Minimalism - Online Income - ESL - Japan
One of the best things about teaching in Japan is the omiyage, souvenirs that Japanese people feel obligated to buy for everyone they know! This, of course, includes teachers. The most common kind of omiyage is cookies or rice crackers. Barely a week goes by without one of my students bringing a box of biscuits to class from some remote village, Disneyland or a trip overseas. Today I was given a […]
In Part 1 I talked about how the gomi (rubbish) rules had changed and that everything had to be separated and put out on fixed days between 6 and 8am. However, being unable to wake up at that crazy time of day, I often threw things out the night before. This was fine until the gomi patrol caught me. The gomi station where I had to throw out my rubbish […]
When I first came to Japan, rubbish disposal was as simple as dumping everything in a bag and putting in the street to be collected later in the week. Now, I’m not just talking about kitchen scraps here, I mean anything that people didn’t want, including TVs, refrigerators and all sorts. The bubble economy had burst but people were in the habit of buying the latest technology and throwing out […]
I was looking through some of my old things and found a postcard from the first school I taught at in Japan. When a potential customer had taken a trial lesson, the teacher was supposed to fill in this postcard and it would be sent to that student. I had to shrink the picture a bit for the web, but if you look closely you’ll see a classic mistake. Â […]
I’m starting to get really fed up with email. I get over 200 messages a week and usually only a handful of them are not spam. Cleaning out the spam has become a daily part of my routine, much like brushing my teeth, taking a shower and washing the dishes. If I don’t do it every day, my inbox will just grow ugly stuff. So I was surprised to read Nate Anderson’s article called “Teens: E-mail […]
According to an NHK report in 2000, Japan has the largest commercial English language education market in the world, valued at $20 billion. So, you would expect most Japanese to be fairly proficient in English, right? Wrong! Official TOEIC figures for 1997-1998 showed Japan to have the lowest average score among the 17 countries in which TOEIC test taking is most popular. As an ESL teacher in Japan, I should consider myself fortunate that people […]
I always ask my students what they plan to do at the weekend and they often say they are going to go for a drive. I agree that if you can get out into the mountains you might enjoy the scenery, just as we do driving through the countryside in England, but that’s if you can get out into the mountains! When the weekend rolls around, everybody, and I mean everybody, […]