I figured I'd post now since I'm worried I'll forget some things after my trip to Naoshima. I had my last week at school and the Board of Education goodbye party. I'll be flying home in less than two weeks and it feels real now that I'll be leaving.
On Monday I met up with Caol, Shinki, and Kikumi for dinner. We went to a yakiniku place we often go. The owner was sad to hear I was leaving, but gave us some extra food as a goodbye present. After dinner we sang two hours or karaoke before saying goodbye to Caol. I went with Kikumi and Shinki to one more place before calling it a night. Tuesday I met Megan for an after dinner coffee so we could gossip about all the new things revealed at SDCC. Wednesday was the goodbye party for the BoE. We went to a nice restaurant in Kokura and I sat with Leah and some of the higher-ups. We all had to make speeches that mostly turned tearful, but it was a great night. I got a few gifts from the BoE, but the one from the other JETs was my favorite. They just bought a message card and everyone wrote a message around all these pictures of us from over the last two years. It was really touching and I couldn't have been happier. My favorite moment, though, was talking to one of the BoE employees about my new math teaching position and he told me he remembered my math lesson from English camp and he thought I'd make a great math teacher. A few of us went out to karaoke afters, five ALTs and three BoE higher-ups. It was the perfect end.
Yesterday (Thursday, 7/16) was my last day of school. There was a typhoon scheduled to hit us today (Friday), so the school canceled the last day. I hadn't been at Tsukida long, but I became really close with one of the teachers and it was hard to say goodbye. I made an English speech during closing ceremony that I'm pretty sure everyone understood and a student came up to give me a bouquet of flowers. I know coming home is for the best, but I will really miss the students and teachers I've worked with these past two years.
Thursday night Leah came over to celebrate school ending. The typhoon hadn't hit yet, but the air was cool enough to sit outside enjoyably, so we sat on my balcony for a few hours just talking and hanging out.
Today is Friday. I used my day off to clean everything and get some more packing done. I'm going to meet Leah for lunch in an hour and we'll grab our shinkansen tickets for our trip tomorrow. Tonight I'll see Caol for one last dinner and karaoke since he's going to Ireland for a visit tomorrow and I'll be gone by the time he gets back to Japan. Tomorrow I head out with Leah to Naoshima and Teshima for our last Japan trip and from then on I'll pretty much be packing and seeing everyone I can while I can. It's really bittersweet leaving, but I'm going to make the most of these next two weeks!
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