The beach

This year, I took a position teaching English part-time at a technical college in Niigata. This job has been less illustrious than I thought, but the students — after we worked through the initial uncomfortable atmosphere — have been really great. At the end of the course, I only had to fail one of them and I had a pretty good relationship with the rest. So good in fact, that this email came to my cell phone last week:

For some reason! stephen! Because a place of BBQ was decided, I report it. If weather can cry by a squall, I carry it out. Because I attach a map, please refer to it. Let's talk about the detailed junction method later.

The party turned out to be for the ham radio club at the college and we all went out to the beach for a cookout and swim. I gotta say, although I was skeptical, the ham radio club guys from the technical college are terribly sweet and polite and talented at the ham radio. I even got a ham radio handle: 'Guest 4'. Some other kid had already taken RoboCop, apparently. I also harassed them about not having girlfriends. One of them asked, 'Did you have girlfriends before you were married?' to which I answered, 'Well, of course'. Ah yes, they said, Americans are very cool.