Welcome to my web site!

My name is Jacqueline Martinez. I have dedicated my life to three primary endeavors: 1) my relationship with my life-partner, 2) the scholarly study of culture and communication, and 3) the study of traditional Shotokan karate-do.  All three of these endeavors are essential to all that I know and understand about myself, others, and the world we live within.

I have started this web site and blog because for years family and friends have told me and Lisa, my life-partner, that we should “write a book” about how to have happy and successful relationships.  I can’t say that Lisa and I have any special insight that can give people the keys to having happy and successful relationships, but it is true that for nearly two decades we have managed to survive  all of the challenges and struggles life has brought us with an ever deepening sense of knowing and loving each other.  Whatever insight I have about how to have happy and successful relationships is also connected to the fact that I have dedicated my professional life to the study of communication and culture.  Yet, as important as these two aspects of my life are, without talking about my life-long commitment to the study of karate-do any account of who I am or what I do would be incomplete.

I’ve started this web site and blog to create a space where I can bring all three of these aspects of my life together.  In many ways my life as a professor and my life as a practitioner of karate-do are very separate — they involve different sets of people, different activities, and virtually no overlap between them.  But in my own life they constantly overlap.  The insights I have from my karate-do training has informed my academic interests from my first day in a college classroom.  My academic has often been driven by my practice of karate-do.  And both of these life-long endeavors have come to live within the life and that Lisa and I have been building together for nearly two decades.

The menu to the right will always have link to my most recent posts.  The links under “categories” will allow you to see all posts as I have organized them by general topic area.  The menu at the top of this page gives you more factual and background information about my scholarly life, my karate-do life, and my family life.

I hope you enjoy my blogs, and let me know what you think!