It’s been a while since I’ve had a chance to sit down and knock out a few hundred words for this here blog. With good reason though as I’ve been rushing to and fro in my quest to obtain a visa extension for give me another few years in Japan as my original visa is about to reach the end of its usefulness.
One thing I always get asked is why I chose to come to Japan and my usual answer is that I came here because I wanted to try my hand at teaching and because I have an appreciation of Japanese history and culture. The truth is that is only part of the why I really ended up living here.
So hot on the heels of my last post about the viability of streaming for the games industry in which I remarked on the popularity of Twitch it has now been rumored that YouTube is looking to buy Twitch for a cool $1 billion.
With PC gamers long having had multiple ways to capture and stream gaming footage it’s still taken a rather long time for streaming to become popular, but recently sites such as Twitch and Ustream have seen surges with the availability of capture devices such as the Elgato Game Capture HD.
The end of April and the start of May in Japan is always the best no matter what your job or where you are. It’s a glorious period know as Golden Week, which is the Japanese equivalent of Easter holidays in the there’s a slew of national holidays that see all and sundry take to the roads and the sky on their way to a week-long vacation.
Spring in Japan is one of the most beautiful seasons anywhere in the world. Every street and park is filled with cherry blossom trees in full bloom and families and groups of office workers eating and drinking under the trees.
A few years back if you’d asked me if there was any chance of me becoming a regular jogger I’d have probably died from laughter. Fast forward to now though and most days after I get home from school I strap on pair of trainers and take to the roads winding through the rice fields near my apartment.
I jumped on the Kickstarter bandwagon at the same time as most other people, with the news that Tim & Co. at Double Fine were going to head back to the classic Lucasarts formula of laughs and puzzles with their Double Fine Adventure.
So after all the movement of teachers and students during the end of March and the start of April it’s finally gotten a bit more settled at school with only the final welcome enkai later today remaining before the new school year starts in full earnest with the official opening ceremony.
With the end on March finally here the school year is now officially over and us teachers have to get ready for a new group of students to arrive and try our best to make sure that they can cope with their school lives and start their journey to university and an eventual career in whatever field they choose.