The Office Christmas Party

First a big thank you to my parents and my brother who both sent things that I received this week! Merry Christmas!

So yesterday was the big office Christmas Party, which included about 30 of the students and all the staff. It was very structured, complete with announcements about when we were allowed to start drinking (non-alcoholic beverages only because there were high school students present), when we could start eating, and when the party was over (!). It was about three hours long, which was just about the right amount of time, I would say, especially considering that a few students arrived as much as half an hour early, and basically everyone was there by ten after 1:00. We had a small gift exchange, so everyone brought a little present worth 500 yen and we played a game to see who would get to choose first: everyone had an animal taped to his or back, and we had to ask questions to find out what the animal was (can I jump? Can I swim? What color am I? etc) and then find someone with the same animal and once we were in a pair we could choose a present. It was kinda fun and I got a nice little bath set. After that I had to make a little speech because the party was also my welcome party (they like to combine parties like that). That's the second time I've had to make an impromptu speech like that, so I just said 'Thanks for coming and Merry Christmas' pretty much. Then we played bingo for some little prizes but sadly I did not win anything. But the highlight for me was a student who was doing magic tricks! I really love magic so I watched him for quite a while. He kept saying that he wanted to talk to me but couldn't (he just started studying English). Maybe I'll ask him to be my Japanese boyfriend! Although first I think I should check his file to see how old he is -he looks young but I can never guess people's ages here.

After the party I went out for drinks with the other foreign teachers, followed by karaoke, which was really fun. Then today I had a lesson with my tutor and then she took me out to lunch (a ramen place in a little alley right by my office - I'm glad I know about it now because it's super-convenient, so I'll definitely go back!) and now the weekend is pretty much over. The Christmas party did feel a bit like work to the other foreign teachers and me, because we were required to be there, we were still expected to talk to students the whole time (instead of the staff or each other), AND we had to pay! The students all paid, too, and supposedly the money was for the bingo prizes, but we have a suspicion that perhaps it was also to help us make expenses for the month...

Oh, and one final thing - I finally have a cell phone! It's pink and it has a Japanese-English dictionary, a very nice camera, and lots of fun little programs, like a fortune teller, a daily proverb, and it will even play rock, paper, scissors with me! And it says, 'hai, chiizu' (say cheese) for the shutter sound on the camera!

Thanks for reading!