In this session, Kanae-Sensei picked a topic about summer events in Japan - Fireworks festival. Quite surprised to learn that firework festival is such a grand event in Japan, which is very different from the summer fireworks in my hometown. Very informative!

Kanae-Sensei used how Japan ranks in this year's gender equality report as base for this session's discussion. It was informative to learn that while having fairly good gender equality in terms of education attainment and access to medical resources, Japan has been surpassed in areas including political empowerment and economic participation and opportunity. Very useful session where practical conversation can be carried out. Thank you, Kanae-Sensei.

As we are in December, Kanae-Sensei picked a very season's subject - 世相の風物詩. It was informative to learn about different common social practices, especially during the last month of the year, to conclude and send off the year.

Another interesting session on culture differences - using priority seats on public transportations. Always something for debate in Asian countries and it was really great to be able to practice conversational skills using such daily events. Thank you, Kanae-Sensei!

In this session, Kanae-Sensei introduced an news piece about perception over the need for extracurricular activities among students who are about to enter the job markets and those who have already been professionals for a few years. A very interesting discussion as outsiders are usually under the impression that Japanese society as a whole would deem extracurricular activities required. Many thanks to Kanae-Sensei.

In this session, Kanae-Sensei led the discussion about the news that twitter recently being acquired by Elon Musk and the implication behind Mr. Musk's request of long-hour working for twitter staff. It's always helpful to have conversation practices about latest news pieces. Not only did it provide an opportunity to brush up conversation capability, it was also a training to summarize and speak out my thoughts surrounding the subject. Many thanks, Kanae-Sensei.