Naoko Sajima truly does try hard--and I don't doubt for a moment that she is an exceptionally gifted woman--but her business class is completely incomprehensible.

A former defense employee for the Japanese government (she likes to call herself a bureaucrat), Naoko comes to lecture twice a week, usually clad in the finest fashions that Ginza has to offer. Today is a grey/black business suit, doused in glitter, a twinkling watch on her right hand and a sparkling bracelet on her left. Two large pendants dangle from her ears. She is confident and knowledgeable...

But, as I said before, in addition to all of her physical attributes and immaculate resume, she possessed that inherently Japanese ability to butcher complex English sentences until they become unrecognizable fragments of thought that hang in the air, open to even the most abstract interpretations. But she knows what she said.

After listening to her lecture for an hour and a half, my English sounds like that of a drunk. But I don't mean to make fun of Naoko--she does have a beautiful name and her English is much better than my Japanese.

I guess I just find the situation funny: 14 glassy eyed foreigners listening quietly for nearly two hours to a lecture that no one could grasp the topic of afterwards. I really feel sorry for the Koreans and Spaniards in our class, because English isn't even their first language, it must have been really difficult for them.