Hello Everyone!!! I have been thinking of some things to post and I really wanted to share how I am learning to survive in Japan. Yes, I may have a little bit of Nihongo under my belt but not nearly enough to understand everything that goes on around me. And so I came up with this!!! Silak's JST (Japan Survival Tips) series This will be basically short posts on practical tips and tricks I've picked up along the way. I will be sharing stuff that I learned and am still doing that makes my life so much easier. This will be anything and everything under the sun from post rescheduling, inquiries, groceries, and many, many more! And, good news to the introverts out there like me that want to minimize their human contact as much as possible, these, are going to help you a lot! (As much as possible I do most of my stuff online and I only call if, and when I really need to.) I will try to make the posts as educational as possible with as many picture illustrations as I

Happy Sunday Minasan!!! The weather is slowly cranking up and it's getting more and more difficult to step out especially when you don't have a car and will have to walk to destinations. The dangers of heatstroke are real people! So today I want to talk a little bit about my life as an ALT in Japan. What is an ALT? Time and again, people from outside Japan would ask me: "What work do you do there?", to which I reply, "I'm an ALT." Wait, what? To people who have been interested in Japan as I had been before coming here, you would know that ALT stands for Assistant Language Teacher. Now, this takes different meanings as well depending on where you're teaching and I will discuss the role in detail in a Junior High School perspective as this is where I am assigned. I am basically an assistant to a Japanese Teacher of English.  I will try and get Jerome, Richard, and Leizel to talk about their experience in the Elementary school front so we

Okay. 3 years ago, I turned 30 and didn't really care much for skin regimens. Frankly speaking, I hate having to slap on creams and do face massage and all those stuff. I'm not a big fan of beauty rituals. I can do makeup. On my face that is. I can do a decent wing with liquid eyeliner, but basically, facial care, NADA. Thankfully enough I was born with Chinese blood and genetics blessed me with a low maintenance type of skin. I occasionally break out, but never really severe. My skin looks naturally tight (till recently, turns out being neglectful of your skin does eventually show). But genetics can only get you so far. Da da daaaaaan... (I wish I could do sound effects, but unfortunately I can't so please indulge me and do the sound effects yourself either inside your head or out loud). I was looking in the mirror, and there it was. I knew that one day this day would eventually come... FINE LINES!!! Okay, I'm not that vain and the lines weren't that

みんな、お久しぶり！ Long time no see everyone! Okay, so I know I keep promising to update more, but despite all the time I have, I can't seem to get into my blogging groove. But I guess I can churn at least 1 post a week. I will most certainly try. So, I can't even remember what my last post was. Hahaha! But lemme catch you up with my current status. Before December 2017  The first time I took the test was back in July 2017 for the N4 level which I passed due to diligently studying for exams and memorizing kanji every down time I get even if it's just for 3 mins. So N4 was easy for me, but since then, everything went downhill. I was lucky enough to score plane tickets on sale and went home for a couple of weeks during summer vacation. When I got back, I was really tired of going to school everyday. It was so boring and I got caught up in a game on my smartphone. In short, I was barely studying if at all. Before we knew it, it was December and we needed to take the

Wow... took me a whole year to write the sequel to my winter survival tips article . Last year, I and my colleagues experienced our first-ever winter in Japan and it was a real challenge. When this year's winter rolled around, we were a bit more prepared than before. Compared to last year's winter, this winter is definitely colder. Last year we had exactly one snow day that lasted about half a day. This year, we had a snow day where the white landscape lasted for a week and a half. After this episode, we had several more snow days and it was really nice but annoying. (Snow looks really nice and all, but I really hate it.) So as promised I am giving several tips for keeping your room warm in the winter. Tip #1 Mind the Flooring Insulating the floor is one of the first steps in keeping your room warm. If you have your space heater on and warming the place everything is moot if the floor is not insulated. So if your room is not lined with tatami, you can consider going