Regret

One of my English teachers cried before we said goodbye for the last time today at a goodbye party.  It was then that I knew I had messed up.  One of these days I will make the right decision when it comes to women.  It won't be today.

Edit: Well, maybe I didn't make a mistake after all.  I never received a reply for one last meeting even though the message was read.  Whew!

やってもうた (expression) (yatte mouta) oops!

End of School, Goodbye Parties, Speech Practice, Getting Ready to Go Home

School has ended.  I've taught my last class I'll likely ever teach as an ALT.  I had to give goodbye speeches in front of all my schools and they presented me with flowers and goodbye gifts.  It was nice, but I'm glad it's over, I hate giving those goodbye speeches.  I also received a lot of those cards where everyone writes goodbye to you on those big cardboard things.  I'm going to miss all my students and teachers.  I had one student cry.  Secretly, that is what I wished for and I would have been really sad if I didn't get that.  Thank you for all the great memories, it has been fun!

Even though I'll have had two weeks to do things, I'm super busy and haven't had time to do everything I wanted.  I'm trying to fit in a bunch of goodbye parties in between trying to clean, it's a hard deal.  I've met a lot of awesome people over the 3 years I've been here.  It's hard to say goodbye to them, especially when I think about how everyone has moved on quite a bit back home.

I'm done with school but still going in for speech practice.  I've got one student who I'm hopeful for, she's got really good English.  She's writing about her grandparents' cooking soy boiled food.  Hope the new ALT can lead her to prefecturals because she definitely has the talent!

We've had a few meetings at the BOE on getting ready to go home, said our goodbyes there, and just today they came to pick up our trash.  They said they were going to the dump, but they were really going to the garbage/recycle place.  I didn't put my trash in bags so we all had to help do it before loading it onto the truck.  More lost in translation!  I'm going home on the 6th.  Going to Tokyo on the 4th after Minato Matsuri to hopefully meet some people, then Oregon awaits!

It's been a long journey.  Can't believe it's all coming to an end.

送別会【そうべつかい】 (sou/betsu/kai) farewell party

Vacation, Preparation for Returning Home

So I ended up going to Osaka, Okinawa and Matsushima on my way back.

In Osaka I went to see the Sky Building in Umeda and Takarazuka, an all female theater.  It was a good view, and interesting that a large part of the audience is all women.  I ended up losing my camera sometime though, and bought a new one right before going to Okinawa for around $350.  I like it, but it doesn't take panorama shots, which I really liked my old camera for.

Okinawa was cool too.  I ended up going to one of the smaller islands called Zamamijima for a night.  It was a calm little island and I probably should have stayed another night or two.  The next day I went to the Churaumi aquarium and that place, well the aquarium itself anyway, is BIG!  There were 3 whale sharks and a few really big stingray like things.  The next day I had planned on visiting a castle and possibly just enjoying the beach, but I came down with a migraine.  Of course, that was the only day that it was sunny.  I managed to drag myself out of bed around 3 or 4 and made it to Shuri castle.  A cool place, but not sure it was worth it at that point, I probably should have tried to just find a beach.  The place I wanted to eat at, a shabu shabu place, was full of people and I couldn't eat the dinner I wanted to either.

All in all, it was a decent trip, but I am never going to do this sort of thing again alone.  It was really depressing seeing all the couples walking around while I had no one.  Traveling by yourself sucks.

I've started getting ready to go.  Slowly cleaning my apartment and just sent 2 boxes of around 15kg (33 lbs) back to the states.  That'll lighten my load for suitcases.  I've also started the process for getting the pension refund, I'm set to get over $8,000 dollars so I'm quite pleased with that!

I'm telling the kids that even though I'm leaving, a new ALT will be coming.  They say that they'd rather have me.  Even if that is tatemae, at least this time, I'm able to let it make me happy.

水族館【すいぞくかん】 (sui/zoku/kan) aquarium