Filed under: JET
The meeting ended and I’m happy to be back in Iida. The end. (or not)
Giving the speech was nerve-wrecking of course; the second I slipped up, I went from being mildly nervous to panicky, but I got through it and it’s over. Some people congraduated me afterwards, and I saw the Japanese officials nodding their heads while I spoke… but yes, it’s over and while this experience probably helped improve my public speaking in Japanese or whatnot, it still sucked. It was the whole “WHY ME, GOD?” type moment, since no one else had to give a speech. Anyway, after the Senior High School ALTS finished their serious ceremony, we walked back to join the rest of the ALTs, we found the elementary and junior high ALTs doing the chicken dance and ‘learning how to be a kid again.’ Talk about unfair.
The rest of the day faired about the same. I was never able to easily make friends with college-aged people, nothing new was really mentioned at the meeting, and the whole waking up at 5am to get to Nagano City was no fun either. I ended up accidently missing the $30 all you can eat/drink party, followed by staying at some random JET’s house/hotel thanks to booking an early bus ticket, but wasn’t bummed at all. (In fact, I was relieved, being completely exhausted by that point in the day) I ended up on the same bus as a cool person I met at the Tokyo Orientation and we were able to sit by each other and talk the whole way back.
I’m now in school today, one of the few in the building not taking nenkyu (paid vacation), but will take 2 days nenkyu tomorrow and Friday. I’ll be heading off to Himeji, Kobe, and if I can talk my friends into it, Nara too. Until then.
