Nanjing

To My Sister

I couldn’t be prouder of my sister, she has gone off to the Lebanon to volunteer in a refugee camp for two months. It’s not even the first time she’s done something like this. She has such a large heart. It’s always been hard to think of her as a younger sibling. She’s so together, […]

Cillians Crossword 2017 results

Crossword17Results

Cillian’s Crossword 2017

So this is something I posted last year back when I worked really hard to have something posted on this every week. Really I should have thrown this up a few months ago. It’s a crossword I make each year for my mother’s birthday. I think controlling them here will make for an interesting experiment […]

My Earliest Memories

I teach some pretty young children. Five, even four years old. And I can’t help but wonder, how clearly will they remember their time with me? And that in turn gets me thinking of my own memories for that period of my life. I have little trouble envisioning locations I’ve been to in my mind […]

And Suddenly Hitting Children Was Frowned Upon

The developed world has gone through a major shift in opinion in a very short amount of time. Just one generation ago, in my parents time, hitting children to discipline them was considered perfectly fine and was actually encouraged. Now it’s deemed as abusive a wholly immoral. The more cynical among you dissatisfied with the […]

The Strangest Thing I’ve Ever Eaten

Since coming to China I’ve been asked on occasion what the weirdest thing I’ve eaten is. So far my stock answer has been Jellyfish, something I tried when I was staying in Shanghai during the first week (it was actually quite bland. Not revolting but also not something I have any desire to try again). […]

Doctor Who and his companions

So I’ve just seen the Doctor Who Christmas special. They went for a bit more of comedic thing this year. T’was mildly entertaining, not the best thing they’ve produced but far from the worst. The interesting thing however is that Matt Lucas was hanging out with the Doctor. He didn’t really do a whole lot. […]

Teachers are a lot like Kings

On the bus to work this morning two pieces of advice I’ve heard in the past randomly floated through my mind. “It is better to be feared than loved” (or something to that effect) and “Don’t smile until the third term.” The first is from the book The Prince by Machiavelli and it’s, somewhat unfairly […]

Humans are Natural

I’ve just finished watching Planet Earth II, David Attenborough’s newest documentary series. And it was really, really good. They showed off some seriously cool animals doing really interesting things using top of the range cameras. Definitely worth checking out. Has my top recommendation. It consists of just six episodes, each focusing on a different biome. […]