on the right side is my-self, now, struggling. And the girl on the left side is what I want to be in the future, the happiest prin-cess. So, my message is that the plain girl will be the princess through her struggles, and eventually overcoming them.

Gigi SCHROEDER / Más cerca que la imaginación My alter ego is a combination of feelings I have for Mexico: inspiration, admiration, and melancholy. What you see is a colorful still life of common Mexican objects and a note, “Quello che me rodea influye mi ser”, to represent my self. In English it reads, “that which surrounds me influences who I am,” forming a relationship between my culture and the way I perceive life. I notice how the sensation to promote one’s home, country, or tradition grows when separated from it – as does longing and appreciation. Being at Soka, I have become intrigued with how differently many of us carry ourselves or follow different logics, and then, apply it to sokahood. The painting also deals with a search to strengthen my memories of Mexico, revisiting places and lives which surrounded my childhood. This leads to a recognition of how all of my judgments and actions connect to my experiences. And as my present be-comes my past, I aspire to build a fruitful and hon-orable blank.

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The fire burned about 100 feet, and flames reached 30 to 40 feet high before being contained and extinguished by firefighters from at least half a dozen units. A west-to-east wind and the quick response of the firefighters prevented the fire from becoming out of control. In total, 1.5 acres were burned. Wesson reassures that the SUA community had nothing to worry about. He stated, “We just fin-ished the brush clearing, so there was no immedi-ate danger.” He added that, in addition to brush clearing, SUA has taken other preventative meas-ures to ensure the safety of the campus and its residents. The campus has a sprinkler system that extends off campus and a security staff that is prepared for such emergencies. Nonetheless, Founders Hall was evacuated, and the Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning system was shut down in case smoke and ash traveled onto campus. Arson is suspected to have started the fire, al-though there is little evidence to prove intent. Wesson said that “We had a camera on the fire after it started, but it didn’t catch anything.” Allison Reed (class of ’05) lived in San Bernardino, which was hit hardest by the fires elsewhere in Southern California. She said, “The people who still live there would not have been seriously af-fected by the fire unless the winds changed direc-tions, but the dust and ash made it very difficult for them to breathe.” To help out those who were not as fortunate as her friends and family in San Bernardino, Reed started a donation campaign on campus. With the cooperation of the Student Outreach Committee, she collected over $250 in a span of 2 weeks. These proceeds will go to victims in the 2 areas that were hardest hit by the wildfires: San Bernar-dino County and San Diego County.

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Hot Walk to Save Lives By: Vanessa Rubinfeld On Sunday, October 19th AIDS Project Los Angeles sponsored the annual AIDS Walk. This is the 2nd time SUA students have taken the initiative and decided to join thousands of supporters walking to raise awareness about the AIDS epidemic. This year twelve students and one faculty participated for the cause. SUA students raised over $500 dollars to-wards the AIDSWALK. It was a grand event with an opening ceremony, which included Jamie Lee Curtis and Thora Berch, among other celebrities. Allison Unione (‘07)walked because she has a personal experience with the epidemic her

uncle died of AIDS. “It is important to me to help fight this cause, no matter how big or how small I contribute” said Unione. The walk was a 10 K (6.2 miles). It was a smoldering hot afternoon, yet to the partici-pants it was well worth it. Taishu Utsumi (‘06)was feeling sick the day of the walk but de-cided to go because, “It is something I could do for the community and also good adver-tisement for our school.” In Los Angeles, more than 52,000 people are living with HIV/AIDS, of whom between 13,000 and 15,000 seek services each year from APLA (Aids Project Los Angeles) the sponsor of the event. AIDS Project Los An-geles annually provides direct services to more

than 10,000 people living with HIV/AIDS across Los Angeles County. Some examples of their dedication to fighting against AIDS are Health Services, Case Management Ser-vices, California AIDS Drug Assistance Pro-gram (ADAP), and Grassroots Activism. Since the earliest days of the AIDS public health emergency, APLA has recognized that the actions of the government (and inaction) affect the course of the epidemic. Since 1983, APLA has been a strong voice in the halls of government for people with HIV/AIDS. They have consistently raised millions of dol-lars towards a cure for AIDS over the past years. Candela Montero (‘07) felt, “I made a differ-ence and I felt gratified at the end of it.”

seemed to me to be the way education should be.” Slade has a unique approach to coaching. He believes that a large part of a student’s edu-cation happens outside the classroom as well as within it. He said, “When you’re with me, you’re learning more than how to run fast.” Salo has been coaching swimmers for over twenty years. After earning his PhD in hu-man performance, exercise and physiology, he started coaching nationally and interna-tionally, including for the Olympics. He is also the head coach of Irvine Novaquatics. Salo believes we have great potential here and wants the student body to get excited about athletics, which he believes can add a unique part to the university experience. Shackleford feels that Salo brings immediate

legitimacy to our entire Athletic program. His reputation and contacts will hopefully attract student athletes nationally and internationally. He added, “In keeping with the mission of the University, Salo will bring a new level of diversity and excellence to our student population.”

Both coaches are focused on recruiting fu-ture Soka athletes. As Slade says, “I want to recruit people who are fast, but are good people too.” Salo and Slade spend their days introducing SUA to coaches and athletes at swim and track meets around southern Cali-fornia. Salo and Slade both share a desire to get ath-letics at SUA moving as soon as possible and welcome students interested in running or swimming to get to know them and even begin training this year.

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Wildfires Ravage SoCal; SUA, AV Gets a Taste (Continued)

On Your Mark Get Set Go Soka Sports! (Continued)

where around 140,000 shoppers, but now since the strike there have been about only 40,000 shoppers that come on Sundays. Be-cause of this the stores have been forced to lower prices. The only thing employees are asking of cus-tomers is not to shop at Vons. Ralphs was recently opened again because the majority of the employees felt that they should ease up on shoppers for being so supportive. The pro-tests have remained non-violent and many shoppers have shown great support and com-

passion for the protestors. Shoppers come up to them daily and ask how they are coming along and continually wishing them the best of luck. The employees are willing to stay as long as they have to in order to get what they feel they deserve. Hopefully with the holiday sea-son in effect and considering that many of the protestors have families the negotiations will come through and they will be able to enjoy the rest of the holidays with their families knowing they have a job to go to the next day and not a day of standing in the cold.

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Grocery Strikes in Southern California (Continued)

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Scott Slade

Photo by Shalini Kapoor

Sports: Dedicated to the Basketball Club! By Daman Chhikara Guess what is the hottest place on campus…You’re probably right! It is the Rec. Center where all the intramurals are in progress. Yah People…it is the place to be! Basketball intramurals, arranged specially by the brand new Soka Basketball Club, are pro-gressing steadily. Basketball intramurals will now be played in the fall, as well as the spring semester. The president of the club, Sangy Park (’06) says, “We want more people to come out on the court and play, relieve them-selves of the stress from all the work they usually have.” Park also wants beginners to have a chance to play more, and in a less in-timidating environment now that there are two opportunities a year. Danny Nagashima (`05), the vice president of the club, does not think that SUA, AV will be competing with other schools in basketball any time soon: “Studies are the main focus at Soka, therefore sports can never become mainstream. We only want people to play and have fun dude!” However, participation this year has almost

doubled since last year. There were seven six-player teams. Besides being fairly competitive, students from many cultures unite extraordi-narily on the basketball court.

These intramural matches were held every Monday at 7:30pm at the Recreation Center. The season ended on December 1st, when the finals were played between the Smokers and the Hardwoods. Hardwoods, had Coach Alex Marcos (`05), and Smokers had the die hard fighters, who have done well under pressure. The game promised to be great! There has always been support for the players; cheering for their favorite teams. Yes, Monica Kawai (`06) was there too! “It’s fun to cheer. I think it’s an outlet to a lot of students, and a good way to get to know people, who you normally don’t have a chance to be in class with,” said Kawai.

There has been some good spirited criticism about the intramurals. Yoko Kogure (`06) feels, “Sometimes, it’s difficult to balance the game when guys and girls are playing together. For example, sometimes guys forget that they are playing with girls and become aggressive, but on other occasions they take it easy on girls, which is equally disturbing.” Despite the difficulty Kogure still thinks more girls should come out and play. ” Julia Kataoka (`06), who is a frequent spectator, says, “I would play if it were only girls playing.” On the other hand, Matt Fisher (`06) feels that, “Guys and Girls playing together is great! Our team made sure that everyone played for equal periods in the game.” Fisher feels that there will always be difference between guys and girls because of their basic nature, but intramurals is a good way to unite the two sexes. Basketball is sure on its way, and the club is definitely fulfilling its purpose of getting peo-ple together to play. Be it Koichi Asako (‘07), who dreams about Basketball, or Alex Marcos, whose game makes one feel like they’re in a dream; they come together and unite to have fun. Way to go club! Cheers!

Worried about mistaking the bus stop for a bathroom when you go abroad? Now that the Language Center in the Ikeda Library is open, your problem is solved. In the lab, open daily, students can improve their foreign language abilities with the aid of native speaker tutors and a fully equipped computer lab.

The recently opened language lab has two audio-visual rooms and ten computers with high-tech interactive language programs. The new software, “CAN8 Virtual Lab” is being used for every language taught at SUA, Aliso Viejo. Student Spanish tutor, Kouichi Hara (’06), explained that with the program “any

language instructor can create their own exer-cises, such as vocabulary quizzes, recording and listening exercises for their students.” The lab offers tutoring in Chinese, Japanese and Spanish. Students receive one-on-one help from tutors in oral skills and homework assignments. There are currently five student tutors who assist in Spanish and Japanese. “The tutoring has helped me, especially with my conversation skills,” Yukio Nakajima (’05) said of the personal student tutoring. Beside Professors of Chinese Language, Nancy Ho-des and Jing Fang Satow’s tutoring sessions, other Chinese tutors are not yet available. Spanish Professor and Director of Language Development, James Lopez, explained the language lab is progressing well with the au-dio-visual programs and a new television net-work called SCOLA. It consists of three channels (3, 6 and 8 on televisions all over campus) that represent 55 countries and of-fers news, variety and various other interna-tional television programming. Professor Lopez encourages students to also take ad-vantage of the all the activities the Language Development Program offers including the language tables during lunch and “Movie Night.”

Language Lab Administrator, Jeffrey La-Marca, is pleased with the student usage of the lab. He explains that as of now, the pri-ority is to develop materials to be used in the

lab by students. LaMarca also said, “Each one of the student assistants has been very helpful to our students and contributes much to the lab’s operations.” The lab will help you with pronunciation, vocabulary and conversational skills but of course tutors cannot write compositions for students. Hara thought that the funniest ac-tivity in the lab is to record your voice and listen to your own pronunciation. “Visiting our great tutors will improve your language skill significantly,” Hara added. Don’t miss out on an awesome resource. Take advantage of it now!

El Laboratorio de Lengua ? ? ? ? ?

? ? ? ? ? ? Location: Ikeda 415 Lab Hours: M-Th 8:00AM-9:00PM (Except M 12:00-1:00PM) F 8:00AM-4:00PM Sa 1:00-6:00PM

New Language Lab Guarantees Improvement By Victoria Kraus

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Photo courtesy of Vitoria K

raus

Photo by Edw

ard Chen

Founders Corner By Jesse Goodspeed and WuLa Dawson On November 25, the World Congress of Poets (WCP) held their 23rd international conference in Taipei, Taiwan. This year, the WCP awarded a gold medal to our university founder, Dr. Daisaku Ikeda. The WCP was established in 1969 by the World Academy of Arts and Culture. Since then, with a mission to promote exchange through poets and create peace through poetry, the WCP has hosted international conferences at various venues around the world. The theme for the conference was “poetry and nature” and “poetry and music.” Poetry is just one of many human art forms that unifies humanity and brings people together. On the subject of art, our Founder Dr. Daisaku Ikeda said

“Art is to the spirit what bread is to the body; through art we find oneness with a transcendental en-tity, breathe its rhythm, and absorb the energy we need for spiritual renewal.”

(Taken from a speech given June 14, 1989 in Paris, France found in a collection of his

university addresses called A New Human-ism)

Only knowing Japanese, our founder has been able to spread his message of peace throughout the world with his remarkable talent for writing. He has written numer-ous stories, poems and books including many dialogues and correspondences, all calling for peace and the celebration of culture. Upholding the dignity of life through his pen, he inspires millions who read his words.

This recent recognition of our foun-der’s poetry is one of many. In October 2001 at an event where his poetry was recog-nized in In-dia, Dr. Ikeda’s mes-sage affirmed

that a world that shares a poetic spirit tran-scending barriers of nationality, ethnicity and language, would forge a solidarity of the spirit as vast and boundless as the uni-verse itself, producing without fail a spiri-tual renaissance that will lead to peace. Calling this the mission of poets, our foun-der said that a "revival of poetic spirit" would serve as a powerful force in insuring that the 21st century is one of peace and nonviolence.

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The Pearl Staff: WuLa Dawson (Editor); Jessica Webster (Managing Editor); Ryo Kondo, Vicki Kraus (Section Editors); Edward Chen, Shalini Kapoor (Photographers); Andrew Reker (Layout); Anna Ikeda (Office Manager); Julie Kakiuchi, Kajal Gulati, Jenny Tang, Ann Ta-kayama (Behind-the-Scenes); Derrick Springer, Pamela Stoyka, Geoff Westropp (IT Technical Assistance).

Horoscopes: Everyone Needs Advice Sometime By Loquacia and Pumpkin Substitution In the great tradition of telling you what to expect and how to live your life, here we go again. Scorpio: Stay away from online instant mes-sengers. If you don’t, lonely, bored men will aggressively and obscenely hit on you, think-ing they have a chance with you. They don’t. Remember, no matter how bad Soka Vision gets, they have no chance. Plus, you’ll figure

out that your homework miraculously finishes itself in half the normal time. Your life will be greatly improved in many uncountable ways, though creepy men hitting on you should be enough of a deterrent if you ask me. Sagittarius : The person you’re planning a surprise birthday party for knows. You may think your plan to delete the email from their inbox will work, but you will tragically fall asleep on the floor. And even if you manage to delete the email, they know. After all, they know when their birthday is. But go ahead, try. Maybe they’ll pretend they didn’t know. And it’s always fun hiding 100 people in

small, dark rooms for long periods of time. Capricorn: Chances are, Jonathan Ritter, our newest ethnomusicologist, will find you and impart his wisdom about the difference be-tween the African xylophone and the ma-rimba. You will be astounded by his knowl-edge. Or if not, stop by his office and find out said information. I certainly found it very interesting. If you don’t believe me, ask Nancy Hodes, she knows. Hey, maybe you’ll find a new passion and gain direction in your life. There could never be enough ethnomusi-cologists in the world and we especially need more on the Soka campus.

Photo by Sam Morales