I met a new English Conversation student for the first time today. She is a part-time high-school English teacher and graduate of Waseda University. Though her knowledge of abstract English grammatical concepts is unquestionably competent she wants to become acquainted with general conversation skill and colloquialisms. At least she quipped something to that affect as she introduces herself.

Then she revealed her true motivation. She did so quite directly. This was quite unexpected and a delightful surprise as such directness is uncharacteristic of normal social interaction here. She is on a kind of search for intercultural understanding (sound like anyone else you know?). Recently she saw a program on NHK about terrorism that was run in a town-meeting discussion format. On the program was an American guy about my age. His parents were killed in the September 11th attacks. Instead of demanding revenge on his parent’s killers, he instead pleaded for a cease to the cycle of vengeance. She was very moved by this young man. Intrigued by him, she wants to learn English to be able to discuss matters of intercultural cooperation and understanding.

Holy crapballs! I’m going to get paid 3000en (~$28US) an hour to talk to a really smart person about a subject that fascinates me and am always dieing to talk about but never have the chance to. She’ll even bring news clippings for us to discuss. This is like applying an electrode to my intellectual muscle, stimulating what had grown atrophied.

And the joke is, I’d had done it for free.
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