1 - I have a friend staying with me for about a week. We went for dinner to my local okonomiyaki restaurant, a cheap and yummy place just minutes from my apartment. Good food, good company, and a couple of drinks - what more could you ask for?!
2 - While I wasn't sure that talking about his worries over reconciling his girlfriend with his plans to go on exchange to Sweden was going to do anything for my sempai, I was wrong! After only a month of weekly meetings, he upped his spoken TOEFL score from a 9/30 to 17/30! Sadly he still has a long ways to go if he wants to go on exchange, but this is an incredible start!
3 - I'm finding it amusing to watch my two academic worlds colliding. The advisor of my last MA thesis wrote an overview of Japanese history (in English) that he used as a textbook for the undergraduate core class he co-taught with another professor. I TA-ed one section in my second year of the program and so taught from the book myself. Fast forward a few years and I'm reading the book as a student, but this time in a different language! In one of my current grad courses we're reading the Japanese translation and discussing different ways of viewing history...
4 - I'm enjoying TA-ing this time around so much more. The students look at me funny in the first class of the year, but after that they do remarkably well at ignoring the fact that I am a foreigner, and treat me normally. In the hands-on class this week one of the professors couldn't make it so the office assistant and I had to fill in, leading activities instead of just assisting as we normally do. While I know I didn't have all the right vocab, I enjoyed the opportunity to teach and found the students patient and eager - which surprised me!
5 - I thought I had a fifth point, but it was driven out of my head by my next-next door neighbour, an older man who seems to enjoy clearing his lungs loudly enough for the entire neighbourhood to hear... Lovely, eh? And on that note...
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