Coffee on the Moon 月のコーヒー

NASA recently sent human astronauts around the moon.  They, and also China, plan to establish a base on the moon where humans can live for extended periods.  This made me wonder what kind of facilities will be built on the moon for the resident humans.  They will need oxygen and living quarters and so on.  There will be attempts to mine usable resources from the moon.  But even astronauts can’t spend all their time working.  I am sure that one of the first non-essential facilities for downtime will be a place which serves coffee. 

That got me thinking about names for the first coffee shop to open on the moon.  If I can get the name right, perhaps I can copyright it  and then sell it to Elon Musk.  So here are some ideas I came up with:

 

1 – Coffee Lunatic 

A lunatic is a crazy person.  So the name suggests something like, “Crazy for Coffee”.  And Luna is, of course, an alternative name for the moon.  The word lunatic comes from the folk belief that the full moon makes people crazy.  Think of werewolves who change by the light of the full moon.

 

2 – Need a Buzz? 

A buzz can mean a burst of energy or excitement.  You might say, “I get a buzz from playing music.”  Buzz was also the nickname of the astronaut who was the second person to walk on the surface of the moon.

 

3 – Bean Up Here Long? 

Have you been up here on the moon for a long time?  Would you like some coffee beans?  Okay, this was not my best effort.

 

4 – Fly Me to the Moon Café 

This refers to a song sung by, amongst others, Frank Sinatra.

 

5 – Blue Moonday 

“Blue Monday” is the phenomenon of feeling unhappy on Monday morning when you have to start the working week.  You might need a strong cup of coffee to fight the Monday blues on Earth.  Living on a cold, dead rock is probably going to be challenging for anyone living on a moon base too.  So if you’re feeling down, why not head over to Blue Moonday for a nice cup of coffee.

 

This really is how I spend my days – thinking of names for imaginary coffee shops.

Scribble or Tap? －カキカキ、それともカチカチ？－

 Tap – tap – tap – tap – tap! 

“What are you doing?” 

Tap – tap – tap – tap – tap! 

“I said – What are you doing?” 

Tap – tap – tap - tap! 

“I said…!” 

“Sorry, Daddy.  I am doing a typing game.  I just wanted to knock down this monster.” 

My son has been playing Typing Coliseum.  His school provided the game as a way for the students to learn how to type on a keyboard.  A word appears on the screen, along with a monster.  They have to type that word in quickly in order to knock down the monster. 

The trouble is, the game seems to be very addictive.  When my wife went to the school the other day, the library was full of elementary school kids, furiously tapping their keyboards in order to battle monsters.  Wasn’t there a time when libraries were for reading books? 

The Swedish government has just announced that it is moving away from the use of electronic screens in schools, and going back to paper and pencils.  Sweden had been pushing the use of technology in schools and pre-schools very hard.  But this coincided with a drop in students’ performance in some key areas, especially in literacy and maths.  The Swedish government acted when surveys revealed that 24 per cent of Swedish 15 and 16 year olds were unable to reach a basic level of literacy.  It is not that technology must never be used.  But it can certainly be used too much. 

I wonder if Japan’s schools will start to move in the same direction, and we will again hear the sound of scribbling pencils, instead of frantically tapping keys.

 

Issun-kyoshi (the Little Teacher) 一 ー寸教師 －

Because of his school’s spring vacation, my 9 year old son was at home during the day a lot over the last couple of weeks. 

I could go and talk to him between English lessons I was teaching. 

“Daddy, could I teach English, do you think?” he asked. 

“Yes, I guess so.  Maybe when you are a bit older, you could teach English,” I said. 

He watched me picking up the lesson fee I had just received from the table. 

“I could help you teach English soon, Daddy.  You can give me a test and tell me when my English is good enough to teach.” 

He wanted me to pay him as an assistant teacher. 

I told him his English would have to get better.  He answered, “Okay, can you teach me now?” 

So I sat him on the opposite side of the table to me, and started teaching him as if he was my student.  He did well answering questions such as, “Where do you live?” and “Do you have any brothers or sisters?” 

Then I got him to ask me questions.  I would say, “I am from Scotland,” and he would have to ask, “Where are you from?” 

I said, “I like to go to karaoke, and I like to play the guitar.” 

He thought for a moment, then asked, “What are your hobbits?” 

It might be a little early for my assistant English teacher to start teaching, unless his students are studying Lord of the Rings.