I’ve had a number of great students lately. I’m enjoying what little I can impart unto others in this job.
Lately, it seems that my students would much rather chat with me; these are, of course, man-to-man lessons so it is permissible. It amuses me on some levels because I wonder if the other teachers are just dead set on getting on with a lesson, or if I look the type to strike up a conversation with.
Take tonight for instance, the lovely lady from Kagawa and I had a lovely little chat about alternative medicine and about her son who’s studying in Osaka. At first, I thought she was going to try and set me up with the lad, the way she was goin’ on, but she was just chatting.
I think one of the best lessons I’ve had in a long time was last night, though. Yoko is a professor in historical linguistics in Kobe; when I read that in Information section of the student file, you can only guess my elation. I skimmed some past lesson comments and noticed immediately that she liked to talk about her work as one quote stated, “Actually, we get a lot of words from the Vikings.”
I couldn’t wait to talk to her, if anything because I don’t get a chance to talk about this nearly enough.
It was AWESOME. She recently returned from an international conference for linguistics; she told me about the places she’s been to regarding historical sites and recommended books to me about it. She related about an area in the southwest of England that retained portions of grammatical gender and we debated about some other language matters such as the teaching of historical linguistics in the high schools. (She actually thinks it would be a good thing to teach to Japanese students.)
I was so stoked about the lesson. I miss scholarly conversations like that, and this isn’t to say that my friends aren’t capable of it…it’s just not the sort of discussion that we strike up or anything.
I miss academia.
