school

Many times my private lesson students will bring in material from outside of class to get help with. Recently, one of my students brought in an article about a intoxicated women who had fallen onto a subway track in Boston(?) right before the subway pulled into the station. The driver stopped just centimeters short of the lady. An onlooker and the driver helped the lady out of the track pit.

Yesterday was election day here in Japan for representatives to the Lower House. It was a very important election in that those elected individuals would turn around and elect a new Prime Minister, the most recent having been considered a lame duck. I believe it was the LDP (Liberal Democratic Party) who has been in control for 50+ years. They supported the traditional practice of a representative passing a house seat to their oldest son, so that recently, about 1/3 of all house seats where gained basically through heredity.

I just finished my last lesson with a favorite student. We had been reviewing and critiquing the book "Supercapitalism" by Robert Reich and talking about related issues in a book my student had written. Usually, I had a private lesson with him every couple of weeks for only 40-50 min...really not enough time. I asked him why he wasn't taking English lessons anymore and he replied that he was just too busy. He's older, so I guess he wants to re-focus his time and energy. In either case, he was my most interesting student and I will miss our conversations.