My Tutor and Unicycles

I went to Hirata-sensei’s Japanese lesson this morning, in which we finished off the lesson’s grammar. We also had a vocabulary test, but the number of words we had to remember was the least it has been for a long time. We also watched the video for the lesson; it was funny, but nowhere near as funny as the previous lesson’s one. Today, a female worker was staring at a picture she had received from the matchmaking company, of which she was a member, when her “German” colleague entered her office. There then preceded a conversation based around the man in the photograph. We have been studying “looks like”, so it makes sense: “he looks like a kind man.”

After class, I ate yet another curry-rice, before going to Seb’s class in the afternoon. It was good, as usual, and we managed to advance rather far. We have now finished the fourth page, but I will not manage to make it to the end of the book. Perhaps I will attempt to complete my translation upon returning to England or I could have one of the others send me their notes. Afterwards, I had Seb look at my speech, which has now entered its third version, and now contains a joke, which Seb assures me will get a laugh. There is still a sentence, though, which nobody who reads it understands, so I will probably ask Ikehara-sensei about it tomorrow.

I had my tutor session again, which was useful. I had the same girl, even though the teacher told me I was getting somebody different. My girl is kind, though, and I think it is better not to have to return to basic introductions every week. I like the talking practice, though I did not really do much this time. I did a lot of listening, though. It is reassuring that I can understand most of what she says. We read a Japanese song lyric by an artist that she mentioned last week. It was hard to do, as I did not know most of the kanji, and I did not even try to understand the meaning. We also talked about sports and my dislike football. She was surprised, as she has her foreign perception of all English people being beer-swilling, football crazy maniacs, which I guess for the most part is true, but it is the exceptions that make us interesting.

I had Linden Hall afterwards, which was relatively easy and civilised. Flick and I took the children outside and played “Sardines” with them. They seemed to like that, though it took them forever to find Mariko – the hider – so we only really played one game in the time. We let them have free-play for a little while afterwards. Momoko dragged me around inside a skipping rope and I played “Jan-Ken-Poi” (rock, paper, scissors) with her. I acted as a support for Mariko and Keisuke, as they attempted to learn how to ride unicycles!

This evening, I have done my homework and then spent a while trying to translate some of my manga. It is interesting to do and everybody that I have spoken to about it thinks that it is a good idea, so I am going to keep on battling through. I hope that, with perseverance, I will get quicker at reading it. I think I might do some programming now, after a little break, maybe. I have not done that for a long while.