Today is the second day in a row that I have been called “cute” in class. I wrote about yesterday’s encounter with my 5th grade boy, and today a 1st grader at the JHS called me cute. They were learning simple adjectives in class: big, small, cute, fun, easy, difficult. Mr. Fujiwara wrote these words on the board in both English and Japanese, and the students had to make sentences with them. When it came to cute, the boy who responded said “Melissa-sensei is cute.” Everyone started giggling. Awwwwwww, thanks, kid, but it’s just not going to work out between us! 
In the last post, I said that I would write about our past weekend at Ashikita. Every year most of the JETs in Kumamoto get together for a big beach party in Ashikita. This year there was probably sixty or seventy people there. Last year’s was a little lame since a typhoon was blowing through, so there were gray and drab skies, the wind was ridiculously strong, and the water was kind of cold. It wasn’t that great. Ashikita definitely redeemed itself this year! Although it wasn’t full sun, it was good. No one was burned by the end of the day!
Those of us from Kuma-gun met at Mollee’s house since she lives the closest to Ashikita. Mollee, Sara, Margo, Melissa, David, Brian, Krista, Ian, and I piled into cars and took off. We got there around 2PM and were some of the first people there. Whenever we first got there and got check in, it started pouring rain. All of us were thinking NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! but it soon cleared, and all was well.
Housing this year for the beach party was platform tents. 
They slept six (not comfortably), and in our tent was Krista, Mary, Yuusuke, Ian, and myself. Later in the day, another girl from a different gun was also placed in our tent, bring the total to an uncomfortable six. 
What was nice about our tent was that it was RIGHT on the water, and all we had to do to get a great view was to open the front flap. 
We joked and said that our tent was like the Hamptons of the camp ground!
We walked down to the beach, and others soon followed our trend. As previously mentioned, it was a great day for a beach! I’m not a huge fan of the Ashikita beach since it’s a man made beach—the sand is a little shelly, the beach isn’t very long, and there aren’t many waves. However, that didn’t stop us from swimming and playing. We had an epic sand fight in which I got sand in places I never knew I had and swear that it took at least two good washings to get it all out of my hair and scalp. Mary, Yuusuke, Mollee, and I decided to swim out to the buoys. We didn’t make it, but we got pretty far. I really feel like that’s the farthest I’ve been from a beach, which both exhilarated and terrified me. After we tired of treading water, we turned back to the beach and re-joined our group.
That night, each gun had their own BBQ. We had brought beef, chicken, pork, onions, cabbage, peppers, pumpkin, and carrots to BBQ. (BBQing in Japan is what we would consider grilling at home.) It was quite a feast! After everyone ate until they were stuffed, the adult beverages began to flow….and to flow freely. This continued throughout the night and well into the morning. I don’t mind friends getting together for a few drinks, but I can’t stand it when people become sloppy drunk. I’ve never understood the mindset for getting drunk. I understand a few drinks to loosen up and have fun……but to cross the line and down as much alcohol as possible just for the sake of “fun” is beyond my comprehension. I know that people think that I’m the one not having fun by staying sober, but I’m also not the one stumbling around/making a fool of myself/doing something I’ll later regret/puking in the bushes. Okay, sorry. I’ll get off my soapbox now.
Everyone in our tent agreed that the beach party was fun up until it was time to go to bed. After that, things started going downhill. I crawled into the tent around 2:30AM. Mary, Yuusuke, and the other girl had all already gone to bed, so I was as quiet as possible while unzipping the flap. For the next hour and a half I tossed and turned desperately trying to go to sleep. I heard the others in the tent trying to do the same. Several things were wrong that night. We were promised bedding for the tents, but the only thing provided was a thin sleeping bag. Therefore, it was like sleeping on a wooden plank. As much as I didn’t WANT to acknowledge it, every few minutes I’d feel something crawling on me. I don’t want to know what kind of bugs were in the tent (even if it was something as harmless as mosquitoes) but it seemed like there were several in there!! 
The biggest disturbance to my sleep, though, was the party that was still going on full force. Most of the people had gone to bed, and there were maybe ten or fifteen people still awake, most of them extremely drunk and loud. I could hear one group belting out Whitney Houston, and I attempted to muffle the noise with my pillow, but I’m such a light sleeper that between that, the hard floor, and the creepy crawlies, I couldn’t fall asleep. I gave up and went outside to find Ian.
He was at the BBQ pits enjoying a fire and hanging out with a few stragglers. I was in no mood to join the conversation of the group, so I just curled up on Ian’s lap. He told me that he was getting ready to come to bed. After a few minutes, the loud drunk girls came over to the fire. I had absolutely no intention of starting anything, but my patience was wearing extremely thin. Ian said something to them about maybe quieting down since it was 4:30AM and people were probably trying to sleep. She didn’t respond to that well and said something about the “drunk bitch” in his lap (referring to me). UM. HELL. NO. 
I immediately shot up and said something like. “Honey, I am NOT drunk in the least bit. I haven’t had one sip of alcohol tonight, and the reason that I’m laying here right now is because I’m exhausted but I can’t go to sleep because you all are being so damn loud.” She put her hands up in defense and gave me the “whatever” attitude.
Fast forward to about thirty minutes later. Ian and I were in the tent trying to go to sleep. Loud girl asked David what my deal was. (Mind you, our tent is NOT far from the camp fire. I can hear EVERY word.) David said something like “She doesn’t drink, and she’s probably just really tired.” Loud girl continues to talk smack about me to the point that in my angry sleep deprived state, I storm out of the tent and confront her. Perhaps I wasn’t as calm as I should have been, but that’s what happens at 5AM when I haven’t had a single hour of sleep. (You guys know me! I’m generally a VERY passive person. You REALLY have to get under my skin for me to confront you!) I told her to shut the heck up because not only is she keeping me up but everyone else in my tent as well. Loud girl gets extremely defensive and starts talking about how she’s from the hood, and she’s the baddest “mother fluffer” in Kumamoto. HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! I returned to my tent only to hear her talking more smack about me. I know it wasn’t the most mature thing to do, but from the tent I screamed “SHUT THE F*** UP!!!!” Then she accused me of starting something from the shadows, and if I had a problem with her, I should do it face to face. At this point, Krista said, “You want me to go out there with you?” Both her and Mary went with me. I was very impressed with Krista’s ability to diffuse a situation. I was livid at this point, and loud girl was drunk and angry….not a good combo! Krista very calmly told her that no one was able to sleep and that she didn’t care how late they stayed up, but please just move away from the tent area.
From there, things went better. All of us were able to catch a couple of hours of sleep, and might I just say that loud girl was looking not so chipper the next morning. Once again, I don’t understand why people drink themselves into oblivion.
Onto another subject. Ian and I planned to ride our bikes round trip 200 kilometers to the beach this weekend. I wrote about it in a previous blog, so I won’t go into detail. I had been training for it, riding my bike up mountain roads to get a feel of how the road would be. It brings me great sadness to say that we won’t be going on our trip. Ian realized that he had to work on Monday. It requires three days to bike there and back, so it’s an impossible feat for this weekend. UGH! GREATLY SADDENED!!! I had been looking forward to this trip for about a month. Even if he didn’t have to work, I heard that a typhoon is supposed to pass through this weekend, so we would have had to cancel the trip regardless. Maybe next year!
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