9am and already bored of today. sigh.

So the other night I tutored one of my students, Shohei. He used to be my 6th grade elementary school student and is now my 1st year middle school student. His family just moved back from Arizona, where he spent half his childhood, so he's pretty much fluent in English. I tutor him once a week to keep up his English. We talk a bit and read books together (right now it's Robin Hood) and I give him spelling and vocab quizzes. It's kinda fun and I get paid $25 an hour. The family is nice to me - had me over for dinner once and fed my cat over X-mas break (in exchange for 2 free English lessons).

Anyways, now that he's in middle school, Shohei has to start formal English class. Which is of course totally pointless for him. They make him sit there copying the alphabet when there are much more useful things he could be doing with his time. But he said he doesn't want me to say anything about it to his teacher. Maybe he doesn't want to stand out (being different is not a good thing in Japan) And maybe he doesn't want to be given lots of extra English work (understandably). But it must be pretty boring for him. And strange for his fellow classmates to hear a flawless American accent come out of the mouth of a normal Japanese boy. When I first heard him talk it completely blew my mind. I just stared at him and asked, "..how... do you speak English?.." Trippy