Celebration

(Charlie bucket enjoying himself)

Last Saturday was my birthday.

Oh thank you!

I went camping on Friday night which was a lot of fun but it was so goddamn cold. When we arrived at the campsite the puddles on the road had already turned to ice and it just got colder from there. I've been discovering lately how naive I am when it comes to cold environments. Prior to this night, the coldest I have ever been was when I was in New York. I was cold because I was studying in Miami, which is hot, so I just didn't own anything warm. Here in Japan I was under the impression I had warm things and yet apparently I do not. Eight layers. Eight layers of clothing on my torso, two of which were thermals. My lower body protections consisted of 2 pairs of thermals, jeans and the hope that I wouldn't die from some cold-related illness.

Sitting around the fire was fun and talking to everyone was a lot of fun but I woke up the next day at around 5:30am shivering quite badly (Happy Birthday!)

Saturday consisted of cleaning. I cleaned most of my apartment and just before I finished I had a nap and then people arrived. To be honest I wasn't quite sure how many people were going to come. I sent out the invites on Facebook and got some responses face-to-face; some on the internet; I invited a lot of people who don't use Facebook; There was another party on the same night that conflicted with some of the friends I invited; I'm a little out of the way for people and a horde of other reasons. Sorry I just went into listing reasons and didn't really warn you about the change of structure - did you read it ok?

(shoes)

Turns out I didn't really need to worry as almost everyone I invited came which was wonderful! The other party didn't conflict too much as people either came to mine instead or came afterwards. I was also happy as everyone was talking to each other and not forming distinct/separate groups which I was a little worried about.

To set up for the party I moved a few bits of furniture around and brought up some furniture from below my apartment. I cleaned and vacuumed and I also made punch. I made punch because it's interesting and deceptively alcoholic. When I first made it before most of the people arrived, I nor my friend Christal could taste the alcohol - but a Japanese girl said that it was waaay too strong. Each to their own I guess. In any case it worked beautifully as everyone got considerable drunk and therefore had fun.

I'm sure the sober people had fun too but probably not as much.

Assortment of events;

- The music was hijacked by people with poor taste in music (read: RnB fans) so the music degenerated from the party playlist, to RnB youtube videos, to silence.

- Turning on too many things that required power = power outage at some stage. Flicked back on. Party is go.

- I got a fair few presents even though I said I didn't want any. Some really cool and interesting ones!

- Hayley made a banana cake which was nice! I shared a slice with four people and then left it unattended for a while and came back to an empty dish covered in crumbs. The small taste I had was nice though!

- No obvious throwing up which is nice.

- My friend quit his job with the company via email. Called him the next day and he maintains that he still has no regrets and is firm in his decision.

- My paper screen doors which were already rife with holes/tears (but was subsequently healed by me and a mass of paper birds [cut from a stencil] to cover the tears) has had many NEW holes added. One big enough to put your head through... which was done... by many people.

Sunday I was going to clean but boy I just did not want to. So the rubbish was categorised by a few kind party-goers and I'm cleaning it up eventually. Don't rush me!

All in all everyone had a good time I think. I'm very lucky to have such a big(gish) apartment to hold people and that I have no neighbours. It's also good that all my friends got along with each other. I'm a very lucky person. I missed all my friends back home though and I wish I could have had you all here to celebrate with me. But 22 isn't such an important age I don't think.

Next year I'll be turning 23 on the 23rd of January. That's another cause to celebrate!

P.S. I asked my students the week before how old they thought I was. The general consensus appeared to be I looked 28. Which is wrong. Obviously.... right?