I love my Headways class with my horticulturist student. It's always amusing. Naofumi is probably my most advanced student. He spent 7 years as a child growing up in California, and his reading and conversation are excellent. He takes classes mainly to practice English and keep it honed and because his job encourages it. Headways is the most advanced class GEOS offers, and it's pretty intense. The book was published at Oxford, so it's painfully British at times, to the point where I've had to look stuff up because I had no idea what they were saying. But, he's a smart guy, so we've had some pretty interesting conversations regarding the text.
Monday was a Japanese holiday: Culture Day. I asked Naofumi what it was for, and he explained that people were supposed to go out and get cultivated, by going to a museum or a concert or something (yay for Sarah and Nick! I just went to the ￥100 store). He added that most Japanese people just take the opportunity to be lazy and do nothing. He seemed to be of the opinion that those kinds of holidays (Culture Day, Sports Day, etc.) were kind of useless, except for the fact that it's a three-day weekend for a lot of people.
"Sounds like some holidays we have in the States," I replied.
"Yeah." A pause. "Like what?"
"Like Columbus Day, for one. He discovered Hispaniola, not the North American continent."
Naofumi kind of chortled at this. "Wasn't the continent discovered by some other guy from Scandinavia or some place like that?"
"Yeah, Lief Ericsson."
"Hmm. So why don't you have Lief Ericsson Day?"
See? I love this class.
Speaking of holidays, I find it amusing that head office sent out an email encouraging NETs to tell their students about Guy Fawkes Day in an effort to convince them to travel abroad and "experience holidays unlike their own." For some reason, when I think of foreign holidays that I want to observe, Guy Fawkes Day isn't the first one that comes to mind. Just hope no one uses V For Vendetta as their reference point.
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