It’s over
I spend my lunchtimes eating with the students. In the Elementary school, we exchange light-hearted banter-by-non-sequitur in Japanese about animals, colours and my likes/dislikes. In the Junior High School, both their English ability and hormone levels increase slightly. What this invariably means is a screaming barrage of interrogative personal questions in a colossal mish-mash of broken Japanese and English. Most of the time I just sit there like a rabbit in headlights, wide eyed and oblivious, whilst the Junior High School students decide what personal question to ask me next and hoot with each other like demented hyenas.
Last night we had an enkai (office drinking party) which I had totally forgotten about. After 3 consecutive days of sleeping late, I was looking forward to an early night. Imagine my intense frustration (in Japan we express this by bowing and smiling) when my doorbell rang and I was faced with an especially genki maths teacher shouting “lets go enkai!” upon opening the door. For what seemed like hours I stood expressionless, half out of my trousers and half into my dressing gown, fists clenched behind my back. With a foaming toothbrush protruding from my face, I darted my gaze around to find some sort of bludgeoning instrument. Alas, I had nothing. Sheepishly I retracted back into my house whilst asking her to wait a few seconds whilst I got changed.
For dinner at the enkai we had yakinikku, which is basically a barbecue and is eaten at a table with a small flame grill in the middle. There was very little meat eaten at this enkai. In fact, I think we ate most parts of animals other than actual meat. Amongst the various delights were no less than 3 different types of intestine. The first type was “Horumon” - the variety that I had already eaten. I chewed the unchewable and swallowed violently, hiding my obvious displeasure. As the horror of the first intestine experience came crashing back to me and echoing round my brain, another plate of random offal was thrust infront of me. Whereas the previous type actually had a name, this one was simply called “intestine”. An alarm went off in my head, but nobody heard. I managed to convince myself that in all likelihood, it wouldn’t be human intestine, and quaffed a few tubes. The last type was covered in small rubbery spikes. It was presented before me with a “please eat” gesture and the words “this one is boiled!”, which they seemed to take some sort of perverse smugness in. Eat. Grimace. Laughter. I am Jacks rabid performing monkey.
restrained?taxonomic Augustan,Gardner Lawford between?.