This carries on from an earlier post. Might be an idea to have read that before reading this. OK… ARRIVAL AND ADJUSTMENT, LIFE AS AN EXPAT It took some adjustment, as you can imagine. It was my first time abroad for any length of time. A couple...
I know that I need to get back to my Kiwiville story, and I will. Maybe I’ll be able to do it tomorrow, but within the week, surely. But this evening, I didn’t do that because instead, I did this…
I've touched on this briefly, as you'll know if you're one of the three or four people who actually read this. But it was more about the idea of becoming an expat, not so much my story. So here's the story. I first left the U.S. at 26 years old in 1991. I'm not...
I worry about things. It’s just in my nature, and I don’t do anything about it, because the way I see it, it’s a reasonable and realistic way to approach the world in general and in particular, things that I have never done before. Optimism may not always...
That was the name of my relatively short-lived band in Oaxaca, Mexico. Los Ombligos. The Bellybuttons. And yes, it’s every bit as stupid in Spanish as it is in English. The guys and I were pretty stoned when we came up with that name, to be honest. When the time...
You may have read my goodbye to my little kitty, Qiqi. That’s still painful to think about, but she had a brother, Erer, and he and I are carrying on. I can now think and talk about Qiqi without crying, but I can’t do that if I see her picture or think about her in...
If you’re trying to learn a language, these are really good questions, and the answers (my answers, anyway) might surprise you. They are not “my” answers, in the sense that I’m not the only one who says this, but I did, however, come up with them independently, as...
I don’t think there’s any question that modern computer technology is indeed a boon to society for the most part. But I also doubt that there is any question that educated people the world over know that statements like that also require hedge phrasing: For the most...
I can’t spend much time on this one. On Wednesday, 31 August 2022, my little kitty, Qiqi, suddenly got very sick. She was breathing strangely, drooling, and was clearly in pain. I rushed her to the hospital with the help of my good friend here, Maia. The vet...
In the summer of 2021, COVID was raising hell around the world. I was never, at any point, all that worried about getting sick; I was worried about the global out-freakage going on about it. I was living in China, and had been on and off (mostly on) for the past 15...
I have been an expat for more than 30 years now. I’m originally from the United States, though at this point that hardly matters. In that time, I’ve played music with bands and recorded and released solo music, I’ve been an English teacher for most of that time, and now I’m doing a blog about all of it.