Day 16

Thursday, and graduation day for many students here at Yamasa.  The way it works is that classes are taught as "modules", or just 2 week cycles, and at the end of the 2 weeks, another group of students enters.  The cycle then repeats.  The classes move at such a rate that no matter when you enter, there will always be a class that's geared towards where you need to be.  Classes are capped at 15, though, so your test results may necessitate the splitting or combination of multiple classes.

Only two of our students were leaving, so we have enough room for 4 more to come in before we get split up.  As it was their last day, the class had sort of a party feel for the entirety of the day, but that's also a function of the karaoke party that was to happen later on.  Needless to say, the lessons proceeded as usual, with the occasional outburst of something party related.  For lunch, I had a fun time searching for something to eat.  Everyone as usual went to Domy, the local supermarket, but I didn't feel like walking, so I tried Kitsutsuki for a bento.  They were all out of them.  So, I tried ZigZag for the lunch, which looked like it would be good, but Shin had run out of supplies to make food for the day, except for sandwich buns and meat.  I had two chicken sandwiches, which were, as usual, tasty and inexpensive.  Okay, so I didn't have to pay - Arturo treated everyone to lunch that day.  Nice guy.

After classes that afternoon, we all attended a ceremony that is a tradition of Yamasa, and that is graduation speeches.  Every graduating student, there were roughly 10 of them, gave a speech of varying length, from 10 seconds up to 1 minute 30 seconds.  Many many pictures were taken, many laughs shared, and many rounds of applause given for the graduates.  All in all, a very festive time for the students of Yamasa.

Karaoke was soon to follow, but at first, I had to make a few failed attempts at exchanging money.  There I was, riding around with $1000 in travelers cheques, trying to find a bank to make a money exchange.  I showed up at 5:02 p.m., but it closed at 5:00 p.m.  Darn.  All I have remaining is just enough for karaoke, and that's it.  I hope I can get to a bank early enough tomorrow and exchange the money.  At least Friday classes only run for the first half of the day, so I can just take my time at the bank.

On the subject of the first word of the previous paragraph, karaoke!  Such a huge phenomenon in Japan, karaoke is pretty much everywhere.  Our class had a "going away" party for Dan and Mikhail, so we rented a room for about 5 hours and sang plenty of songs, ordered plenty of food, and I observed some astounding feats of alcohol consumption (and a few failed attempts).  The songs I sang were, in no particular order, "Billie Jean", "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Never Gonna Give you up" (better known to the world as "rickroll"), and "Don't stop believing".  I received plenty of complements from everybody, even when they were sober, so I guess I did a pretty good job (or just had enough energy to put on a good show).

Following our trip to the karaoke bar, we all then went, some of us inebriated, some like me completely sober and able to recollect the events of the night, to Denny's to sit around, talk, and have dessert.  My dinner consisted of, at the karaoke club, mini tacos and a pretty good but cold ramen soup; at Denny's, all I had was a scoop of ice cream that came, to my surprise, on a slice of French toast, and was overall tasty.  I got back to the residence at about 12:45 a.m., and still had some (surprisingly easy and not very time consuming) homework to do.

Tomorrow starts another "module" with new students.  I'll have more to say then, but here's a photo and text.  Cheers, mate.

Ever seen a drunk Brit sing the Sex Pistols' "Anarchy in the U.K."?  It's great, just probably something that you hope he isn't completely serious about (or know that he probably doesn't even remember).