Mid-Year Conference

The mid-year conference was Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. It was awesome. Seeing all of the other ALT’s was very refreshing and lots of fun, because the only time I ever see them is when we rock out with our socks out. I did the standard, get really drunk and black out, but what I haven’t done in a while is act like a total freshman in college who went to his first party and had his first sip of alcohol. Or a high school girl who goes anywhere where there is alcohol. I was carried back to my room, but mislead my caretakers to a different hotel, until I was finally whisked away to the correct place, where I didn’t know my hotel room number, and spent the night on the floor of a kind woman’s room, and had pictures taken of me in a zombie like state, completely passed out with my eyes open. I’m very disappointed in myself.

The thing I think that made this conference completely awesome were the quotes that I heard. The first speaker was a Japanese John Hammond look alike from Jurassic Park, with an almost spot on accent. He at one point said during his completely dry speech that, “I’m getting a little dry. I might be getting excited.” The next quote was by a past ALT who became a professor at a Japanese university. He said something like “If you teabag too much…the teabag will get exhausted.” There was a woman, who is also the same person that took care of me the dreadful night before, who is a mother, and supposed to be somewhat more mature than some of the ALT’s, who burst out laughing. It made the whole thing even funnier because its one of those contagious laughs where everyone will start laughing if you hear her. Which everyone did.

The last one, which was undoubtedly the funniest quote, was this guy said something along the lines of, “I love meat, I LOVE IT!” “I substitute meat with NUTS!” and, “I need to get my PROTEIN FIX!”

I was also practicing my Australian accent and discussed the commercial fishing of sharks in Australia. In addition to that, I picked up some new Australian slang, like “Bushpig”, and “Rooting.”

Cultural Notes:

1. Teabag – No description necessary
2. Meat loving, Nuts, and Protein Fix – No description necessary
3. Bushpig – A really fat and ugly woman
4. Rooting – Bang Sesh