I have been at my current workplace for four and a half years, which is pretty long for a foreign teacher in Japan. For the last three years, I have been officially a member of the same "team" of teachers, meaning I've been helping supervise the same class of students from admission until graduation ( Read more... )

Gene had been healthy and chipper and germ free for a while, so we finally took him in for his MMR vaccination. Last night around 2200, he woke up crying and with a 38.2C fever. He settled down a bit after some ibuprofen, but slept restlessly until this morning. At 0700, he had a fever of 39.2C, and Yoko decided to take him to his pediatrician ( Read more... )

Well, Christmas came and went pretty uneventfully. Gene got lots of presents, most of which make noise. We got a metric crapton of snow, and it's still coming down, so my new snow shovel is getting a workout. Oh, and Gene is in the hospital again ( Read more... )

We had a little snow a week ago, but it warmed up at melted off. Then on Wednesday, we got some heavy rain and winds strong enough to knock down our poorly constructed back fence. Then on Friday, the snow started falling and I thought "Yay! White Christmas!" And then the snow didn't stop falling, and appears to have no intention of doing so.

( Look here for pictures. )

Like any parent, I have my camera (and video camera) close at hand, just in case Gene does something cute. Unlike a proper resident of the 21st century, however, I have not been posting my photos online for everyone to see. This post should help even the scales. And since I have it on good authority that not everyone wants to read about first ( Read more... )

Second year students are away on their school trips this week, and will be away until next Wednesday. First year students (those in the Regular, as opposed to pre-Education course) are on their short-term work experience internships. That leaves me with one class third period, and one seventh period, with lots and lots of time to try to stay ( Read more... )

Apparently it's Thanksgiving. Happy Turkey Day, one and all!

Yoko's father passed away today. He had been very sick for a very very long time, and as cold as it sounds, I'm glad his suffering is over. We're going back to Fukuoka tomorrow for the funeral.

My school has been undergoing renovations to meet modern earthquake code. Today we were finally allowed back in to the main building. Of course, they aren't quite finished, and today they are testing the boiler by running all the heaters.

Another baby video. This YouTube thing is pretty easy to use, so I hope you all have a high tolerance for this sort of thing.

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