Dear Drivel,

At last I have thrown off the shackles of a technology that is several millennia old, and have decided to join the 21st century.

Since this is a joint production with the assistance of my dear wife, I though I should begin by introducing her. She’s quite young, and very slender. Usually she stays at home while I go to work, so I suppose she’s a housewife. I met her almost two years ago through the kindness and generosity of a good friend who came to visit. Indeed, it was a sort of blind date - I had to close my eyes, and she literally fell into my lap.

Well, she has remarkable talents, which I’m really only just beginning to discover. Primarily I gasp at her ability to remember and not forget. She can’t yet speak in Japanese (or only a little at present) and her listening skills are almost non-existent but you should see the size of her vocabulary. She knows words in Japanese that I don’t even know in English!

OOPS, there goes a distraction. Regrettably I was not able to see the source, but I have just heard someone whistling out loud, in the street. Nothing remarkable about that, you might think, but you must remember that I live in Japan, where rules are rules. And the rule is: Thou shalt not whistle. I got into trouble once for whistling at work, and had to be told off, all in Japanese. Sometimes I whistle when I’m happy, and often I’m hardly aware that I am doing it. But maybe Japanese people whistle, not because they are happy, but because they are drunk. So I’ve heard. Anyway, I was told it has a bad image.

Today I cycled in the rain to school. I quite enjoyed using a book in the first class with one young boy, asking questions about the colours and quantities of things. The next two boys enjoyed their game of Uno (I hope to make this available on the internet - see my file on Teaching ideas). It’s fun to be able to enjoy playing games and observe the students improving as the game progresses. The small class is ideal for this.

Talking of putting things on the internet, I feel that it is very liberating to be connected at last. No longer do I feel that my efforts are merely for the benefit of my students, school or myself. I can offer anything that my wife and I have thought up to the greater benefit of the rest of the world. Those who browse by are free to select or discard at will.

Actually, there’s a slight problem. You see, some people exist to make money. They use the technology of the 15th Century (I’ll leave this space blank for a future link to the first person who informs me of the correct date) - by which I mean Caxton and his printing press. Yes, it seems that people a still writing books. After all, being physical, you can require people to pay money for them, allowing them only the briefest glance through before the precious money is gone for good.

The person to whom I owe my gratitude is someone by the name of Scott Sibbald, and I would be very happy to insert a link to his homepage here (1/11/96: I did a name search today and found an email address. I’ll try to write.) I do note, though, that in the article which I have in front of me, there is no reference to the wonderful people who dreamt up the game in the first place, so perhaps it is not wrong of me to consider that by adding to and building on the work of others I too can make a contribution to the field of teaching.

What else happened today? I got an e-mail from a colleague in which he said:

A brief glimpse at your newsletters captured my interest, so I downloaded the batch. I am certain to have an enjoyable read, seeing Japan through an Englishman’s - Scotsman’s? - spectacles.

Little does he realise that my entire view of the world was drastically altered half way through my stay here. Yes, I managed to break my English spectacles, and now have Japanese tinted ones.

Well, that’s enough for one night.

Oh! One more thing. I started my JHS 2 (Junior High School) class with a series of questions on the line of “Do you like….e.g. ice-cream?” The students had to respond by placing their pencil-cases on the far left for “yes, yes, yes,” in the middle for “so-so,” and on the right for “no, no, no.” Just out of interest, I asked the boys to respond to “Do you like girls?” and the converse question for the girls. I was quite surprised that most of the girls put “no, no, no” as their answer. The boys seemed lukewarm too. Maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised. Girls seem to work so much harder than boys, in my experience. It is usually the boys who slow down the pace or cause discipline problems. Girls deserve far better than they receive, I feel.

OK. I really must post this. I’m off to a conference in Hiroshima this weekend. My wife is too bulky to bring in my suitcase, so she will have to stay at home. I will have to rely on my old paper and pen methods for recording my daily drivel. Conferences are exceptionally ancient technology, relying on physical presence with all its associated expenses and the potential for all kinds of prejudices - I might be tempted to appraise some on the basis of their nationality, dress, hairstyle or physical appearances. Mercifully, the days of such prejudices must be numbered. For all you know, I might be in my pyjamas right now, yet you can judge by content without allowing prejudices to blur your thinking.

This is the very end of the Daily Drivel - or was it just the very beginning!