Forget Year Meet

It's a party to end the year. It's a custom in Japan to have such a party for every lab. The special thing is, I attend TWO of such parties for TWO different labs.

It must've been last Friday, when my roommate Zhong came home and told me about his day. He was having a discussion with his professor Kagawa-sensei. The same professor that tried to intervene in our lab's situation and the same professor that told my professor that she didn't deserve to be a teacher. Kagawa-sensei was having an academic discussion with Zhong and suddenly he said, "Have you used the washer recently?" This question got Zhong confused because it was just so out of the blue. Then he asked, who are you roommates? Kawaga-sensei is the head of committee for these apartments which the rooms are sublet to students. Zhong said, there's Li, and Kenneth.

"Oh KENNETH! I haven't seen him for a long time. I am worried about his lab's situation" Kagawa-sensei said. It'd seem like now everybody knows my lab's situation now. "Why don't you invite him to our year end party?"

My first response was, "Why? I am not in your lab."
We both knew there was no point discussing the why, because Kagawa-sensei had never made sense to us. Zhong asked me to respond by Monday this week. I was looking for excuses because but unlucikly, my own year end party is on a different day. So I chose not to respond because Kagawa-sensei tends to forget what he says 10 seconds after he said it. So I didn't respond by Monday hoping the whole thing would just slip by.

On Tuesday, I was planning my research schedule for later that night. Earlier I was asked to email Mari about the sputter machine she had used before a year or so ago. My cellphone rang, it was a number I didnot recognize. I thought it was Mari's new cellphone so I picked it up right away.

"Hello" said I.
"Hi, this is Kagawa"
".......Oh hi" said I.
"Can you make it to the Bonenkai tonight?"
"Oh... I think I can" I was being honest.

So there I stood, at 600pm, at Kagawa lab, knocking on his door. There were already 2 elderly person sitting there chatting. Kagawa-sensei gestured for me to sit down at the table and he went around to sit down right opposite to me. I gave him a as-a-matter-of-fact condensed summary of the current situation and I mentioned that it was still possible to change Matsubara. He was satisfied. I guess he wanted me there to show off his English to the elderly professors that he was helping us wth our problems? (He really was not)

Then he asked, "Oh so, who is your roommate now at Suzukakedai House"
"Oh, Li-san. He is also from Energy science, Hotta-ken." I mentioned Li only because Zhong is his student.
"Oh, what about the other roommate?" He said.

I paused.

"Uh.. Zhong Wei?" said I.
"OH! Zhong Wei!!!" He jumped. Then we both exited the door, he showed me Zhong's seat and asked me to sat there and wait for the party. I had already chatted with him before meeting Kagawa-sensei.

Zhong Wei came back from the toilet and we chatted for a bit. He had some work to do while we were waiting so I pulled out my Japanese grammar book and started studying. We waited for a total of 45 minutes before the party actually started. To my amazement (once again) Kagawa invited all these company people. Three from Tokyo Gas and the CEO from Tokyo Metal and a whole bunch of other retired professors. Oh and.. the gym receptionist lady Sawa-san was also invited. Kagawa-sensei REALLY likes to show off his connections.

Aside from that I had a good time talking to the students from the lab. We joined in hands to trick a Japanese student to say "I want to go to the toilet" in Chinese to the other students. Of course they sent him back to us saying "Your fly is open" But most of the time, he was going around saying "I am a police, where is the toilet!" and one o the older Japanese professor who could speak Chinese had a good laugh. This lab is a co-op lab with Mainland Chinese schools.

Today was actually my own year end party. It was so dead throughout the dinner until I started to ask Haryo, the Indonesia student, about the rituals he has to go through. Then Waki-sensei joined in the conversation because she said when she was young, she had thought about religion long and hard as well. Although right now she is a agnostic now and she believes science might be able to solve all. Our conversation started to span into cultural differences, biological research , ghost stories and how to raise kids. This is the first time I've seen her so talkative. Me and Haryo had a great time sharing our values and ideas. Eventually Tao also jumped in and shared some thoughts. Before we knew it, it was already 2 hours and we had to leave the all-you-can-eat. On the other hand, the other Japanese (maybe) had a good time chatting amongst themselves. Ohgai-san was given the duty to chat with Matsubara. Later on he told me that he actually made him laugh, which was quite an achievement, considering in the past nobody really wanted to talk to Matsubara.

Me and Ohgai-san went to UNIGLO later on to get away from the 2nd round party (drinking party). I realized that the jacket I bought a few weeks ago for 6000 yen had dropped to 4000 yen. Ironically, yesterday the school offered to pay me 2000 yen and I told them that it was not my intention to take money for this work because I saw it as my duty to improve the school as well. I just don't understand why I get so hung up on this 2000yen.

I don't know if I've written this before. But Namioka-sensei has agreed to come the the Christmas event and my penpal, a mom with 4 kids will also join us.