“They of them”: Mid-Year Conference

Oops!: This blog was written in November 2008. I failed to post quite a few old blogs. My bad.

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Every November, FuJETs meet in Fukushima City for the Mid-Year Conference. It was really comforting to see everyone again. While I often hang out in the "big" city of Koriyama, it’s rare to see the others who live so far away from Motomiya. (Wow, I'm becoming a country girl who often escapes to the "big" city.)

We had yet another all-you-can-eat/drink (nomihoudai/tabehoudai) dinner at a beer garden near Fuku. We then boarded two chartered buses bound for a chill lounge in Fukushima. Everyone was trying to cram into the back of the bus for many photo opportunities.

It was a terrible idea, because I left my camera on the bus that night. I crawled all over the bus, but didn't see it at the time. (On the plus side, our lovely travel agent found it for me. SCORE!) Oh, and I recognized our bus driver as the same dude who drove our chartered bus to Nagano – I wonder if he can actually tolerate us? We got to the club, where I proceeded to take a much-needed nap. All of this partying is starting to get catch up with me.

At the actual conference, the speakers focused on the importance of internationalization. It was also highlight that “reading the air" is apparently the key to understanding Japanese culture. (Did you know that in Japan, “teeth sucking” indicates frustration? My cab driver once sucked his teeth at me when I dropped an ichi-man ($100) to pay for our cab ride. (“A hundred dollar bills, look at you! Look at you!!”). Some of the workshops were helpful; others were not.

There were indeed tons of quotable quotes from the conference’s speakers. I was confused when the last speaker was reading out a nonsensical poem that goes “They of them” or something like that.

Another memorable moment included a university professor who recited the Gettysburg address; when asked about its relevance to the topic of team-teaching and EFL, he said he just threw it in there because it was something he memorized back in the day. And he wanted to show it off??

Of course, the “tea-bagging” quote by the ex-ALT-turned-professor-in-a-Japanese-university. He was pretty funny, and had lots of anecdotes.

Overall, MYC was an excuse to party with the JETs again -- not going to lie. It was also nice talking English at a steady, normal pace. True story.