It must be love, love, love...

Conversation, very recently, with student 'C':

C: So, I want to do TOEIC to change my job next year.
Me: Good idea. What do you want to do?
C: I want to be tour guide. I did it before I had my family.
Me: Why now?
C: Because my kids are nearly grown up and so they'll be okay if I die in a plane crash or a terror.

So, sweet, isn't it?

Oh, and almost Japanese, er I mean almost all the Japanese I teach are obsessed with the terror and, despite constantly being told it's a 'terrorist attack' or a 'terrorist threat' persist in calling it 'a terror'. Also, almost Japanese cannot use 'almost' properly. But, I digress...

In Japan they have Dog Days or Days of the Dog every couple of weeks. Now, whereas most things my students tell me I've heard before, this is one I'd not heard of. Google has drawn a blank for me - or rather my ability with Google has drawn a blank - so, I'm going on student-say here:

Dogs give birth easily so on a dog day it's good luck to rub the belly of a dog (not sure if this is a real dog or a stone dog as I kind of forgot to ask) to pray that a pregnant women will plop out her babies like puppies. Or something like that.

Well, I certainly learn something new every day.

Let's talk about yesterday - Valentine's Day:

Valentine's Day, in Japan was, apparantly [student-say], invented by the chocolate companies in the 1970s. On this day women buy cho-co-laiyt and give it to their boyfriends, husbands, male friends, male colleagues, male bosses, male relatives, female friends, female colleages, etc.

A month later, in March, is another day called 'White Day' where men are meant to buy cho-co-laiyt and give it to women.

I've explained to many a student that in the U.K. if you bought your boss chocolate for V.D. he'd think you wanted to have sex with him. To the younger students I've watered it down a little, natch. I've also wound them up a bit by telling them that choccies for V.D. in the U.K. is a bad, cheap and unimaginative present.

Most over taught phrase of the week so far - 'it's totally commercial these days'.

One student - I think the same one who explained what a cactus was to her fellow students by arm movements and 'woo-woo' noises a few weeks ago, made a lovely little slip up today whereby she said she was given a young boy for V.D. I think she meant she gave her grandson chocolates, but I took the piss out of her (60+ year old lady) seducing an 18 year old lad at any rate.

Oh, and then there was another student who told me she'd bought chocolate for her husband, but he has diabetes so can't eat any. So, guess who'll be eating them?! I dared, of course, suggest she could have got something else for him, but I'm only a silly Gaijin who doesn't understand Japanese traditions, ne?!