IrishOboe

This week was a little crazy for personal reasons. School went pretty well and I had a few fun opportunities.

Monday (Dec. 12^th) morning was Christmas for me. Since I’ll be in Thailand for Christmas I decided to open my presents when Mom, Dad and HJJ were opening theirs on Gaudete Sunday. Yes, it was Monday for me, but it was still Sunday for them. I was able to call them before going to work, which was nice. This was the first time I had a real wave of homesickness. I’ll take that to be a good sign. (More)

Friday (Dec. 9^th) my pipes froze so I had no hot water in the morning. Shimzu sensei took me in the afternoon to check and it was fine, so now I’ll just have to keep the tap dripping at night.

I worked hard at school trying to get everything done for next week. I got home just in time to quickly shower and get ready for the bonenkai and someone came to my door right as I was getting out of the shower. It was crazy, but I managed to get to the party in one piece. Bonenkai is a year’s end party that almost every school has. Ours was in a fancy hotel and was a western style banquet. Make that what the Japanese call a western style banquet. We sat in chairs at tables with a rotating glass plate and the dishes weren’t Japanese, but we still ate with chopsticks and there were plenty of foods I couldn’t identify. We drew lots for our seats so I was with new people, which turned out to be very nice. A few teachers were very kind to me by speaking slow, simple Japanese. We were able to have a decent conversation throughout the evening, which made me very happy! Often there’d be a word I didn’t know but they could come up with the English word. They just aren’t comfortable with making sentences in English, though I’m sure they’d be fine. (More)