Today marked a number of firsts for me this year but, above all, it was the first day for Lemonade 2.0. An application that will help school teachers and students be better organized both in and outside of the classroom.
03.9.10 | Development, Featured, Working in Japan | Jason
Yesterday I received an email from someone who wanted to know why I would not call myself an English teacher, and instead use the title “language facilitator”. Here’s why.
03.1.10 | Featured, Home, Working in Japan | Jason
Believe it or not, I had a terrible habit back in Canada. It wasn’t one with drugs, alcohol, women, or even excessive weight gain. Instead it was something much more insidious. Something that, once you’ve been bitten, it’s very hard to break: swearing.
I loved to swear. Not so much for its therapeutic results, but for [...]
01.20.10 | Living in Japan, Working in Japan | Jason
There are several things that I like about the public transportation system in Japan. It’s almost always on time, relatively quick, and clean enough that we don’t have to examine the seats for various unpleasantries before sitting down. Very rarely do I ever have a problem with the system which has become my most effective [...]
12.16.09 | Featured, Living in Japan, Working in Japan | Jason
An odd thing happened on Friday: my “Get out of English Free” card didn’t work.
Friday evening, while I was making the trek from 本山駅 to 名古屋駅, I was stuck on the subway with a bunch of over-active high school girls. Like most high school girls, these kids were loud, laughing, and causing a scene. Being [...]
11.30.09 | Japan, Living in Japan, Working in Japan | Jason
Why do companies employ IT departments? Is it to help support the business process, or dictate it?
Over the last few months I’ve had some pretty disturbing conversations with various people about the role of the IT department within a rather large corporation here in Japan. It seems that at this particular company, 8% of the [...]
10.20.09 | Development, Technology, Working in Japan | Jason
Despite what it says on my business card, customers seem to confuse me with their personal shrink. Typically this isn’t an issue, as it gives me quite a bit of insight into the thoughts and ideals of (some) Japanese people. However, I was recently asked by someone for advice to help them make a rather [...]
09.3.09 | Working in Japan | Jason
There are many things that I like about living in Japan, but very few can beat this country’s infatuation with stuff in a can. In addition to being able to buy beverages such as soda, beer, water, juice, jelly, vodka, sake, wine, cream, milk, tea, coffee, and sport drinks, we can buy them in ever-friendly [...]
08.8.09 | Living in Japan, Working in Japan | Jason
It’s amazing what 40 minutes with a seven year old can do for a person’s stress levels.
Yesterday I received some career inspiring news stating that yet another web project I had been working on (with permission this time) for the company was going to have the plug pulled due to “security reasons” that nobody can [...]
08.1.09 | Working in Japan | Jason
There’s a rather sad story on Page 2 of the Daily Yomiuri newspaper today that states “Suicides climb in 1st half of ‘09“. While Japan has long had more suicides per year than the rest of the planet combined, it’s a little unnerving to see the number continue to reach higher. According to the article, [...]
07.29.09 | Working in Japan | Jason
Since before the release of Asus’ first EeePC, people have complained about the speed, or lack thereof, experienced on the netbook form factor. Issues such as boot time, lag between clicks, slow application load times, and limited screen resolutions have been the key concerns for many of the people who report on such issues [...]
07.20.09 | Business, Technology, Working in Japan | Jason
A few days ago, while telling me how stupid I was for saying that I wanted a notebook computer to last at least 15 years...
The countdown is almost up on this year's winter Japanese Language Proficiency Test, and thousands of people residing bo...
Do you ever wonder about your neighbours? I wrote a few months ago about how one of my neighbours has the same camouflag...
Believe it or not, I had a terrible habit back in Canada. It wasn't one with drugs, alcohol, women, or even excessive ...
Over the last decade or so I've been battling a bunch of minor problems such as insomnia, headaches, chest pain, and blo...