I’m staying in Japan. For now. I’m getting kicked out of my current apartment. But I’m moving into a new (and bigger and better!) one next week. I started a new job. I’m teaching ESL…to children. One of my new students gave me their cold. I now have a fever. Unfortunately, these are all the… Read More Update on My Life…
Yesterday morning I threw myself a little ‘Pity Party’. Nothing too extravagant. Just me, myself and I and and an assortment of Valentine’s Day chocolate and cookies (courtesy of my four year old students and an impulsive shopping spree at the 100 yen shop) arranged across my tatami mat floor. If that scene in my… Read More My Sorry Attempt to Save the World…
I’ve been afraid of monkeys ever since I was attacked by a monkey in India last year. So I was more than a little apprehensive to learn that these ‘snow monkeys’ I was going to visit in Nagano wouldn’t be domesticated and caged, but wild and free and numbering in the hundreds. I guess I… Read More Adventure in Monkeyland
The only thing worse than being single and dateless on Valentines Day, is being single and dateless in Japan, where, (thanks to evil marketing powers that be) you get to dread not one overly-hyped couples gift-giving holiday but two. Yep, in Japan they celebrate Valentines Day twice a year, once on the traditional February 14th… Read More Meet My New Boy Toy
Someone emailed me recently asking for advice on how to live on a budget in Tokyo. Perfect timing! I’ve actually been brain-storming ways to cut back costs in the last few weeks, being that I’m perpetually broke and soon to be unemployed. In general, I’m not one to give advice on anything, let alone saving… Read More Five Ways to Save Money in Tokyo
512. That’s the number of people who responded to an ad for an ESL teaching position on the job-hunting site gaijinpot.com (the craigslist of Japan). I know this because minutes after I optimistically forwarded the company my newly updated resume, gaijinpot (very considerately) sent me an email to inform me of this little fact. 63.… Read More Must Love Kids: What It’s Like to Teach English in Japan
I was walking down a crowded street in Shinjuku (think Midtown Manhattan at Christmas time, that’s how crowded it is) today when I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was the Ghost From College Past. A guy I hadn’t seen since freshmen year. Seven years ago. In upstate New York. Apparently, he’d moved to… Read More Six Degrees of a Tokyo Gaijin Part 2
Today I got laid off from my fabulous new job…a fact that I’m sure I’ll one day find funny, once I’ve stopped eating butter cookies and staring at my ceiling in stunned shock of it all. I know that I’m probably being horrible over dramatic right now. Just as I was earlier when I wandered… Read More Thoughts on Being Jobless in Japan
Every unmarried female ESL teacher who’s under 50 and teachers adults has been asked out by a student at least once. It’s inevitable. It’s always awkward when this happens because due to the cultural and language barriers you’re never entirely sure how to interpret it. Does “Do you want to go out for a drink… Read More Would You Date One of Your Students?
Last Sunday found me gingerly tiptoeing across an icy bridge barefoot and naked. It was one of those surreal Japan moments; an Alice in Wonderland trippy ‘Wow, what am I doing walking around in the snow at three in the afternoon with nothing but a thin towel I bought at the 100 yen shop?” type… Read More EmBAREassing Moment at the Onsen