Yesterday I spent the day saying goodbye to about 1/3 of my students. They finished their course a little earlier than the rest, so it was our final class. Some of them I can tell will continue to study and continue to improve their English. Others will fall right back into non-usage of English and wonder why my class didn’t help them. My last class I always turn into the nagging teacher – explaining how to keep improving, what they need to focus on for the future, and what their strengths and weaknesses are. It is always a little sad to say goodbye to them, but I usually bump into them again somewhere around the office.
The disaster news kept coming throughout the day as it usually does, but we were happy to see a couple of channels of regular programming on TV last night. I measure the return to normalcy around here by how many food shows are on.
Once again, everyone here is healthy and life is completely normal. Work continues, and people (especially in Japan) love to get to work to forget their troubles. This will pay off in the near future – there is a lot of work to do reconstructing the part of the country destroyed by the triple whammy of disasters.
