I had quite an interesting day today. This despite the fact that I felt absolutely awful most of the morning due to going to bed too late. I never learn, do I?

The last class I taught today was one of the best ever. Even though I’m always doing the same material, every class has a different ambience. It seems to depend a lot on the class teacher. The control freaks end up with uncontrollable rebels, and the teachers who are nice, reasonable people tend to have nice, reasonable pupils too. Is there some kind of karmic echo in that?

This afternoon’s last class should have been terrible. Late in the day, so everyone (including me) was exhausted, and very low numbers due to a few absences. Despite this, however, it went really well, and I left feeling elated. Then I fell asleep on the train home!

I had a chance to try a Japanese musical instrument this morning. I can’t remember the name, but it is a small end-blown flute, essentially a small version of the shakuhachi (the shakuhachi derives its name from its length: one shaku and eight sun, or 1.8 feet; this instrument was about half that). I was talking about musical instruments with one of the teachers, and after I mentioned my home made plastic pipe shakuhachi, he brought it out to show me. I think that they were rather impressed when I picked it up and played it straight away. I’ve got to admit that I was surprised too, to be able to play a melody so easily on my first try.