I spent most of the day cleaning up the house and listening to Japanese CDs – focusing on listening. Even listening to passages where I knew all of the vocabulary I would sometimes have trouble. Getting the pronunciations and accents down is a tough part of learning any language. Japanese has fairly easy pronunciation, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t lots of ways to say the same words.
Late in the afternoon Kuniko came over, and together we took the train to the Arai station, just west of Takasago. From there we walked to a local izakaya, and met a large group of Takasago Minami teachers.
The party was organized by Ohara sensei, a part time PE teacher that is currently unemployed. I said hello to him a couple of times when he was at my school, but he didn’t really show much interest in talking to me then. He was much nicer today. There were lots of other teachers though, and we all had a good time drinking, eating, and talking.
People got up to speed about Kuniko and I, and I drank lots of beer and sho-chu. We talked to some of the new teachers, and the best part in my opinion was when the old teachers warned the new math teacher, Watanabe sensei, about the history teacher. It was really interesting to see a lineup of four previous teachers all tell Watanabe sensei that the history teacher pursued them mercilessly. Watanabe sensei took the advice to heart, and I fear that the history teacher will encounter a little more resistance the next time he tries to make a move.
By the end of the night I was pretty drunk, but still managed to get home safely, thanks to Kuniko. We headed back and crashed right out – it’s hard work drinking and eating so much.
