First Day of Class

T

oday, classes officially started... As is my custom, I wear a dress shirt and neck tie. It is, afterall, the day I have to impress my students, many of which I will meet for the first time. Today's class was J-Lit in Translation. Students interested in Japan take it, but there are a good number of students who take it just to fulfill their foreign culture requirement.

So I do as I always do--speak Japanese for the first five minutes. Since this is a J-lit in translation class, many students in previous courses have looked at me or started whispering to the person next to them trying to confirm if they had to know Japanese to take this class. It is such a mean trick. But this year, not a single student batted an eye. They all looked at me ready for class to begin.

Hmph! No fun... I wonder if the word is out and they knew it was coming? Did someone from a previous year warn them? That would really suck. What fun is teaching if you can't tease the students from time to time? I better come up with something different for next year.

Totally bummed...