Winter break is finally over and the second term, or at least my second term, has begun. Reading, "winter break", one may initially think that I'm yet another person to discard reason and bow to the voice of political correctness; however, in Japan it is most certainly not Christmas break. Christmas day is on the 25th of December like everywhere else, but everyone goes about their daily lives as per normal. Sure, there are decorations in the stores and the occasional house has lights, but by the 28th of December, the Christmas decorations have been removed in favour of the much more important New Year's ones. Anyhow, winter break was too long.
A new class
Or rather, half of a new class has been formed this term, with eight students from my class in the previous term, four students from another programme at the school, one from another class in the same programme, and one brand new student. The intake of new students may seem low, but because student visas are only issued by the government for entry in October and April, the intake is naturally lower in January and July.
The assortment of nationalities is even more varied than last term with fifteen students representing twelve countries: Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Brasil, the United States, New Caledonia, Taiwan, Mongolia, Vietnam, Korea, England, and the Netherlands.
Although perhaps it is to be expected to some degree, the six students who are new to the class seem particularly quiet. Maybe the rest of us are intimidating with Americans and Canadians who have little reservation when voicing their opinions. (You know who you are, or is that we know who we are . . . ?) Regardless, I'm sure people will warm up to each other and relax in the coming weeks.
While I occasionally, and by occasionally I mean every day or nine out of every ten days, complain about the slow progress as far as grammar is concerned, and outdated, poor teaching methodologies, since languages are so expansive there is enough wiggle room to allow for an interesting term. More accurately it's not a matter of the term being interesting; rather, the term can be made to be interesting. The preceding is doubtless an obvious statement to most of you, but some people are like me, somewhat retarded, and need to hear it explicitly.