I have had a cold for more than two weeks now, sort of a nasty thing keeping my immune system’s first line of defense hyperactive. My good friends Chris and Andrew visited over the weekend from Osaka, which was a lot of fun, if tiring. My car blew a tire driving back from Yamagata Prefecture [...]

The loudest thunderclap I have ever heard woke me up last night. Around 2 AM, I confusedly hopped out of bed to an enormous, violent explosion. Then, as if I were in a bad movie, it instantly began to rain like crazy. I haven’t experience a good thunderstorm in a few years. Nebraska has always [...]

Today I ended my six-day week with an 80 minute lesson for my middle school’s annual culture festival. Over the past few weeks, I managed to overprepare while still squeezing in a good amount of procrastination. My goal for the lesson was to have students practice natural greetings. “I’m fine thank you” is perfect English, [...]

You never get enough ketchup for your fries here. I actually just have some catchup to do. Good thing I didn’t spell the post title ‘catsup.’ What a stupid spelling. Back in August, I went to a festival in Sekikawa (25 minutes to the south by car) called the Taishitamonja Matsuri. The name is a [...]

While in Shibata on Sunday, I found a game of Boggle at the Hobby Off.  I bought it in a hurry, even though it was like 11 bucks and was missing the sand timer. I brought it to the middle school for the three days I was there this week, and used it in my [...]