As you’re probably well aware, I’m no longer in Japan. Nor have I been for over 2 months. Some people have asked me to keep it going, writing stuff about Georgia, but not much Georgia-themed exciteness has happened to me. Being from the South myself, all the little eccentricities particular to this area seem normal to me. But Emiry and I are ( Read more... )

First things first.


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I’ve now been back in the United States for about 2 weeks. The culture shock is still pretty strong, but that’s another issue for another day. For right now, I’d like to catch up on stuff that happened after the Vacation Intermission. So I suppose that this could technically be called “Vacation Time, Part Three.” Today’s story will involve four ( Read more... )

My time in Japan has officially come to an end. I'm currently at Kansai International Airport, and my flight boards in a little over an hour. If anyone in Chicago is interested in hooking up at O'Hare airport, I should be arriving at 4 o'clock, then a 4 hour layover. So I'll have a couple of minutes free ( Read more... )

Neither I, nor you, could possibly imagine how busy I’ve been lately. So many vacations. It really tires a guy out. Maybe I can be President some day ( Read more... )

After arriving home at 6:30 on Friday afternoon, I threw the dirty stuff out of my bag, and proceeded to repack it with clean stuff. A little over 12 hours later, I’d be off on the second part of my vacation ( Read more... )

One of the missions of the JET Programme (I really hope they don’t mind me throwing their name around like I do) is to foster international exchange. In this spirit, I decided to take a vacation, which, like breakfast, height, and students who don’t constantly question my marital status, is virtually unknown in Japan. I basically took the time ( Read more... )

This is something I found not long ago.

This should only be attempted on a fast internet connection.

Go to Flash Earth.

Starting with the position marker over the southern half of Japan, zoom in at Latitude 34-39-51 N, Longitude 135-36-46 E.

And that's where I work.

Today is Independence Day, and my personal Independence Day is a little less than a month away. My contract, and therefore my job, ends in 20 days, 3 hours, 29 minutes, and 10 seconds. Not that I’m counting. Really, I’m not. I’ve got a countdown on my computer that does it for me. Pretty sweet feature. Anyway, I’ll be flying out of Osaka to ( Read more... )

Not long ago, one of the young P.E. teachers who I hang out with after school (Yamashita) randomly recommended to me that I not do cocaine. Not really sure where that came from. To the best of my knowledge, I’ve never done cocaine, and I think that’s something that would stick with me. Maybe he just finished teaching a health class about the ( Read more... )