"Post War Blues" and "What's Going On?"

The above two are titles to songs.  The former is by Dan Magnan.  If I recall correctly the first line is "Let's start a war for the kids...".  The latter probably doesn't need an introduction. But, yes, indeed it is the title of the late Marvin Gaye's 1971 hit song.  The latter was playing on my iPhone when I left the office this evening.  I thought of the other as I walked out to the car.  They seem like such a fitting denouement to the day's main event; the US presidential election.

I only spoke with one person today about the US election.  That was a student who started on the subject when I had mistakenly reached for my iPhone during a break in a lesson.  She guessed correctly that I wanted to check the results.  When she asked me who I thought was going to win the election, I matter of factually replied the winner probably was going to be Trump.  She was genuinely shocked when she heard that.  She wondered out loud in Japanese, "I wonder what will happen".  Without hesitation I stated that the TPP agreement was likely doomed.  Same for the Paris Agreement on the environment.  The only silver lining she could find to the cloud was the value of the US dollar.  I made a sound like a rapidly deflating balloon and agreed it might be a good time to scoop up some US dollars.  She chuckled and said she was probably going to do so.  And that was more or less the end of conversation as we had reached the end of the time slot for her lesson.  I gave her a hint on what tomorrow's lesson was going to be on and that was all....


PS:  I taught a lesson today that focused on the poem "In Flanders Fields".  It was an interesting experience.  I played a bit of a CBC news story about Lt. Col. McCrae.  Portions of the poem were read in the video clip.  They helped him get an idea of how to read the poem.  He did relatively well with that task.  But he was puzzled by the word "ye".  I told him of its less poetic counterpart and all was well. 

Oh, yes, I remembered to pin a poppy on my suit jacket today.....