ネイティブが教える英会話のジェムスクール☆Teachers☆

At the start of Golden week, Saijo has an industrial festival. It celebrates local business and food. It was so much more fun this year! I saw so many students I don't even remember everyone I saw.

When I see students outside of school there are two major reactions I get. The first one is, 'I can't believe it is you! This is so cool to see you away from school'. The second, and more common, reaction is...'What are you doing away from school? You only exist at the school!'

It is very funny to see students be completely baffled by the fact that I exist in the real world, too. Overall it was great to see everyone. I even got to see one student dance. Because she is shy I won't say who, but she did a great job and it was fun to see her working so hard on something besides school.

I like being in Saijo for Golden Week. Enjoy the rest of it, and I'll see you back in class next week!  

When I was in Kyoto with my family we visited Nijo castle and Kinkaku-ji! It was my first time visiting Kinkaku-ji, and even though it was my second time visiting Nijo castle, it was my first time going inside the castle; on my first visit to Nijo castle, I only toured the gardens and the outside. I loved all of the paintings and artifacts inside, and the construction of the nightingale floors was very interesting. Kinkaku-ji was also really nice, but so crowded! There's a a 600 year old bonsai tree there, and the gardens were really beautiful.

  

After nearly half a year, I was SO ready to go back to the movie theater! My students asked me what my Golden week plans were and the only thing I was sure I would be doing was going to the movie theater.

There have been movies for Marvel Superheroes (called the Marvel Universe) for 10 years now, and the newest movie, Avengers: Infinity War, combines nearly every headlining character in a long and incredible movie. I thought for sure that I would have to wait until the Summer season to see this movie in Japan.

I love going to the theater to have fun, whether it's an action film, a comedy, or even a horror flick. If I leave the theater after having a good time, then it was worth the price of admission. This movie was so much fun that I was convinced that even a bad ending would be okay. I was happily surprised when the movie ending didn't turn out the way I anticipated.   

My favorite book from my childhood has come out with a mobile game, Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery! It's loads of fun! In the game you get to be a witch or wizard who has a brother with a sordid past! He recently went missing after hunting for a strange object and everyone is accusing him of being a spy on behalf of the Dark Lord. It's a very dramatic game, but it's also very fun. You get to make potions and duel other students and explore different parts of the castle. I highly recommend this game for any Harry Potter nerds out there!  

Pictured above is one of my intellectual heroes, a Jewish thinker named Walter Benjamin. He was a prolific writer, though he never held an academic post in his life. He continues to be to this day one of the most creative and diverse thinkers, having written radio programs for all ages, short fiction, and thousands of pages of critical theory. Though he has published only two books while alive, he came to prominence posthumously once another famous thinker named Hannah Arendt started to write on his work. Benjamin was precocious and noticed for his genius, being granted attendance to a progressive school in which he would meet his first academic master. At his private high school he became the leader of a student movement that advocated free thinking and a more holistic education. It was while he was still in high school that he decided to study philosophy. In school he received generally above-average grades, though in subjects like math he wasn’t anything remarkable. However, he flourished in language courses. At graduate school he published his thesis “The Concept of Criticism in Romanticism.” In order to be considered for a teaching post at a university he had to submit an entirely new manuscript, which he did but only to be disappointed for his work’s difficulty and density. That book would later become what we now know as The Origin of German Tragic Drama.  

Hello all! Golden week is upon us and I'm currently taking a trip back home in the states. This is a very special Golden week for me as I well be marrying my fiancee Candice. I'm also excited to see family and friends and catch up with them. I have a lot of adventures to tell them about! I'm also excited for the new movie Avengers Infinity War. I can't wait to sit in a local pizzeria and discuss the movie with my friends and my wife.