The Truth is Never Simple

Prepare yourself when you come to Japan in August... 運動会 is coming. It's coming for you and it's best to prepare. What is it? Undoukai, in English the "Sports Festival", is one of the biggest events for your school. It happens in September and it's something your school will be preparing for hardcore. My Junior High took it incredibly seriously. For the entire week prior we spent basically every single day preparing for it. This did mean that athletic clothes were the new school approved dress code. It meant a lot of time in the gym, a lot of time in the school yard and a lot of time listening to kids repeat the same thing again and again. But today it finally happened and let me break it down for you~! I'll be including pictures but not of my school because even though I don't have any pictures of students I'd like to keep my school as private as possible. I will be including random photos from the internet if they suit my purpose. First things firs...

So you're in Japan and you get invited to a 飲み放題 (nomihodai). What does that mean? Well! Let me tell you. Nomihodai are something you'll experience a lot when you first arrive and navigating them will be one of your first hurdles of integrating into your new work life. 飲み (pronounced nomi) is the verb for drinking. 放題 (hodai) basically means 'all you can do'. So essentially it means all you can drink. These sorts of parties are pretty common when it comes to welcoming new people into a work environment, celebrating the end of the year, celebrating a departure, celebrating the beginning or ending of a term period, etc. You'll most definitely be invited to several upon arriving. I've had a few so far. Two of them were welcome events for the JET program and the foreigner community in my block. Those were casual and cheaper. The other two I've had were for my Board of Education and my Junior High School. So you've been invited to one, what happens? Wel...

So when you arrive in Japan on the JET program a lot of different things can happen. You can go to your Board of Education (BOE) office, perhaps you'll go to your school. You'll have prefectural orientation at some point but beyond that you'll have a month to adjust because school is off on summer break. A JET ALT gets 20 days of nenkyu (年休) and those can be used throughout the year. However it is very strongly recommended you use these days when the students are not at school. You don't want to inconvenience the teachers that you work with. However sometimes when you arrive you get even more holidays. My BOE gave us 4 additional days of natsu yasumi (summer vacation). Technically they were for August and September. But that's wrong. It would be incredibly frowned upon to use them when school is in. So I had to use these days in August. I had two weeks to figure out why but it was soon decided for me. My Junior High School (JHS) wanted me at the school on the 28th...