(The subject is Japanese for "Let's update!!")

What a busy Summer I had. I'll start from shortly after my last update, though.

So my company went bankrupt, but most of the schools were bought up by a giant corporation. Giant corporation tried to hire many of the old teachers back, and ended up hiring less than half of them back. I was one of them, ( Read more... )

Last night my school received an e-mail about an important webchat scheduled for tomorrow morning (i.e. this morning). So, in accordance with the strange and cruel dictates of the Head Office overlords, I woke up incredibly early this morning and dragged myself to work. Upon arriving, the first thing the manager said to me was ( Read more... )

This happened over a week ago, but it was a while before I was able to talk about it.

As mentioned before, I teach Japanese kids English. All sorts of kids: big kids, small kids, nice kids, mean kids, and so on. This story involves one particular kid.

For the sake of the story, I'll call her A. A's five years old and she's one of the shy ones. But ( Read more... )

My first impression of Yaizu was that there isn't much here. So far, there hasn't been much to really change that impression. Although I have learned there's a Baskin Robbin's here. That's something, right ( Read more... )

Some things I will miss about Nagoya (not including people ( Read more... )

In a recent class with an old woman, we were talking about movies. She mentioned that she had been completely baffled by the Matrix, which I wasn't surprised by. I'm not sure why, but I suddenly felt compelled to recommend Back to the Future. Maybe it was partly due to Dinosaur Comics? Regardless, she gave me her word that she would watch it. That ( Read more... )

Getting directions via text message is terrible. Surely one of the top five worst ways to receive directions. At one point, they told me to "make a u turn to your left then turn right." Isn't that just a left turn? What the heck.

So, in the past, there have been individuals, acquaintances, if you will, who have criticized my unadventurous approach ( Read more... )

Okay, Disney. I don't know who designs your stuffed animals. I don't know how thoroughly they playtest them. In fact, I don't even know if the stuffed Mickey and Minnie Mouse dolls in my school are even officially licensed ( Read more... )

In food news, it can now be said that my apartment offers a range of sauces. Well, technically it could have been said before. But now, the person saying would just be embellishing a bit, rather than outright lying ( Read more... )

I imagine everyone becomes incredibly bored at work at some point, and then needs to exert him(or her)self to find some source of entertainment. Luckily, for me, this is readily found in some of the English textbooks I use.

One textbook has a section called "useful expressions" in each chapter. What they mean by  "expression" in this case, is useful ( Read more... )