I think I am adjusting somewhat. At the very least I'm having a few days a week where I feel good. And then the next day I'll be back to feeling crap again.
I continue to have pounding headaches in the afternoon. I continue to be paranoid about my car.
Most days I am enjoying myself however. I enjoy being back at school and enjoy learning again. And I also enjoy the social aspect. I'm beginning to get to know my classmates, exchange jokes with them between classes, go out for lunch, and even develop circles of friends.
I've also managed to acquire a small fan club of about 7 Korean females. They're a couple levels below me, so they're not in the same classroom, but I see them occasionally between classes. They're always very eager to talk to me and compliment me repeatedly on how cool I look. They give me small gifts of chocolate and candy. Last week they asked if I wanted to walk down to the convenience store with them during lunch break. When I said yes, they gave out such a loud cry of joy that some of the teachers came out of the office lounge to see what had happened.
This is of course the old "Charisma Man" factor coming into play again: the sudden and undeserved popularity we Westerners experience in Asia because of 1). Our relative rarity out here and 2). the popularity of American movies worldwide, which has created the impression that all Westerners are like movie stars.
This is a common story out here and, since writing about how popular I am tends to be one of my favorite subjects, it has popped up many times on this blog before now. Still, it's interesting to note the differences between countries. The amount of intense attention I'm receiving from these Korean girls is even a further step up than what I'm used to in Japan. Assuming the factors that create Charisma Man syndrome are the same in both countries, why should there be a difference? An interesting question for sociologists to explore, no doubt. (I wonder what my life would have been like if I had spent the past 6 years in Korea instead of Japan? Ah, the road not taken.)
In order not to get in any trouble, I worked into the conversation that I was living with my fiancee as soon as possible. (I figured I was getting a little bit old to play the game of concealing her existence.) They were initially devestated, but they still seem very eager to get a chance to talk to me between classes. Well, as Richard Nixon once said, "I like to be liked". At any rate, it's nice to know that even as an old man of 30, my years of popularity are not completely behind me.
Speaking of the old 30th Birthday... It passed quietly here, as most Birthdays do in Japan. I usually try and keep a low profile on these days anyway. The previous week I had mentioned to some of my classmates that I was on the verge of turning 30 (it was the start of classes and we were introducing ourselves to each other). They wanted to throw me a birthday party, but I was horrified at the idea and quickly squashed it. I didn't mention anything to Shoko to see if she would remember on her own, and she didn't do too well. I had a feeling if our positions had been reversed, I would have never heard the end of it. But I let it go. I did point out to her that I had always remembered her birthdays, but she responded, "Yes, but what's the point? You remember them, but you never do anything special for them. You just wish me a happy birthday, and I still have to do all the cooking."
The following week however, Shoko made me a big birthday dinner and cake. And took a couple pictures of me at 30.
Classes... Because of my work schedule, I have trouble keeping up with the homework for my Japanese classes.
The first test I scored a 91 %, which was the best score in the class. I was quite proud of this, until I remembered that I had originally tested into the advanced class, and then dropped myself down to the intermediate class. So this already was an unfair advantage over my classmates. Plus, lest I forget, I have lived in Japan for 6 years now. My classmates have been in Japan for one month, or at most half a year. The fact that we're even in the same classroom studying the same material should be an embarrassment to me. I could plausibly argue that Chinese students have a background in Kanji characters, which helps them out a lot. But that still doesn't explain away why the French, Vietnamese, and Korean students are also about the same level as me.
...Well, it's embarrassing. What can I say? I've become the poster child for the ignorant American who lives several years abroad and still can't speak the language. My only defense is that I have been living in Japan as an English teacher, whereas my classmates have all come to Japan on student visas and have been able to throw themselves fully into the language study. Hopefully after completing this course, I'll finally have a decent level of Japanese where I can hold my head up high again. Although even now I'm finding it difficult to study while splitting my time as an English teacher.
Last update I was feeling sorry for myself because most of my Chinese classmates didn't have part time jobs, but it turns out I might have just been talking to the wrong Chinese students. The other day I was talking to a different classmate who gave me quite a different perspective. "Most of us have part time jobs," he said. "And we have to work a lot. I work from 7 to 11 every night, and then have to do my homework afterwards. And we're constantly being yelled at by our Japanese bosses because we don't know the Japanese customs or make mistakes speaking Japanese."
...Point taken. With all the crap I have to put up with at my job, at least I don't have someone coming in and yelling at me constantly. And as a teacher, I have a lot more enjoyable job than a restaurant or convenience store employee (which is what most of the Chinese students are doing). Not to mention that I get paid a lot more that they do.
...On the other hand, at least the Chinese students have jobs that allow them to practice their Japanese. I'm forbidden from using Japanese inside the classroom, so my job has absolutely no studying benefits for me. (In fact because of the simple English I always have to use in class, I often complain that my English is deteriorating, and my Japanese isn't improving. The worst of both worlds.)
And lastly, speaking of work... This Monday I was glancing at the work schedule for the following day, and noticed that my name wasn't on it. Instead, teaching all of my classes was someone listed as John Brooks. I asked the staff about this. "Oh, that's just a computer error," they said. "John Brooks is a teacher in Fukuoka. His name got put on your schedule, and your name was put on his, but don't worry about it. Just come in and teach tomorrow as always."
And so I did. I walked into the office as always, and my (long suffering) Australian co-worker called out, "Hey Swagy, how are ya?"
I slapped him (lightly) across the face. "My name is John Brooks, Damn you!" The rest of the day I refused to answer to my proper name. The Japanese staff thought it was amusing, but my co-worker just seemed to get more and more frustrated throughout the day.
Finally at the end of the day he said to me, "Are you going to tell me what this is all about, or what?" I thought it was self evident, and pointed to the schedule, but this only confused him more. Finally I realized he hadn't bothered to look at the schedule all day, and didn't realize the switch up in names.
And Via Whisky Prajer I would like to say more about King, but I am still wrestling with what he represents -- unlike, say, the North American media, which still does not hesitate to put a black preacher "in his place." From Jon Trott, who remembers.
After having converted my old videos onto DVD, here is another retrospection video. This is the tape of the hitch hiking trip Greg and I did up to Hokkaido in the summer of 2003. It's a long tape so I'm splitting it into several parts (with commentary). This is the tape up through our first ride. (Also available on youtube here, if google video is giving you any trouble.)
Comments:
*We started out from Greg's town in Kusu. The night before Eion, Greg and myself went out to "D-styles", a karaoke bar in Kusu, where we stayed until the early hours of the morning. Then we came back and slept on Greg's floor. Because we spent the night at Greg's apartment, it had been necessary for me to do all my packing the day before. Greg however had to wake up early in the morning to do his packing (we were committed to getting an early start on that day). He turned the video camera on Eion and I while we were still sleeping, and you can see me sleepily sit up, and mumble a few nonsense words of Japanese.
*As you can see from the video, it was a very rainy morning and an ominous start to the hitch hiking trip. Fortunately most of that cleared up by the time we actually started.
The red car outside in the rain was my car at the time. I later sold it to my successor, and he in turn had it crushed down when it cost more to upkeep than it was worth. At any rate it was still a lot nicer than the car I'm driving now :(.
*I said on the camera that my previous hitch-hiking experience was once hitching a ride home from University. This is a slightly mispoken.
--First of all I used the word University because I was talking to two Brits, and in British English I've discovered "College" means a kind of high school. My own Alma Mater, however, can be safely considered a small college by American standards
--Secondly I didn't hitch hike from college to home. I hitch hiked from my teacher aiding experience back to the college dormitories.
This was back during sophomore year. As a pre-requisite to get into the education program, I had to spend two semesters doing volunteer tutoring.
Because this was back before I was lucky enough to have access to a car on campus, I used to take Calvin's taxi service to get there and back every week. (What did they call that service again?)
On my last day, I ran overtime tutoring. And then as I was trying to hurriedly get out the door, my supervising teacher came over to give me a farewell speech to tell me how much they had appreciated my help that semester. And then she gave me some gifts (a coffee mug with the schools name on it).
By the time I got out the door, I was about 20 minutes late, and the Calvin car had long since left.
I thought about calling Calvin taxi service to let them know I was still there. But then first I would get chewed out by them for not being ready and waiting at the given time. And then it would be who knows how long before they got a break in their schedule and were able to come pick me up. And during that time I would have to sit around twiddling my thumbs by the school doors, and everyone would be asking me if was alright and if I had a ride home. And then I would have had to explain that I missed my ride back to Calvin because of their good-bye speech to me, and that would just be awkward all around.
So, I started walking down the East-Beltline with my thumb stuck out. After about 10-15 minutes, an old guy stopped his car and picked me up. He brought me back to Calvin, and I gave him the school's coffee cup in gratitude.
*Eion gave us our first ride to the highway rest stop, and then left Greg and I from there.
Eion and Greg had experience hitch hiking in Japan before, and had figured out that the way to do this was to stick to the high way rest stops. That way people already had their cars stopped anyway. Besides it gave them time to look you over and think about if they wanted to give you a ride. (Otherwise if you're just standing on the side of the road, by the time they decide they realize you're there, they're already driving past you. )
As long as we kept to the highway rest areas, we seldom had to wait more than 10 minutes. (The one big exception would be when we got near the Tokyo area).
* Although ultimately we were headed to Hokkaido, Greg and Eion again drew on their previous hitch hiking experience to tell me that it was no good asking for a ride to a destination too far away. So we would ask for rides in increments throughout the trip. Our first sign was for Honshu. I was given the task of making this sign while Greg finished up his packing, but in the end my sign was deemed too sloppy and unsatisfactory by Greg, so he redid it himself. (Greg had procured a bunch of old cardboard from the local supermarket the night before for the purposes of making signs.)
* The cheesy TV documentary style part, in which Greg invites the viewer to come along on the trip, was all my idea. Greg was a good enough sport to go along with it.
I in turn of course got the idea from Brett, who used to use this kind of thing all the time in our old Calvin era videos. (In fact you can still see Brett's influence in some of my videos these days).
* As Greg says in the video, we had made a brief stop at a Photo booth (or "Purikura", as it's called in Japlish) to take photos of ourselves, which we intended to give out as gifts to people who gave us rides. It may be a bit narcissistic I guess, but we wanted to give out small gifts in lieu of offering to chip in for the gas, and Purikura is about as small and cheap as you can get.
* Through out the trip, in between car rides Greg and I would try and guess how long it would be before we got our next ride. Greg, being the optimist, usually took the shorter time. I usually took the more conservative estimate.
We almost always got picked up faster than we anticipated, and so Greg won the guessing game every time. If memory serves, I didn't win once.
*Shoko was watching this video and commented, "Wow, you're Japanese was really bad in those days. I had forgotten how bad it was when we first met." (This video was taken a few months before I met Shoko).
Actually I like to think my Japanese was slightly better than is indicated on this video, even in those days. I think it was just the pressure of the camera that made me nervous and caused me to flub a lot of it.
I'm a bit busy these days (see previous post) so I don't have time to write one of my usual long rambling birthday blogs. Despite this being "The Big One".
Actually these big number birthdays you can see coming from such a long way away, that by the time they actually arrive there's not much left to say. Good-bye youth. Hello middle age. et cetera. (Besides, to the extent that the readership of this blog is made up mostly of old school friends, most of you are around the same age anyway).
So, I'll just make the announcement with out comment.
In the meantime, if anyone is feeling nostolgic, here's some past birthday blogging. 29, 28, 27, 26, and, if we're counting retrospections, 23rd Birthday
A friend e-mailed: Well, it sounds like you will be Mr. Busy come April...I suspect (hope?) your prodigious web output will be diminished in the coming months as you focus on your studies and work.
I was going to write a long post recounting the reasons why I've ended up enrolling in this school, and all my ambivalence about where this is headed and how useful this will end up being for my future. I don't have time to write that post now, and besides much of that information was already included in this post I did back in January anyway. I also had it in mind to write a post about my history of studying Japanese; my ups and downs and why I'm still struggling at a lower intermediate level after 6 years. But that also I don't have time to write, and besides much of that information was included in this post back here. For now I'll just plunge right into describing my life as it is now, and leave aside the big picture questions for later.
So, yeah,...Where to start? While, for starters, I am extremely busy. Here is my schedule for a typical day: * 6:30--Wake up, shower, shave, breakfast, etc *7:15--Due my best to get out of the house by about 7:15. *8:30 It's about an hour and 15 minutes commute to the school in Beppu. *9:00-3:10 School *3:10--Get into my car as quick as I can and drive back to Nakatsu for work. *4:30--With any luck, get into work at around 4:30. Have a half an hour to try and prepare a few lessons and grab dinner on the run *5-9 Work 9:30. Get home. Eat something. Try and do some homework. Sleep.
You know, it looked fine on paper, but it's proving to be a very hard schedule in real life. For example the stress of having to wolf down just about all my meals on the run. Or having to always rush at full speed from one city to another. Or never having time for simple things like a bit of exercise in the day. Also I was told by the school I should be doing 3 hours of studying every night, and I don't really have time for that.
The weekends are not much better, because when I re-arranged my schedule with Nova I agreed to move my afternoon classes to the weekends.
I have been suffering from a huge headache when I get into work every evening. I'm not entirely sure why. It's probably just a result of studying all day, added to motion sickness in the car from zooming through mountain roads to make it back in time for work. But being of a rather paranoid disposition, I worry that it's because my aging car is spewing out too much carbon fumes or something, and I'm losing brain cells with every long drive.
I am also tired and feel sick all the time.
I've already had a couple conversations with Shoko about quitting my job, and she is strongly against it. So I promised to soldier on for another couple weeks before I brought the topic up again. I've been told by a number of people that there is a period of adjustment to a new schedule, after which your body starts to feel better and you can hack it easier....We'll see I guess.
The school I'm attending is a subdivision of Beppu University, designed for foreign students who want to be able to attend a Japanese college. The idea is that the school takes them in at whatever level they are at, and after one year of intensive study they have enough Japanese to be able to function in an academic setting. Needless to say the pace of the course is very intense.
My fellow students are mostly around 18 or 19 years old. And 90 percent of them are Chinese. They speak Japanese to the teacher of course, (and to me when they want to communicate), but among themselves there's all sorts of Chinese flying around the classroom. A Vietnamese student joked that she heard more Chinese than Japanese in her Japanese classes, and it's not far from the truth.
It's a bit disconcerting to have spent so much time and energy studying Japanese, only to find myself in a room full of Chinese students and back to square one linguistically. Especially when they're looking in my direction and chatting away excitedly and I get the distinct impression they're talking about me. (I had years ago past the point where I developed enough Japanese to listen in whenever I realized someone was talking about me, and usually get the jist of it. I had forgotten how unnerving it is not to understand at all.)
The other students are made up of a mixture of Koreans, Vietnamese, and from the Indian subcontinent. They range in ages. (Most of the Koreans I met, for example, are in their mid 20s, and I even met one student so far who was older than I am.)
I am not only the sole American, but the only native English speaker full stop. And with the exception of 2 French students, the only Westerner.
As is always the case in these international settings there are a lot of interesting people and a lot of interesting discussions take place between classes and after classes. I've met a lot of great people, and I really wish I had time to socialize with my fellow students more than I do. But because I don't have time to study at night, I spend most of the class breaks and lunch breaks doing my homework. :(...
I was talking to some Chinese students the other day, and confiding to them that I didn't have a lot of time to study outside of class, and I asked how many hours they usually studied every day. They answered they rarely studied at all, and just spend every afternoon goofing off and enjoying student life in the dormitories or around the city. At which point I really became envious of them. ...But as Shoko repeatedly pointed out to me, I already had my carefree student days once in my life, so I can't complain. (And in fact truth be told, I've led a rather privileged life and have had more than my share of goofing off time up until now. For example the summer Japanese course I took up in Hokkaido a few years ago was during school summer vacation, and we had every afternoon we had free to explore the city and then go out to bars at night. (And that school also had a very diverse and interesting student body).) ...But alas, I always find the knowledge of having played in the past is a slight consolation for having to work hard in the present.
At the beginning of school we all took a placement test, and I managed to test into the highest class. (I guess 6 years of living in Japan haven't all been in vain). Two days later I had to drop out and go down to the intermediate class. The advanced class was a bit too difficult for me. I think I could have done it if I had my evenings free, but with no time to study at night there was just no way I could have kept up with that class.
After having tested into it, I was resentful of having to drop out of the top class just because of my stupid job. But the intermediate class moves at a fast enough clip to keep me challenged. Indeed it is somewhat hard to gauge my level comparatively, because my Chinese classmates have a huge advantage in reading Kanji characters over me (Japanese Kanji characters originally came from China). But at the same time they are all recently arrived in Japan, and many struggle to put together even basic sentences when speaking.
My classmates in the advanced class had been reluctant to lose me, and tried to encourage me to stay in their class. I suspect this was because as the only non-Chinese student in the advanced class, I added a bit of color in the classroom for them. In fact the conversations I have with the my fellow students are often the same sort of conversations I have with local Japanese people. "Wow, aren't you tall?" "Isn't it great that you have blue eyes?" "Can you use chopsticks?" et cetera. I guess this is all part of being a Westerner in Aisa whether you're dealing with Japanese, Chinese or Koreans. They have also taken an unusual interest in my nutrition, and criticize my habit of always eating at lunch fast food bought at the convenience store.
I know I just got saying that my outing in Beppu would be my last free day for a while, but it turns out there's a couple days in between registration and classes , so I was able to squeeze in one more "Better Know a City".
Besides being my last free day for a while, this was my only chance to get out and see the Japanese cherry blossoms this spring (they're in bloom now). So I thought I would go out to Yabakei.
Expecting a big day of hiking (what else is there to do in a country town up in the mountains) I put in a hearty breakfast. Two slices of buttered toast, a big bowl of oatmeal, half a cup of coffee, and a pack of tofu (this being Japan). Then I got in my car and drove on past the mountains of Honyabakei, and entered into the boarders of Yabakei town.
The first thing I did was stop at a convenience store to buy a notebook and pen (which I had forgotten to take with me.) Then I noticed right across the street was a nice stone bridge, and a path along the Yamakuni river, so I left my car parked at the convenience store and walked down along by the Yamakuni.
The main road through both Honyabakei and Yabakei follows along the Yamakuni river, and it is an absolutely beautiful drive. The river is amazing. I took a couple of shots of it while I was walking along beside it.
Although I had driven down this main road countless times before,whenever you stop the car and actual walk around you begin to see things you never noticed before. And so it was with me now. Once I was on the other side of the river, I noticed on a nearby hilltop there was some sort of a shrine surrounded by cherry trees. I hiked up there and it was great. I got a great view of the surrounding area from the hill and the cherry trees were everywhere.
As anyone who has been in Japan knows, the cherry trees may only be in bloom for 2 weeks of the year, but when they're in bloom they're really in bloom. The Japanese grow these trees absolutely everywhere just for the two weeks of blossoms.
(About the pictures on this post: I'll just say it once to get it off my chest and then won't repeat myself for the rest of this entry, but the whole town of Yabakei is really stunning in person. None of the pictures or grainy video footage I uploaded here do it any sort of justice).
Next it was off to the Yabakei Waterfall.
Over the years I've spent a lot of time on this blog talking about the Yabakei Waterfall. And with good reason. It's a great spot, and every summer we spend a lot of time there. (It's too hot to do much of anything else during the muggy Japanese summers). It might not be quite as tall or as visually impressive as the Waterfalls in Ajimu, but you can slide down it like a waterslide. Can you beat that?
The most descriptive post I wrote about this waterfall is here. And this one is also pretty detailed. And once Amy came along with her camera I was finally able to get some photos of the waterfall posted here.
Because I spend so much time at this waterfall, I thought I'd give it the complete video treatment, and video tape the whole walk down to the waterfall from the car park. Or if you don't have the patience for that, I took a picture as well.
Surprisingly, this waterfall seems to be one of the best kept secrets in Oita prefecture. Most of the JETs and other foreigners know about it, and it keeps getting passed down from one generation of JETs to the next. But very few Japanese people visit this waterfall. And none of my students in Nakatsu (only two towns up) seem to have even heard of it. Strange.
While I was over here in this area, I noticed there were signs for another waterfall nearby, so I drove down in the direction of the arrows. And there was another waterfall located just a short distance away. And it was pretty impressive. I'm not sure why I've never bothered to check it out before.
Once back in the car, I made my way into what passes for downtown Yabakei. As this is off the main road, I had driven by here many times before on my way to through the town, but never stopped the car and had a look around. So I pulled into the parking lot for the town hall, and had a walk up and down the streets of downtown Yabakei.
There wasn't much to see. As I suspected. I had vaguely hoped that by walking around I might find all sorts of cool little shops or diners hidden away, but there was pretty much nothing. There was one coffee shop, a couple general stores, a few temples, one book store, a clothing store that didn't look open, a dentist, and other mostly uninteresting things. All of the down town area could be walked across in about ten minutes.
It was, if nothing else, a beautiful location for a downtown, with mountains on all sides and beside the Yamakuni river. There was also a cycling road which follows the length of the Yamakuni river (from Nakatsu all the way to Hita). Looking at the great scenery these bikers got to enjoy on their ride along the Yamakuni river made me wish I had a working bike in Japan again. (Unfortunately in Japan I have trouble finding a good bike for my size, and then also keeping it from rusting during rainy season. I've more or less given up for the moment).
I went into the town cultural center hoping I might find some pamphlets on sightseeing in Yabakei, but there was nothing. In the town library, however, I saw something that really warmed my heart. Someone had written up a little essay about the importance of working for Peace in the world, and hung it up on the library's bulletin board.
Isn't that great? Doesn't that just re-affirm your faith in humanity? I mean it would have been so easy to be cynical about this, and say no one cares what the people in Yabakei think about world peace, but instead someone put a lot of time and effort writing their opinion on world peace, with the full knowledge that it would just be posted here in a small town library.
(Actually a closer examination of the Kanji reveals that this was done by a Yabakei junior high school student. Possibly as a school assignment. But I'm going to keep my optimistic view of human nature anyway. And besides, at the Yabakei bookstore I saw a poster for international peace day on March 3rd).
Next, it was off to Yabakei dam.
I mentioned this before in my write-up of Matama, but once when I was an ALT in the elementary schools I remember sitting in on a class about environmental conservation. At the end, the children were given booklets about all the natural beauty spots in Oita prefecture. I was appalled to discover that a few dams had snuck there way into this list of "natural beauties."
This indicates that the true conservation consciousness is a bit behind in Japan. One the other hand, because of Japan's mountainous topography all the water usually runs straight down the mountains and into the ocean, and aside from the dams there are hardly any freshwater lakes in Japan (at least in Oita prefecture). As such, most of the lakes created by dams are turned into nature parks or scenic sight seeing areas.
There were several wild flowers and cherry blossom trees on the drive up to the dam, so I stopped the car to take some video.
Bosch (Ribs) and were I walking to class when we saw Vanderboom (Boom) and Chris M (Pasta). Bosch complained to me about how much Boom is always complaining. (Boom had been over at our apartment last night while I was playing video games, complaining to Bosch about various things). Just for fun, we got really quiet and walked behind Boom and Pasta to see how long it would take them to notice we were there. When they didn't notice us after a while, Bosch finally said something.
It was my turn to sit at the SJC (Social Justice Committee) table again that day and collect signatures. While I was doing this some guy who introduced himself as Peter came up to the table and asked me questions about the mission of the SJC. I talked to him for a while.
I was actually signed up to cover the table for 3 different periods that day, but actually Hillary ended up covering for me for 2 out of the 3 times. (She had nothing better to do and she said she didn't mind doing it, so I was more than happy to let her take over).
While getting lunch in Johnny's cafe, I talked to Mr.Bork and Mr.Buma. I told them about the news I had had seen on TV regarding H. Rap Brown's arrest, and we also talked about Bobby Seale. Buma had an article that was running the Chimes crossroads that day, and I told him about some of the comments I had heard about it. There had been a conversation about Buma's article on national health care in my political science class. Most people, including Mr. Vanderklippe, had favored Buma's article over the Giessel's opposition piece).
After class, went to EMS camping store with Matt S. (Bear), Luke B. (Prodigy), and Mr. Hoort, where we bought some camping supplies for our upcoming hiking trip. (Hoort was going on a different camping trip with a different bunch of guys, but he had heard we were going to EMS store and wanted to tag along and stock up himself).
Later we went with Brett N., Rob P., Bear and Prodigy to Meijers. With as large a group as we had, it took forever to get everyone in and out of there. On leaving Meijers however, Brett and I witnessed a funny site. Rob was running full speed across the parking lot, with Bear and Prodigy behind trying to catch up. They must have decided to race back to the car or something.
Bear and Prodigy were going to Mr. Shultz's Party that night, and they graciously took me along with them too. We all rode there in Bear's car, but when Bear got to the party, for some reason he decided to leave again in what couldn't have been much longer than 5 minutes after we had arrived.
Prodigy and I said we would stick around at the party and just catch a ride back to Calvin with someone else (not knowing the next ride wouldn't be until 1 AM. This was slightly later than we had intended to stay, because Brett wanted to depart from Calvin at 5 AM the next morning for our Spring Break trip).
While at the party, we played a variation of scrabble in which Prodigy and I assisted Mr. Adema. Mr. Schultz and Mr. Adema acted as the party's DJs at various points. Mr. Schultz was also very generous with his food. Free steaks were being handed out to everyone. He also made little drawings for everyone.
This was a different group than I usually hung out with (lots of people from my sister's class in high school--two years behind) so there were lots of people I didn't know at the party. I did however recognize a few people, (like Ms. Braez).
Finally, Prodigy and I got were able to get a ride back to Calvin from Klaus H. (accompanied by his girlfriend Ms. Boerman).
