Training Is Finished!

Yesterday morning we all performed our 50-minute Roundup lessons, and that evening we received our official AEON lapel pins and ID badges.  Apparently I'm Matt-sensei now, which is a hard concept to wrap my head around ;)  We have the weekend off, and Monday we're off to our respective branch schools.  Most of my fellow teachers are traveling by train, but a couple guys and I are being driven up to our schools by the area manager.  Judging from the schedule they gave me, it looks like about a six-hour roadtrip.

One other teacher and I shipped our big bags/boxes from the seminar house to our schools yesterday.  We were the two who had to send our things to the seminar house because our school/apartment statuses were still in question when we left the US.  We were both a little nervous about the prospect of paying to ship our things twice, but luckily AEON covered the cost this time.  The company also got us temporary phones that we can use to stay in touch with our school until we can get phones of our own.  We do have to cough up 3000 yen for the prepaid phone card, though, which is an expense we weren't expecting.

Apparently I'll be staying in a hotel in Iwaki for "a little while" because the city is giving residents currently living in emergency shelters priority on all available housing.  I'm not sure how this will affect my commute in the short-term, but I will have an apartment (of indeterminate size at this point) eventually.  I will be teaching a few lessons Tuesday and Wednesday, so I expect to be spending some time this weekend preparing for that.  My days off will be the fairly standard Sunday and Monday, with an occasional half-day of Sunday overtime.

After our 'graduation ceremony', eight of us went out for drinks and karaoke.  One of the guys has been in Japan for seven years and was able to negotiate a pretty nice deal: 3000 yen per person for three hours of singing and all you could drink.  I don't drink myself, but I had a good time drinking iced tea and singing along to every song I knew!  When our time was up, I escorted the women home while the rest of the guys stayed out for one more drink.  It's interesting being the only sober person in a group of eight.  I played the responsible adult role well enough, and I largely cemented my reputation as a trustworthy guy.

I'm pretty beat after last night (the caffeine in the five or so cups of tea didn't help me sleep any,) and we have a ton of clean-up work to do tomorrow.  It feels a little weird to be done with training, but now the real adventure begins!