Earthquake, Privates

***I experienced my first earthquake on Tuesday night. It was a small tremor, barely worth mentioning, but it was enough to rattle the doors and the furniture. The entire thing lasted maybe 15 seconds and all I did was sit on the couch and stare at the rattling television in confusion. It was interesting to realize that some shift in the earth hundreds or even thousands of feet below was causing the shaking, but that was the only interesting thing about it. My husband's reaction was far more exciting than the quake. Earlier in the afternoon, he proclaimed it to be an Earthquake Day, but he is always making "psychic" predictions so I didn't think much of it. When the shaking began, he bellowed "There's the earthquake!" and then darted from the room yelling "Hold on! Hold on! Hold on!" He claims he was forming a safety plan in case the tremor got worse, but I'm not convinced. Thankfully, the shaking ceased before he dragged me under a table or something. I know a small tremor is no big deal to those used to such things, but it was a novel experience for us. We've had our share of tornado and hurricane experiences, but earthquakes still seem quite exotic. The odds are good that we'll experience another before our time in Japan is up, so we shall see how the next one goes. With my husband's psychic warning system and calm safety procedures, I don't see how it could go anything but smoothly.

***I've acquired a group of private students from another instructor. The current instructor is transferring to Okinawa (lucky thing), and I've agreed to take on her three students. Private means that I am their freelance instructor and can therefore teach whatever I want, however I want, whenever I want. Although it's not techincally against the rules to have private students, the language company where I work strongly discourages it as one of our teachers was recently murdered by a private student, or so the rumor goes. Now don't worry, I met the students on Wednesday and they're a group of three older women in their fifties and sixties, so the chances that I'll be murdered are quite slim. Besides, they'll bring me an extra $300 per month and I'll have the freedom to teach how I want, rather than following a rigid, often monotonous formula. Now, if only I could find 8 more groups...