kayoubi

Eigo class

Nihongo class

Typically, Tuesdays also start out fairly slow - one tutoring session at 9:45, an occasional department meeting at lunchtime, and then 2 tutoring sessions in the afternoon. However, today I had several speech contestant sessions, a RWC tour meeting (preparing the 9 girls for their visit to Rochester in September), and the English speech contest semi-finals this evening. I had to skip my weekly Japanese class to attend the contest as one of the judges (which I most certainly did not want to be...especially after months of working side by side with most of the girls).

I won't bore you with too many details. A few interesting tidbits: In one level-up session, all of my students wrote down the same "C" answer for Scattergories' U.S. Cities: California. That was the highlight. The low came after the semi-finals when we had to announce the 6 (of 10) students moving on to the finals...One of my favorite contestants (whose speech is amazing and her effort is definitely deserving of the gold) was eliminated because she read most of her speech (she has horrible stage fright, and she couldn't remember any of it). After the announcement, several students cried, but I didn't cry with them. Not until this particular student ran over to me and hugged me, apologizing frantically in Japanese for wasting my time and letting me down. Then I lost it. And if you know me, you know I don't cry (unless John Coffey is executed). What respect and humility! She was upset because I invested time in her, not because she lost. And I'm practically a kid...full-grown professors in America don't even get shown that kind of respect and appreciation.

Times like this remind me why 20 days is approaching way too fast...