This morning on the way to work I happened to leave the house just at the same time that one of our neighbors, Ms. Fukumi, was leaving. Usually she rides to work with her husband, but apparently he was on a business trip today and so she had to walk to the station and then catch a bus. We were both going the same way, so we walked together. This has happened once before, and we talked in Japanese about her English study. This time around we had the entire conversation in English, and I was pretty impressed with how well she did. She speaks better than some of my professional students, and it was obvious how much effort she has been putting into it.
I asked her how often she studies English, and she said that every night after work while waiting for her husband to get home she studies about two hours a night. Every day! Two hours! The best I can get out of my exhausted students at work is 10 minutes of their time while they commute home, and sometimes an hour or two on the weekends. Her progress really showed and it was impressive to see how far she has come even in the few weeks since we last met.
This year is the first time since I’ve been in Japan that we’ve had a proper (fake) Christmas tree. It’s my first fake tree, but it turned out to be pretty good. We spent the evening last weekend decorating it with lights and ornaments, and we had to dig pretty deep to find some ornaments from our past. The end result is a pretty good looking tree, and the only thing missing is the smell. I don’t miss the sappy hands, though.
