Sod's law & dark matter (英会話)

It's nice to be given an opportunity to teach something other than English, and my eikaiwa is always a willing arena. Today's conversations:

• The difference between compliment and flattery;
• What "Sod's Law" is;
• What the STV (Single Transferable Vote) is and how it is arguably a "fairer" system when compared to the "first past the post" system with respect to democratic representation;
• What dark matter is.

Today I also started handing out my old copies of BBC Focus to my members. I was very delighted at their eager response, despite a couple of them claiming it would take them a year to understand it. I reassured them it was very much an every day person's magazine and although the concepts within can be complex, the writings are not. I'm already eagerly awaiting their feedback.

Omiyage from my eikaiwa members

The 7 lucky gods (七福神, Shichi Fukujin)


One member of my eikaiwa is a supervisor for a Chinese toy company, and brought these back for me from a recent trip to China.

New activities - 英会話と空手

I've just started Karate again, woo! I did it for a couple of years as a kid but then my attention wavered, as it will when you're young. On Thursday I went along to a local dojo with most of Iida block and we had a great (and sweaty!) time. A lot of the basic blocks and attacks I remember from before, so I found it a little easier having that experience. Think I'll alternate and do the classes once one week, twice the next, just to give myself a break between weeks. That should give me more than enough time to prepare for my first grading in December.

I now teach my eikaiwa (adult english class) every other Tuesday. Yesterday I was visited by my eikaiwa group leader Hagiwara-san, who seems very nice, polite, and is excellent at english. He came in and we had a long chat about lots of things, and he offered his help should I ever need it.

Moving to Japan was a great move - I've met so many great people and had so many great experiences... I've only been here a few weeks!