A whirlwind summary of July!

** so late >.<**


Well it’s been rather busy and crazy on my end so I am here about a month behind on blog writing. So I figured I should try and sum up my July here in Japan before I talk about my vacation back in the states. So here goes nothing:
Ally’s Cookout & Niikawa Music Night (July 9th): After work I made my way over to Ally’s place for a cookout he had planned with some of his good friends. He was a leaver this year so a few last shindigs were to be expected. Val, Christine and many others came. It was one of the first times I’ve had good conversation with Val and I was glad cause I always wanted to. For the most part we were just there talking and eating up all the junk food since Takahiro hadn’t come with the actual cookout food yet. It wasn’t till perhaps 45 minutes before I and several others had to leave when the food (burgers and dogs) were ready to serve. They were quite delicious so it was worth the wait even though I was kinda full from the junk food ^^;; Before I knew it , it was time to head out back to Kurobe for Nikkawa music night. When I got there, there was already an impressive number of ppl there. It was also the first time I met Lelita. She was so happy to see me I blushed a little. It was kinda embarrassing o^_^o
After that Lawrence and his band got together and did their set. It was wonderful to listen to. It never ceases to amaze me how much talent managed to settle in one prefecture of Jets. It’s a wonderful thing. Once their set was over I just hung around until most of the acts were over. Then me and other Jets went to MoMo bar a few doors down and had food and drinks there. I even karaoked there a bit which was really random! I didn’t even know the bar had karaoke. Either way I did two songs and the owners were all impressed and wondered why I never sang there before. It was fun ^^ So motivating karaoke was, a group of us left there and went to ANOTHER bar and had more karaoke and drinks. I didn’t even make it home until 4:30 am in the morning. It was quite a night.

Indian dinner with my Brazilian friends! (July 11th):
So with a random phone call from Hilda I found myself meeting her in Toyama. We waited around for a while and eventually met up with Marianna and Wagner and after sometime met up with Ebi, Nobuki, Asako and the this Indian restaurant called Kashmir near Takaoka. There we all sat and talked together. Fun dinner as usual really ^^ I ordered a lot of food as I always do at Indian restaurants and boy was I full afterwards. I can’t say that I like Kashmir better than Santoshi’s or Indira, but they are pretty good. Down side is that there selection is rather limited in comparisons to the other two restaurants I frequent. Once we left the restaurant we went to this game center and bowled for a bit. I suck pretty bad at bowling so I was near the bottom rungs of the group. However it was fun that if I said certain words to ppl while bowling I would cause them NOT to bowl well. It was pretty humorous. Needless to say after all this it was rather late and when bowling was over and some pictures were taken of my friends in bowling pin costumes ( I don’t know *shakes head* lol ) I was taken to the station and I went home.

Final Loose Kingdom Performance & Glee karaoke (July 18th):
The final concert for Loose Kingdom and the last time I’d get to see my friend Johnny Fantastic play. He indeed was an awesome person who was quick to learn and super talented. I was glad I was able to get to know him a bit better since he was the music writer for the charity show (play) I was in. The concert was a lot of fun to watch and I was glad to be there to support him. When the concert was over I gave him a hug and it was probably the last time I actually saw him. It was a bit sad to know that he was leaving, as well as all the other people I had gotten to know through charity show or other venues and left this year. I’m glad though that I had an opportunity to meet them nevertheless. When the concert was said and done and after a quick bite of ramen with Will and Van I eventually met up with Alexis and a few others for Glee Karaoke. The gist was to play/sing songs that were from the TV show Glee’s soundtrack. I do believe we covered most If not all of the songs ever sung in that show. The craziest part of it was that we were there from around 11pm to 5am in the morning. There was a special deal if you stayed at Karaoke from around midnight till 5am your fee was only 1200yen a person. It was a rather nice deal considering the length of time. It was also fun because there were several people I got to spend time with before they too left the Jet program. Nevertheless by the time 5am rolled around I was all kinds of tired. So I ended up taking Christine with me and I dropped her off in Uozu before I got home and stumbled into bed.


Closing Ceremonies ( July 20th-21st):
Well it was about that time. I finally reached the point where I would have to say goodbye to my Chuo and Koshino kids. It was sad on both counts especially when the flowers were presented. I nearly cried when one of my elementary school kids that was reading my farewell speech burst into tears. I wanted to drop everything and hug her then and there but I held my ground. The children at my elementary school were especially touching. I received many letters from them and a lot of personal ones. I even received Puri Kura from one of my treasured students Yuri-chan. I even got candy and other things that the kids would have had to go home and ask their parents for. I was really touched. One of the nicest things about it also was in the letters many of the kids told me that they didn’t enjoy English class before me, and because of me they became interested and wanted to learn. It truly solidified the idea that I was indeed a good teacher/ALT and it made me proud to be doing what I was doing. It’s truly rewarding as a teacher when your students grow because of your tutelage . I do wonder however I will fare with my new students at Ishida and Ikuji following summer vacation..