The Ottawan Hamster is older than most, He lives in the city but was born on the coast; His stalk is as tall as an elephant’s eye The elephant in question being the size of a fly; He’s green as a daisy and round like a brick, If you look at his teeth,…
The HAJET book club met on Sunday September 4th to discuss our first book of the year, Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls by David Sedaris. This book is actually a group of essays,mostly from the point of view from the author and inspired by his own life. It was interesting that a few…
Last night, I had a dream we flew Pacific Northwest again. But we never can. I suppose I should introduce myself, but I won’t; suffice to say, you’d probably pronounce my name wrong. Certainly they did when I first boarded that plane, all those years ago: “Hello, Miss” an incomprehensible murmur. Nowadays, I would…
The Bienvenant is one of the more modern species of ghosts, and possibly the first I ever personally encountered. They are largely benevolent, existing mostly to put at ease newcomers to their haunt. When I was twenty three, I moved to the city of Edinburgh and was welcomed by a downpour the likes…
I’ve done a few programmes like JET now; stuff where you’re in an unfamiliar environment, working in exotic locales (or, at least, more exotic than where you’d normally be) and generally away from the life you knew for quite a long period of time. Inevitably, people get misty-eyed and want to return. I always tell…
She took her shears from his hands, wiped the traces of dirt off the handle, and carefully put them down on the grass behind her. She lifted a broken piece of wood from out of her tomato patch, and carefully drew out two characters next to they boy’s name: å¤å±± “I am Furuyama-san….
I’ve been travelling a lot recently, and I had an epiphany at 3.00 am yesterday (or 11.00 am, depending which time zone you want to use), while into the 23rd hour of a 28-hour trip. The world is actually that little animatic map you get on planes. You know, the strange Windows 95-era rendering of…
Despite being accident prone for most of my life, I have done an astounding job of avoiding hospital stays. While I may have had a brief brush with the emergency ward after breaking my collarbone at age five I have never actually had to do an overnight stay. Until now that is. Still making it…
Honestly, I am excited to the core, however, having an unfurnished apartment was both horrifying and daunting! Thankfully though, my Kocho-sensei and his family decided to host me for a couple of days so I could get all my things ready in my apartment. As I began to look at all the costs of…