Starting Fresh

After taking a break from my blog Mande's J-Life, I decided finally to start fresh because I do need a place to write and gather information, but my old blog was holding me back somehow.

Some friends and family members often complained about it or made comments referring to the fact that I often wrote about my personal life. Originally, Mande's J-Life was intended to be a way of keeping in touch with old friends and family members from the USA, and I hoped they would either comment or privately email me keep up our relationship. But, it didn't really pan out like that.

I found that many of my friends back home are not that interested in blogs, do not write their own blogs and do not even seem to like email (or letter-writing, or Xmas card-writing, or phone calling). So, really, you can lead a dog to water, but you can't make him drink. Basically, I rarely heard from most of these friends or family members, and if they were keeping up with my blog, I wouldn't have known about it (except to hear occasional complaints or jokes like "oh, you should blog about that now," whenever something happened.) Well, I am sure some fellow bloggers would understand where I am coming from.

I found that many of my readers were friends or acquaintances and other bloggers living in Japan. Understandable. We all relate to each other since we are in the same boat, so to speak.

This new blog is partly a place for me to stay organized about what I need to be doing or thinking about. It is also a place to comment on my daily life as a working mom, a working housewife, a foreigner in Japan, teacher at a high school, pursuer of various hobbies, and whatever other roles I play in my life! I hope others enjoy reading as much as I enjoy writing.

Here goes!