People Pictures

We had presentations today and I thought I would take some pictures. You can see that, as usual, my 50mm lens just makes everything good. That combined with some rather blunt digital darkroom business and you get these. Nothing amazing, but I think these are pretty decent. More importantly, these aren't just the good ones, but some of them. Only two pictures out of this set of 20 or so didn't come out well, both due to subject motion, something completely outside of my control.

At least, until I buy a Tazer. But that's neither here nor there, given Japanese weapon laws.

At left is Sara, my class's token Australian. She, of course, has a really cool accent. She also is very studious and very rarely comes to class unprepared.

At right you can see Kilik (right) and the teacher I call 元気先生 genki-sensei because I don't know his name. He's our only male teacher and always seems really excited, which is kind of cool. He's really supportive and his explanations generally make sense, though I have some difficulty with his accent.
You can see here that he's wearing a dress shirt with a tie and whatnot, but what you can't see is the slippers he's wearing. So I took the second shot (inside right) which is one of the couple different pairs of slippers he wears to class. I'm not sure what the story is behind them, but I think it has something to do with the uncomfortability of dress shoes. Maybe.

The guy on the left is "Mun-jii-san" called with the title for an old man because he's, like, 27 or something. He's the 2nd oldest of the study-abroad students that I know.

He's pretty cool, and he's studied in some kind of martial art, though I can't tell which and he doesn't talk about it.

He's Korean, in case you're wondering.

I got two pictures of Kilik that I just couldn't help picking because I really like both of them. Sometimes, I really like my camera. Most of the time. I worry about it a little when it's rainy, but it lets me take pictures like these that just wouldn't look quite the same from a point and shoot, even if the composition were the exact same.

Kilik is from Peru and is the one that drew me looking like Bill Gates.

Hopefully these pictures will line up the way I want them to, or this will look a little weird.

Here are the other two Koreans in our class: Seu Jeung Park (left, standing) and "Minji" (left- sitting). Seu Jeung organizes most of the parties and reads almost as poorly as I do, while Minji never says a word unless called on, but can read pretty much everything. I've only heard her miss one kanji thus far semester.

The last two people I took pictures of - and whose pictures I will post now - are Valentina Mazzeo and Ai Nishizaki.

Valentina is very nice and is one of those people that is always smiling. She's studying Japanese and Chinese right now, but has very passable English and natively speaks Italian. She's very supportive and kind, and helpful to boot. One of the things I like most about her is that she's engaged, and she doesn't drink alcohol or smoke anything. Her only vice as far as I know, is coffee...

She never quite looks herself in pictures, somehow. I don't really get it.

Okay, last picture before I try to go to sleep some more!

Ai Nishizaki (left, with the mic) is a student from the class I work with. Her English is so-so, but I think she's a Chinese major. She's kinda cute, I think, and has a strange something in her voice that I haven't heard anywhere else before.

Just fell asleep sitting here, so it's time for bed.
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Zzzz...