About Myself
Résumé
Personal
- Nathan Oyama
- Nick: Nate
- Born: May 3, 1986 in New Jersey, the United States
- Berkeley California, the United States
Education
- June 2008 — Present
- Berkeley City College, California
- Laney College, Oakland, California
- April 2008 — June 2008
- ESL Advanced, Berkeley Adult School, Berkeley, California, the United States
- April 2006 — March 2008
- The Department of Applied Electronics, Faculty of Industrial Science, Tokyo University of Science (TUS,) Japan (dropout)
- April 2005 — March 2006
- Kawai Academy of Omiya, Japan
- April 2002 — March 2005
- Saitama Prefectural Urawa Senior High School, Japan
- April 2000 — March 2002
- Satte City West Junior High School, Japan
- June 1994 — March 2000
- Satte City Kahinata Elementary School, Japan
- April 1994 — June 1994
- Ageo East Elementary School, Japan
- April 1991 — March 1994
- Ageo Public Nursery School, Japan
- September 1990 — March 1991
- Watchung Cooperative Nursery School, New Jersey, the United States
Background
- Tokyo University of Science
- Representative of Coming of Age Ceremony in Oshamambe
- Urawa Senior High School
- Established Computer Circle, First Leader (March 2004 — March 2005)
- The Planning Committee for their festival, In charged of Computing (March 2003 — February 2004)
- Satte West Junior High School
- The President of the Student Council (October 2000 — September 2001)
Languages
- Japanese native speaker
- English as a second language
Qualifications
Japan's system administrator examination: Passing
Additional Information
- Computer Skills
- Considerable experience in writing/using: X/HTML, CSS, C, Visual Basic, LaTeX, gnuplot, Microsoft Office, OpenOffice.org.
- Some knowledge of XML, JAVA, Python, FORTRAN, curl.
- Experienced at using Apple II, Macintosh (System 7.5--X), Microsoft Windows (95--Vista), Linux (Redhat, Puppy, Knoppix, X/Ubuntu, etc.), Solaris 9.
- Driving Licence
- California Class C (regular driver,) full, clean
- Travel Experience
- South Korea, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, etc.
- Should I call you
Nathan
,Nate
, orNaoki
? - "Nathan" or just "Nate". "Naoki" is my true name but is difficult to pronounce for most non-Japanese. Besides, I lost my Japanese nationality on May 3, 1986 (my 22nd birthday,) and since then I've been unable to write "Naoki" in Japanese in any formal situation.
- In reality, most friends and teachers of mine in both Japan and overseas, and even my parents call me "Nathan" or just "Nate".
- Is Nathan Japanese or American?
- Japanese-American. My parents are both Japanese, and I was born during their stay in New Jersey, the United States. We moved to Tokyo when I was three.
- What language do you speak?
- Japanese is my first language. I started studying English when I was thirteen.
- What were you doing at Kawai Academy in 2005?
- Believe it or not, I was doing very badly in senior high school. Naturally I couldn't enroll at any university then. After I graduated there, I went to Kawai Academy. In Japan, quite a few students who couldn't pass any university's admission test studied at such academies in order to prepare for their next tests. Instructors at Kawai Academy pointed out that my score was unbelievably low even though I was a prefecture's highest high school graduate.
- Yet, teachers at Kawai Academy didn't give up looking after me. Thanks to their amazing effort, I could return to a normal society, and passed the admission test of Tokyo University of Science. I really thank teachers at Kawai Academy, from the bottom of my heart.
- What is Nathan's major?
- I haven't decided it yet. It'll probably be computer science (CS), mathematics, and/or economics.
- What is Nathan going to be?
- Now I'm studying at a community college so as to take units which are University of California (UC) transferable. I'm trying to transfer to UC Berkeley. If I success, then I will go on studying my field and prepare for enroll at their graduate school.
- How can I seek you on Skype, FaceBook MySpace, or mixi?
- Just search with
Nathan Oyama
. I have an MySpace account, but I haven't revised it for a long time. - How do you make a beautiful document?
- I use LaTeX and gnuplot, not Word or Excel. See "Work" > "Making Beautiful Math Texts"
- What type of computer do you use?
- Now I have two computers; a monster desktop machine and a ultra-portable laptop PC. The desktop PC is DIY which I built in the summer of 2008. I usually use Linux (Ubuntu) and sometimes use or just try out other OS on VirtualBox. The laptop PC is Panasonic Let'sNote (in the USA, 'ToughBook') W4. It has Windows and Linux (Ubuntu). Though it's a little old, works pretty well.
- In addition, I sometimes use my own OS on other PCs. I installed Linux (Xubuntu) onto a USB thumb drive. It works as good as ordinary system. Besides, it allows me to use my favorite software such as Firefox, emacs (text editor), Lyx (TeX editor), maxima (math calculation), gnuplot (grapher), etc.
- Will you join or establish an open-sourced program project?
- I will.
- Can you help us translating our webpages, software, etc. into Japanese?
- See: Work > Japanese Translation
- Can you teach me Japanese?
- See: Work > Japanese Teaching
- How can I send my kid to an international school in Japan?
- If you work for the US military in Japan, their bases have American schools for children there.
- Otherwise, make sure that there are no public int'l school in Japan and so their tuition is very expensive; For instance, the annual tuition of St. Mary's Int'l School is more than ¥2 million ($20,000.) Thus you must have your company's support or be rich enough. Moreover, most int'l school students cannot enroll at universities in Japan, since they hardly speak Japanese, and so they enroll at universities in English-speaking countries like the United States.
- In addition, your child can study at their local public school. Their tuition is very cheap. If nobody speaks Japanese in your family, your child will be unhappy about school. Find English-speaking supporters you can trust (there are dummies in Japan as well, and their officiousness sometimes cause you trouble, so be careful!) For example, English teachers, university students. Make deals with them privately, and pay an appropriate amount of fee, make lunch or dinner, or teach English to your supporters so as to save your spending.
- Is Nathan seeing anybody?
- No, I'm not, and I don't want.
- Boys and girls, which one do you like?
- I hate either.
- Don't you like Japan?
- Yes, but so far I no longer have any reason to move to Japan.
- Nathan still lives in Japan.
- False: I presently live in Berkeley, California, the United States.
- Nathan no longer has any connection with Tokyo University of Science (TUS).
- True: I enrolled at Berkeley City College privately, without any support from TUS or any organization in Japan. Yet, I still have kept in touch with people there privately.
Speaker FAQ
About Nathan
About Computing
About Japan(ese)
Silly Questions
Indeed, I don't want to publish such silly things on the web, but yet, I don't want to be asked and answer the same questions again and again either.
Rumor Response
Entries below are well-known rumors and/or untrue allegations.