Today, a prospective teacher who came in to visit my first and second grade class seemed genuinely impressed with the amount of material they’ve learned so far. They came as complete beginners, and they’ve been in my EFL classes for six hours a week for just under a year, doing the Up and Away [...]

There’s nothing worse than the feeling of waking up, rolling over to the side, seeing a big spider on the wall, gasping and seeing the thing motor across the wall. I swear, these things are faster than cockroaches.

Just what kind of spider is this that can move so f@#$ing fast? Is it poisonous? [...]

I’ve always loved our bookcase at the school. It’s functional, it looks nice, and it actually draws in our students. None of my previous English teaching jobs in Taiwan have had anything even remotely like it. Some schools have had a mostly ignored bookcase full of things that are way too hard [...]

I’m fried. Peeling, too. I went to Yilan last weekend with Wayne and Eric and played in the sun all day. It was a long day, but it was just the way to end summer break.

Recently, I’ve found myself in a position to be hiring EFL teachers for the first time. While I did gain some management experience as the owner of a three crew house painting business back when I was trying to pay my way through college, this is mostly uncharted territory for me. With the [...]

All this past week, I’ve been on summer break, minus a few entrance tests and other odds and ends to do in the office. Something odd happened while I was giving one.
Some Kiwi girl called the school and asked for me by name. I had never met her before and I had [...]

Last week, I encountered a dilemma of the sort that I’m really not qualified to deal with… and yet I had to. A new virus has been all over the news in Taiwan. To me, it doesn’t seem like much more than a particularly nasty flu, but a few children have already died [...]

to be filled in soon…
(06/21/08) I’ve been buried under a mountain of work, once again. I can’t even remember what, exactly, I had been planning to write in this post. The key point, though, was that Franc (AKA “Prince Roy) became my best buddy in Taiwan during the later part of his tour, [...]

To be updated once people give me my pictures…
So, I did a “walkabout” for my birthday. Basically, it was a celebration of many of the wonderful things about living in Taiwan, and a chance to hang out with some good friends. The plan was to meet up at the 鍋貼 restaurant by Yongchun [...]

I’ve been wanting to hear this for years, and Obama said it on my birthday, in my home state. What better present than civil liberties!

DENVER - Maybe it’s his background teaching constitutional law.
If elected president, Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama said one of the first things he wants to do is ensure the [...]