GEOS, one of the many eikaiwa schools in Japan that teach kids how to speak English, is in the headlines. The company runs a number of profitable businesses overseas, notably in Australia, where many Japanese will go to visit or study abroad. Well, their Australian branch, which has been a profitable enterprise, was suddenly shuttered, leaving thousands of students without classes or refunds.

The president of GEOS says that the problem was due to the management within Australia, and has nothing to do with the rest of the company, which is doing just fine. Of course, they won't answer peoples' calls and are hiding in their building, which raises more than a few eyebrows.

Like NOVA before it, GEOS seems to be hitting some seriously hard financial times, draining all the money from its outstretched entities in order to keep the company alive. Which, if that's the case, means that the company is entering its death throes, and will likely leave a lot of foreigners out of work.

With what appears to be a massive scaleback of the eikaiwa business, I'm beginning to wonder what other ways there are to enter into Japan? For the longest time, this has seemed to be just about the only way to get there. Now that it's disappearing, I would hope that some new avenue would show itself, but I feel like it won't.