American Anne Thomas has been teaching English in Sendai for a decade. These are edited extracts of an email she sent to family and friends this week to let them know she was alive and a blog entry she wrote.

AS SOMEONE working in Arnhem Land before the federal government's intervention, Sinem Saban said she found its focus on paedophilia and abuse didn't match "the reality on the ground".

LOST BOY By Brent W. Jeffs Bantam, 242pp, $34.95 HOW WE LIVE AND WHY WE DIE By Lewis Wolpert Faber & Faber, 240pp, $39.99 LANCE ARMSTRONG By John Wilcockson John Murray, 383pp, $35 THE MOTHER OF MOHAMMED By Sally Neighbour Melbourne University Press, 358pp, $34.99

It is sad to see Julia Gillard giving public backing to the ill-conceived decision of the Northern Territory Education Minister, Marion Scrymgour, to institute something close to an "English-only" program in the territory's schools that have "two-way" programs using indigenous language as well as English.

Your native tongue could be your passport to a world of adventure. CAREER choice can take an individual well outside the region in which they have been born and raised  and even outside their homeland.