Dear Geoffrey,

Thank you for your mail and welcome to Pathways.

I am really excited, and looking forward to studying Philosophy.

It's something that I haven't decided to do lightly. I've thought seriously about taking on such a task for the last 10 months and have decided that it's now or never.

First let me tell you a little about myself.

My full name is Malcolm John Ohara-Phelps. Originally, my family name was just Phelps, but I double-barrelled this with my wife's maiden name after I got married.

I was born in August 1967 and was brought up in the south-west of England in a small village called Congresbury, near Bristol.

Educationally, I made it to the end of my A-levels with passes in Maths, Physics and Chemistry. At the time, I considered entering University and actually received various offers. However, I decided to choose the road of employment and was looking for independence. This was almost twenty years ago.

I worked in retail in the UK for a few years before heading off around the world backpacking. I travelled around Asia for 2 years and got a real insight into different cultures and the way people live. While I was totally unaware of it at the time, this may have started my interest into philosophy. Well, after working and living in Australia for a year and travelling around a few more countries I finally came to settle down in Japan.

My wife is Japanese, to whom I have been happily married to for 12 years, and I have two daughters aged 10 and 5. I studied Japanese formally when I came to Japan and can speak and read Japanese fluently. During the day-time, I am a manager for an English School and am responsible for out-sourcing teachers to Universities along with working with various Universities in Japan organising and instigating English conversation courses.

Outside work and family I have two main hobbies. Running and Iaido.

I like long distance running and usually enter about 3 or 4 full marathons a year. I'm semi-serious, but I don't let it interfere with work or family life. The highlight of each week is meeting up with a group of around 20 Japanese friends and going for a long run (20 miles or so) together. I find that running in the mornings is a great way of clearing the mind and getting ones thoughts into perspective. I'm hoping that running is going to help when I get stuck on difficult philosophical ideas.

Iaido is the art of drawing the Japanese sword. While it may sound aggressive it is more about self-disciple and control. Iaido is also strongly connected to Shinto and Zen. As it aids concentration and the use of the inner spirit (a kind of samurai spirit) I hope it will give me strength and staying power during my course of study.

Yours

Malcolm