Giant Kite Battles (madting)

Japan is now in the midst of summer, which means clinging to the door of the air conditioned staffroom with both arms before you’re dragged to teach in class where only 2 ceiling fans can save you from the 30+ degree heat. It also means the return of putting binbags of food in the freezer […]

Australia with the broskis

After several pleas from Dad, perhaps one of few readers out there apart from other immediate family members, I’m finally writing another blog post. There have been multiple attempts, but having found my writing style to be unbearably cringy they all got saved straight to drafts. I’m gonna try and write something without deleting every […]

Grass is greener

To set the scene for this post, I’m currently sat at home on a Saturday night eating Nutella out of a jar. I’m in the midst of culture shock, predictably, and have been spending more evenings than I would like to admit crying over episodes of Educating Greater Manchester whilst drinking red wine, eating cheese […]

An education in Japanese culture

It has now been one month since I arrived in Japan. Following my first paycheck my apartment now reflects a somewhat organised life: there’s a rice cooker, plant pot and a bin which helps me sort the 9 different types of rubbish there are here. Everyone in my apartment block definitely now knows a foreigner […]

Why I might actually miss England a little bit

Only 4 more sleeps until I will be heading to Japan. The past few weeks have been spent enjoying time with friends and family: I’ve eaten more bread and cheese than I could ever have dreamed of in the South of France, explored Brixton for the first time, bought even more cheese (potential addiction forming?) […]

Defying anxiety (a.k.a being anxious as anything but living your best life despite it)

Today marks 33 days until I move to Japan to teach English for at least 1 year as part of the JET Progamme. The JET Programme’s main aim is ‘grass-roots internationalisation’ – that is, sharing my culture with Japanese students at a local, accessible level. I will be an Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) alongside a […]