Minimalism - Online Income - ESL - Japan
Once in a while I post about my ambitions to earn a salary-sized income from my efforts on the internet. I have a few websites, mostly in education, which attract visitors from all over the world. The oldest of my current websites is the ESL Writing Wizard which I started in October 2005. Since then, I’ve gone on to make the Math Worksheet Wizard, Dolch-Words, and ESL-Kids. You can learn […]
It’s been four months now since Mami became pregnant and I’ve been posting each time she’s come back from the clinic with a new photo. If you missed the previous posts, here are the photos so far. It’s fascinating to see how ‘Peanut’ has grown. We started at six weeks with nothing visible except for a tiny nutrient bag.. Just one week later and we got to see Peanut for […]
Okay, so I didn’t win the “Nenmatsu Jumbo”, but as a teacher I get sent quite a lot of New Year cards from my students. These postcards, from the post office, are marked with a number which if you’re lucky could be picked as the winning number in the post office’s New Year lottery. Here’s some background on “Nengajou” from Wikipedia: The Japanese have a custom of sending New Year’s […]
I’ve been teaching at Japanese kindergartens for years now, and I always have a lot of fun. The key to success in teaching these classes is to be fun and energetic. While some “proper” teachers complain that they came to Japan to “teach”, and not dance around like clowns, I believe that if your style of teaching is entertaining then your students are going to learn a whole lot more […]
With the impending release of Microsoft’s Windows Vista and Office 2007, I thought it was only appropriate to give you a tour of my new little home office for 2007. (Sorry if you came here looking for news on Vista and Office 2007!) So, having moved house, I now have a whole room for my stuff. Check it out: Starting with the room itself, you can see the floor is […]
Well for me at least. Apparently I’m a Tennoseijin (a kind of sun sign, I think) which is derived from my date and time of birth, and every 12 years you get one great year. Though I don’t follow astrology, or even read my horoscope, my wife does and she seems to know a lot. Most of Mami’s knowledge of astrology comes from reading Kazuko Hosoki’s books. The ‘queen’, as […]
I had intended to write about something completely different but I came across this video which I just had to post here. It’s a Japanese game show in which if you laugh, you get the cane. What do they laugh at? Well, although they try their best to keep quiet, it’s hard not to crack up when watching this guy try to speak English… If you can’t view the video, […]
As an update to my post The 15 year old toilet stains, I’m happy to tell you that I managed to get the toilet clean(ish). Believe it or not, sandpaper did the trick. Not just regular sandpaper, but some special stuff you can use on ceramic surfaces and in water (edit: Silicon Carbide waterproof paper to be exact). I still had to put my back into it, but it was […]