8 posts tagged “party”
Last night was our 送別会 (soubetsukai, n; farewell party) for the staff members who are retiring and moving to other schools. One of the English teachers that I've really enjoyed teaching with ever since I arrived is moving to a school closer to her home. I'll miss her. Also, the principal is retiring! Some teachers don't like him, but they're speaking from like, work/school administration standpoints. I don't really know anything about the administration and day to day running of the school. I just know that he's always been pretty cool to me, and lets me take my holidays when I want and whatnot. Gave me a birthday present this year too -- the only person here who did. He's alright in my books.
PICTURES.
Wide-angle/close-up shots of one's face tend to exaggerate certain features.
I was SO WRONG. It's got a very mild taste, and it's very soft and luxuriant. It was so nice. Uni is delightful. :}
We ordered a buttload of food at karaoke, and one of the teachers was holding the shared plate of belgian waffles (after everyone had had as much as they wanted) and was eating from it, and the others pointed and were like "AH! GAL SONE!" (gal sone, of course, being that woman who is famous for being able to eat 8 tons of food -- they send her around the world to poor places to eat all the food in sight for the entertainment of people at home, it's horrible). Anyway, I decided to put the Gyaruru song on for this teacher to sing, but when it came on, she's like, "NONO, I HAV ENEVER HEARD IT , IT IS IMPOSSIBLE".
"Boo! Fine, I guess I'll sing it then!"
So then I sang this, and it was terrible.
On a slightly more upbeat note: pictures of drunken fun.
This is Daisuke, whose chief talent is getting me very very drunk.
Tried this pic several times after this one (when the flash was too high from the night before) with a lower flash, but they didn't focus right, and I couldn't be arsed to do it again. Overexposed face is overexposed desu.
Tonight was the city forgetting the year party. It was one of those parties where there are no chairs, but there are tables you are expected to stand around. My leg didn't like that so much.
There was a draw for FABULOUS PRIZES. The 2nd place prize was a bodyscan scale, which tells you how much you weigh, your body fat percentage, basal metabolic rate, and, if you're a woman, when you will ovulate next. The 1st place prize was a Wii with a balance board. I WANTED, SO BAD.
They drew two names when it came time for the 2nd place prize. They looked at them both, and then announced me as the winner of the scale, and then announced the other name they'd pulled at the same time as the winner of the Wii. THAT'S BULLSHIT, IS WHAT THAT IS. You looked at them both, and decided, "Oh, the fat foreign guy needs a scale teheehee". Fuck you. Additionally, fuckos, I (1) already have a fucking bodyscan scale, thank you very fucking much, and (2) the range of weights it can do is much better than this bullshit one you gave me tonight.
So yeah, I was fucked out of a Wii, and instead got a second, useless, redundant scale. So. Pissed. Off. What the fuck am I gonna do with this fucking thing? I can't return it to the store probably, since returning items in Japan, even WITH a receipt is a fool's errand -- trying to do it without a receipt is going to be impossible I think. God, fucking bullshit. To make it worse, every fucking fucko in the fucking hall was like HEY THE FATTY WON A SCALE, HOW GREAT FOR HIM, LET'S GO ENCOURAGE HIM TO LOSE WEIGHT, BECAUSE CLEARLY HE HASN'T BEEN TRYING AT ALL ^_^. Goddammit.
Then we went to a second party at Big Blue with a bunch of people. Met a new person I'd never met before, who's pretty cool, yet I can't remember his name, and I have no idea what department he works in. That's how cool I am.
Went to a ramen place afterwards, just Kawada (who was talking about cock ALL NIGHT LONG, which was kind of offputting), Daisuke, mystery guy (who is apparently half Brazilian, which is apparently VERY IMPORTANT) and me. I had yakisoba and it was yummy. Then we all headed home, since the three of them have work in the morning.
I have pictures of Big Blue onwards, (and video!), but I'm tired and a little drunk soooooo I'll up them tomorrow and share some good ones with y'all.
Now maybe I'll go to bed.
Look, I don't know if y'all like it when I mash a bunch of stuff together in a single post or not. No one gives feedback either way when I try both ways, so I'm just gonna do whatever feels good at the time, which, ultimately, is how I live my entire life, so it's appropriate. Tonight I'm lazy, so everything goes in one post.
First, photos from the 忘年会 (forgetting the year party) last night:
We went to 志げ乃 (Shigeno) for the first party, and of course, Shigeno in winter means sukiyaki! :D
Today was the last day of the term, and I don't go back to work until January 7th. Longest bloody assembly ever, in a super cold auditorium, and one of the teachers went on and on and on at the end of the assembly (thereby keeping us from our warm offices/classrooms even longer) about how VITALLY IMPORTANT it was to NOT LEAVE YOUR UMBRELLA AT SCHOOL OVER THE HOLIDAY. I CANNOT stress THE IMPORTANCE of this ENOUGH. I wanted to off him, I was so fucking cold and angry. To be fair though, I could have just not left the staffroom in the first place this morning, and someone would have popped their head in to say, "Oh! You'll stay here! GUARD THE STAFFROOM," and then I could have stayed warm by fending off the evil... attackers of... staff rooms................... while they froze. But I figured I should make an appearance for some stupid reason.
Anyway, next! New music! Gackt has released a new mini-album-ish-thing, with a bunch of his Gundam-related songs, and a few others. There's a mix of old and new material, but it's quite good. Here's one of the new songs off the thinger, which I quite enjoy.
And finally, today's video, which is also music related. It's the song from the Octopussois episode of Drawn Together. Lalalalalabia baby, you got somethin' for me, up your wizard's sleeve.
Tonight was the farewell party for the leaving staff members. I was under the impression that there were 2 retiring, one technically retiring, but only so he can take up a position at Kansai GaiDai, and 3 being transferred. I arrive at the party, and there's a total of 12, what the FUCK, and lots of people who rock, so now I'm a little sad. :( Also, all the people that I have trained and can work well with in the administration/front office crew (an english speaking VP and two office ladies). I'm a little concerned.
Normally the farewell party starts off with a bunch of speeches, and then ends with a banzai, and then after the second party there's individual banzais as people leave forever. Tonight, there was like, a memorial slide show, they presented mock diplomas to the three retirees (they're graduating from Demachi! moving on to a new part of their lives, etc), and there were no fewer than 4 official banzais before the individual ones.
Then a bunch of us went to karaoke for 4 hours. I sang Age Age Every Knight by DJ Ozma with one of the physed teachers. A math teacher and a home. ec teacher sang Yah Yah Yah by Chage and Aska. I sang Honey Beat with the physed teacher. It just went on and on, and was a lot of fun.
Also, it turns out Asada-sensei can sing pretty well. Also, she can make a perfect 'er' sound, which is hard to find among my ENGLISH teachers, let alone my non-English teachers who claim they can't speak English. Too bad she's going away.
K, it's 2:40 AM, and I really need to get to bed.
I got home late, ended up talking on the phone to people from home for half an hour, and then around midnight started tagging and renaming and rotating photos. Just finished, and they're all up on Flickr now. I'll write about it when I get some time. For now? It's bedtime.
Tonight we had an enkai, a drinking party, to show appreciation for our 3rd Grade teachers who have been busy these past few weeks running around to several high schools to do things related to getting our students into them, and also filling out 293423432 forms on their behalf. Works for me, I don't need much of a reason to drink and eat good food.
We went to MinMin, a local Chinese food restaurant. I don't go there often, but I always look forward to going because (1) I love Chinese food and (2) MinMin has really good food. Started off with some sort of julienned meat and cucumber with a sauce, and then out came the egg-and-seafood thing followed by the greens-leeks-snowpeas-and-pork yumminess. Dericias. :) Then came the chili shrimp and the ramen and stuff, and there was a lot of beer, and wandering around, but for the most part it wasn't worth talking about. It was normal. It was fun enough; I talked with the science teacher about music and movies and literature -- he suggested I read a book by Sei Shonagon (or something like that... I'd heard of her, but not her book), and he asked me about Canadian authors. I whipped out the Timothy Findley, the Margaret Atwood, the Pierre Burton, and the Farley Mowat... I didn't play up the Burton and the Mowat because I haven't read any of either author, and also the Sea Shepherd ship which has been attacking Japanese whalers in the Antarctic is the Pirate Vessel Farley Mowat, soooooooo... -_-
In 2 weeks, just before graduation, we'll have an assembly to say goodbye to the third graders. Students and teachers will perform various acts, and it's always entertaining. I wanted to take part, because I've taught these kids for almost their entire time in junior high school (like, 3 years less 4 months), but I didn't know who to ask, and I knew most people would just give me the, "Hmm, it is difficult, because you are not Japanese and do not understand Japanese," excuse. However, two weeks ago the yearbook committee had me do a survey (along with the rest of the teachers) that asked us our favourite song and why.
I chose Kaze Ni Naritai by THE BOOM, just because it's a Japanese song that they'd know (and I do like it). The science teacher in question saw this, and finally worked up his nerve to ask me if I wanted to sing it in the assembly while he accompanied me on guitar. It'll be difficult, and I can't sing worth shit, but I'll do it. My first clear memory of the graduating class is actually at school festival, two months after I started teaching them, when I sang with a band in the courtyard at the school. The band was made up of kids who were third graders then (and will be finishing high school next year), but the kids who are graduating this year were little first graders, and were so excited when I sang. Singing again will sort of tie it together in a sappy poetic manner. :)
Anyway, dessert came, and it was this delicious banana split thinger, and I ate it up and was happy. Then I sat around a while waiting for the other teachers to head to the second party, but they wanted to chill at the restaurant for a while longer and bitch about the VP and about how hard it is to work at our school compared to normal schools. We finally left, and were going to go to an izakaya (that's a small bar) near the station, but all the ones we were going to go to were full. We ended up going to Big Blue Diner, as it was the only one with open seats, and it's the default anyway. I bought Canadian Club and Coke for me and Minoguchi-sensei and Furumura-sensei, because they said they liked whiskey, and I've been exhorting the virtues of CC forever. Too bad the girl making them tonight was making them weak and adding too much lemon, unlike the girl making them last week who made them strong and exactly like I would have made them. We drank those and the teachers talked a lot, and I talked a bit with Yumiko and Mr. Minoguchi about random stuff. They found out I travel a lot, and I usually go alone, and apparently that makes me very brave. (shrug) Conversation with me started to die off, and I was getting bored, so I decided I'd liven things up a bit for myself by getting a Depth Charge, aka, beer with a flaming shot of high-proof vodka dropped in, then you chug it. Minoguchi decided to try it too, but it was a bit too much for him. Later, he tried to get Tsujii to drink one, and that failed outright.
He also ordered onion rings and french fries for our table of people. After the fries had been at the table for a while, the waiter whipped out THE BIGGEST BOTTLE OF KETCHUP I HAVE EVER FUCKING SEEN. It was HUGE. It's arrival was met with a flurry of, "Wow, it's big!!" from around the group. I then had various people pose with the bottle while I took pictures with my shitty cell phone. I was reading the label afterwards, and it's like TWIN PACK! 8 POUNDS OF KETCHUP.
WHAT. SRSLY? UM OK.
Also, witness the healing powers of LYCOPENE!!
Things eventually broke up there and some of us went to a third party. It was okay for a little bit but after being there for half an hour I got sleepy, and I didn't want to drink anymore, and I'd already filled my face with more than enough food (and the mystery eggs weren't appetizing in the least), so I was eventually reduced to watching sports on TV and ogling the cute waiter. At some point, I decided I should use my time wisely and send my photos to my e-mail so they'd be here waiting when I arrived home. Then they were talking about stuff that I couldn't understand, and it seemed clear that they were moving into another hour of talking about work when we should be relaxing, and so I took my leave of them. Now I'm here writing this. :)
Okay, now to add pictures and music, and then I'm totally going to bed.
