Getting Back in the Swing of Things...sigh.

Well I'm back in Japanland and I can't necessarily say that I'm happy about it. We found out about a month ago that we would be getting a new supervisor but we wouldn't find out who it is until we got back to the office after spring break. Every three years, teachers and board of education employees get rotated to different schools and BOEs. There are 17 new employees in our office. Monday morning, they lined up and were introduced to the office. It was then that I realized that I had met our new supervisor before at a meeting of area English teacher (there were only about 7 of us there...2 Americans) that the principal of my near school took me to. He's a very nice man...in his early 40. He's been to America once and his English is not that great. He kinda strikes me as the pushover type...which I find annoying but I suppose I'll just have to get over that. I gave him a mug and candy that I brought back from Gerogia as a welcome gift...apparently I'm the only thoughtful one out of the bunch of ALTs.

Sometimes change is bad...

As we were packing up to leave around 4:27 (the guys were already gone), one of the office ladies came over and said, "Today, new people come. Party at 5...quarter after." Pooey! I was starving, tired, and ready to go home. So, we called the guys to tell them to be back by 5:15. The welcome party was just like the one they gave us when we first got here except the new people didn't have to give speeches...maybe we were special, or perhaps there were just too many of them. There was pizza, sushi, various other lil goodies, soda, tea, and of course beer and sake. An old and a new guy admitted that they can speak English only after they've had some booze...I thank them for their honesty. The second people started to clean up, I jumped in to help, and then got out of dodge.

So far, we've given a few of the new people nicknames...for example,
TJ...the guy who looks like our old supervisor so I named him Tokumaru Jr.
Sam...because he looks like Sam the eagle...the blue eagle puppet from The Muppet Show

Some of the employees who left were...
Kim Jong Il...they had the same haircut
Lil Daddy Warbucks...the smaller of the two bald guys in the office (Daddy Warbucks is still here)