| Chapter 1: | Autobiographical Self |
By denying my life, I finally decided that I needed to change my life. Ted Aoki and Doug Aoki (2005) said that “metaphor grounds the subject: metonymy lets it take flight” (p. 446) and that they seek a metonymic moment. I interpreted Ted Aoki’s metonymic moment as the moment of cracking open that which is light/dark, a moment of newness that emerges, obfuscating the boundary between opposing binary differences. I think that this space is similar in nature to Bhabha’s notion of the third space. My daughter’s words generated freedom within me, freedom from my circumstances; was this my metonymic moment? Learning in life is unpredictable. Life is full of surprises if I open my heart to the countless faces within me.
Into the ravine
Cast the fragments of my life
A fleeting rainbow
I came to Canada at the age of 50, enrolling in the ESL program at the university. Soon thereafter, I completed the Certificate for Teachers of English as a Second Language (CTESL) course they offered and began work on my master’s degree in applied linguistics. In 1998 I earned my master’s degree and was hired as a Japanese instructor at the university. In 2000 I began my PhD studies in education at the University of Ottawa.
What kind of life would I have if I were not interested in English? What kind of life would I have if I were in Japan? Would I have been happy chasing my grandchildren around my garden? Or would I have passed away already, feeling overwhelmed by frustration? Although I do not know the answers to these questions, I am not the Mika that I was before. Identity is always in flux and never becomes resolved. How do I reconnect with my history, my memories, and my past selves? Why is the experience, without understanding, never enough? Why, as a woman, did I feel inferior in Japan?