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Recently, I saw a story about a female teacher who took a day off work to attend her son’s entrance ceremony at a different school.

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Thanks for all your comments. Both of these are difficult topics, but I hope that more and more Japanese people will become aware of them and start pushing for change.

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Some of you probably noticed that there have been two big news stories in Japan recently relating to topics we have discussed on this blog.

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As you all know, consumption tax will go up tomorrow from 5% to 8%. I read a story this morning about how everyone was out shopping at the weekend in a rush to stock up.<!–more–> Speaking from my own experience,…

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Thanks for all your comments last week. I went to the neighbourhood council meeting last night and introduced myself. I have told them that I will probably join, but that I need a bit of time to think about it…

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Thanks for all your comments. I noticed, however, that we are starting to get lots of really long comments again. Please try to keep your comments as short as possible so that lower-level English learners will not be scared to…

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Thank you all for your kind messages. I am now living in my new house. It is very messy, and there is still a lot that needs to be done, but I’m enjoying the central heating.

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[wpaudio url=”https://www.btbpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Password123.mp3″ text=”Click to listen”] From time to time, surveys are conducted in the UK to find out how seriously people take Internet security. The results are usually shocking.

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[wpaudio url=”https://www.btbpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Sochi-2014.mp3″ text=”Click to listen”] Sorry I didn’t have time to do an entry last week. Things are really crazy at the moment because the new house is almost ready, but there are still lots of things that need to…

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Thanks for all your input. The blog is much easier for me to read now that all the comments are relatively short, and it’s nice to see more and more people contributing to the discussion.

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[wpaudio url=”https://www.btbpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/The-Old-Boys-Network.mp3″ text=”Click to listen”] Last weekend, the people of Tokyo went to the polls to choose a new governor. Actually, most of them didn’t bother going at all, but that is a different topic.

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Thanks for all your comments. It was really nice to see comments both from new people and from others who we haven’t heard from for a while.

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[wpaudio url=”https://www.btbpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Tattoos.mp3″ text=”Click to listen”] This week, I would like to try an experiment. These days, a lot of very high-level English speakers comment on this blog, which is great, but I sometimes worry that lower-level learners will be a…

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Thanks for all your comments on this very difficult topic. As I said, I had a suspicion that most Japanese people were not aware of how much of a stir this story causes in other countries, so I’m glad I…

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[wpaudio url=”https://www.btbpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Taiji-Dolphins.mp3″ text=”Click to listen”] We have already talked about the international objections to Japan’s whaling program, but over the last couple of weeks, another issue has been grabbing headlines around the world. This is the story of the dolphin…

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