By Gwen Frost
Name
Colleen Laird (she/her)
Position:
Assistant Professor of Japanese, and the Japanese Major/Minor Advisor
Education background:
McCallister College, and then to graduate school at the University of Oregon where she got her MA and PhD in East Asian Languages and Literature. I’m a film scholar specializing in Japanese cinema
Classes you are teaching this quarter: Second and third year Japanese
Claim to fame (article published anywhere cool? is your cousin Brad Pitt?): Laird is the first person to work and do research on Japanese female film directors in the English language, in which her work is the foundation for this field.
QUESTIONS:
What did you want to be when you grew up (as a kid)?
An actress, a stand-up comedian, an FBI agent. In that order.
What would you sing at a karaoke night?
Nothing. No, I’m a Japanese teacher, I go to Karaoke all the time in Japan and I do not sing.
What are you reading right now/most recently? What’s it about?
The third book in the Oryx and Crake in the Margaret Atwood series. Mad Adam, is the third one.
Aside from necessities, what are three things you could not go a day without?
I’ve been in scenarios when I’ve only had the necessities, and I’ve been fine. ‘Fine’ being it was extremely rough. Maybe someone to talk to, it’s really rough being isolated. I have four cats, and I like them very much. And good food! And Nature.
What’s the craziest thing you’ve done in the name of love?
I’m not very crazy in the name of love. I went to Nicaragua for two months and got engaged there, we had only known each other for four months. We’re still together, that was a long time ago.
What advice would you have given your college-undergrad-self?
The same advice I give to students now, which is that it’s okay to waste time, just be aware you’re wasting it, when you are. So it’s cool, but be mindful and know you’re doing it. Also, the second piece of advice I don’t usually give students but I think it’s important, is to know when a situation or a person is toxic, and to walk away. Don’t deal with unnecessary toxicity.
What is your favorite restaurant-prepared breakfast dish?
Eggs Benedict. I’m a vegetarian so I really like the ones down at the Fork, which is near Lake Whatcom. They make Eggs Benedict on a fried artichoke instead of an English muffin.
What job would you be terrible at?
Retail. I was terrible at retail. I had a lot of retail jobs, but the one was shortest was at a place called Borders, I worked there for four hours. I walked out, because they wanted me to sell credit cards to people, when they came up to buy a book. I was in grad school, studying Marxism, and was super involved in over-thinking everything, I was like “I can’t take this Capitalist crap.”