Living Japan

I was in the hospital attending to my father-in-law who, at the time, was suffering from ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). By this time, my father had lost the ability to speak and was on a life-supporting respirator machine. One morning I walked into his room to check on him and saw a panicked look on his face. I could hear wheezing from the tube providing oxygen to his lungs, and his faced started turing red. I noticed there was a nurse in the room attending to another patient, but I wasn't quite sure what to say or do so I just started speaking anything and everything I knew in Japanese. It got her attention and she quickly attend to my father by clearing out the obstruction in his breathing tube and the situation was under control. Again, I was in a hospital at midnight with my wife who had been suffering from a high fever for almost a week. In the moments before heading to the hospital she began to lose feeling in the right half of her body, and I immediately starting thinking...

This has nothing to do with Japan by the way... *Spoilers ahead* I'm gonna just get it out from the get go: Is anyone else sick and tired of the completely ridiculous reviews of hero movies by folks who read comics religiously? They remind me of the hipster culture who thinks they can crash anyone's party just because they know better. Or more pointedly, they remind me of the comic book guy from the Simpsons. Daredevil is a great example of a failed production. It was fairly criticized by both the comic book reading population and movie critics for it's lack of character development and terrible acting (Ben Affleck at his worst). That said, I watch Batman V. Superman and I really liked it. Okay, I understand there are quite a few storylines that go astray from the comics, but this is to be completely expected, which is why I can't understand why all these comic fans have their feathers in bunch about it. As a movie, it wasn't that bad (rotten tomatoes 29% an...

*Be sure to read part I to get the whole picture. I once heard from a linguist professor, "Language is culture, and culture is language." They are intertwined so beautifully, like an intricate mandala spread out across the floor. Early humans viewed the world around them and constructed culture and language almost simultaneously based on what they valued, feared, and desired. What they valued, feared, and desired was largely impacted by their environment. If they lived in an area where natural disasters were prominent, then the language of that particular region would reflect that in a multitude of ways. Japanese is a language vastly different from English because it developed in a very different part of the world; a very simple conclusion, indeed. But what are the roots of this? I'd like to examine this below. *Please understand that this is not an academic paper, just an accumulation of many discussions I've had with friends and colleagues in conjunction with b...

This is a topic I have been pondering for quite some time and I'd like to break it up into a few posts. It is my hope that what I write will compel you, the reader, to venture beyond the comfort of your own world, be it your culture, neighborhood, family, etc. Not just for curiosity's sake but to dive deeper into places, dare I say, that will change the very core of your understanding of the world we live in. For me, Japan, its culture, people, and language have been that place, and I'd like to share that experience with you.  *As you've probably noticed by now, I'm not the best writer and I have surely lost whatever I learned in my college years having lived in Japan and spoken the language for as long as I have. If you bare with me for a while, maybe my writing will slowly make a come back.* This post has been on the back burner for years. I have made some attempts to start it but failed at each try, mostly because life either got way to insane to handle or...

Second edition release of my ESL book for intermediate learners. This release includes: -edits/revisions -a whole new look -nearly double the exercises, with over a 120 questions in total! 第一版をご購入いただいた方に、感謝の気持ちを込めて、第二版を出版いたします！ -全編見直しによる新改定 -デザインリニューアル -練習問題が約2倍の120問に

Hey there, it's been a while. I have been very busy with my latest ibook. It is now available in the iBookstore in 51 countries worldwide. This is a children's book with audio narration and sound effects. It's a fun book you and your kids can enjoy over a few nights of bedtime reading. Full of laughs, you might just find yourself trying to do all the crazy things Timmy tries to do, Enjoy!

Great news for all you reading my blog in Japan, my book is now available in the newly established  Japan iBookstore. ESL: A Collection of Warm-Up Activities  is an interactive textbook complete with: -12 chapters containing some of the most commonly misunderstood grammar points -over 150 review questions -a complete glossary with over 100 example sentences -Interactive animations for all grammar points -explanations for ALL review questions -video, audio, and much more