Teacher Teacher

So finally here is a post about actual people as opposed to ones that either exist only on TV or on the red carpet after hours in their make-up and hairstylists' chair.   As I posted a little while back, we went out to an izakaya for dinner and drinks with two of our senseis: the ever elusive Aoki and Ari, though I've never  had her for class.  From what I've heard she is demanding but also a really fun sensei; she's also taken to referring to me as "Mariko-chan" (chan being a familiar suffix for females meant to convey affection or closeness), which is a vast improvement over being called my last name with -san (a polite suffix) after our outing.  Troyer-san just sounds so cold.  

All those invited were students from Aoki's class, and I suppose I should say here we all owe a debt of gratitude to Speed and his relentless pursuit of Aoki, who managed to escape his advances for almost 6 months.  So, kudos to you Paul Speed:

Dude just wouldn't take "no" for an answer.  It got to the point where we would make jokes about Aoki never wanting to come out drinking with us in our grammar practice sentences.  My favorites:

パーティは楽しいですが、青木先生がいらっしゃれば、さらに楽しくなる" - "parties are fun, but if Aoki-sensei can come, they ultimately become even more fun.  

"IUCの学生の調査によると司先生は第三位の人気あるの先生だそうです。ちなみに第一位のは青木先生だそうです。” - "According to a poll of IUC students, Tsukasa-sensei is the third most popular.  By the by, #1 was Aoki-sensei."  

Being in class with Speed means having to also deal with a lot of awkwardness.  The constant refusals continued for months.  Something like this:

And then, the unthinkable happened.

Aoki accepted.

Speed would not be deterred.  Eventually he pinned Aoki to the wall (metaphorically... he only wishes he could actually do that) and got it out of him when he had a free evening (dude also has a 1 or 2-year-old from what I hear), which was 2/25.  I think Speed made this arrangement several weeks in advance, so we all waited on pins and needles for what we thought would never happen.  Even as we stood at Sakuragi-cho station waiting for him at the appointed time, we had doubts out whether he would even turn up.

And it was a great lot of fun.  It was nomihoudai (all you can drink) with a set course menu, so we went to town ordering drinks (at the end of the night there were 3 pitchers of beer sitting on the table pleading with someone to down them) and digging into the food (there was a plate of french fries and ebi chips that appeared only in front of Wilson and I... that is a dangerous spot for any kind of food to be in), and of course chatting with the senseis.  I sat next to Ari-sensei and spoke to her a fair amount (alcohol is also extremely beneficial to your language skills, let me tell you), which I think is where the Mariko-chan thing comes from.  Speed naturally gravitated towards Aoki and god only knows what he was asking him.  It's a well known fact that a number of our senseis as well as some of the admin staff are married to former IUC students, and I heard Speed asking Aoki how he was able to get to know his future wife.  ~Awkward~ 

Though I swore to myself I would remember my camera for this outing, I remember that morning I was very distracted with talking to people in the States and ended up having to bolt out of my room to catch the last possible train that would get me to school on time, and in so doing left my damn camera at home.  However, Carly had her camera and I am lifting these pictures straight from her blog.  The internet makes it entirely too easy to steal.  

 The man himself appears!!  Speed and I are also going for the full cycle of Aoki classes in the fourth quarter.  d(^_^)b

 

Speed has already made his move.

 

 

Getting the senseis used to the idea that there will be plenty of group shots.

 

 

Ari-sensei is game

 

 

The directions here were to make your best "Russian" face.  Ari-sensei and I missed the memo.

 

These are our IUC faces.

Then the night got better.

The senseis wanted to come to karaoke with us.  

Or in Speed's case:

Ari totally sang, but Aoki tried to demur, and then eventually acquiesced by holding the microphone as far away from himself as possible so that we couldn't really hear him singing.  :(  Ah well, we all had a good time.  I feel like I may have hogged the microphone a bit, but I almost can't help myself.  

Of course there are photos:

 

Speed trying to get himself arrested.  At least it was Wilson and not Aoki.

 

 

Man sandwich

 

 

I AM SO JEALOUS

 

See what I mean about the distance?

Would've been way appropriate if terribly awkward if we sang these songs:

Clearly I don't know any songs about teachers that aren't extended double entendre. 

It goes without saying that I would totally do this again (apparently Ari-sensei is doing another nomikai this coming Friday with some kids from one of her classes from last year... I has an evy), but we shall have to see.  There is talk of a St. Patrick's Day outing with the senseis, but there are no actual sensei confirmations yet.  We shall see, we shall see...

The other outing to report on is the gokon (合コン) I attended this past Saturday.  For those unfamiliar, a gokon is basically a group blind date; someone organizes the girls' side and someone else arranges for other boys (heteronormative Japan at its best) and you all meet up to hang out and get to know each other.  Awhile back another IUC student had introduced us to his friend Shingo, though I don't remember much of him from those outings because Shingo would have a little too much to drink and just fall asleep.  But he asked Laura from IUC if she wanted to arrange a gokon, so he got his coworkers/friends together and Laura gathered a few of us from IUC.  Turns out that one of the guys that Shingo brought was the same guy (Kazuki) I met a little while back for dinner, drinks and karaoke, so it wasn't completely blind for me.

After we had all collected at Yokohama station, Shingo took us underground a ways to the point where I had no idea where the hell we were, into an elevator that shot us up to the 25th floor.  The restaurant had a very nice set-up, but unfortunately we were not by a window to get a view of Yokohama at night.  It also seemed to have a very similar menu to Kin no Kura (an izakaya we frequent), but oh well.  

Overall I had a pretty good time; excellent Japanese practice, and we did karaoke to end the night.  I just don't know if I am a good candidate for dating a Japanese boy.  I'm not especially good at flirting in English (have you ever heard me speak?  Blunt and/or sarcastic is what I do best), and Japanese is an entirely different ball game.  It's taken me awhile to feel I have any ability at translating the nuances of what people are saying as well as their body language, and I just don't know what to do in Japanese.  Not a clue what to say. 

No matter, there was laughter all around, though we hit a couple of awkward subjects and I wonder if I wasn't too forthright with my opinions.  I don't know that I have an appreciate for how forceful I can be, and Japanese is all about hedging and softening what you have to say.  At one point one of the guys asked if there are any words in English that don't translate well in Japanese, and my immediate answer was that it's impossible to swear effectively in Japanese.  Then I rattled off a bunch of four-letter words.  Oh well, sasuga New York.

Not sure there's much else to report.  But here are some pictures!

Whoops, no flash

 

 Looking at these pictures, I am realizing that I'm not a fan of that jacket I'm wearing...

I forget what they were talking about, but the word助べえ ("pervert") came up, so I decided to snap a pic.

Ok!  I'm getting back to work, though I don't really have any because I had my big presentation today and tomorrow all I have to do is listen to other people talk.  w00t w00t!  Away I go!