I didn’t get the last lot of software done for Monday, it took till four o’clock this morning! Then today was spent checking everything. It’s amazing how things have changed in the last year though. Before I used to have make CDs and have them expressed to the factory. These days I can just email…

You know I’ve never actually had to get a visa to visit somewhere before. Especially having a European passport you forget how easy it is now to travel to so many countries. However next week I’m in China, so have to get a proper visa. It’ll be strange not having my passport for 3 days!

With all the talk recently of reforming or changing the elementary school “English” curriculum, I figured I’d better check up to make sure that there have been no changes to the Course of Study of this year. The Course of Study or “Shidou youryou” ( 小学校学習指導要 ) is the official word on what we have…

This month’s Wired magazine has a great article about how we learn by playing computer games: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.04/learn.html And they also have another great article on “Beijing’s global campaign to make Chinese the number one language in the world.” http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.04/mandarin.html Be genki,

I’ve basically spent the last week dawn to dusk programming some new software. What a difference to last week recording then taking my breaks by the pool or the beach! I also felt really good physically last week, doing 3 hours of Genki English is really good for you! Needless to say this week spending…

Well, we all know it’s really just “Monkey”. It’s great to see the new version on Japanese TV. I loved the show as a kid. Apparently the original Monkey was also in the first episode of the new series! When I was an ALT, one JTE and I re-wrote the whole second year textbook to…