The person shouting this is a close friend — a Japanese English instructor — who with looping earrings, sliding bracelets and multiringed fingers shows more metal than a brass band. She's noisier too, with a big-eyed, rubber-tongued enthusiasm for her work.

I wish she'd lend me some of her energy. Instead, I settle for pasta and wine. Lots of wine.

Here's the deal: Every so often she buys me dinner and in return I give a glance to her teaching material, original dialogs and sentences which she will soon gurgle out to learners all sorts, from teens to septuagenarians, who adore her for English teaching gusto.