New Old Friends

Ok. Wow. I didn't realize that it had been almost 2 months since my last blog. I sincerely apologize to all my faithful readers (who are not so faithful anymore)! I have been extremely busy, but now the school term is winding down so I will try to update more frequently.

I am very inspired at the moment and HAVE to tell someone this story!

Tonight I went to a Christmas dinner organized by the Hyogo JETs. We went to a really nice all-you-can eat restaurant in Kobe right on the harbor. I know that "all-you-can-eat" doesn't scream "Christmas" or "nice restaurant", but the food was really good and there were Christmas decorations.

Anyway, I was the only person from my area to go to this thing, so I expected to meet a lot of new people. At the table where I was sitting, there were 3 guys who were talking about where they were from. The conversation went like this:

Guy1: I'm from Illinois.
Guy2: I'm from Michigan.
Guy3: I'm from Indiana.
Me: I'm from Seattle, but I lived in Indiana for awhile.
G3: Oh yeah? Where did you live.
Me: Bloomington and some other places.
G3: No kidding! I lived in Bloomington my whole life!
Me: Oh yeah? What elementary school did you go to?
G3: Childs.
Me: Me too!
(Shocked looks across the table at each other.)
G3: How old are you?
Me: 25. How old are you?
G3: I'm 25 too.
(Jaws drop simultaneously.)
G3: Were you in Mrs. Sykes' class?
Me: No, I wasn't in her class, but I had her for math.
(Blank stares.)
G3: Who did you have for 3rd grade?
Me: Mrs. Watchicowski.
G3: I wanted to be in that class. She was fun...
Me: For 5th grade I had Mrs. Hefernan and Mrs. Acton.
G3: Me too!
Both: We were in the same class!!

I kid you not. I just met someone who I went to elementary school with in JAPAN!!! We spent the next half hour going through our classmates and he updated me on all their lives. He's still really good friends with quite a few of them because they all went to middle school and high school together. He told me that he saw my name on the list of people who were going to come to the party and sort of half recognized it somewhere in the back of his brain but couldn't place it... I can't tell you how strange this is! I think my brain exploded.

So, now I have a new old friend who lives about an hour away.

Japanese phrase of the day:
Watashi no shitte iru hito ni yoku nite imas. You look like someone I know...