Word Hunters: Left, Right and Off-Center

John Dix, legendary potter and long-time resident of Japan, shares some experiences from his childhood and talks about his travels and career. Topics discussed include his background, growing up in Michigan, exploring the path of ceramics, working in Greece and Israel, living and working in different countries, building a studio and planning for a fall workshop, shifting focus to teaching and gaining international recognition, and the speaker's unique approach to pottery making.

In this episode, Brent shares his experiences and adventures (and misadventures) about his trip to Iceland. He talks about his journey, his presentation at the conference, and other topics. 

In this episode, Brent speaks with Jökull, born and raised in Iceland. He talks about his background growing up in Iceland, including interesting insights about the Icelandic education system. He also talks about his passion--working in the theatre-- as well as his work as a tour guide in the capital, Reykjavik.  Show notes can be found on our BLOG.

Angus McGregor has lived and worked in Japan since 1990 and is currently based in Kyoto. He is an Associate Professor in the Department of Global Studies at Kyoto University of Foreign Studies and still works with students at Kyoto Gaidai Nishi High School where he taught for many years. Major features of his department are the teaching of global and social issues through English and involvement in community engagement activities. In this episode he talks about his background, shares his experiences working with students in Japan, as well as his involvement in TEDx Kyoto. Links to information on topics covered can be found HERE.

Atsushi has the distinction of being our first repeater, as this is the second time he has been on the podcast. He is a university student and world traveler, aspiring journalist, and an one of the most interesting students we have met in Japan (see episode #10 for his background and early travel experience). In this episode, he talks about his recent travels to Turkey, where he visited the site of the recent earthquake;  and he reports on his travels to Ukraine, where he interviewed citizens and made a short documentary for his  Youtube channel --World Windowz - YouTube.  Links to further information for some of the topics can be found HERE.

In this episode, we spoke to Amy Shapiro,  originally from New York, but a long-time expat in Japan.  Amy has been teaching in Japan for more than 30 years and is currently promoting Kobe through the Kobe Ambassador Program. She shares some interesting stories from her childhood and talks about her experiences of living and working in Japan. We hope you enjoy it. Show notes can be found HERE.

John Rucynski is an educator, writer, editor, cyclist, hiker and baseball enthusiast, not necessarily in that order. In this episode, John shares some stories about his background, world travels, teaching and writing/editing. He is currently an Associate Professor in the Center for Liberal Arts and Language Education at Okayama University, and his main research interest is the role of humor in foreign language acquisition and intercultural communication. Show notes for this episode can be found HERE.

Gary Ross has been developing, programming, and designing online educational systems for over 15 years. He has taught at KIDI Parsons (the Japan affiliate of Parsons School of Design, NYC), and ran his own web design company. He is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Kanazawa University, where he is developing the online ESL program as well as being the former webmaster for the CALL-SIG of the Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT). His focus is on usability and the integration of mobile into the classroom. Show notes/links can be found HERE.

Rica Bradshaw is the founder and Managing Director of Core Eight, a real estate agency located in Kobe with luxury property listings throughout Japan. Through her work in Japan, Malaysia and the U.K. in fashion and as an apprentice to a Japanese landscape architect, she well understands the importance and impact of design on a space; how the spiritual elements in traditional Japanese design and craftsmanship and the style and personality in contemporary urban design alone or fused together can create an inviting ambiance and enhance the human experience! Topics discussed in this episode can be explored further via links in our show notes.

Trevor Raichura is a university lecturer by day, and one of Kansai's biggest Hanshin Tigers fans by night. He hails from Canada but has been in Japan for nearly half his life. He lives in Nishinomiya, Japan with his wife and two sons. His obsession with the Tigers has drawn attention from local newspapers and television, and has helped establish him as one of the English-speaking experts on Japanese baseball. Some of the topics covered can be explored further via show notes HERE.