Catch-up

So, yeah, ADSL is up and running. I think we got 12M, as I recall. You can get up to 100M, but good luck finding a source that can upload at that rate, I figure.

Work is cool. I'm getting into the hang of it, my coworkers are by and large good-humoured (very necessary), and the interesting, enjoyable students outnumber the ones who provoke hair-pulling.

Life in Japan is just peachy.

Favorite exerpts thus far:

This is a recurring episode: every once in a while I drop by Shibuya (it's along my train route to work) and cross the street with several hundred other pedestrians across a large intersection in these massive converging waves of people. (I love Shibuya. Here's a decent picture, which gives a bit--but just a bit--of an indication of how busy it is. That display to the left is, as far as I can tell, an enormous LCD display. That big one on the windows in the right is a wonder--you can see through it into the building inside. I haven't gone in yet to see how it looks from the inside.)

As mentioned on the Last Time, in one of my lessons I met a French-speaking Japanese woman who worked with Julie Dreyfus, the actress who played Sophie Fatale in Kill Bill. Sweet!

In another one of my lessons, I had a student who said he was very tired. Why, I asked. Because he'd been in a 5 hour meeting, he said. Wow, said I, what was it about? About a 160 billion yen deal between Fuji (his company) and Xerox. Whoa.

Few days ago, I answered the door to be greeting by a pair of English-speaking Japanese JWs who wanted to proselytise. They're softer sell than in Canada, I think. I said I was getting ready for work and they let it go at that.

Comment written in a student's file by another teacher: "Positive: knows some English words. Negative: can't use them in a sentence." (It's true)

Another comment: "Positive: excellent comprehension. Negative: called the other student a homosexual." (Also true)

An interestingly named pair of shops in Shibuya: first, Skin Head, which sells silver jewelry and other decorative odds and ends; second, Tora Tora Tora--that being the go signal for the bombing of Pearl Harbor (of course that's not the only time it's been used in the history of the Japanese language, although it is the most well-known--not that they probably learn that in the schools here).

Well, that's all I can think of right now. TTFN.