Time is a scarce commodity

I have little time these days. I try to keep up my walking schedule - and do more or less - although I take a day off when something hurts too much. However, most of my time during the day is occupied by teaching and preparing to teach. This year students at three universities have the pleasure, or pain, of my classes.

Tohoku University
This is the local national university and teaching here is supposed to be very prestigious. The students here are, on average, the best in the area. Before I 'retired', working part time at Tohoku U. impressed people far more than my being a full professor at the prefectural university. This year, to save money and supposedly to improve the teaching, they standardized the pay rates. As one of the highest paid part timers due to age, education, and experience, this meant that my pay dropped by almost 50%. I would have changed to a different university but there were no appropriate jobs available.

I go to Tohoku U. on Mondays and teach two 90-minute classes in the morning. During the first semester (April to July), I teach two sections of scientific English for second year students. During the rest of the year (September to January), I will teach basic conversation for first year students. All the classes are in the Dept of Basic Education and I teach students with different majors each class.

Tohoku Gakuin University
This is an old Christian university and one of my best friends is a professor there. A couple of years ago, he recommended me for a part time position. This year on Tuesdays, I teach two year-long sections (90-minutes each) of Oral Practice for first years students in the English Dept. On Thursday evenings I teach a English communication course, but on a different campus.

Miyagi Gakuin University
Another old (120 years?) Christian university, but for women only, Miyagi Gakuin U is a very pleasant place to teach. On Wednesday afternoons, I teach a class on Academic English in the Graduate program. I have one student registered for the class and she is very good. Next I teach a Business English class for first year English Dept students. Finally at the end of the day, I have a computer assisted language lab (CALL) course in listening. The students work independently and all I have to do is answer questions. I usually spend the time studying Japanese. I have the same group of students again on Thursday mornings for a conversation class. I have been very lucky recently because the people who make the schedule have given me the class with the best students (streamed on the basis of their first year grades). They are a pleasure to teach.