I've had to taper down from or suddenly stop a number of medications now. Each medication is very different in the tapering and withdrawal effects (or lack thereof), and each time it seems to get harder.

Having moved overseas, now twice, I get asked a lot of questions from my language students, mostly about why I decided to move, how I organized the move, what things I miss from my home town.

This is my true story of how a bookworm and budding fiction writer stopped reading and was shocked at how it affected and stunted her writing.

Being understandable is a good thing, even if your academic supervisors criticise you for it.

I had a lot of non-working downtime in which to recover from the operation and seek out answers for other problems that flared. Which meant I was able to finish many a project last year.

A new lengthy investigation was triggered by an injury from a bad wrist position my wrist during my hysterectomy, last February, resulted in a new diagnosis of an autoimmune disease - undifferentiated sponyloarthritis.

Successful people, happy people, entrepreneurs and creatives write every day. Here's why it helps.

If you are like me, your language learning motivation waxes and wanes, with the weather, with a changing daily workload and social appointments, and with tiredness and stress. These are some tricks I've learned help keep up motivation and progress.

Have you found yourself stuck with boring textbooks? Audio courses? Apps? What things turn you off language learning?

Homework is not just for textbook classes. Drilling new vocabulary and grammar, and writing help conversation skills enormously.