Last day of classes before my winter break!
My JHS has their 忘年会 (bonenkai = end of year party thing) tomorrow. The first kanji there means "forget," and basically the translation is "forget all the year's bad stuff party."
I have to bring a present of at least ￥1000 on top of the cost of the party thing, which is usually ￥5000 or so. Then of course there's 二次会 (the after party) and 三次会 (the after party after party) and sometimes even 四次会 to 五次会 before everyone staggers home and drowns in their own vomit. It is a special place, this Japan.
Hopefully I can slip out early for last train and not be hungover tomorrow. Though I never drink too much with my teachers. It's just not a good idea. Funny thing about Japanese people, at least the ones out near me. They can get as drunk and stupid as is physically possible before dying of alcohol poisoning, and no one mentions it the next day (that's right, they go out on work nights, they're freaking insane), not even a word. But if the foreigner does it? Oh, dear, do they never live it down.
Christmas I shall spend with a friend in the hospital. He has surgery Christmas Eve so a few of us--that are lame and will otherwise be lonely and sad and crying into our eggnog because we're stuck in freaking Japan for Christmas--will go visit him and throw a little Christmas party in the hospital. Should be interesting. But better than trying to hang myself with shitty hundred yen Christmas decorations. They never hold.
