Some of you might know that I’ve started making YouTube videos. Yes, specifically YouTube. I haven’t really embraced this nor do I have any ambition of making (to make?) this a job. It’s more of a hobby, with an idea in my mind of maybe coming up...
I actually saw that in a photo. My first reaction was to laugh. It IS pretty funny. Yeah, a lot of ignorant people seem to be marching in favor of Palestine, clearly with no idea what the geopolitical situation is about. Not that I have a...
The picture of Mickey Mouse has nothing to do with this post. I just like that it’s in the public domain. I just did another standup gig this evening. It was OK, but this time I was a little nervous. More so than usual, that is. The problem...
When I talk, I usually (though certainly not always) use words, as ya do. Somehow, it gets me in trouble with other Americans. This is why I avoid talking to them. Not that that is very hard to do; Americans don’t travel much, at least not outside of...
Considering how many years I have been living abroad, and how many countries I’ve lived in, it should come as no surprise that I have been acquainted with more than a few expat communities. No matter what country/city I’ve found myself in, there have been a fair few...
I’m from the United States, and I’d heard of them as a kid. I remember wondering why we didn’t have them there. I even once asked my mom about it, and she didn’t seem to know what I was talking about. Instead of just shrugging and letting it go, I...
As I reckon y’all know by now, I’m an online tutor, and as such, I I rely on technology to do my job. Without my computer and internet connection, not to mention my smartphone, I wouldn’t be able to connect with my students. That said, as a small business owner,...
I was just looking at some social media posts, and one struck me as almost impossibly naïve. A little more than a year ago, I wouldn’t have put “almost” in that sentence, but back then, I lived in China, a country ruled by an authoritarian regime; a nanny...
I'm still thinking about getting back to the Americas. (I say “still” though I don’t know if anyone reading this ever knew that was on the table in the first place.)(Actually, I shouldn’t talk out loud about these ideas. Evidently, I tend to come up with...
Well, except for this introduction. One of my students introduced me to ChatGPT (https://chat.openai.com/chat) with the artwork created by DALL-E (https://labs.openai.com/e/qsqis4bGLAOZyQnoLDQh7yOK). This is….very weird: Hello, my name is Assistant and I...
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.