Saturday May 1, 1:15 p.m.

MayDay! The day itself and not the SOS. I'm sure a lot of the Communist regimes (what few of them there are left) are having their little proletarian celebrations. I just had my final lesson before I really get into Golden Week. Miss Prissy hadn't been here in almost a month, and unfortunately, it showed in her fluency...or lack thereof. Even in her prime, she was fairly molasses-like in her delivery. Well, today, these were molasses in the dead of Winter. I almost felt like whacking her with a newspaper to speed things up. Instead, I just calmly mentioned that we would be reviewing part of the lesson next time...for speed purposes...a bit of a shot across the bow.

Now, as for the picture above. That is the Akasaka Prince Hotel. The ruffled triangular shape has made the hotel one of the most distinguishing pieces of architecture in Tokyo for decades. I first came upon it via one of my brother's photos when he had come back from his month-long trip in Japan in the early 80s. Seeing that building pretty much cemented the image of The Big Sushi as a technopolis of considerable merit. Well, that building is gonna be coming down next year. I just read yesterday in "The Japan Times" that as of April 2011, the Aka-Puri, as it is known amongst the hoi polloi, will cease operations and most likely be torn down. It's a bit of a pity because of its architectural prominence, but then this is Tokyo. Sentimentality and history haven't had much of a place here as it has in many other major cities such as London or Berlin. Economy of land is one such reason, but the other I guess is the fact that buildings have been razed either from war or natural disaster over the past century.

To be honest, I had actually met Paddy at the Akasaka Prince some years ago. And the lobby struck me as being somewhat faded in glory. Kinda like an architectural version of Norma Desmond in "Sunset Boulevard"; she used to be something but had long been superceded by other more modern constructs. And yet, until recently, the hotel was still the power spot for the political elite...i.e. the LDP wonks...and probably the yakuza as well...which frankly turned me off the place even more.

Still, it'll be kinda weird not seeing that shape in Akasaka anymore. But then again, we all have the Tokyo Sky Tree and other new shapes to look forward in the decade to come. Tokyo is an organic city...even if stuff comes down, there will always be stuff coming up.

Friday April 30, 3:39 p.m.

Golden Week has arrived...and we've got the weather to match! Finally, weather that doesn't require an umbrella or a sweater to sport. It looks pretty promising for the rest of the holiday, too.

The traffic is certainly reflecting the holiday as well. According to NHK, about 46,000 people were on the move at airports and train stations. Compared to the 120 million who live on this archipelago, less than 50,000 folks may sound like a drop in the bucket but try saying that while looking at the footage of Narita and Haneda. And perhaps the numbers don't include the cars that were stuck on the nation's freeways. The holiday backups of 50 km were back to make the expressways the largest parking lots on the planet.

I'm doing my usual bit for GW and staying put in my little city. Showa Day yesterday had me luxuriating in a long bit of sleep...didn't get up til 11 a.m. And I just went to the supermarket to get some fixins for dinner last night. I actually have an hour worth's of classes tonight with just the juku boss and The Restauranteur. And then it's only Miss Prissy for a rare Saturday morning lesson at Speedy's. Ordinarily, I would've been rather unhappy about having to come to school for just one hour but then again, I did say that I would do some shopping over GW so I'm gonna indulge at Nakano Broadway and perhaps even head over to Shinjuku to pick up some DVDs.

I had to send out my Mother's Day card and present over this afternoon since by the time the post offices are back in operation in the latter half of next week, it'll be too late to send them in time back to The Great White North.

Skippy has sent me that word about getting together next week for Eggs N' Things, that new Hawaiian restaurant that has opened up in Harajuku.

Wednesday April 28, 10:46 p.m.

Well, it's been a day. I've taught an art student, a jazz-vocalizing CEO, a nurse with a Germanic accent, a university counselor and a mysterious music man today. Quite the potpourri of students. And now I'm off to enjoy a day off tomorrow due to Showa Day, aka Emperor Hirohito's birthday.

I will really want to luxuriate in sleeping in late and perhaps even partaking in a sinful afternoon nap.

But I have to admit that I got a real kick from my Mixi Doctor Who fan who showed me some YouTube parodies of "Doctor Who" credits done via "The Love Boat", "Dallas" and "Charlie's Angels".

Wednesday April 28, 1:24 p.m.

This is basically gonna be a truncated work week since Golden Week is now almost upon us. Tomorrow's Showa Day will start things off. Happily, the temps are now more reflective of the current season and not of the extended Winter. So I can hold off on my pun of Cold-en Week for this year.

Yesterday at the Beehive session, Mrs. London came in. As I've mentioned before, she's the one who got me introduced to The Queen Bees all those years ago. She's been in-and-out of the group over the past decade, but it seems like that she'll be having a bit more regularity in her visits since it's been decided that she'll be appearing at the end of every month, and then she even stated that she would be coming weekly from the beginning of next April. Now, that's an advance reservation.

The juku sessions were OK. Mr. White is most definitely a Koreaphile...he's been working hard on his Korean and has started watching TBS' very first addition of a Korean drama to its prime time lineup last Thursday. The show is titled "Iris" and is a spy drama which was filmed in far-flung places like Hungary, Korea and even this country's Akita Prefecture. As a result, the Korean tourists have been flocking to the northern territory. I only had the one sister...Spice, for her hour. Still did well and gabbed non-stop. As for The Milds, I found out that Mrs. Mild will once again be touring Europe without the hubby...this time, the stop will be The Czech Republic. And Mr. Nice Guy has been stumbling through his grammar gamely.

Today, I find myself with a pretty busy Wednesday. 001 won't be here but I just had a model lesson...quiet but game young university student. And I'll be having The CEO in about 90 minutes, followed by The German, and then later in the evening, The Businesswoman and The Music Man.

The local controversial starlet of these shores, Erika Sawajiri...or Lady Erika...as the media wonks have dubbed her since she started giving off major 'tude a few years ago at a press conference has been hitting the front pages of the papers way too much since she announced her intention to divorce her hubby. It just so happens that Lady Erika married a guy almost 2 decades older than her...which at her age (early twenties), pretty much made it inevitable that she would be a future ex-wife. In a country where public divorces are a dime a dozen, Lady Erika's breakup should only merit a day's worth of press, but then we are talking about Lady Erika. She (may have) mentioned that she found her husband, kimoi (gross); I think any guy in his 40s who marries someone barely out of her teens deserves the label and should've been obvious to the starlet.

Wednesday April 28, 1:11 p.m.

Next on the list of disaster-movie-in-more-ways-than-one from Saturday, MB and I had our usual DVD Night at his place. We caught "2012" which was basically a mix of "Independence Day" and "The Day After Tomorrow". It starred John Cusack who seems to have an affinity for this kind of movie. It was a purely popcorn movie without the salt and butter...no depth to it at all except for the special effects. And of course, there was the perquisite rousing scene of survivors whooping it up at the end.

The next day, I had to leave MB's a bit earlier than usual since I had that 2-hour lesson with my newest student, Yajima, over in Den'en-Chofu. He picked me up at the station and we passed once more by PM Hatoyama's house. Still only 2 cops in front of the place which means that the Prime Minister is still hard at work in Nagatacho. Although for how much longer I'm not sure with his plummeting ratings...perhaps he and the missus will be spending more time there after July. There were about 90,000 angry constituents in Okinawa amassing for a protest against the Futenma Base.

After the lesson, I went over to Harajuku and Meiji-Jingumae just to see the characters there. As it turned out, there weren't all that many. There was that flaming transvestite from last week, the neon pink-haired girl taking pictures with the foreign tourists and folks willing to give Free Hugs. The Free Huggers were making some business but the customers were basically foreign. This is pretty much the wrong country to have that sort of thing since public affection is still sorta frowned upon, but within a couple of generations, who knows?

Wednesday April 28, 10:29 a.m.

Yup, it's been one of those weekends...and weeks. Not enough time to blog until now, and I think I'm taking a bit of a risk by doing so now since I've got a model lesson from 11 a.m.

As for the above, it was indeed a hodgepodge of everything. After having my lone lesson on Saturday, I met up with the usual movie crowd...all masculine this time. MB, Frodo, The Satyr and I gritted our teeth and caught "Clash of the Titans" at Wald 9 in Shinjuku. We'd come in with the assumption that the movie was probably not gonna be anywhere near Oscar-bait. Seeing the title misspelled on our tickets as "Crash of the Titans" was a definite example of foreshadowing...and the literary technique was better used on our stubs than anywhere in the movie.

Never saw the original with Ray Harryhausen and Harry Hamlin...something about seeing a future "L.A. Law" actor in a mini-skirt that didn't attract me. The new movie was basically an excuse for otherwise excellent actors to wallow around in scriptwriting mud for....money! Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes got together for the first time since "Schindler's List" to play Zeus and Hades respectively....only to be saddled with some of the worst dialogue that a B-movie could permit. The other weird thing was that there were a few other distinguished actors in blink-and-miss-them roles that lasted all of one line and three seconds...et tu, Pete Postlewaithe and Danny Huston? I think the only good thing about "Crash of the Titans" is that it gave the four of us hours of bantering pleasure at J.S. Burger Cafe across from JR Shinjuku. Yup, that was my second weekend in a row on the Burger Tour...my doctor would have conniptions right now. No real comparison between my Bacon Cheese there and the one at The Great Burger in Omotesando...just the impression that the one at J.S. seemed to be a bit bigger.

Time is growing short before the model lesson. But I will mention about the top left picture. That was at Meiji-Jingu just across from Harajuku where the weekends mean a lot of foreigners taking shots of photogenic goth-loli and other intriguing folks of nature. In fact, the young woman above seems to be a melding of the two...more later.

Thursday April 22, 10:56 a.m.

I guess in all of the other news, I did forget to mention that I had met that newest student...who happens to be the son-in-law of MB's colleague. He picked me up at Den'en-Chofu Station on Sunday morning. He has nothing to do with the educational community; he's a salaryman who works for the Japan Travel Bureau all the way near Tokyo Station. As he was driving me over to his place, we passed by one of the many big houses in the neighbourhood (Den'en-Chofu is a ritzy suburb) and there were a couple of cops standing near the entrance. It turned out that it was the private house of none other than Prime Minister Hatoyama himself. During Diet sessions, he stays at the Official Residence in downtown Tokyo so I could imagine what it must be like when the PM goes back home. My newest student just says that there are about 5 times the number that we saw and some of that group includes the Japanese version of the Secret Service.

Not sure what I'll call the student...he looks like a tarento though, so I may call him Yajima.

Thursday April 22, 10:46 a.m.

Back to the cold and wet again...Dog's Nose weather. Incredible.

Had my first official lesson with The Patent Attorney this morning. He's just like Swank....a good conversationalist. The hour went down as smoothly as a good sake...just the topic we based most of our hour on. It's a bit of a pity that I have to do an early shift to see him but as long as it's him, I guess things will be palatable.

Got word from the juku boss that yet another of The Restauranteur's relatives has passed away, so there will be no juku session tomorrow since basically The Restauranteur is the only student I have on that day. Kinda nice to have a rare Friday night off...but then again, I did meet up with The Anime Court last Friday. I guess I mean a Friday night off at home.

Also got word from The King himself that I am to meet him and The Anime Chamberlain tonight at 7:45 for dinner. I wonder what we'll be going for.

I guess that shoe finally hit the floor. Former Health and Welfare Minister Masuzoe, probably the only government official during the Taro Aso era to have any sort of respect from the people, has decided to part relations with his party, The Liberal Democratic Party, and perhaps start his own party within the next 24 hours. Of course, the current weak leader, Tanigaki, has been resolutely mum about the so-called surprise announcement. I just hope that Masuzoe comes up with a far better name than The Sunrise Party or Your Party. In a way, the LDP seems to be dying from a thousand paper cuts rather than a single sword thrust.

Well, I'll be taking off in the next few minutes to get some texts.

Wednesday April 21, 8:37 p.m.

Just had 001 today...which meant that I'd had a nice time walking around Ginza today. The walk included another stint at that Chinese dim sum/buffet restaurant in Yurakucho. For a little under 1500 yen...I am able to get the dim sum offerings from the carts, stuff from the buffet table and even a bit of hot pot. Not too bad. I was pretty good with the pacing; didn't stuff myself into a coma, just feeling pleasantly full. I was hoping to find that textbook for my newest student but it didn't seem to exist at Yaesu Book Centre or even Book 1st, so it looks like I'll be hitting Kinokuniya in Times Square before I meet up with The Sisters of State.

I took a dip into Yamano Music...saw some discs that I'd like to get but I'm holding off until Golden Week arrives. The Manhattan Transfer tribute to Chick Corea is there; I've definitely fallen back on any CD purchases over the past several months...either I've finally outgrown my music habit or the economy austerity program has finally internalized itself.

It was the first really decent day that I've seen in several of them. It almost seems as if the freak snow on Saturday was just an illusion, considering today's warmth and sun. I was sweating in my jacket, but then I was wearing my Autumn number.

001 and I had a pretty disgusting but hilarious talk about her job. Since she's a medtech, she often handles urine samples, that I often refer to as "apple juice" (to those who may be imbibing the stuff as they read this, I profusely apologize). But in the past few weeks, she's also had to handle...No. 2...shall we say? The really funny stuff came when she said that some of the nimrods who had to give a fecal sample got a bit carried away...and kinda packed that plastic container. I guess that food equivalent would be "brownies"....you may vomit quietly now.

Tomorrow will be another unusually quiet day for me. In fact, it starts unusually with me "teaching" The Patent Attorney...the bossman's student whom I always let in early in the morning. The bossman will be out at some fair with Ray. I've always been the warm-up act for The PA before Speedy gets in...just chatting with him like a good secretary before the boss gets in. Now, I put the word "teaching" in quotes, since Speedy informed me that a usual session with him consists of that very thing...chatting...and perhaps looking at some English correspondence. It should be a nice outing...but he often cancels at the last minute. So I won't be surprised if I get a call from the bossman just when I hit home near midnight tonight.

And that morning class will be all she wrote for anything at Speedy's. I'm then on my own teaching The Sisters of State...The New Yorker in the afternoon while I've got big sis The Carolinan a few hours later. Looks like I will be obligated to pay for that extra Caffe Latte to keep management happy, although since it is Starbucks, that won't be too hard to do. Then, I'm meeeting up with the remainder of that massive influx of Canadian otaku from last week. The Anime King and The Anime Chamberlain will meet up with me right after the lesson tomorrow night; not sure where we'll go. I know that The Chamberlain isn't too hot on Foo Foo, but then again he's rarely without some sort of disparaging comment on any place. Kinda incredible that he's just so big.

Monday April 19, 10:31 p.m.

Another fine time was had by all yesterday as the Burger Gang did another Burger Tour. Yes, it was Skippy, me, The Satyr, Miss Ivory, MB and The Sylph who got together in the craziness that is Harajuku Station so that we could walk down and try out yet another hamburger emporium in The Big Sushi.

At least, we weren't suffering in the winter of Saturday. Things were meterologically back to normal on Sunday. The walk over to The Great Burger was a bit circumlocutious from the main street....I can only guess that the owners wanted us to really earn our appetites. Still, we made it there by sunset. And the results are up above.

As usual, the decor inside The Great Burger was akin to some old American honky tonk dive, replete with condiment containers and boxes of Bisquick adorning the shelves. I had my usual go-to burger in the form of a Bacon Cheeseburger and the drink du jour was a Strawberry Milkshake. In other words, I made my own Cholesterol Set. Unfortunately, an Automatic External Defibrillator was nowhere to be found, so if my heart decided to silently explode, I was plain out of luck. I was in luck and managed to survive my "ordeal". In fact, I pushed fate even harder by ordering desserts.

The Bacon Cheeseburger was juicy and messy....everything that an American burger should be. The only concession was the Japanese envelope to put the burger in. Considering that young people often dress up for just taking the dog for a walk, I can't say that I was surprised. Still, my shirt was saved from any assault by spewing relish.

All in all, The Great Burger lives up to its high-flying name.

Saturday April 17, 3:03 p.m.

The model lesson with Swank's Husband went well. He's pretty good, though far from perfect. He and Swank make for an interesting pair. In any case, the classes are now set although now I may be heading for a scheduling quandary between my private lessons and any new ones from Speedy. I'm not sure if I can take many more new ones, and so I've sent the bossman a heads-up. I'm expecting a fully-winded reply.

I met up with The Anime King and his Court in JR Akiba along with Automan last night. The weather was pretty lousy...and a third of the Court was either recovering or suffering from the cold. We ended up going to the basement izakaya in the Mansei Building. The food was OK although I was slightly disappointed by the portions. The advertising should truly read "Images may appear bigger than they are." Still, I learned about what the Court has done over the past two weeks. The Anime King and The Anime Chamberlain will actually be sticking around Tokyo for another week, so I'm making it a plan to see them at least once more since I have to get a couple of things from The King.

Looks like everything's OK with The Jazz Singer. We just exchanged phone numbers and said politely that we really should do coffee in the near future.

Saturday April 17, 12:51 p.m.

Well, I guess Hell did indeed freeze over, since Tokyo did. I turned on the TV this morning to see that the outlying Kanto such as Utsunomiya and Saitama got smacked with snow and sleet. I was laughing at the maroons when I noticed that the patter of rain sounded a lot more solid than usual. I opened the drapes and saw that my neighbourhood was being sherbeted. I was able to grab a good handful of slush from my balcony. Being the herald of meterological efficiency that Tokyo is, pretty much all of it is gone now and the sun is even out, but seeing sleet and snow at this time of year is nothing short of breathtaking.

Friday April 16, 2:42 p.m.

Well, I sent in an e-mail to The Jazz Singer just to let her know that my invitation was just an invitation for dinner. Good heavens....it wouldn't be a romantic tete-a-tete at all...not with a whole bunch of otaku around her.

I also committed a mechanical faux pas of sorts as well just over an hour ago when I accidentally let the copier cover drop a little too hard and the hinges fractured. Luckily, Speedy is a pretty mild one when accidents happen but getting those fixed could take a bit of yen...yen that we really can't afford to be paying much of right now.

Should be heading off to see Swank's husband in about 15 minutes.

Friday April 16, 12:49 p.m.

Only up to 7 degrees C. Even in Toronto, that would be cause for some alarm at this time of year; I can only imagine what the locals must be thinking.

Got a wake-up call from Automan to confirm meeting time and place. He's not all that familiar with Akiba, especially when he's coming up by Hibiya Line which is slightly farther from the main drag. So I told him that I would meet him at the usual JR exit for Akihabara Station. The Anime King and the guys said the front of Gamers, a famous anime shop very close to that exit; Automan, being far more into F-1 than sentient robots and cute saucer-eyed girls, has no idea where that is.

Before that, though, Speedy and I have to head over for a model lesson with Swank's husband in his company. He apparently owns a place that is connected with environmental stuff which may explain his wife's interest in the topic. My word...another captain of industry to teach. Even if I am successful with the model lesson, I'm not quite how we're going to finagle a regular series of lessons with him since my schedule is riddled with my private lessons, Speedy lessons and the juku.

A side topic to tonight's meeting with Automan and The Anime King. I had a bit of banter between me and The Jazz Singer on Mixi throughout the evening last night...which kinda culminated in me kinda/sorta inviting her to join us tonight, since I had some vibes (imagined or otherwise) from her that she may have wanted to come out for some yakiniku. This is definitely not a date since she would be surrounded by otaku. Still, there was a bit of trepidation on my part since my history of dating can fit into a memo-size sheet of paper. After sending out the message, I rather expected a polite "No" due to a busy schedule or a half-embarrassed written guffaw at my little "joke". Instead when I checked a few minutes ago, she gave me a "Well..." and asked to continue this via e-mail. So...no NO. Although I'm pretty sure she won't show up tonight, I'm not sure what this non-answer may lead to. And that e-mail may never come.

Thursday April 15, 8:45 p.m.

Well, the Carolinan has come and gone. She was a little less dour than usual. She'd had her angler hot pot dinner but The Bow pretty much gave all of the report on that one. And tomorrow, she and her sister, The New Yorker, will be having dinner of their own somewhere in this big city. As for me, I'll be meeting with The Anime King and his Court in Akihabara (where else?) for probably my one and only dinner with them. However, since it will be TGIF, I think looking for a restaurant that could hold all 8 of us (Automan and his wife may be coming) will probably be daunting at the very least. I'm thinking the only possibility for us is the Mansei Restaurant Building just on the border between Akiba and Kanda.

MB has finally gotten to us about where Sunday's birthday dinner with Miss Ivory and Skippy will be. Not surprisingly, to kill two birds with one stone, we'll be celebrating birthdays and continuing the years-long Burger Tour. The venue is some place called The Great Burger in Harajuku. I'll get my stomach prepared.

Just The Music Man and then it'll be back home.

Thursday April 15, 5:28 p.m.

2 more weeks until Golden Week is upon us, and it still feels like the middle of January out there. More like Golden Week with Silver Bells. Ryokan will probably be keeping the nabe option handy for guests.

Ms. HGL finished off her last classes before her takeoff for The Great White North on Saturday. We took care of the rest of the text and I helped her with her self-intro when she meets her new classmates on Monday in Vancouver.

Just waiting for The Carolinan in another hour. May end up using one of those quizzes that I used on The CEO to pretty good success on her...just for a change. Of course, the quiz vocabulary will have to be toned down for her level.

In the world at large, it looks like Prime Minister Hatoyama is looking more and more like the world's lamest duck...or at least the G8's. President Obama held his Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, and Hatoyama just had 10 minutes with Barack and that was just because the two men were sitting side by side at dinner. There was no breakthrough over the watercress salad concerning Futenma Base, and the media is playing it up as the PM coming home from a fishing expedition with nothing in his creel.

There have been quite the rash of celeb deaths over the past month or so. TV lost Charles Townsend himself, aka Charlie from "Charlie's Angels" aka John Forsythe. Then, over here, we lost a famed writer and a baseball coach with virtually the same name as SMAP's Takuya Kimura. And then there was the plane death which claimed a good chunk of Poland's elite, including the President and his First Lady.

Thursday April 15, 2:00 p.m.

We're all a little tired here today at Speedy's. I ended up having to teach Ms. HGL an hour ahead of schedule when the bossman gestured at me to take over since he had to take care of a client longer than scheduled. Speedy is feeling a bit piqued since he had to take care of that client and then rush in to take care of Ms. HGL's second hour. Then Ray had to handle that same client for a total of 2 hours and take care of one of the bossman's associates coming in while getting chewed out by the superintendant for not informing the associate of the entry code to get into the building. The super has a bit of a short fuse when it comes to procedure.

I am grateful though that I have a few hours before The Carolinan comes in, and then a couple of hours after that before The Music Man wraps things up.

Speaking of Ms. HGL, it's her final class with us before she takes off for her 3-month homestay in Vancouver. It ought to be interesting what life will be like in post-Olympics Vancouver.

I got word from The Anime King that we'll all be meeting tomorrow in Akiba for dinner at 7. Ironic that I can only meet the Court at the end of their trip despite being here for almost 2 weeks.

Wednesday April 14, 9:00 p.m.

Just about ready to go, but I just had to upload this picture of what the tourists can get when they go to Kyoto. Two of the Anime King's court managed to indulge in some mile-high parfaits during their time in the ancient city. I rather think that the Heian Court could never have anticipated food on this level back a thousand years or so ago.

The thing is, though, these parfaits are quite the common gimmick dish in a number of restaurants throughout the country. One either has to have the stomach of a Gal Sone or dethroned hot dog king Takeru Kobayashi, or have a few friends to tackle this monster. And wouldn't that be one heck of an ice cream headache!

Well, as for the day, I'm happy to say that The CEO's class went well since I was able to find and download a survey on one's political performance indicator which then segued into a talk on the rise and fall of former Livedoor honcho Horie. The class with The German was the usual chitchat for an hour, and then it was the typical barrel of laughs with 001.

Found out that Grandma FON has cancelled her lessons for the rest of the month since that cold of hers is just not going away. At her age, I can't be that surprised. However, I've got the rest of the folks: Miss HGL for her last one before she takes off for Canada for 3 months, The Carolinan and then The Music Man. Should be a fairly straightforward day.

Wednesday April 14, 12:32 p.m.

It was a regular Tuesday. Had The Beehive...Mrs. Tee wasn't there but Mrs. Travel was back from her trip to Monument Valley and The Grand Canyon. She had a great time and discovered that she could enjoy solo journeys without daughters or husband. Could open new vistas for her. I found out that Mrs. Ballet, the lady who had introduced me to the Hive all those years ago will be making monthly appearances at our fair little kaffeeklatsch.

The juku was back to normal after the kerfuffle between Sugar N' Spice and the juku boss last week. But found out that Spice also has a Mixi account which got her and her sister all excited, which suits me just fine since things were a bit dull up to that point in the lesson. In no time flat, I've become her Mixi friend and she's even joined my foodie community. My own little project just has me, her and one other Mixi friend. For some reason, The Bohemian has completely vacated Mixi for some reason.

In a bit of a switch, it was Mrs. Mild who was with me for most of the lesson. A lot of mistakes but a lot of heart as well. Apparently, she and her husband had been doing some cherry blossom viewing in Yasukuni Shrine when they just happened to see a ceremonial sumo match taking place with all of the bigwigs of the industry: the Estonian ozeki Baruto and Mongolian yokozuna Hakuho included. Mr. Mild did come in eventually...he'd come straight from his home prefecture of Fukushima after a visit with the relatives there. He was appropriately exhausted after 5 hours of driving. He wasn't exactly non compo mentis but he was definitely not in the learning mood. And Mr. Nice Guy did a dotakyan; found out from the boss that his wife had come in over the weekend for her kids' lessons and admitted that plans for the family to make the big move to Hawaii this summer have fallen through. So, in a way, Mr. Nice Guy's raison d'etre for his English lessons have at the very least lessened. The boss says that his lessons will still continue but we shall see.

I've got three lessons today: The CEO, The German and 001. Gonna have to ramp up the lesson for The CEO since last time was a bit laggy. Mr. TOEFL was supposed to come in as the cleanup batter tonight but had to cancel since he has to take care of a dog patient in intensive care; should clarify by saying that he is a vet by trade. Meanwhile, the bossman, Ray and The Cockney are all dudded up for some sort of trade fair this afternoon...which means that AK will be making a rare appearance as substitute staffer for a few hours. AK has basically left the school since her translation business is booming apparently.

I saw the first three parts of "The Beast Below", the second of Matt Smith's episodes as the new Doctor Who via YouTube. For some reason, the last two parts have either yet to be uploaded or some wanker has taken them down. It's another Steven Moffat production but it seems as if the Mixi Doctor fans haven't been as enthused about this ep. I'm still OK with it and so is GC, my old estranged friend in the wilds of Mie Prefecture. According to GC, the new companion, brash Amy Pond may have a rather interesting storyline along the lines of Donna Noble.

Anyways, should get onto planning The CEO's lesson.

Monday April 12, 9:08 p.m.

It's always interesting to watch the original pilot episode of a long-running series. And so I did with "NCIS" last night. Over the past few months, Fox Japan has been showing eps from the 2nd and 4th seasons, plus now the 5th season. Well, they went all the way back to Season 1.

There was no Angry Gibbs, no overCaf-Pow'ed Abby, no overly horny DiNozzo and just no McGee. Instead, I was treated to a Jethro Leroy Gibbs who was pretty much the same Mark Harmon that we'd come to expect from his roles on "St. Elsewhere", "240-Robert" and even his short time on "The West Wing", and both Tony and Sciuto were nice and calm. Heck, even the theme song started off mild. Original pilot Gibbs even seemed to have a bit of the lothario that DiNozzo would later inherit. I guess it would be no wonder that there would be a slight adjustment in his personality.

It was back to the usual Monday. I had Cozy, Swank and SIL earlier today and then I will have The Medicine Man in about 15 minutes.