The Monday Read: Shikoku Calling
All work and no play makes Ben… It’s my 20-year wedding anniversary this year. We had a ridiculous trip to NYC and Iguazu Falls for our 10-year anniversary, and were planning an even bigger trip for this year but… life got in the way. Rather than a Star Alliance round the world ticket in business […]
The Monday Read: Back to Work
For everything a season This Golden Week has been wonderful. We’re kind of used to them now, so we planned things in order to completely avoid crowds. And it worked: Stayed at some cabins run by a town near Sendai on the evening of the 29th (next day was not holiday, so it turned out […]
The Monday Read: Swimming Upstream?
When life is hard, keep going This week I published a quick blog post on a topic I have been thinking about for a while. For a laugh I gave it a clickbaity controversial title, and of course it has become the most successful post I have ever made on social media, getting hundreds of […]
The Monday Read: Golden Week approaching
The longer I live here the more I appreciate Golden Week For anyone on the Japanese annual schedule (year starts in April), these first four weeks are exhausting. So the gods (or previous Japanese governments, I guess) have given us Golden Week to make up for it. It is perfectly timed, arriving majestically just at […]
The Monday Read: Take a deep breath
Halfway to Golden Week Today was glorious in Sendai. Wonderful weather, warm, cherry blossoms are still out. Went to jiu-jitsu in the morning and had an okonomiyaki party at the in-laws’ in the afternoon. We’re halfway to Golden Week. These first couple of weeks of the year are always brutal (classes at my wife’s school […]
The Monday Read: Full-time work and RetireJapan
There are only so many hours in the day Had my first week of full-time employment, and I drastically underestimated how exhausting and time-consuming that would be. Despite my best intentions, I was not able to publish a new blog post, nor upload a new YouTube video. Now, some of that was due to the […]
The Monday Read: happy new year
New year, new you? The new year in Japan starts in April. January to March is just the tail end of the previous year, so it doesn’t have to count. How is 2024年度 shaping up for you? Any exciting projects on the horizon? RetireJapan TV The next episode of RJTV will be on April 15th […]
The Monday Read: Last week of the year
Starting the year in April I have kind of grown to like the rhythm of the years in Japan. Starting everything in April seems right now. Accordingly, this is the last week of the 2023 academic and work year. People are finishing up jobs and graduating from schools. Next week they will be starting new […]
The Monday Read: Mission Accomplished
Finishing a big job We finished the latest cohort of our flagship course, Your First Ten Million Yen, today. Had a wonderful group of participants and the new flipped format of the course was really enjoyable to teach. I can’t believe it is over. (sign up for news about the next one here) I need […]
The Monday Read: It’s okay to take time off too
Sometimes the best thing we can do is recover I have been much more active recently. That is largely a good thing, but today I hit a wall. I went to jiu-jitsu practice on Friday and Saturday, then went snowboarding today on Sunday. It was too much. I felt exhausted, with no energy. I pushed […]