Birthday Palm Readings and Paper Fans

Hello again internet comrades.  Thank you for sparing a moment of your valuable internet time to catch up with me!  First off, this week I did not teach a single class!  Since it was the first week of our summer schedule, basically everything was canceled and many of the branches were actually shut.  I didn’t discover this until after I had bicycled 6 miles to my Monday branch.   I think I actually should have been off this week, but due to lack of planning I spent the week cutting strips of fabric for an upcoming craft, and handing out paper fans to promote our new branch in Nagoya.  The root of the problem is that I work at Shimon schools, but am actually employed by Hellos English.  So while I was fooling around all week the other Hellos teachers were administering finals and holding parent teacher conferences.  I wonder if they noticed me twiddling my thumbs in the corner…  But never fear, I’ll be back to work tomorrow with a confusingly altered class schedule.  I learn as I go.

So the week before last I had my birthday brunch.  Over 20 July babies went out to an Italian restaurant and had a 5 course meal complete with a happy birthday serenade from the staff.  I sat next to the company president who demanded that I make a speech in English and then translate it into Japanese.  I told everyone that even though I was born in July I don’t like hot weather.  Deep, huh?  The president also gave me a palm reading and discovered that I will live a long life despite having my heart broken as a young man.  He is not your typical boss.

I also had my birthday one week ago.  I got a couple people to go bowling with me and we managed to knock over a few pins.  Then some other Americans surprised me with rice crispy bars and cake.  It was subdued but a big improvement over my last birthday when I worked and four buses overheated in the span of two hours. 

This weekend I went to an Opera concert.  My coworker and former classmate Ryan is an avid singer and invited all of us to his yearly performance.  The event was sold out and people were actually lined up outside the door.  I couldn’t figure out what language they were singing in most of the time, but I enjoyed the extremely shiny and provocative costumes.  Afterword we had a big a party at the apartments and took shots of carbonated sake out of square wooden shot glasses. 

Well that’s all for this report.  I’ll be back again in a week or two!