Drunked

So my work sometimes does these party things. Escaping the school, going out to an izakaya and getting our drinking done. It's also an amazingly awesome way for me to practice Japanese.

I showed up a minute late. (This is socially the same as not showing up and slapping your boss.) And sometimes the izakaya will act dumb. All like, "Why's this gaijin here?" And I have to try to convince them I'm a teacher. But the izakaya we went to had their act together. They see a white girl and everyone chorused "ALT!" Also, I got there well before the 6th grade teachers, so nobody was upset with me.

Last night was awesome. I keep getting put on the VP's team. We were the "Sharks!!!" and darn proud of it. Like 3 toasts proud. We lost bingo. Cuz bingo is a stupid arbitrary game of stupidness. But there was the exciting element of number calling. Because if you called the wrong number...your team had to draw a word with their collective asses. It was brilliant to watch. Just brilliant I tell you. Extra brilliant because I didn't know what they were up to at first.

Because we were a big-ass group spending all kinds of money, the owner brought out a few bottles of sake for *free*. Everyone was pretty stoked. The principal was given about half of each bottle, because that's how it's done. It shows you respect the man. You do respect him, don't you?

At the end, we all had to stand up, remain standing, clap and say "thank you" to the organisers. Due to the respectfulness of all the teachers, the principal failed epically at step two. He bit it hard across the table...in Japan those things are way closer to ground level than comfy falling level. Only difference was our tables were covered with bowls and glasses. Which went flying upon impact with sensei body. He was not fazed. He was also not sober. Two teachers wound up holding him upright for the rest of the toast.

There weren't many broken bits. So yay for really strong tableware. But after that it was home-going time. So I went home.

Packing my Packables

Getting ready for this trip is hoot! I go through periods of wild panic whenever I travel. Most relating to what I need to pack. This being no exception.

Benefits for this trip include knowing people who know the weather for where I'm going. So I can pester them with my many, many questions. I'm also going somewhere with opposite seasons. Which means the clothing I'm taking is from a wardrobe I'm not currently using.

But this, of course, means that I've already started packing items into my suitcase. I've already reduced my packing list by starting early. Everyone says you don't need much while traveling. And I decided to finally follow this advice. If only because, push come to shove, I will steal my boyfriend's clothing while I'm there. In fact, I might just do that anyway. Because I like wearing his stuff. The goal is to get all of my clothes into one half of my suitcase (which has zips and flaps to make the allocation simple enough). The other half will hold presents and consumables for the journey.

So far I will be taking:
- Coat (medium weight and waterproof)
- Scarf and Gloves
- Thermal Underwear
- Jeans
- 4 sweaters (2 are fairly light and okay for layering)
- 2 turtlenecks
- 1 dress (just in case)
- assorted t-shirts
- socks/panties/bras
- 1 pullover

I'm currently working out medicine, paperwork, souvenirs and body care items. But those are things I'm using right now, so I'm a bit hesitant to pack them away. Especially the medicine.

And I don't have all my souvenirs. I don't actually use the souvenirs I get for people, though I was told that I'm totally allowed to use one item, but I don't think that a) I'm going to or b) it will get packed in my checked luggage.

So I have under 20 days to sort it out before I'm leaving Japan's hot and humid summer for New Zealand's cold and humid winter!
Any suggestions for packing or souvenirs?

Pillz for Skillz

Doing uncomfortably grown-up things successfully in a foreign language is something of a well deserved ego-boost. I found a clinic, signed up as a new patient, had a discussion with a nurse that didn't shoot my blood pressure through the roof, was able to talk to the doctor and procured the medication that I went in looking for; all in Japanese.

I find I psych myself out far too much when it comes to these sorts of things, when I am able to hold conversations about a great many things which pertain to daily life. By no means am I fluent, and the nurses spoke slowly and pantomimed a great deal (which I'm fairly certain they did not do for the other patients) but I was able to respond using somewhat coherent thoughts delivered with a language that I didn't start using regularly until earlier this year. I had a wee bit of trouble with the kanji on the forms, because it's a stupid butt-pain used to prevent people from enjoying the acquisition of this tongue.

Fun fact, people think way more highly of you if you're a teacher and a gaijin (as opposed to a gaijin doing other gaijin-y jobs of gaijinness). They made a special note of it in my health file. I don't think it's medically relevant (other than the overwhelming germ exposure) and there wasn't a place in the forms for it. Nope. She just wrote it out on the cover of my file. Right next to the big sticky tab reading "ピル". It reads "pill" for all of you too lazy to Google X-late that. Which is short for "the pill" which is what I was after.

Finding the pill in Japan hasn't been any sort of a problem for me. Sure, they don't always have the same brands, but darn near any ladies clinic will have the goods. If you're super advanced you can call ahead to see what is carried at the destination (I'm not, I will take the risk upon arrival). But it's kinda convenient that they have the pills in house, and they dispense up to 3 months at a time. It's kinda inconvenient that you have to go to the clinic every time you need a refill, but 3 months and a doctor visit running around 7000円 is much better than what I was on in the States with insurance. So make sure you utilize the heck outta those visits!

On a fairly related topic; I've got nearly all my ducks aligned for NZ. Yes, oral contraceptive is a duck now, just work with me. I was even bad and broke open my coin bank early. More than I expected, less than I hoped. It's going to make someone fairly happy though. With happiness. Which is good. I like making people happy. I think the 18th, I will be doing some sjupa schjopping. Just cuz I can. And I kinda need to. I know I need sunglasses and hairties. I'm sure there are other things too. I'll post a packing list later.