Famous last words...

I really, really was going to go home after the meeting, or at the very latest, right after dinner. I was going to take the train back home to my quiet village, walk home in the dark with my flashlight and enjoy my own company. I was going to take a scalding hot bath, sip a glass of red wine while listening to Morcheeba and have a good time. I was going to go to bed at a reasonable hour and spend the next day, a holiday, just stone cold chillin...However, things, as they tend to do, did not work out as planned.

On Wednesday, Gifu JETs had the mid-year conference (how could it be mid-year if we've only been here for 3 months???). It was dreadfully, mind-boggingly LAME; we were given tips on how to do our jobs and be better team teachers by people who aren't even JETs!!!???! I spent a good deal of time studying Japanese or chatting or learning new Japanese words from Shiloh (it was sooooooooo good to see her again - more later).

And the end of the day, I had to decide on whether or not I was going to go to the dinner I signed up for, and at the last minute, I decided, why not? But after dinner, I would definitely catch a ride to the train station with Jeffrey and go home. Hrrrmmmmm...

Well, after some non-sensical car pooling, I arrived at the restaurant and sat with some people I've never met before, and some people I haven't seen in a while. The dinner was tabehodai and nomihodai (all you can eat and drink), and the food was a lot better than expected. But then again, if you don't have any expectations, you can't be disappointed, right? Anyway, dinner was good, conversation was flowing and I was really enjoying myself. I got to catch up with the N. Irish cutie, Craige, who I'm kissing in the picture, meet some nice folks and have a good time joking/fooling around. But by the end of the dinner, it seemed that it was too early to go home. I was laughing too hard and when Ed said he wanted to go to karaoke and asked what I wanted to do (we were supposed to go back to our area with Jeffrey), I decided to stick around. One of the main reasons was probably because of Shiloh, the coolest Canadian (besides moi) in the whole prefecture. We hadn't seen each other since Camp Horado in August, and had been trying for weeks to get together. We had recently realized just how close we live to each other so we were trying. Anyway, this girl is funny and has some of the best stories. Ed, Shiloh and I make a pretty good team, so Tuesday was something of a reunion. I'm soooo happy that I stayed.

Ok, so here's the deal: I suck donkey balls when it comes to singing. I hate when people say "everyone can sing." It's just not fucking true. I CAN'T SING. But that's besides the point. I killed some songs during karaoke that night (see picutre at the beginning of this post), but it felt so awesome while I was doing it. It didn't matter that Ed and Shiloh can actually sing - it was just cool doing it together.

The high point of the night occured when I attempted to slip off Ed's blazer and he told me that wasn't a good idea. He turned around and opened his blazer to reveal that he had not one, but two large size glass bottles of beer he nicked from the restaurant! I couldn't stop laughing. You have to understand that Ed appears to be uppercrust - he's clean cut, he went to school with the princes, he has a high brow accent - the works. Then he starts talking shit and doing things that are so amazingly GHETTO. I love that boy.

After karaoke ended, Shiloh, Ed and I piled into her tiny car and headed back to our area. We had planned to drop Ed at his place and Shiloh and I would go to her apartment. Well, things changed at Ed's and we all ended up sleeping in his one room, typically bachelor styled apartment. No comment.

Shiloh and I shared the single bed while Ed took the futon on the floor. Shiloh and I spooned (we both listed this as one of our hobbies), but we ended up fighting in our half drunken (okay, my half) half sleeping states. Elbows to faces! Bums to bums! One on top of the other!! It was classic. Ed had to get up early to go to work on the holiday and Shiloh and I finally got our asses up at 10:00 a.m. We parted ways around 12:30 and I got home an hour later. Needless to say, I had a blast. I'm looking forward to hanging out with the both of them again (should be this Sunday for brunch!).

Today is Friday and I had only 2 classes today, but it's cool. My first class with the JHS 2nd graders was really fun. Today's lesson was accepting or declining an invitation. The skit was for K-sensei to invite me to a rock concert and I had to be all genki about it. When she told me it was her band, I did the typical Japanese "ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" You have to be here to understand how this is so pervasive. Anyway, that slayed the kids. Then the kids had to invite each other to different things in order to practice. Not to be one to stand on the sidelines, I jumped in there and asked a couple of boys out on dates. Unfortunately, I got turned down BOTH TIMES! (Am I losing my touch?). They loved it though. They were laughing so hard, they couldn't breath. At the end of the class, we sang happy birthday to one of the kids. It was a great class. I really love these kids.

Up next: Kyoto tomorrow!

By the way, these are the ladies that I have English conversation with. At the exact moment that I took this picture, the one on the left farted...We are having an early New Year's Eve party next week. Mmmm. Food. So excited.