Intermission

I've decided to stay in Japan for a while longer with a new job. But more on that later.

Tuesday was a little sad, but it was also refreshing to leave NOVA. I'll be honest and say that: the company is great for helping people make it to Japan, and in terms of setting you up without any serious problems they're great. However, the professionalism and backwards functioning leaves much to be desired. Just like with many corporations, being one of the little (but capable) guys is like smacking your head against a brick wall. Only you're not a karate master and there's no chance to break it. As much as I'll miss the students and the staff-room banter, I'm not sorry to be moving on.

Some of the students held a party for me on Tuesday, which was lovely. They brought pretty expensive food and some green tea, and we reminisced and talked about the future. One woman is quitting because I won't be there anymore. Slightly paradoxical since it effectively means that my effort to make her learn English is now wasted, but that's life. We had niku-man - steamed bread with a meat filling - and mochi - sticky rice sweets wrapped in leaves.

My final student happened to be a very low level that I've been soldiering on with for the year. As it happened, I hadn't seen her for a little while but talking with her, I realised how incredible an improvement she had made. It was a nice ending.

Following that, I bought some flowers for my Japanese teachers as my new job means I won't be able to take lessons anymore, and went to the volunteer centre. Unfortunately, it was the first day of their academic year so everything was a bit crazy. My teacher had a few minutes free so we chatted and I think she was pretty happy with my achievement and her success from last year. My Japanese is still not great but it's conversational. It was nice seeing all the new students enrolling and knowing how much fun they'd have. On the plus side, all of their trips and events occur on weekends, which I couldn't attend before but, with my normal person's schedule, I can still see the crew every now and then.

With a bit of time to spare as I didn't stay the full two hours, and with quite a lot of presents, I went home before meeting the teachers for drinks.

About 12 people came to the Izakaya and we drunk, planned some more parties (including baseball this weekend - that's right, it's back!) and they gave me a card which they'd all signed.

Many people had to work so theye went home, but six of us went upstairs for all-night karaoke. The usual singing and drinking was accompanied by a new feature, costumes. For £2.50 each, we could hire costumes for the night. They were all pretty ridiculous; James was an Elvis glam-rocker, Terry a monkey, Keiko a mermaid, Joash had a dress which he was assured was for men, Tenille a Harajuku-style goth, and I was a leopard. It was amazing, it came with a full body suit, gloves and ears. A little tight around places, a little revealing in many, but it made for some funny moments; especially my tail knocking over drinks, and Japanese drunk business-men using it in innuendo-ish ways.

5am, we stumbled to the train station, and I left Musashi Kosugi while the sun came up, and a new part of my life begun.