Every night after I finish my shift at Smith’s School of English, Kyobashi, I head on back to the station in a somewhat brisk walk. Usually, the little snacks that I carry with me to work disappear rather quickly, so by the time I’m ready to head home, I’m famished. The only two [...]
I’ve recently been on a nostalgic Star Trek kick and have had trouble finding someone to share my trekker feelings with. It’s very fortunate that Smith’s School of English Kyobashi has such a wide range of students with a vast number of interests. Unable to contain my excitement one day over the new [...]
The weather forecast was predicting that it would rain this past Sunday, but thanks to some good luck and quite a good deal of sunshine, it turned into a beautiful day. The perfect day for a picnic! It was just a wonderful coincidence that the cherry blossoms were in full bloom at the [...]
February 26, 2008 – 9:08 pm
There are a lot of times where a familiar sight or sound in Japan makes me feel just a little bit homesick. Although these sorts of feelings are only natural, it’s much more pleasant if they can be negated or avoided. Either that or quickly bribed with an interesting [...]
February 23, 2008 – 12:51 am
Last week, I did a bit of research for one of Smith’s School of English Kyobashi’s high level students. He had requested some information about comic book stores in Japan after a conversation that we had about comic books and superheroes. After hearing about how I had learned a good deal of kanji [...]
February 19, 2008 – 2:44 am
I met an incredibly interesting student this afternoon. He’s brand new at Smith’s School of English Kyobashi so he voluntarily offered up quite a bit of information on his job/hobby. His job and hobby are actually one in the same - learning and teaching about Chinese history. For the past 30 odd [...]
February 16, 2008 – 2:26 am
In recent years, I hadn’t really gone out of my way to celebrate Valentine’s Day any differently than in the way that I was accustomed to. Although shopping for the perfect gift can be a major pain, I had grown so reliant on boxed chocolates and candy arrangements that to [...]
February 12, 2008 – 5:28 am
Today a lot of students just happened to be carrying around a stash of candies. At three different times tonight, three different students approached me with chocolate offerings. I thought that this was an odd coincidence but a deliciously welcome one. It’s not every day at Smith’s School of English Kyobashi that [...]
February 9, 2008 – 1:08 am
When I woke up this morning, I wondered why it was so dark outside. As far as I knew, rain hadn’t been part of the weather forecast last night. So I pulled back the curtains to peer outside and was pleasantly shocked to see a flurry of white snowflakes raining down on the [...]
February 7, 2008 – 2:33 am
Just the other day, one of the students at Smith’s School of English Kyobashi was telling me about her unusual pet. She has not one, but two ferrets! I haven’t heard of many people in Japan housing ferrets as pets because miniature dogs are all the rage over here. I’ve only seen a ferret once [...]
February 6, 2008 – 3:30 am
Today’s first class started out phenomenally well considering that the weather outside was dreary and not so inspiring. One of the students brought in a folder of photos that he’d taken during one of his scuba diving expeditions. Before seeing these pictures, I had no idea that he was such an avid diver. [...]
February 5, 2008 – 1:51 am
Everyday, regardless of the time or weather, as soon as I arrive at Smith’s School of English Kyobashi, the first thing I do is look out the windows. Not just one window, or several detached singular windows, but a wide expanse of windows that encompass the entire lounge area. The view is quite spectacular from [...]
February 2, 2008 – 2:14 am
For the last few weeks, a friend of mine has been chasing after me to install a new program on my computer. It’s kind of like a role-playing game, or so I’ve been told. I can’t really be sure until I play this hyped up game. So, giving into the peer pressure, [...]
January 31, 2008 – 12:16 am
There are many unique and interesting customs in Japan but one of the most attention-grabbing is probably Setsubun (the day before the beginning of Spring). Setsubun has many customs surrounding it that date back to the Ming Dynasty in China, that were then adopted by Japan in the Muromachi Era [...]
January 30, 2008 – 3:24 am
I almost always come to Smith’s School of English Kyobashi everyday at least thirty minutes early. That leaves me with just enough time to prepare my files and get ready for my first lesson. Sometimes, I have a couple of minutes on my hands with nothing to do and go off in search [...]
January 29, 2008 – 12:46 am
Quite often at Smith’s School of English Kyobashi, I find myself serving as both a teacher and confidante to the variety of students that attend classes on a regular basis. Aside from the new friendly faces of students who have recently joined Smith’s School of English Kyobashi, there are the familiar ones that I [...]
January 26, 2008 – 2:29 am
Sometimes in a lesson, especially one with high level students, it’s nice to have some honest, down-to-earth discussions within the lesson structure. There are times where the student really gets into a topic and wishes to elaborate or go off in a completely different direction due to individual interests or past experiences.
We were on a [...]
January 26, 2008 – 12:22 am
There are many popular foods in Japan but the most intriguing is perhaps the onigiri. Whenever I ask students what they’ve eaten for lunch, at least one usually answers with “onigiri”. I myself eat at least two rice balls per week. So what is so special about these rice balls that they [...]
January 23, 2008 – 3:27 am
Last week, one of Smith’s School of English Kyobashi students told me about a cooking course that she is taking at ABC Cooking School. She’s been going there for a while and is learning how to bake cookies, bread, and cake. Apparently, this month and next, that cooking school is offering a special course for [...]
January 19, 2008 – 2:29 am
It seems like with the New Year also came some ‘new’ weather. We’d been experiencing a fairly warm winter up until the two week vacation period where things started to really cool down. And along with the cold scarf and glove (or mittens, depending on your preference) weather came [...]
January 15, 2008 – 5:12 am
One lady that I taught today had taken an extra long vacation for the New Year’s and confessed that she hadn’t studied any English at all over the holidays. In fact, she hadn’t even reviewed her notes and was extremely nervous about her lesson. She came into the lesson speaking in only Japanese and was [...]
January 10, 2008 – 4:19 am
Normally, I’m pretty happy doing the job that I do in the place that I do it in, but there are some days that really make me stop, pause and think, “If I were working for another company, in a different position, I couldn’t possibly have this much fun.”
The other day, I had the pleasure [...]
January 9, 2008 – 2:32 am
Since the 1st of January, I have been receiving quite a handful of nengajos (New Year postcards) from mainly close friends and a couple of acquaintances. Nengajos are very important in Japan because they promote good relationships between businesses and clients, and friends and family. They are considered to be much more influential [...]
January 8, 2008 – 12:22 am
It feels like I’ve been on holiday for months instead of two weeks. That may be because this past Christmas vacation has been one of my most productive ones. I managed to accomplish quite a few things on my list of resolutions already and am striving to take care of the rest of them [...]
December 21, 2007 – 9:01 pm
Once the bells are done ringing, everyone gets ready to visit the temples and shrines in order to make pledges for the coming year and pray. As late – or early depending on your point of view – as 4:30am (which is the time I visited a shrine last New [...]
December 19, 2007 – 4:17 am
ET: Never mind
Using this one point is a bit tricky so we reviewed it carefully to make sure that she was confident with it. She gave me a scenario where her daughter had dropped an expensive vase and she had told her to “never mind” about it.
Routine: 10
I gave this student the 10 questions from [...]
December 18, 2007 – 5:06 am
ET: When I was ( ) years old, I took up (A)
The first few minutes were spent on doing a bit of catching up since I hadn’t seen this particular student in a while. She was quite busy with her work and wanted to ask me what I would be doing for the holidays. [...]
December 18, 2007 – 3:16 am
ET: Long time no see
My first Tuesday afternoon student came in today with a cheerful smile and all ready to study English. She jumped right into the one point by announcing, “Long time, no see,” just as she sat down. It’s nice to see that she keeps practicing her one points even after [...]
December 18, 2007 – 2:45 am
Before I came to Japan, I was told that the Japanese people don’t celebrate Western holidays or traditions, one of them being Christmas. Is this true? Judging by the drastic increase of people frantically shopping around for presents, the change of standard gift wrapping to festive greens and [...]
December 13, 2007 – 10:55 pm
As I started serving students drinks today in the lounge, one lady came in who looked really familiar but I couldn’t quite place her face. I thought about it for a while and when she finally entered my class, I remembered where I had seen her before. She’d been a regular student at [...]