Friday night we had the going away/welcome party for the teachers affected by the transfer this April. That meant a trip to Himeji, to the Himeji Castle Hotel for a good meal and lots of speeches.
The speeches this year did tend to go a little long for my taste. Luckily I was sitting at a table next to Arai sensei, the P.E. teacher. He speaks quite a bit of English and so we chatted about various things while people droned on in the background.
The party was a little more wild this year. The new math teacher sitting to my left, Moriguchi sensei, was a big drinker. Every time somebody came over to pour some beer for him he would drink the whole glass. Pretty soon it caught up with him, though, but he stayed on his feet the whole night.
The former vice principal made an appearance and a speech that had everyone laughing. I guess now that he is a principal at another school, there’s no reason to be diplomatic, so he told some good stories while keeping a straight face. He was a big hit, and there was a line of eight or nine people waiting to talk to him afterwards.
Finally it came time for the lights to come on, and they started playing loud annoying music to let even the most blasted teachers know that the party was over.
Outside in the lobby a couple people had gathered, and Watanabe sensei was busy trying to avoid being sexually harrassed by one the drunken groundskeepers. I gently held him back, making it into kind of a joke and his ardor seemed to calm down a bit.
On my way out I found that Kimura sensei was waiting for me. He wanted to take the trip back together, so we caught a Sanyo train back and spent that time speaking English. He really tries hard to speak English – I admire his effort. I can tell that he misses Takanan already, but I’m sure he’ll settle into his situation soon.
I heard from Kuniko that she was shopping at IY, so I met up with here on the way back, and together we headed home. I was tired out from a long day and all the partying, so it was to bed early for me.
