Out with the old, in with the new
After 20 years of increasingly sporadic posts on LongCountdown.com, it's time to put that hunking old beast of a Wordpress blog to bed, and start fresh on my own private CMS, which I affectionately call Kiyora. More on the technical details another time.
A happy new year
It's become tradition for me to reflect on the year gone and state my intentions for the next one. Rarely do my plans pan out as I hope, but you've gotta keep trying, right?
2025 was supposed to be the year I took it easy and stopped worrying about money. I was going to go with the flow and take things as they come. To some degree, I did. I was surprised though that so many of my students continued to come to my school. The problem was, group classes got smaller and private lessons increased, so I found myself doing 25 lesson weeks, which is quite exhausting for a now 50-year old man like me.
2026 is likely to be the opposite. Most of my students are older - grades 4~6, Junior High and High School, and they might well leave in droves come April. Some of the newly found private students have already dropped off, and for the first time since starting my school, I'm not planning to open a new elementary grade 1 class. I'm really struggling to teach small children these days.
A bleak outlook for 'English Conversation' schools
It's clear to me that I don't have much of a future in English teaching. The landscape has changed dramatically over the years, with the bulk of Eikaiwa being made up of kindergarten and elementary school students. Adults have by and large moved on to online lessons or apps, and older kids are studying English as part of a package deal at cram schools.
That's not to say I'll stop teaching. There will always be some people who prefer in-person lessons with a native teacher. I just need to supplement those lessons with another source of income, and unlike when I tried to be YouTube famous, this time I need to do something away from English teaching.
The career pivot
It was Google's AI chatbot, Gemini, that first planted the seed, suggesting I do online consulting in IT. Given that I have an education in Computer Science, helping small businesses transition from Excel spreadsheets to the increasingly popular service Airtable seemed like a good idea.
After a couple of weeks with Airtable, I decided the "Low Code / No Code" approach wasn't really for me. In fact, even though I'm not a good programmer, I'd much rather be buried in lines of code than work with a user interface full of mysteriou buttons.
That's when Gemini came up with the role of "Automated Business Tools Consultant". Instead of competing with Airtable "specialists", of which there are many, I would instead build custom admin panels and databases for small and medium-sized businesses that would replace their growing pile of old-fashioned spreadsheets.
To do this, I would take a "High Code" approach, acting as project manager and using AI to generate the necessary code. Sounds crazy, but this is the future. I'm competent enough to understand the code, and experienced enough to put it all together so that it works.
I've even started a dedicated blog to record my progress as I learn this new trade. See Nick Builds.
Other things
My son starts university this year. He'll take his exams soon to determine where he can go, so it's a big year for him.
My back pain has improved quite a bit since I gave up yoga. Ironic I know, but in my case an inactive lifestyle seems to be a pain-free one! Let's hope I don't get fat!
Finally, I'm continuing to learn Chinese. I've watched over 40 dramas and still take lessons at the Community College. It's slow going, but I can see the improvement happening.
No comments
I didn't build a comment feature into Kiyora. These days, blogging is more like writing a diary, something you do for yourself. Let's leave the social stuff on social media instead.