This is a short story I wrote a while ago. It sums up how I felt at home, and why I decided to move abroad. Closeness May 6, 2012, 6:47 p.m. Homelessness has been eradicated. There’s a job for anyo...
It really is scary how fast time can go when you’re not looking, and therefore how easily it can be wasted. In a little over a month I’ll have spent an entire year living as an expat in t...
Last night I had a dream. I went to a beach and I was getting ready to lie in the water and relax. It was a nice sunny day. I went out on this dock or something, but it was up high above the water, l...
Perhaps as you were guiding your two-hundred and thirty-third customer off the elevator that day, reciting your elevator speech yet again, you thought no one was really paying attention. After all mo...
I wonder what my life would be like if I knew how to stop comparing myself to other people. Would I fail to achieve anything worthwhile without the motivation of competition? Or would I finally be fr...
Let me tell you a tale of epic stupidity. It all began last week, when I came back from vacation and learned that the lease on my shoebox guest house room was up, and I was expected to renew my lease...
I still vividly recall the feeling of helplessness, of being dragged against my will that I felt every morning this time last year. As I passed under the shadows of the business towers with all the o...
Summer vacation starts tomorrow and I’m celebrating with a fun-filled adventure in Thailand. But of course, just like any time I go away, I’ve been having “the dreams”. I̵...
**Warning, this is a long, slow mental masturbation…but so is almost every other post on every other blog. Carry on. I want to be a winner. But I’m having some trouble. See, I defi...
Modern Slavery Two nights ago I had a nightmare that made me very anxious. There was a modern slavery ring being run by the yakuza in Japan. And they picked people up off the street in a big blue van...
Lately, sleep doesn’t come easy. Those muggy summer nights that always seem so romantic to me in winter weigh me down in reality. The heat flushes my flesh and I spend at least half an hour shi...
I was watching back episodes of So You Think You Can Dance, possibly my favourite TV show EVAR, and long story short it made me realize I’m no longer so smitten with Japan, or rather JAPAN!!!&l...
Last night I had a dream. Everyone was anchored to the Earth by big, clunky metal chains — ominous looking things made of dull, dark iron. They grew straight from the spine and burrowed into th...
Almost all of my students ask this of me at some point and it seems like such an innocent question doesn’t it? Maybe it is, but I wonder why whenever I hear it I can also hear the most subtle t...
So, in addition to having these ridonculous, story like dreams that feel like they could have been directed by James Cameron I also sometimes have, I dunno maybe spiritual epiphanies when I’m h...
I really should pay more attention to my dreams, and to my inner self. I am exhausted. I feel like I’ve done years’ worth of spiritual growth and mental maturing in the last two weeks, an...
I try to use the term “racist” sparingly, because if it’s used too often and when it’s really not merited, you have on your hands a “boy who cried wolf” scenario, ...
Perhaps you have heard about this article by Satoshi Kanazawa. Originally titled, Why Are Black Women Rated Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women, But Black Men Are Rated Better Looking Than Ot...
On my way home today I saw a black man in a business suit at the train station talking to a Japanese woman. She had her phone out and seemed to be showing him something. The most logical explanation ...
No breakfast for you. Last night I had another one of my vivid, detailed dreams. It was about a man I’ve been seeing who will be given the super-imaginative ultra-creative nickname of “Mr...
Get up on the dance floor over at Loco’s “Back to Life” Blog Party! We’re celebrating life and learning in Japan: The good, the bad and the stuff that makes you want to turn ...
The blurry, out of focusness of this picture represents how I felt This Golden week I had grand plans to really “explore Tokyo”. I’ve been here three months, but I haven’t rea...
And they will push and push you to try to get what they want from you without even knowing they’re doing it. I know because I am an expert in being pushed around. I don’t know exactly whe...
I was talking to a student the other day, and we got onto the ever-fascinating and life-changing topic of laundry. “In North America I think most people dry their laundry in a dryer machine, es...
Lovely Swans Because the world is obsessed with it. In this post I am primarily talking about romantic love, but why now? I don’t know, maybe because spring is springing, and with the rebirth o...
He's commin' to eatchu I have been known to have some very in-depth and fantastical dreams. My therapist once said it’s a sign that I am a very creative individual. I think it means t...
My Tokyo Neighborhood I am exhausted. In the last week I’ve flip-flopped between fear and relief. Anger and regret. Love and resentment. The great Tohoku earthquake has disrupted so many lives ...
I imagine this is what the Japanese Boyfriend would look like. When I was back in the old country, and I would tell friends, coworkers, family, my hairstylist etc. that I was moving to Japan, without...
I write this in the hope that someone else will be able to relate, but I also have the selfish motive of just plain wanting to clear my head. There is an issue I’ve been struggling with even be...
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