Interlude

Today I thought I would interrupt the trip to Osaka to tell and show you my weekend. On Friday night some of us met at an Irish bar, the Ha'penny, to say goodbye to David, an Australian poet who has been here for a month's visit. David has been a visiting profess here two or three times for a year at a time, so we all know him.

On Saturday evening Marc had a small party for Curtis Kelly, the speaker at the Sunday JALT meeting. Marc BBQed a boar. The boar was definitely not boring and we all had a great time.

On Sunday I took the subway into downtown Sendai and made a first stop in a Starbucks to buy a coffee to take to the JALT meeting.

The meeting was in the white building. It is a community support center and among other things they rent rooms, very cheaply, to groups like ours.
This is Marc, who introduced the speaker.
And this is the speaker, Curtis Kelly, who is someone that I have known for at least 25 years. I do not see him often because he lives in the Kansai area, but we are now in touch on Facebook. Curtis spoke about the latest research in brain plasticity and the effect that this should have on teaching foreign languages.
After the meeting, about 25 of us when to an izakaya, a Japanese style place for eating and drinking. There were so many of us that we had to use four tables, the kind with a hole in the floor that provides a place for your feet while you sit on a cushion on the floor itself. Curtis circulated around the tables and this was late in the party when a number of people had already gone home. The person on the left is Kevin, an American who was born in Hong Kong. Over Curtis' shoulder you can see Ken, a dear friend, who is currently the local JALT president, his wife, and Keith, my soccer friend. Curtis has published some text books and his publisher, Cengage, pay for his trip and donated about $400 to help pay for the food and drink. We had what is know as nomihodai, which means that for a fixed fee you can drink as much as you want.