My So-Called Japanese Life

Due to various complications in my life, I have decided that it would probably be best for me to stop blogging. I want to thank all of the r...

Recently, I've been doing a lot of essay correction work for one of my students. This is relatively unusual as most lessons are spent ac...

For several years, I was part of an on-line ( Usenet ) community for a particular on-line multiplayer game. I started off as an outsider in ...

Before any of my readers are mislead into thinking this is going to be a list of well-worn "dos" and " don'ts ", let...

It's time for U.S. residents residing in Japan to file their income tax forms. If you've filed before, you should have already been ...

On a daily basis, I hear my upstairs neighbors going about the business of their daily life. I hear them dropping things, slamming doors, an...

My apartment is pretty small, dark and airless so I have to leave the lights on in nearly every room to keep them lit sufficiently to work i...

This afternoon, I was biking to a local grocery store and riding quite slowly down the street. There was an old (Japanese) man, probably in ...

A home-style design on the 1959 book. Teaching students privately is a dual-edged sword. On the one hand, you tend to get a better quality o...

Back in my former company's former office, we had a tiny little kitchen that barely two people could squeeze into for food-related tasks...

Some of you may have noticed that I rarely type Japanese characters in my blog posts. Some of you may assume that I can't enter Japanese...

Part 1 is here . The way in which our lives are shaped by environment is something which happens not only on an individual level, but on a c...

I remember the day the nail went in the coffin of my Christian beliefs. I was sitting in a history class with one of the most boring teacher...

About a month ago, I got a new student who is looking to increase her skill base in order to make a career change from a pharmaceutical indu...

Lifted from the site which sells them . Candy for those who hate Valentines Day. Lately, I've been seeing various ads and articles leadi...

At this time of year, every kind-hearted Japanese person who I speak with (which is pretty much every one that I actually speak with), tells...

One of the few trees outside our apartment on one of the few days that it snows. It's snowing today in Tokyo. I know what you're thi...

One of my students attends a U.S. college on a military base. The people she meets in her classes are mostly from poor areas of the southern...

Yesterday evening while I was doing some late evening shopping at a local 99 yen shop, I saw a fellow do something which I've always fel...

A sign from the Communist party expressing the notion that the consumption tax (sales tax) should not be increased. Last year, I kept readin...