Categories Japan

Graduations and appreciations

Graduation season has rolled around again here in Japan. I don’t remember how much I’ve talked about graduations on here offhand, but today was the graduation at my elementary school. Back home, the idea of graduation from elementary school seems silly. Here in Japan, though, it’s a big rite of Continue Reading

Categories Japan

Mr. X, Joker eXtraordinaire

I had my first elementary school classes since winter break today. The 6th grade class went well, but the 5th grade class went amazingly. Today we started a new chapter. It has 26 vocabulary words, so I made today a lazy play-with-words day. One of the boys made it even Continue Reading

Categories Japan

School Festival, Part 3: We are THESPIAN!! We are DANCER!!

In this third and final post (see also Part 1 and Part 2) about my junior high school’s festival last month, I am going to talk about student involvement in planning the event and then launch into the last third of the school festival.

Categories Japan

School Festival, Part 2: We are SINGER!!

Okay, the students didn’t say that. I’m making titles up now. But I see no reason not to continue the grammatically incorrect titling. Besides, I’m about to talk about the students’ singing. With a bit about their music education in general. This is the second post I’ve written about this Continue Reading

Categories Japan

School Festival: We are HERO!!

It’s been a while since I posted anything here. I’ve been busy — I’m now writing articles for IndieGames.com regularly. I also went to Tokyo Game Show (the first event of its kind I’ve ever been to). Coming back from Tokyo Game Show, I came down with a cold. It’s Continue Reading

Categories JET Program

ALT Resources I Made

I make a lot of stuff for my classes. Some of it is great, some of it sucks, some can be reused, and others are just one-time things. The ones that can be reused aren’t always things I feel others would want. I have come up with a few things, Continue Reading

Categories Japan

My Students are Awesome

I have awesome students. I don’t know the third person in this conversation — I assume it’s one of my student’s new friends at his high school. Still, I’m pretty damn proud of him right now. His English really is clunky at best, but I’ll be damned if he doesn’t Continue Reading

Categories Japan

A Cheeky Child and a Troubled Transfer

The Cheeky Child At the beginning of every one of my classes (at all levels of education from preschool to high school), I ask each student, “How are you?” This would take too much time if I had more students. As things stand it’s a good, regular way to start Continue Reading

Categories Japan

The Japanese and the Weather

Up until now, I’ve been keeping my JET Program blog posts on a separate blog. I want to blog more regularly, but have no desire to devote the time necessary to keep two blogs up at once, so I’m merging it into this blog. The now defunct blog is here. Continue Reading

Categories JET Program

What I’ve Been Up To

The following is copy-pasted from a post I just made on the NerdFitness forums. It pretty much sums up how things have been for me for the past couple of months. I dunno how many of you went, “Hmm… WTF happened to Crowbeak?” after I dropped off the radar, but Continue Reading