Singing my own praises
Last night it was my sayonara enkai. It was amazing!
I was asked what I’d like to eat at my enkai, without hesitation I asked that we go for yaki niku and beer! I didn’t want a formal affair with mountains of sashimi and seating arrangements. I got what I asked for – the enkai was at a yaki niku restaurant in Matsusaka and we had our own private room. The food was amazing - course after course of different MEAT including some Matsusaka beef. It doesn’t get better than that! The beers were flowing so of course everyone was quickly very drunk.
We even had a special guest as I asked them to invite Hashimoto sensei who was transferred to Matsu ko from Ohka, I was so pleased he was able to come. I was given lots of lovely gifts; flowers, Japanese souvenirs, jewellery, and best of all a lovely necklace from four of my friends. An English teacher from Matsu-ko even turned up at the start and presented me with gifts from the teachers there.
I think it’s the first time I’ve been to a party that’s been all about me! I’ve had lots of parties at home but I’m always the stressed out host (which of course I secretly must enjoy – otherwise I wouldn’t keep organising them) so this was different, everything was organised for me all I had to do was turn up and have good time. In the most part as well all the teachers there were those who always make a big effort to be nice to me so there was no getting stuck next to someone who didn’t want to talk to me. I was talking to so many different people I didn’t even get chance to drink much!
Afterwards some of us went for karaoke which was loads of fun too and I got to say good bye to Paradise karaoke – again.
Here’s the really arrogant part – I was told by one of the teachers that there had never been a big sayonara enkai before for an ALT, that maybe they’d gone for dinner with the English teachers but other teachers certainly had never gone. Plus the ALT had never received a big present that all the teachers had contributed to. She said to me ‘see Helen I always tell you that you are the best ALT Ohka had, see everyone thinks so, look how many people are here for you!’
It made me feel bad because I think sometimes in my second year I’ve not been very genki and have spent a lot of time scowling at my desk. I forgot how lucky I’ve actually been, I’ve spent a lot of time whinging about school but I should have reminded myself that I have it a lot better than other people. I’ll stand by how infuriating it is to NEVER be told anything and also how terrible my supervisor is but I think overall though I’d been really upset with how they handled the car accident. It was probably a Japanese thing rather than the people specifically though, I obviously have a lot of built up anger regarding what happened to us and I guess I’m always looking for people to blame - which is wrong of me.
Anyway enough of all that – did I tell you the party was great?!! ;)
I was asked what I’d like to eat at my enkai, without hesitation I asked that we go for yaki niku and beer! I didn’t want a formal affair with mountains of sashimi and seating arrangements. I got what I asked for – the enkai was at a yaki niku restaurant in Matsusaka and we had our own private room. The food was amazing - course after course of different MEAT including some Matsusaka beef. It doesn’t get better than that! The beers were flowing so of course everyone was quickly very drunk.
We even had a special guest as I asked them to invite Hashimoto sensei who was transferred to Matsu ko from Ohka, I was so pleased he was able to come. I was given lots of lovely gifts; flowers, Japanese souvenirs, jewellery, and best of all a lovely necklace from four of my friends. An English teacher from Matsu-ko even turned up at the start and presented me with gifts from the teachers there.
I think it’s the first time I’ve been to a party that’s been all about me! I’ve had lots of parties at home but I’m always the stressed out host (which of course I secretly must enjoy – otherwise I wouldn’t keep organising them) so this was different, everything was organised for me all I had to do was turn up and have good time. In the most part as well all the teachers there were those who always make a big effort to be nice to me so there was no getting stuck next to someone who didn’t want to talk to me. I was talking to so many different people I didn’t even get chance to drink much!
Afterwards some of us went for karaoke which was loads of fun too and I got to say good bye to Paradise karaoke – again.
Here’s the really arrogant part – I was told by one of the teachers that there had never been a big sayonara enkai before for an ALT, that maybe they’d gone for dinner with the English teachers but other teachers certainly had never gone. Plus the ALT had never received a big present that all the teachers had contributed to. She said to me ‘see Helen I always tell you that you are the best ALT Ohka had, see everyone thinks so, look how many people are here for you!’
It made me feel bad because I think sometimes in my second year I’ve not been very genki and have spent a lot of time scowling at my desk. I forgot how lucky I’ve actually been, I’ve spent a lot of time whinging about school but I should have reminded myself that I have it a lot better than other people. I’ll stand by how infuriating it is to NEVER be told anything and also how terrible my supervisor is but I think overall though I’d been really upset with how they handled the car accident. It was probably a Japanese thing rather than the people specifically though, I obviously have a lot of built up anger regarding what happened to us and I guess I’m always looking for people to blame - which is wrong of me.
Anyway enough of all that – did I tell you the party was great?!! ;)
posted by Helen at
1:27 am
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