Falling Asleep in Class

Takatsugu is a mystery to me.  Takatsugu is the ten year old boy I teach for an hour every Wednesday night and his is the only class I have ever fallen asleep in.  I didn’t think it was possible to fall asleep in a class I was teaching, especially not a private lesson where I am front and center the whole time, but every week without fail I find myself nodding off in front of this boy.  It’s as if his mere presence drains all the energy from the room.  I don’t get it.  Taka, as I like to call him, is a quiet boy who appears to have some sort of speech problem, but other than that he is a fairly normal Japanese 10 year old.  He likes playing video games, reading comic books, and watching anime on television.  

Part of me thinks the hour long lesson is just too long for the both of us.  He is far from talkative, and though he knows quite a bit of English, his speech problem means he doesn’t say a lot.  It’s not that he is unenthusiastic—more like tired of studying.  I haven’t asked him, but I am sure that he, like most of my other students, in addition to their regular school day, attends not only my English class, but other after school tutoring programs as well.  If I were 10 years old and had an hour long English class, by myself, at 7 in the evening, I would be a little stir crazy too.  

I’m not sure if he has noticed me nodding off, but If I don’t figure out something soon, he is sure to notice, and I don’t know what I will do if my boss calls me up one day and says, ‘Joe, Takatsugu says you were falling asleep in class?”