Ok, as promised I will write a bit more today. At the Kencho and this morning managed to finish all the important stuff, putting together my second travel expense document (went much smoother this time) and studying Japanese for a couple hours. Have to admit that the language is starting to make sense to me. I am hearing more than just sounds. Those sounds are now starting to represent meaning in my mind! Imagine that. Still not anywhere near knowing what's going on around me though. It'll come.

Anyway, the mid-year conference.
Amy did quite well at her presentation. She was a bit nervous about it, being that the subject was team-teaching and she's been doing that exactly two months! But she managed to put together one of the more interesting and usable presentations that I have seen since I've been here (and I've been to a lot). In fact, there is a guy (won't mention his name here) that had told me the night before, whilst we sucked a few beers down (there's a hint for ya), that he was looking forward to the conference because it meant he could essentially sleep for the next two days. Now honestly, I understood what he was saying except that that was exactly the reason I was not looking forward to the whole thing. I enjoy work and I saw a long two days before me. But getting back to him...he was sitting in front of me during Amy's thing, and about a half hour in, turns to me and says "This is pretty interesting. She's doing a good job," to which I replied with an emphatic "Really!?" I said this more out of surprise towards his reaction than I did towards Amy's ability to put on a good speech, mind you. It was really quite surprising to hear this guy saying that he was actually enjoying something of this nature. And I think that his response to the presentation speaks volumes about Amy's preparation and ability to keep an audience interested and entertained. Really. I am nearly always entertained by her. Sometimes I just watch her from across the room and wonder, "What the hell is she doing now?"
After that we had a few more seminars and then lunch and then a few more seminars. All of them were better than I thought they would be and the day went by fairly quickly.
Then we got bussed over to the hotel we were staying at (all of this is happening in the next town over from Kofu, by the way). I went up to my room, dropped off my stuff, and then waited a bit for my roommates to show up. None of them I knew very well, but I did know who they all were and I was rather happy to know that these were some of the older guys, meaning that our room would probably be a good place to sleep. So a couple of them showed up and we decided to go find some beer as apparently there was a convenience store around the corner.
But on our way out of the hotel a bunch of the other guys were already coming back with bags full of the sweet nectar we craved so much. And what's more...!...they told us that we could just drink theirs as that's why they had gotten so much. So up to out neighbors' room we headed and swigged a few while talking about the past couple months of our lives.
Then around 7pm we all headed down to dinner. The dinner was organized for us and ended up being quite nice. It was in a very large room that had tatami on the floor (so no shoes) and each of us had a chair that sat directly on the mats (no legs) with a cushion and a small short table that had bowls and plates of food. All the food was Japanese and although at first glance it didn't appear to be enough to fill me, in the end it did the job. Usually at these things (the other 3 or 4 times) there is a large table or two with lots of food on it and we are free to grab what we like and then have to stand around while we talk and eat. Not bad but this was much better. It was nice to have a seat and a table all to myself.
There was the usual toast of a few words and then "Kampai!" and then we all dug in. I had brought a beer down with me as I was told that we would be getting only one free drink so I toasted with a beer in one hand and sake in the other. Most of us did get sake but one person I know opted for an orange soda instead (I'll let you figure this one out). But the food was great, the sake was great, the gal I sat next to (Adrienne, from Virginia) was great to talk to, and it looked as though most of us were having a good time. They even had two ladies (separately) come out and do a traditional jig (Japanese style) to the old music. They were dressed in kimonos and had the white face paint and all. It was quite nice, though I was a bit too hungry to watch too closely.
Eventually they had to kick us out of the room (around 930pm) and the party moved up to some of the rooms we were staying in. We just sat around and talked and drank and carried on. It was all quite controlled for a while and it was actually good to talk to the other first year JETs and meet some of the veteran JETs. I liked nearly all of them. I even met a girl who knew my predecessor. That was a first. Seems she either kept to herself alot or at least stayed away from the other JETs (and I can understand why sometimes).
Now, I went to bed around midnight. I'd decided that I'd had enough beer and that it wasn't worth ruining the next day (gettin old, I guess). So I go to my room to where two of my roommates had already retired (one was asleep) and got into bed. About ten minutes later the last roommate came in and called it a night. So we did pretty well. But about ten minutes after that, two guys came in asking, "Are there any half-naked girls in here?" The light from the hallway came in with them and I looked over at them and said, "hey, get the fuck out of here." So they left with one of them telling us to remember the other's name. Idiots. Hell, man, even if I had been a half-naked female that tactic wouldn't have worked. So eventually I fell asleep.
Around 6am I woke and looked over at what had been an empty futon the night before to find it occupied. We been assigned to rooms of five people, but only four of our five stayed the night, thus, the empty futon. But now it was filled. Turns out the guy next to me was from the next room where the party had been. I guess about twelve people passed out in there and there was no room for him. So he came over looking for a place to sleep. He never woke me up so I didn't mind at all. It was just strange to find him there in the morning.
But sleeping arrangements were the least of anybody's worries that morning. Charles (also from Virginia) and I were the first ones up and we looked out our window to find a sole beer can floating the koi pond out back. The garden area and pond were extremely nice, by the way. "Well," we said, "that's not good, but it could be alot worse." And it turns out it was...
Apparently someone threw a beer bottle through a rice paper door and there was an "incident" with a fire-extinguisher. At the end of the next day's presentations and speeches, Robin told us all what had happened and asked the guilty parties to come forward. And from what I hear, two of the three guys involved did come forward. Not sure what's gonna happen with that last guy. Anyway, I'm sure that they're all paying for the repairs and I'll be surprised if we all stay there next year. Shit happens, I guess. But I would like to say that none of my friends were involved. And I'm so proud of them. Heh heh.
So the next day went ok except that we had a guest speaker who was one of the worst speakers I've ever had the misfortune of hearing and seeing. Guy was terrible. Talked about teaching and this and that for just under two hours. I felt like throwing a bottle or two through some rice paper. If he's there next year, I won't be. Funny part was when he was preaching to us about getting animated and excited in the classroom in order to better entertain and teach our students. "Ironic," I thought.
So that was it. Another conference over with. Not sure when the next one is but I hope it's not for a while. I had fun with it but I think four of them in three months in enough for now.

All else goes well. This weekend was a three dayer and Amy and I got to see a live football game. Your Sunday night game which pitted the Green Bay Packers against the Minnesota Vikings was shown over here yesterday morning at 1030am. Haven't seen a live game in a while. Was nice. And it was a pretty good game.

That's all for now.