Lots of Free Time

As I mentioned I have a bit of free time on my hands at the moment. Two of my students got pregnant and quit classes. I don't really feel comfortable trying to get more students when I'll be leaving the country shortly. And as of the new school year I have no night classes. As you know Skyland got bored. Sony always quits at the new year, and always signs up later. But Pulstec also quit. They went under complete reorganization. My two most regular students are Yasunori and Kiyoshi (pictured above), and they have worked for the company for 29 and 26 years respectively. And when this reorganization was announced they were both fairly sure they would be forced into early retirement. And it doesn't quite mean the same thing here as it does in the states. They wouldn't get full retirement, and the chances of them getting other jobs and zilch. The way it works here is if you go to work for a company the salary you draw depends on your age. It has nothing to do with seniority, or experience. So why would companies want to hire an old guy, when they can hire younger people for less money. And Yasunori has one kid in high school and another in college. So forced retirement would be horrible for him. Kiyoshi is single with no responsibilities, so he might actually like retirment. Well, when the company asked for voluntary retirment, they got so many applications they had to turn some down. So in the end Yasunori didn't have to retire. But as they closed his department he was transferred to a subsidiary. So now he can't take my class. Even though the subsidiary is actually located on the premises. Actually just down the hall from his old office. I don't really mind that the class is over. The drive was an hour each way, and although the guys were very nice, the structure of the class drove me crazy. The structure was that I couldn't teach, it just had to be conversation. And Yasunori only ever talked about sci-fi movies, which is okay, but not every week. And Kiyoshi only ever talked about on-line trading. Which is really boring. But now I have a lot of free time on my hands, and I'm doing nothing constructive with it. Yuck, I'm such a slacker.