Thanks Lisa for the awesome Hello Kitty birthday card!


So this Sunday I turn 29. People always tell me I look young for my age, but lately that doesn't seem to be the case. I was in Aomori City yesterday working with Melanie and her supervisor on a video for the upcoming teacher seminar. We were interviewing students about what they thought about how English is taught in their schools. To warm up the students before we began, Melanie asked the students to guess how old I am. There were three groups and the first and second groups both guessed correctly on their first try. In the past, when asked this question people always seemed to guess lower than the true number. Now whenever I ask they guess correctly or even higher! Are my boyish good looks faiding away? The third group actually guessed low, so that made me feel a little better. This only lasted until Melanie explained that these were the low level students left over from before the school improved its academic standards. Good thing that in Japan, no matter how old or fat I get I will always be adored by Japanese women because of my gaijininty.