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I started to attend an "International Understanding Class" in my city. The teacher is a friend of mine, and he kindly suggested me to enter the class in order to brush up my left-to-rust English speaking abilities.

The material he used today was a song (Seasons of Love) from the musical"Rent." Although I have not seen this one, it was set in New York in 1989, and depicted life of a group of artists surffering from AIDS, according to the teacher. Next week, we should discuss some topics from Rent, and the teacher handed out prints which has several questions to prepare for the upcoming presentation. However, at first sight, I noticed the questions are too hard to answer especially in a foreign language. For example:

How do you measure the life of a woman or a man?

What truths have you learned in life so far?

Have you ever burned any bridges? Explain.

How could you answer these questions even in Japanese?

一人の人間の人生をあなたはいかにして測りますか？

これまでの人生であなたはどんな真実を学んできましたか？

あなたは後戻りできないことをした経験がありますか？　説明してください。

This week, I should think it over and over again to find MY real answers for some time between my work.

I tought at first I entered an ordinary English conversation class, but I have learnt so far that abilities of self-understanding and expressing out one's thougts are much needed to communicate with people, especially the ones coming from other cultures.[[]]