I was planning to spend the vernal equinox (a national holiday in Japan) cleaning my apartment out, but I've been slacking off and listening to music. Well, it's not even 6pm yet, so I suppose I'll just have to do it this evening after dinner. I've had a pretty good week, despite my hips being a bit more painful than usual. Last night I had my last class with a group at a local community centre, and afterwards we went out for some good Chinese food. I was totally stuffed afterwards, and I'm just starting to feel hungry. Bad for my diet, but when it's time to celebrate, it's time to celebrate!
While checking out some links from my friend Stu's blog, I discovered that my successor at my previous job, which I'd left over some irreconcilable differences, is a former classmate of mine from Trent! And I've also heard that the problem which motivated me to leave has been changed, and that my departure had something to do with it! That was a rather difficult part of my life, so this news is enormously welcome. Hopefully I'll be getting in touch with her (and my old co-teachers) soon.
Stu also posted a link in the comments to an environmental footprint site, which I checked out. I scored a 4.4, which I thought was accurate, if a bit high, but I think I'll have a closer look at how they figure it. I have been trying to make some changes, but living in contemporary urban Japan, I'm not sure how much I can do.
I'm still working my way through Pynchon's Against the Day. 1085 pages. Hope to have it finished by the end of the month, partly so I can just get it out of the way. It's good, don't get me wrong, but I think it's going to be one of those books I can't go back to unless I've got a lot of time with nothing to distract me.
One thing I've been experimenting with a bit in my classes is creative writing, particularly haiku. Most of my students are familiar enough with it from their secondary education that they can start getting them down on paper pretty quickly, and some of them turn out to be quite good. In the class I write a few myself, partly to give them time to come up with something without me looking over their shoulder. I came up with a few that actually kinda work, and I thought I'd share them with you:
deep snow
clearing off the car
school's cancelled
the handgrips on the streetcar
the trees in the wind
it's clear
i do laundry
it rains
Happy Vernal Equinox everyone, and please! post some comments! Let me know you're out there!
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1 comment:
Hiya Nick!
Its Lana, your old classmate, and present 'native speaker' at Gurye Jung. Crazy that you are the same Nick Hamilton. All of the teachers ask me, 'where did Nick go?" I always have said that I don't even know Nick, how would I know? But now, I can say Hiroshima.
The students and teachers still remember you fondly. As for the 'problems' that I am not encountering as you did, well, I would say that definitely it is true. That being said, I doubt that it has completely stopped (knowing Korean society), but it very rarely happens around me- definitely due to your influence. And since I am always around the major areas, that reduces the damage a lot. Also, the biggest culprit of it (the past math?korean? teacher) was transferred this year. The boys are still a challenge to manage, but they are also awesome a lot of the time.
Anyway, I wont go into more details here. Email me for more. The mountains are still glorious and I'm still enjoying kimchi. We are going home in April and I'll be sad.
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