My bad!

It seems that my recovery just came in the nick of time. Just a couple of days after I posted my last blog, I got busy as hell. One of my good friends here had finished her contract with AEON and returned from a good exploration of the rest of the country and called me out on my first weekend night to join her and her friend from the states for a good time in Tokyo. Of course, I went . . . and stayed there my whole weekend lol. Her and her friend let me stay in their hotel room and we just goofed around Japan for two days. It was a great time. One particularly cool thing that we did was got to National Museum of Nature and Science in Ueno where they had the body of Hachi stuffed and put on display with other animals that are indigenous to Japan. He must have been a damn cute dog when he was alive. Other than that, we roamed Tokyo for different things to see and do. I miss my friend already and hope that America has welcomed her home well.

The following workweek (last week) was a lot busier than I had anticipated; and we even had Wednesday off 0_0 For starters, Tuesday was the day of the adult Christmas party. We had normal classes all day that went just fine that was swiftly followed by the party; which went really well. We held it at my favorite curry place that my coworker and I go to every Friday. As usual, the staff was awesome and the food was delicious (though a bit spicier than usual). There was a lot of happy drinking, chatter, and everyone but me, enjoyed his or her first white elephant gift exchange. I wasn’t sure how well the idea was going to work out, but was relieved to see that people were enjoying themselves the whole time. Who would have thought the element of theft could bring such merriment to a Christmas occasion =P The after party was taken to silver lanes where only three students joined us five staff for some late night Karaoke and we managed a good time of it. So much so, that everyone missed their last train and we took the show to my apartment and talked the night away till everyone made their first train at a little after 5 AM. A great night!

As you can imagine, I slept most of the day away the next day, and in the evening I did my laundry and some other things here and there until I joined my head teacher for dinner and Avatar in 3D at the local mall. I had a delicious steak with rice and LOVED the movie. I can’t wait to own it for myself. But since the movie is over 3 hours long (or so), my day was over by the time I got home and went to bed soon after.

Christmas eve wasn’t too bad. My present assistant manager is getting promoted to manager of another school and starts there next week, and we thus welcomed her replacement that afternoon. She is brand new to the company, but is really nice and hopefully she doesn’t have too much trouble getting into the swing of things. I’m looking forward to working with her. I had three classes during the day and did a bunch of stuff to help the staff prepare for the kids’ Christmas party the next day or preparing for this week’s holiday. When the day was up, I stayed after for a good long while and just goofed off with whoever had the time. I had dinner at my Ramen place on the way home and watched the Polar Express (4th year running). It was a low-key evening fo sho, but good.

Chistmas was great! We had the kids’ Christmas party and it went over very well. The kids were really cute as usual, and I didn’t have to make sure they were paying attention to what I was saying. An extra plus. I also got to be Santa Clause toward the end of it and gave little gifts out to all the kiddies. They didn’t believe it for a second haha. One took my hat off, while others tried to peek at the pillow under my shirt or pull my beard from my face. Everyone seemed to have fun though and the kids left happy. I wish them and their families a happy new year ^_^ I had one class after the party and then we did the staff secret santa and chatted it up until we called it a day and went home. It was a good Christmas

Saturday went really nicely. I took down the Christmas decorations right away as well as anything having to do with the self-study program. It was very relieving to be able to put away the salesman side of me for a good long while until the end of this coming spring. Surprisingly enough though, I managed to make a sale 0_0 I did a verbal assessment and counseling with a student and he decided to do a little extra study to help him along. I’ll do what I can to make sure it helps. After all the students who did speaking assessments and such were gone, we ordered pizza and savored our last Saturday of the year and last night as the Nakayama 09 staff that I came to care for. 2010 will have a lot of big changes for me within the first four months. I look forward to what they may hold, but I will still look back on Nakayama 09 with a smile.

Sunday was nice. I went out to get some snowboarding pants with my manager and a friend and then, joined my (former) assistant manager and her boyfriend for a house club night in Tokyo. . . though it was from 5-11 (gotta get that last train yo!). Her boyfriend was actually one of the DJs of the evening and really impressed me. I had no problems dancing the whole time while he did his thing behind the stand. The whole event was a lot of fun really. I was the only person there that wasn’t Japanese, so I got a TON of practice. As did some of the Japanese there that wanted to practice their English. Man, that event was definitely worth repeating. I even got a CD of one of my assistant manager’s boyfriend’s mixes . . . SWEET! Check him out at: http://www.myspace.com/yasuexesounds.

For the last two days, I have been a useless piece of crap. I have “spring cleaned” my apartment, but otherwise I have been veging out and loving it. I have been needing this time alone to just let my mind go and worry bout different things of a personal nature. For example, I have been selecting photos of times and friends that I have taken since I got deployed to Cuba. It took a REALLY long time, but the trip through memory lane was surprisingly moving and almost unsettling. Through these pictures I relived countless happy moments and the heat of old crushes. No lie, I got pretty homesick for a bit there. It made me think really hard and re-toggle my perspective about my current circumstances.

I had some really fun times over the last 4 years and seeing them again today and yesterday through these photos still managed to make my heart flutter with differing flavors of delight. I started playing with those two most terrible words as I viewed some of my most cherished memories and people . . . “what if.” I quickly remembered, as I was also reminded by some pics, of decisions made that I can’t take back and how I could never get back to those times if I even wanted to anyway. Those decisions lead to courses that lead me to this very moment, place, and emotional contentment. It would be a waste and immature of me to doubt them for even a moment. Nonetheless these memories are who I am and I plan to have them printed and spread around the walls of my apartment in order to remind myself and show off to any guests that I am truly lucky.



Sorry for the novel, I’ll leave it at that. Have a wonderful new year!