Frustration and Exhaultation

Hey all. I apologize from being way behind on my blog posting. But again, I`ve been ridiculous busy that I haven`t had the time. And at the moment I don`t remember what happened between the last blog until the beginning of October...so I`ll get back to writing that later. eheh. ^^;

October 8th Friday

Starting from today was the HAJET Fall Meeting held in Asahikawa. Yay for being close to me! I finished work and managed to head on over there right after. The meeting was held at the Washington Kankou Hotel. It was a pretty nice and fancy hotel and I got a room to myself. Upon checking into my room I got a phone call from *dum dum dum* Mr. Oshare!! He asked me if I`ve eaten dinner yet and if I wanted to go to dinner with him. The ONE time he asks me out to eat with him, I`m in a different city for a meeting. Of course. That`s how it always is. >.< But he just said, no worries. There`s always next time. Yay!

Anyways, I waited for Keri to arrive and we headed over to MOS Burger for dinner. Then we met up with other peoples and decided to go karaoke-ing and after that, clubbing. Yeah, the actual meeting and parties don`t start until tomorrow morning at 10am, but we were already partying it up until 5:30am. I didn`t actually get to sleep until 6am cuz I took a bath. Lotsa fun! But extremely tired.

October 9th Saturday

Woke up for breakfast, then went back to the room to sleep for an hour, then went to the HAJET meeting, then went to sleep until 2pm and went out with ppls at 3pm to walk around. Tabemarche was happening this weekend which is a festival where each town/city of Hokkaido has a booth selling their delicious foods. And for some reason, we all decided to eat a big meal before the enkai at 6pm. Smart of us. lol

The theme of the enkai was "Fall of the Roman Empire" so many of the ALTs were dressed in togas or costumes relating to that theme. And there was about 90 or so of us foreigners walking down the street in costumes to the izakaya. You can imagine the amount of staring we got from the confused Japanese people. Everyone in all the shops we passed by just stopped what they were doing and stared at us...lol I would too if I was Japanese...haha.

The enkai was a 7 course meal (right after our late lunch) and included a costume party. I met many new cool ALTs and had a lot of fun. During the enkai I received a text from one of my taiko mates, Ayako. She told me that she was going to go to her friend`s bar in Asahikawa and asked if I wanted to go as well. She has been wanting to go drinking with me for awhile and upon hearing that her friend had a bar, I was all for it. I invited other ALTs to go, but they already had plans after, so I went on my own to the station to get pickedup by Ayako.

Apparently, this bar is not in the heart of the city, but more in the outskirts in a residential area. And literally, it was all houses around this place and actually, this bar was a garage turned bar. The house that the owner lived in was right on top of it. And the owner is a 30year old cool dude who is friends with Ayako. And did I mention he`s rich?! This bar is only opened once a month because he gets enough money from his other job that he doesn`t need this bar to be opened all the time. He drives a Mercedes too, btw. And all the patrons of this bar are all friends with one another and know each other and are all hot young relatively wealthy people. Dude. I came to the right place and made an awesome decision by coming to this place. Ayako introduced me to the owner, Naoki-san, and I was surprised to find out he spoke a good relative amount of English. I was able to have a full on conversation with him in English. He`s been to the US 3 times and he travels ALOT. Actually, he`s going to go to Bali like next month or something. Anyways, he said he stayed at the Radisson hotel in Santa Monica before!!!! RADISSON HOTEL IN SANTA MONICA YO! He`s got moolah. Plus this man is a legit bartender. Like he makes real cocktails. None of this lame mixed with water crap that the Japanese like to do. No, it`s full on Martinis and straight mixed alcohol. No water. Thankfully.

I also met the other bartender. He`s 26 and damn hot! And makes delicious martinis. We all became fast friends...I think it`s because everyone`s interested in talking to me because I`m not Japanese...lol I also met some other hot guys who`re friends with Ayako as well as her wonderful girl friends.

The bar closed at around 2am and I was shown the inside of the owner`s house afterwards. It was AMAZING and screamed wealthy bachelor! Black shiny tile floors, marble walls, black leather sofas, beautiful mood lighting, a mini chandelier, and a giant surfboard displayed on the wall behind his mini-bar. And he had the cutest little happy dachsund. And yes, he actually does surf. COOL!

He told me afterwards that we should all go on trips together. Like travel around the place. I was all up for that. Afterwards, he took me and my new friends out to eat ramen and then my friend took me back to the hotel.

October 10th Sunday

Woke up today, checked out, and got ready to go to Sounkyou Hot Springs village for some hot springs chillin with 3 wonderful girls. Holly drove the 1 1/2 hours there which I am very thankful for. We went to check in to the room and had to wait in the lobby for a bit before we could go to our room, which was a pure stroke of luck. As we were waiting my friend (who`s from Hong Kong) suddenly nudged me and said "OMG, I think that`s (insert name here), the famous Hong Kong actor!" I looked over and lo and behold, it was him!! He`s a pretty famous actor in Hong Kong and has been in numerous dramas and movies and I`ve watched many of them, thanks to my mom. And his wife, who`s an actress, was also with him. We were ecstatic. And I`m pretty sure they were on to us giggling girls.

I finally went up to him to ask if we could take a picture with him and he said, "Sure!" I have the picture with him to be posted on facebook. So wait for it! You probably might recognize him if you watch a lot of Hong Kong stuff. Anyways, we checked into our wonderful hotel room after and went down to the hot springs. It was wonderful! After all the dance teaching I`ve been doing at the elementary for their festival my muscles were incredibly sore and I was beat. Btw, the school festival was on the 17th, which I`ll get into details later.

The trip was an awesomely wonderful experience. And I`ll be going again the weekend of the 23rd for the elementary school teacher`s faculty trip. Woot!

October 12th-15th

I`ve been working my ass off at school these last few days and going to 3 different schools a day. Why? Because the Shibetsu district Junior High English Speech and Performance contest was coming up on the 19th. Every day after I finish work and classes at the high school and/or elementary I head over to the middle school and stay there helping the kids rehearse and stuff until 6pm. Mind you that I don`t get paid after 4pm. I actually don`t mind because I really love helping the kids and being with them. But there came a point where I was just ridiculously exhausted and was maybe hoping for a day off from "working" at the school for so long. Actually, I would even settle for just half a day off.

I pitched the idea to my boss and supervisor of maybe getting a day off or half day off because of all the work I`ve been doing with these kids the last few days. But they just told me because I was doing this stuff off hours and my bosses were not the ones to appoint me to helping the kids, it`s all considered volunteer work where I technically don`t have to go. So, I won`t be able to get even a half day off. But on the papers at my middle school, I`m officially the appointed head teacher of all the English practices and was even appointed a proctor for the big national English test well after school hours. If I don`t go to these things I`m just making myself look like an ass. So in a way I was obligated to go and not at the same time. A wonderful situation to be in as an ALT, I have to say. Anyways, upon hearing that I was unable to get any compensation I was so frustrated I could`ve cried. It`s just a lot of built up stress and things that I was just so pissed at my bosses for a while. And then I have to also go to school on Saturday the 16th from 10am until 3pm (but it turned into being from 9am until 6pm, a freakin full day at work) and I`m not going to be compensated for any of that. True, I`m technically volunteering, but I just want a bit of a rest. *sigh* I just have to keep thinking that this is all for the kids. If it`s for them, I`ll shut up. Otherwise, I`m afraid my bosses won`t let me help the kids or work with them after school anymore.

Damn Japan and it`s strict unable to go around things ways.

Anyways, something wonderful happened on Friday the 15th however that made me feel a little better. I was at school until 6pm that night as well as the chem teacher. So, he knew I hadn`t eaten dinner yet so he texted me when I got home to ask if I wanted to go with him to Asahikawa for dinner and shopping. I was, of course, quite ecstatic to see his text and agreed to go with him.

It was raining hard that day so instead of picking me up by the street like he usually does, he backed his car up in front of my door to get me so that I wouldn`t have to run around in the rain. It was very sweet of him. His music player broke and that`s why he needed to go shopping for it. So we had a full hour of talking in the car. He looked so cute/hot that day. He wore a hat, scarf, grey zip-up hoodie over a white tank, olive green loose pants, tucked into his brown leather boots. Oshare. This was after work too. Thankfully I made myself look good as well.

We went to go eat Italian food and he paid for me. We actually had quite an awesome time talking with each other and it was really fun! Then we went shopping. At first on the escalators I would stand one step behind him, but as the night went on and as we got closer to each other he started to stand next to me on the escalators. When I was buying candy for a Halloween party he brought over a basket for me to hold and as I was about to grab the basket from him he told me that he`ll hold onto it for me. I`m a real sucker for these little gentlemanly moves. *sigh* At the end of the night I ended up falling a little for this guy. At first I just thought of him as just a friend. But the more I hang with him, the more I want to actually be with him. Ugh, I feel like a sap. I`ve also been glancing in his direction more often when I`m at the middle school.

Bleh, I just need to work things out here. >.<

October 17th Sunday

After Saturday`s ridiculous "work" hours from 9am-6pm helping my middle school kids at school with rehearsing and prop making with no compensation I get to jump right in to my elementary`s school festival. Man, so much things going on these last few weekends. Actually, I was suppose to have left yesterday with the town hall`s young people`s club to go on an awesome camping trip with them. But because of the ridiculous busy scheduling I`ve gotta stay here and work. I feel like a real freakin Japanese teacher and not just an ALT anymore, which is good and bad at the same time.

Anyways, my 5th graders, whom I taught my dancing to did a wonderful job at the festival! I was sooo proud of my kids. After that, the teachers had an enkai at an onsen restaurant and then we went to sing karaoke. I left early because I had work the next day because I`m not given a day off to rest from working on Sunday at the festival because it`s technically not part of my work schedule that my bosses set up for me. Usually, all the teachers who work during the school festival get a day off of work to recuperate, or basically, in compensation for them having worked. I would really like to have that, especially since I`ve been helping out at all the festivals. *sigh* Whatevs. Anyways, not a bad day.

And now, I`m up to date with what`s been goin on. I think. Otsukare for reading and I`ll post up pictures soon!