What Is Andrej Working On?
The title of this blog, right now, is "Andrej Is Still Working On It." And that's a working title. I'm still working on the title.
I figured my first post might as well be a catalogue of all the projects I've embroiled myself into. I suppose this will be updated as time goes by and as I accumulate more stuff I'd like to be working on. So this post is also something to work on.
Currently Working On (Academic)
- A paper on creative agency and using AI to make art
- A follow-up article on creative agency and AI
- A paper on creating podcasts and how students react to that (thematic coding)
- A paper on teaching media bias in a CLIL/EFL setting
- A paper on media journals for a media literacy class
- A paper on self-access/SDL reflection activities integrated within classrooms
- A book chapter on distributed leadership and teacher agency
- A research project on different tools for students to practice extensive free writing
- Producing a listening-focused education podcast (editing, interviewing, recording)
- A free course on advising for language learning
- Designing a mandatory Continuing Professional Development (CPD) program for my university
- Considering writing a paper on the design of that CPD program
- Considering a PhD by publication
Currently Working On (Other)
- This blog. It's not supposed to be just work-related, in spite of its title.
- Raising a trilingual kid in Japan
- Maintaining my Spanish
- Maintaining my Japanese
- Getting back into art. I have an art minor, you know. I used to go around with my huge poster-sized newsprint pads and sketch classmates' faces. And I was a ceramics badass, according to some. Recently I thought, huh, what happened to my hobbies? So I'm still working on getting back into this.
- Figuring out where the next few years will be
- Getting back into reading fiction
- Writing every day
- Watching my diet
- Cooking in bulk
- Battling weeds in my small garden with ground cover plants
- Supporting my wife's social media
- Pokémon Go, I guess. Half-heartedly.
No Longer Working On
- A 100% Spanish-language podcast. My podcasting partner and I just have wildly divergent schedules and obligations. I'd start this up again if I could ever find anyone else interested in it.
- Running the social media of my university's department. That was fun for a year, but the second and third became less exciting.
- Collecting the Pokémon games. I'm over it, after all these years.
- I was going to make my Instagram into an eating-reviewing kind of thing. But I don't actually want to go everywhere and try everything.
My best friend back home used to say I loved being busy. I can't deny it anymore.
But it does feel a little more overwhelming now that I'm a parent. At least we've just got the one. It's hobby parenting, according to some.
My goal for this blog is to have a little outlet for myself, mostly. Maybe I dream of promoting some of what I'm doing, although this little tiny platform is made for reading, not content creating.
My previous blogs ran their course. One of them got a little popular — nothing like my wife's stuff, though. Anyway, let's see what working on this little thing can bring. If it just makes me a little bit happier, it'll be worth it.
This is 2026. This is Japan in a foreigner-unfriendly time. A little happiness is something we can all use.