Oh, tragedy! Disaster! Sorrow, sorrow, sorrow! My Mister Donut is closed! There is a new, two-story food court or something going up next to the station, and it has apparently swallowed up my daily coffee haunt. The worst thing is that I didn’t know it was closing, and it closed over Golden Week, so I couldn’t say good-bye to the workers there. Though presumably they are still in Matsue, and may end up in the next Mister Donut that mushrooms up near the station. Still,… what can I do on my break? The other day I took a walk by the river instead, which was pleasant, but mostly I’ve just been working through after eating my bento lunch. But there are days when I seriously need my coffee fix - before three straight hours of evening classes, for example. There are other coffee shops nearby, like Casa Vecchia, where the coffee is admittedly much better than Misdo’s, but Misdo was cheap and friendly. Sigh.

I have another shigin competition next Sunday. My new song is called “Hototogisu o Kiku (Listening to the Cuckoo).” It’s a sad lament about a lonely night far from home. I have been practicing a lot, and I’m quite pleased with it. Seiji says it’s really good. It goes like this:

“Issei kogatsu no moto / chi ni naite kiku ni taezu

Honya munashiku makura o sobadatzu / kokyo banri no kumo.”

“One voice under the solitary crescent moon;

the cry is filled with blood, too painful to listen to.

In the empty night, I clutch my pillow to me;

My hometown is ten thousand miles away.”

There’s some lovely poetry in it, and some lovely double meanings in the language and kanji. For example, the same kanji that means ‘crescent moon’ also means ‘solitary’ – in this context, both meanings apply. It’s a beautiful, keening melody that took me a long time to (almost) get right. I’ve practiced a lot more this time, as I have no desire to screw up again. I want to win this competition.

Tonight a heavy rain is falling. This morning I woke before 5a.m., roused by damp and disturbed air and a wind tossing my curtains around. I closed the balcony door a little, but couldn’t get back to sleep for two hours, no matter how I tossed and turned. My thoughts are a little disturbed, too, these days. Spring fever has struck as the trees show their bright new greenery and the flowers explode into fragrance. “Shinryoku no kisetsu”, or “the new-green season”, is upon us. A feeling of life is everywhere. My sparrows are back in their trees, heedless of how they were driven out last year, and I’ve heard the first whining cicadas at night. Matsue is at its most beautiful now. Last night I passed under the illuminated castle, over an ancient wooden bridge spanning the moat, with rows of trees on each bank, and then over Matsue Ohashi, my favourite of the four bridges crisscrossing the Ohashi River. From Matsue Ohashi, the oldest bridge, I could see all the other bridges, and amber light spilling from restaurants and other businesses near the water. All of this was washed by a pale moonlight from the rapidly waxing moon. That, and the slightly briny smell of the river, made me feel nostalgic and anticipatory all at once. Dreaming about the past and present, wondering about the future – that’s my mindset in a nutshell.

Work is good these days, despite the extra work and stress of the self-study campaign, or SSC. In the next month and a half, I must speak to all of my students individually. During our counselling session, I will ask the student about his or her goals and plans, get and give feedback about their classes and English progress, give advice for studying at home, AND recommend one of our self-study materials to practice at home. These materials cost extra, of course, which is the main reason I have hated SSC. But I am concentrating on the other aspects of SSC, getting to know my students better, and beginning to enjoy counselling. My record for getting my students to sign up is pretty good, and I just had the highest student self-study completion ratio of all the teachers in AEON West Japan. That means my students are very motivated, and studying hard at home. Many of them also have mini-lessons with me as part of their self-study, which means a lot of extra work for me, but I really enjoy the check-tests and do my best to make them useful and meaningful. What thrills me is that we laugh a lot in class now; my students are very relaxed and happy, for the most part, and so am I.

My beloved Thursday night Encounter class keeps getting better and better. I have a new student in the class named Hiroshi, a government worker who was just transferred to Matsue from Tokyo. My first impression of him was not great; he seemed like a stereotypical city boy, fine-featured, fastidiously dressed, and a little arrogant and prissy. I am delighted to report that I couldn’t have been more wrong. He loves the classes, he’s enjoying talking to everybody, and he adds immeasurably to the class atmosphere. He’s learning English so that he can go to America and visit his wife, who got transferred there for a year by her company. There are times I love being wrong.

Masaki, the professional tennis coach I teach, has been in a great mood ever since his player, Kei Nishikori, made it big in America. Ryoko said he even says hello to her now, and has even been known to smile at her. I knew he had that, but he’s so stoic, usually. I kind of love him, platonically; he’s a very special, remarkable individual. For every grammar point or new English expression I teach him, he teaches me something about Japan, tradition, teaching or life. Behind his long, leathery face is a keen, sensitive, sometimes melancholic mind. I love to make him laugh; that’s one of my goals for each lesson. After Golden Week, he brought me an udon noodle kit, complete with sauces and recipes, from Kagawa, which is famous for its udon. It was delicious, and I was touched that he thought of me. It’s not unusual for teachers to receive gifts from their students after a trip, though. Food is a popular o-miyage, or souvenir.

The AEON West Japan logo for 2008 is: Take good care of every student. The company is very concerned with customer service and student satisfaction. I joked, “What, you mean I’m not allowed to beat them anymore?” I would never have made this joke last year, but the office is a little more laid-back now, and I’m definitely more comfortable. Ryoko laughed!

I’m teaching at two schools, and have been the whole time here. Ekimae is the main school, across from the station. It’s very beige and taffy-coloured, with five classrooms of varying sizes. The classrooms are pretty bare, with cream-coloured walls and a minimum of posters. It is luxury, however, compared with Shimadaimae, next to the university, Shimadaimae is on the second floor of a building across from the university and the Family Mart. The black linoleum is cracked in places, the linoleum baseboards are peeling from the walls and secured with tape, and the walls are white-painted concrete bricks. In the evenings, the air takes on an aroma of fried foods from the izakaya downstairs. At the end of the day, a locker room smell lingers after the larger classes. I only work here on Wednesdays and on Saturday mornings.

My sweet escape from Shimadaimae on Wednesday afternoons is Café Hattori, about a five-minute walk from the school. The coffee is excellent, and served in a small pot beside pre-warmed cups and saucers of fine china. They also sell sweets, like cakes and sweet potato desserts. as well as pizza, and my usual, a sandwich with egg salad, thin slices of ham and mashed potato.

The building mixes the traditions of different cultures. French jazz is often playing in the background, and the walls are covered with wooden shelves and alcoves filled with mismatched, exquisite teacups, saucers and teapots. The tables are of matching, four-inch thick dark wood. The windows, barred with bamboo, have sliding wooden-framed screens of cream-coloured paper, patched in places. The mossy green walls are of cracked plaster, but this is planned rather than an effect of time. In one corner is a traditional Japanese alcove, displaying (this month) a round vase in earthy bluish and reddish tones with a single branch of willow curving up iat a graceful angle. The menu is written in thick-lined calligraphy on hand-made Japanese paper pasted to large slabs of wood; the owner has shunned Western numbering in favour of Japanese numbers, so it’s a puzzle for me to figure out prices. Here I can read, or do my budget, or just people-watch discreetly.

The view from the café is of the Asakumi River flowing south to meet the Ohashi. It’s a slightly industrial view with two unlovely concrete bridges, but there is an earthen footpath along the river dotted with trees and shrubs I can't name. In the warmer seasons, fish leap in the river and herons haunt the banks. I enjoy this walk any time of year, after my lunch, taking a long looping stroll on my way back to the school.