The cutting edge of the evening chill, has mellowed out.
It is getting warmer, day by day, but typhoon number 4, was raising hell as it pounded southern Japan and then moved farther out into the Pacific Ocean as it came up north towards Hokkaido latitudes.
It was very windy on Tuesday and Wednesday especially.
On Monday at the 神楽公民館英会話を楽しむ会, one of our regular members couldn't come this week because she was down with POLLEN ALLERGY 花粉症.
I know exactly what that feels like.
I missed a gig just a few weeks ago, at the DoKan Nursing school, for the very same reason.
On Tuesday, I was at Asahikawa University between the hours of 10:20 and 12:10 in a Computer Learning Lab on the 4th floor, of the main building.
About half way through that class, the wind outside of the windows became so loud, that myself and 3 other students, parted the heavy drapes hung over the windows, to look outside and see how strong the wind really was.
It was whipping around the inner courtyard of the campus, like the TASMANIAN DEVIL of Warner Brothers Movies アニメ.
Strong, Loud and Scary.
Fortunately, unlike southern Honshu, the KamiKawa Basin got very little rain, by comparison.
Thursday was a regular kind of teaching day, with LOVE all around.
Friday morning at the Dokan Nursing School was more fun than usual, because I used my Morning Call gag on the 2nd year students, two times during that class.
The gag goes like this; Every time I start a class at this school, I look at the student list, call out to each and every student by name, greet them and ask them a simple question.
The IDEA here, is to stimulate some kind of casual conversation.
This works well with motivated students.
Non-motivated students, can't even understand what I am saying, unless the student sitting next to them interprets my remarks into Japanese for them.
If one or more of the students is absent when I get to their name on the class list, I ask the attending students if anybody knows the absentee student's mobile phone number.
Every time I ask, at least one student will say that they know the phone number.
At that point, I ask them to call the absentee student on their mobile phone, and then give the phone to me while it is still ringing.
When the absentee student answers their phone, I say; "Hello! This is Norman at the Dokan Nursing School.
We have an English class together today, do you think you can make it to the classroom, before the lesson ends at 10:30? etc., etc.
Of course by now, everyone in the classroom is rolling with laughter and the student on the other end of the phone, is in a state of disbelief.
Most likely, no other teacher anywhere ever, has pulled this gag on them before.
If the student I am calling doesn't answer the phone, I leave a message on their answering service.
Either way, this is a fun and easy way, to get everyone in the class buzzing with laughter and light conversation.
It works every time.
After that class was finished at 10:30, I took a taxi back to my place to eat brunch, and do various things before the next class at my classroom began, at 15:00.
When all classes for Friday were finished at 20:00, Ikuko and I went for a 60 minute walk along the cycling roads of the Biei and Chubetsu Rivers, as we often do.
We talked about, what to do, during the weekend, because Ikuko has both
Sunday and Monday off, from her part time job at HOMAC.
A place where we have stayed many times before.
