My So-Called Japanese Life

Lately, I've noticed that my strongest impulse to make blog posts seems to come within 15 or fewer minutes of a lesson starting with one...

Sometimes I get very interesting questions from my commenters (and luckily I almost always get excellent comments as well). The questions w...

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...

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...

While sitting on my bike at a pedestrian crosswalk, waiting for the little man to go from red man standing patiently at attention to change ...

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

(Part 1 is here ) A good indication of how mainstream some elements of Japanese culture are in the U.S. is reflected in sales like the one p...

In the comments section of one of my other posts , Michael asked me what I felt was Japan's cultural direction and/or contribution to t...

One of my students works creating subtitles for whatever television shows and movies come her way. Sometimes she works with bad B-movies (or...

This is a verbal hazard light to warn those that some unadulterated navel-gazing is ahead and reader discretion is advised. I've always ...

Bart Simpson once said that "“Christmas is the one time of year when people of all religions come together to worship Jesus Christ.” So...

While reading " Odd Girl Out ", a book about how girls act aggressively toward one another, I recalled a lot of memories about my ...

When I was about 12, my cousin and I were making cupcakes at my grandmother's house. We mixed the batter up in a big plastic bowl and we...

In my family, Christmas decorations usually went up the weekend after Thanksgiving. It wasn't an attempt to rush into the season but rat...

( Warning: Portions of this post are not "family-friendly" and discuss "indelicate" topics that those with sensitive di...

Naming your blog when you first start it is a difficult task. You do not yet know what you're going to write about or what shape your po...

Lately, I've been having to search my own blog more and more to make sure that I haven't told a story or presented a certain perspec...

For those of you who are already stifling a yawn, I'd like to make it clear that I'm not actually going to be talking about politics...