End of Term

It was my last day guest lecturing at the college today. The lectures and workshops I did with my Japanese students covered a lot of material.

And when there’s such high content density, so much memories have been created during the last five days that even though it’s just been five (intensive) days, each day has actually felt long – and in the good sense.

I finally got round to bring the D300 to work and taking pictures during my lunch hour today too. Didn’t get to take much as the weather was crazily freezing. At noon with the sun right up overhead, the temperature was still a frosty 4 degree celsius… with wind to boot!

I was no longer playing hero: I didn’t bring winter pants, but wore a thicker polo-shirt, a sweater, and my jacket as a third layer when I was outdoors.

So, there really aren’t too many pictures I took of the college compound as I was too cold to venture walking further than the immediate vicinity of my block to take better pictures. The first picture was taken right beside the cafeteria building with some students milling about during their lunch hour.

The picture below is a HDR composition:

Lots of students cycle to work – and all the bicycles aren’t secure chained. Theft of bicycles clearly isn’t a problem in this part of the world:

And lastly, here’s my class of students, with the college professor I’ve been liaising and working with this whole week (these are also his own students). This was taken just before we said our good byes. In addition to their daily bow at the end of each teaching day, the class – led by their class representative – also thank me in unison in English for my teaching this week. It was really moving, especially considering many of them aren’t confident English speakers:

Well, the rest of my stay here or at least for tonight and most of tomorrow morning will be spent marking their test they sat for just now. Hopefully I’ll finish by noon time though, and also that the weather holds – just so I can visit Suizenji Gardens.:)