It is now Friday afternoon, and I haven't written in a few days. I think this is because I had to recover from my Wednesday, which is often soul-crushing. (Although I don't think we have souls, I will use the word here, as I think it aptly communicates my feeling of Woden's Days.)

Once a month, Wednesday starts much earlier than usual. On these days, I must awake early, and travel 30 minutes to a smallish town out of the city, to teach at a Christian daycare centre. I'm not sure if these little kids are Christians (they certainly don't behave in a Christian manner), and if they are, I'm not sure why. Why would any intelligent Japanese citizen, contented with the private, individualistic and peaceful spirituality of Buddhism or Shintoism, consciously decide to cross to the Dark Side... uh, I mean Christianity?

The hour I spend here is divided (as in my Tuesday class) into a younger group and an older group. The younger group is almost too young, not really knowing what to make of this tall, big-nosed gaijin, singing and dancing around, and speaking strange sounds that he wants them to repeat. I think it was in this class that a young boy came up to me and hit me in the groin. I usually reply to these occurrences with a "Yamete kudasai!" (stop that please), but this time there was a bit more pain, so I went after the kid and grabbed him with both hands and scolded him until the smile went from his face. Then I was back in front of the class as if nothing had happened, jumping and singing. Ah, the humiliation.

My drive out to this town is pleasant. It was raining this day, but in this new country, I find that the rain doesn't bother me as much as it might in my home country. As do most roads here, this one wound around hills and mountains and past small towns and rice fields. A sibling of mine has previously stated that the trees sprouting from the mountains in Japan look like broccoli. However, I would have to say that some resemble asparagus, while others look like large feathers. Of course, many of them look like trees, as trees should.

In the early afternoon I teach an adult class at a local community centre. Then it's off to teach a small 4-student primary class at a larger community centre. Then to teach a brother and sister at their parents' apartment. I think they're 4 and 6 years old respectively. They spent some time with their family in the west so they can speak fairly easily. Conversation classes with young children are challenging. Then it's another brother-sister class at one of my school's classroom buildings. This class used to be painful, but is getting more enjoyable. They seem to like me well enough, and the brother is really impressed by my hair-covered arms, going so far as to gently rub his hands over them, as if this were completely normal to do to a teacher. Then I teach a medical professional, who typically has me edit his research team's journal submissions. This is challenging, as we only have an hour together, much of which is spent on me listening to him read the article. It's quite difficult catching grammar problems when you're listening to differently-accented English. I had originally wanted him to credit me in his papers, but I realized that my superficial editing would not be up to par, and would I really want my name below a paper that I hadn't put my 100% into? My mind was made up when I read in an editor's response to one of the submissions that I had edited, that it might benefit the authors if they had a native speaker of English go over the paper. Ouch!