My Fun-Loving Students

A few days ago I bid my students farewell for the summer, but not before taking pictures!  I think the photographs show how fun-loving my students are.  I've really enjoyed working with them and look forward to next semester, which begins in September.  (Between now and then it's administrative work and "research.")

The first group of students pictured here with me will not be here in the fall.  They, along with 32 others from Chubu University, will spend a semester at Ohio University, being taught by my old colleagues.  I truly love how small the world is.

I had seven classes this semester: reading (x2), listening and speaking, reading and writing, story writing (fiction), conversations around the world (basic conversation class), and news casts (where students produced various types of news programs and TV commercials in English).  Fun times!

Sakura of Japan

Now that my first semester in Japan is nearing the end, it's time for a blog post from our new location. Bob and I are living in a suburb of Kasugai, a city in Aichi Prefecture, where I'm teaching English at Chubu University.

What could be a more fitting start than to show the beauty of Japan's cherry blossoms?

The "sakura," as they're known in Japanese, were in full bloom a couple weeks after our March arrival.  Having a picnic under the cherry blossoms is a long-standing tradition in Japan and truly stupendous at that.

Bob and I thoroughly enjoyed strolling around those first few weeks, taking in the beauty of not only the cherry blossoms, but the azeleas and forsythias as well.

By the way, in our family, the forsythia is known as "For Cynthia," a name my brother coined when his children were young.  He told them that the yellow blooming plant was called "For Cynthia."  I still love that!