Monthy Meetup: Anne's

So, we Amakusa ALTs have begun having “unofficial” get-togethers every month, meaning they aren’t planned and organized by our area representatives like Christmas or the welcome party is. We decided to rotate the host of these parties every month so no one gets overwhelmed with having to prepare for them (though come to think of it, this should encourage all of us to clean up a bit in preparation for our turn).

Last Friday, we met at Anne’s house. Anne is the high school ALT for Ushibuka and this was actually the first time I’d been out to her house. Even with directions, I almost missed the turn off from the main road (thanks Emily!). The roads to her house were really narrow and it was a little unnerving driving them at night. I’m just glad no one else was coming down the same street.

The party followed what has become a pretty standard formula. We ate and chatted for a bit about work and recontracting, since that decision has to be made by mid-February. I’m a bit saddened by how many people will be leaving next year, but I understand that they all have their reasons. By this time in the year, most people are pretty settled on their views of Japan, so it was refreshing to not hear only about bad experiences, as is usually the case around November, when the first years are all hitting stage two of culture shock.

Amanda and I brought along a bunch of games from the house, Marie and Andrew had brought Monopoly, and Erik and Emily provided cards to play nerts, which has become our game of choice at these types of events. We discussed for a short bit what we should play, as we had two native Japanese speakers, and decided on Apples to Apples, as Amanda’s version is bi-lingual. I succeeded in not making any lifelong enemies this time around, and was amused that everyone assumes the most horrible or out of place card is mine. Next, we played Scategories. That game is a lot harder than I remember it being as a kid. The average seemed to be around 15 points. Pretty sure Amanda won with 19. Next, I sat and watched as Anne, Amanda, Erik, and Emily played the Peanut Butter Jelly Game, which we had inherited from a departing JET last year. It looked like an amusing game, but I think having the maximum number of players made it drag on far too long. Last, we played nerts, a card game I was unaware of until I got to Japan. I was teamed up with Emily for the first round and while we put in a pretty good performance, we lost to Erik and Shuhei. For the second round, I was with Amanda. We managed to win the game despite having some really tough starts.

Throughout the night, Anne had some music playing off her computer. It was a really good mix of songs from the 90s that we all seemed familiar with. Amanda kept saying how much she loved the song selection, which led to a discussion of what music we listened to. Amanda plugged in her iPod and everyone had fun playing with iDaft, a soundboard for a few of Daft Punk’s more popular songs. I asked if anyone had seen Interstella 5555 and said I’d bring it with me for next month’s party, which will be at Erik’s place I believe.

After the second game of nerts, I finally checked the time. It was 2 AM and we still had about an hour trip to Kuritake followed by another 40-minute trip home. We said our goodbyes and headed home. When we dropped off Emily, we went inside for a bit to see her new puppy, which Amanda loves to death. We finally got home at about 4 and crashed. It was a fun day.