Its Been A While...

Sorry for the recent lapse in blogging. The absence of spare office hours at school and influx of drunken nights out to wave people off/welcome them has discouraged my posting here...but anyway things are good. Its a weird time because some of my best friends have left but also cool to meet the new people.(Who, in this end of the ken are a really good laugh by the way.) This certainly prompts a lot of reflection about the last year and the one in hand...I'm sure all the second and third year JETs at the mo know what I'm talking about...The total bewilderment mixed with fresh faced enthusiasm that the newbies bestow reminds us only too well of ourselves a year ago and makes you only too aware of how far you've come. There so bloody much to learn in terms of language, manners, culture and just general mechanics of Japanese society. Its easy to forget how used to it I am now although I think I prefer to have some sort of understanding of how things work and being comfortable in that than everything being new and exciting but utterly baffling.
I'm doing my best to be helpful and informative without being patronizing and know it all(whih I really don't anyway!), a hard line to judge sometimes...
But of course the hardest thing to deal with is people leaving. It actually surprised me how, well, bothered I was by the leaving of the other JETs, especially Kirk and Aaron. I mean after all I deal with being without my family and friends here everyday, it really shouldn't be too hard to say bye to people I've been friends with for a year. Maybe its that friendships forged here are tight because youre alone in a foreign country together, maybe its because I know I'll see my friends from back home and live near them again and its likely ill never see a lot of the leaving JETs again...Or maybe its simply that they were really special people. :)