So I came out to one of my classes yesterday ( Read more... )

So remember when I said that I wanted to write more than book reviews over here? Yeah, I remember that.... Well, as I have been gently reminded, the recent events in Japan this weekend are pretty good as far as blogging fodder. This is for several reasons: they're dramatic, and I am far enough away from said events that I am not only alive, but ( Read more... )

One of the things that my school does for its new teachers is to encourage them to go out and see the wider world of English Teacherdom. In this case, it meant sending me to the JALT 2010 Conference here in Nagoya. For those who don't know, JALT is the Japan Association for Language Teaching, one of the biggest such groups in Japan, and its ( Read more... )

So there I was, in McDonald's eating breakfast. I feel no guilt or shame about this, but in the vicinity of my school, it's pretty much the only food option before work. Sad, but true.

I opened up my newspaper - The Japan Times - and right there on pages seven and eight, my head exploded. There were three - THREE - articles there on the Expanding ( Read more... )

I just realized that today marks nine years that I've been living in Japan ( Read more... )

Today, Japan held a general election for the Lower House, which is the house that determines who controls the government. The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has been in power pretty much since the end of the War, with a brief interruption in the late 80s. In today's election, they've been spanked by the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), reflecting ( Read more... )

Three years ago, a Fukuoka city employee slammed his car into another one, knocking it off a bridge. The driver was very drunk, and inside the car that went off the bridge was a family of five - parents and three children, aged 4, 3 and 1. The parents were injured, and all three of their children drowned ( Read more... )

The Pig Flu has reached the shores of Japan.It looks to be under control, but no doubt there'll be panicky people around. As it was, there were people on TV during Golden Week saying they didn't want to travel because they were afraid of the pig flu. I bet there'll be a LOT more masks on the street tomorrow ( Read more... )

Like everywhere, Japan is facing some economic difficulties. In addition to those caused by the current global clusterfuck, there's also the problem of the graying - and shrinking - population. Yup, the birthrate here is low enough that the population is decreasing year by year, and the people who remain are, on average, getting older ( Read more... )

I just got my application form to receive my portion of the economic stimulus handout that the Japanese government is giving. Yes, following in the footsteps of the United States, Japan has decided that in order to stimulate the economy they're going to give money directly to the people - 12,000 big ones ( Read more... )