Seb's Back

I had my usual Japanese lesson in the morning, with Hirata-sensei. I cannot remember exactly what we did, but part of it involved learning how to say that we are determined to do something. For example, “I want to still be learning Japanese when I turn 40.” We had to write a little composition about our dreams for the future, obviously using the new grammatical structures that we have learnt.

In the afternoon, we had Sebastian for our history lesson. We have not had his lesson for about three weeks now, primarily due to the Chancellor turned up a few weeks ago, unannounced, and he has had to look after him and his entourage. Anyway, we studied the period from 1936 until 1945, when America dropped the atomic bombs. I am not going to tell you any of the details, as they are rather harrowing, but interesting nonetheless. However, according to American estimates, the dropping of the atom bombs saved about 700,000 lives that would also have been lost if America has invaded Japan.

Next week we are going to hear about the war-crimes tribunal that took place after the war, which should be very interesting, especially since the Chinese are always complaining that the Japanese prime minister is always visiting a shrine where “Class-A War Criminals” are enshrined.

On a lighter note, we have had a different bus driver this week from the last. He is totally crazy, greeting us in the morning with shouts of "OHAYOU GOZAIMASU" and "ITTERASSHAI." He also sings along to the radio. This all causes us to go into histerics. Finally, a happy smile, a wave, and a loud "OTSUKARESAMA" await us at the end of our journey.