Goodbye Parties Abound

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!

Counting Down

There's only two and a half weeks before I head home and I've been really busy packing and getting ready to leave. I went to Kikumi's on Monday night to watch a movie and have dinner. Another friend, Taka, came as well and we had a great night. I had my last Board of Education meeting on Wednesday and went out to dinner with Leah and Lisa afterwards. Friday I met up with Megan to go to Aru Aru City. We stayed until it closed looking for gifts for Megan's friends. We walked back to my apartment afterwards and ordered pizza for dinner. I stayed up late that night to get Welcome to Nightvale tickets that went on sale at 3 AM Japan time, so Megan stayed late to keep me company while I waited for the tickets to go on sale. She left for last bus, but I'm glad she could stay with me at least for a bit!

On Saturday I packed a few boxes and sent them off to America in the morning. In the afternoon, I met up with two of my former Shinozaki students. They heard I was leaving and wanted a chance to say goodbye. After introducing myself to their parents, we headed off to the most popular teenage girl spot in any culture, the mall. They showed me all their favorite stores I helped them pick out English books and cute bags. We went to the arcade for プリクラ (purikura, specialized photo booths) and played taiko drum rhythm games featuring new songs. We ended the afternoon at the food court where we had chocolate, banana, and strawberry crepes. After saying goodbye I headed back to Kokura to meet up with Caol for the Kitakyushu JET Sayonara Party. Eighteen of the JETs living in Kitakyushu came out for dinner and we had a fantastic time! Everything went their separate ways after the party and Leah, Caol, and I headed for karaoke. We only stayed for two hours before heading home, but we had an amazing night!

Sunday I met up with Juha and Dan and we all caught the bus to Fukuoka. For Jake, Dan, and I it was our last game day in Japan. We made sure to get there early so we'd have all 12 hours full of games. We played a ton of different stuff. I played a few new games I love and want to pick up when I get back to the States and some of my old favorites. By the end of the night there were only seven of us. Jay had a few bottles of wine for us to share to celebrate and we ended on a murder mystery game. It was so much fun and it was great to see all the board game people again before going home.

Today I'm starting my last week at Tsukida. So far I've had some great last classes. It's so bitter sweet, I love all the teachers and students here, but I'm really excited to come back and start working in Colorado. I have my Board of Education goodbye party in a few days, Kokura's Gion (a summer festival) starts on Friday, and Leah and I will take our last Japan trip to Naoshima over the weekend. It is a long weekend, so next weeks update will probably be a day late, but I'm so excited to get my last few adventures in before I start packing up for good!

Eurovision

I had another quiet week. I was back in my new base school Matsugae and had a great time there. On Friday some of us went out for dinner to celebrate that our visiting school period is over, but I went home a bit early. Saturday we had a Eurovision party at Bec's house. It was my first time seeing Eurovision, a big singing contest with one group representing one country, and it was pretty fun. Bec is Australian and this year Australia was one of the contestants. It was a potluck and we had a ton of delicious food. It was a great night! Sunday I stayed home and cleaned.

This week I'm back at Tsukida, my other base school. It should be another great, but quiet, week for me!

New School

This will be a pretty short post. I'm happy to have a quiet week at my new school, Tsukida. I had a great time meeting all the teachers and students and am really happy with the placement. I taught a bunch of classes and can't wait to go back! This week I'm back at Shinozaki, but as a visiting ALT instead of as a base school. It's great to be back and see everyone again, although a ton of staff moved around over the holidays. I'm excited for a nice week back with the students and teachers I've gotten to know over the last two years.

Even my weekend was not terribly exciting, although I spent a lot of time with my friends. On Wednesday I went out with Leah and Dave after a work meeting. I went back to my now weekly dinner with Caol on Thursday and karaoke after. On Friday I again went out with Caol and Kazuki just for karaoke. On Saturday I saw Leah, Caol, Megan, and Kazuki for dinner before going to Bob's Bar. Sunday I spent time cleaning my apartment, playing games, and just generally relaxing. It's been really nice to relax after my very exciting beginning of the month and a good was to save money for my Golden Week trips to Ehime and Korea.

浅川

Last week was pretty uneventful. I started and finished at 槻田 (Tsukida) Junior High School. It was a small school about twenty minutes away by bus. There were two English teachers who were both very nice and I had a good time there. Unfortunately I'm still on the visiting school schedule so I had to leave 槻田 for 浅川 (Asakawa) this week. The good news is only two more weeks until I can go back to my base schools! The bad news is that Asakawa is very far away and every time I've visited this school in the past something has gone wrong. It's pretty far from my apartment; I have to commute for over an hour on my bike, then a train, then a bus. I haven't been given a shoe locker in the past, so I would have to carry school shoes back and forth every day and the first time I ever came here they forgot I was coming and all the English teachers had taken the week off. This time, though, I've been giving a shoe locker and they even faxed me a class schedule ahead of time. So even with my previous negative experiences at this school, I have good hopes for the next two weeks here in 浅川!

I also want to say not only a congratulations to my brother for graduating last week, but also to all the students at Hofstra who graduated last Sunday! I also know Hofstra in Japan 2014 is leaving tomorrow. I hope you all have as good of a time as I did and hopefully I can get up to Hiroshima to say hello! (Although HIJ will be there during the school week, so I'm not sure I can.) If not I'll look forward to seeing Kanatsu, the man who makes Hofstra in Japan possible, sometime this summer or fall.

Another exciting thing happening around this time is the new placements for the new JETs. Between now and August the 2014 incoming JETs will be getting their assignments. Usually the first contact we will have with the new JETs is through facebook. People will find their placement and immediately go online to find the corresponding facebook group. So far one new JET has posted in the Fukuoka group, but we're not sure where she will be within Fukuoka province. She won't be in Kitakyushu because it's the only place in Fukuoka that is specified on the placement form. This distinction is because the rest of Fukuoka province is hired by the Fukuoka Board of Education, but Kitakyushu is hired by the Kitakyushu Board of Education. I'm not sure why, but it's certainly much more convenient for me. All that really matters, though, is that we are relentless checking the facebook page with eagerness, excited to meet our newest KitaQ JETs. We've been told that we will get one American and one Australian. They'll both arrive in Kitakyushu on July 31st. I'll be on a flight back to Japan then, but will hopefully meet them the next day!

As you can probably tell by my rambling this week, not much exciting has happened. Over the weekend my friend Caol made sangria and we went to karaoke together, but that's the only excitement I've had this week. I do have a lot to look forward to this week, though! Friends are coming over for dinner both tomorrow (Tuesday) and Thursday. This weekend I'll be going to the symphony practice, I'm swinging by the Board of Education after work today to pick up all the music. I'm sorry this is such a short post, hopefully next week I'll have a bit more to talk about!