Well, the Christmas party is over and done with. It was actually quite a bit of fun (far more than I expected; but that’s not too hard, on account to my not being much of a party person), and it was nice to actually get to meet and talk to all the people who work in my company in a non-work related environment. Obviously, when work is the one solid tie you have, this is the primary subject of conversation, but at least people aren’t talking to me and tossing contracts on my desk.

Don’t let the picture fool you; that actually has nothing to do with the company party (other than being on the same day). Being weird about holidays, I’ve decorated every office I’ve worked in over the past 3 jobs for most holidays (and when I can’t decorate, I bring baked goods!).

And speaking of work, I’ve been meaning to post a picture of the building I work in for awhile, so while I was heading out to the party (a brisk 20-30 minute walk from my office), I finally managed to get around to taking a picture of the building. Tourists taking photos? Sure, no problem. Guy in a suit? Kinda hard to look natural while doing it, especially crouching down to get the full building in the shot, but I think I managed to pull it off (the ‘looking natural’ bit; not the ‘getting it all in the shot’ part). It’s a nice building, and was finished only within the past decade, so it’s pretty safe. As an extra bonus perk of my job (and a side effect of working in Japan), my desk comes with its very own hardhat! Just in case my paper-shuffling self needs to dive under a desk to keep my skull from being crushed. But I hear the office was fine (and work actually continued during the hours after the earthquake back in March.

Of course, people at Tokyo Disneyland got free stuffed dolls to put on their heads to protect them from possible debris.

Now that we got that out of the way, how was the Christmas party itself? Well….

$\"There's$ <\/a>

Feeling the Christmas spirit in the office<\/p><\/div>\n

$\"The$ <\/a>

The Office<\/p><\/div>\n

And speaking of work, I’ve been meaning to post a picture of the building I work in for awhile, so while I was heading out to the party (a brisk 20-30 minute walk from my office), I finally managed to get around to taking a picture of the building. Tourists taking photos? Sure, no problem. Guy in a suit? Kinda hard to look natural while doing it, especially crouching down to get the full building in the shot, but I think I managed to pull it off (the ‘looking natural’ bit; not the ‘getting it all in the shot’ part). It’s a nice building, and was finished only within the past decade, so it’s pretty safe. As an extra bonus perk of my job (and a side effect of working in Japan), my desk comes with its very own hardhat!<\/em> Just in case my paper-shuffling self needs to dive under a desk \u00a0to keep my skull from being crushed. But I hear the office was fine (and work actually continued<\/strong> during the hours after the earthquake back in March.<\/p>\n

Of course, people at Tokyo Disneyland<\/em> got free stuffed dolls to put on their heads to protect them from possible debris.<\/p>\n

Now that we got that out of the way, how was the Christmas party itself? Well….<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

$\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n

It was a lot of fun! The food was amazing, even if there was no particular theme I could identify (western food on one side of the room, including traditional Christmas fare and various lasagnas and the like, seafood\/salad in the middle, Japanese food with soba noodles and sushi on another side, and a dessert room with cakes and such off in the back).<\/p>\n

Being relatively new to the company, it was basically impossible for me to guess who was an actual employee and who was the spouse\/significant other\/whatever of an employee, unless they were under the age of 7. In that case, they’re probably<\/em> not a department head. All the same, I take with me the skills that I learned as an English teacher: Basically pretend that you know anyone and everyone who makes eye contact with you! Since I wound up teaching a lot of people (300~ students a week), plus I met their brothers, sisters, and parents, it was highly likely that someone knew me even though I didn’t immediately recognize them. To not hurt anyone’s feelings, basically I just run with it.<\/p>\n

$\"A$ <\/a>
Some of the party atmosphere<\/p><\/div>\n
Of course there was an MC (and… \u00a0an MC. One of these is a Master, the other a Mistress. Your call which is which). They did brief little skits (including costumes), called raffle numbers for door prizes, and introduced the various musical acts. Most impressive of the acts was a group of about 20 secretaries and male attorneys who dressed up in high school (girl<\/em>) uniforms and performed a song and dance routine from one of the most famous bands of the year.<\/p>\n
Only. In. Japan.<\/strong><\/p>\n
After that? Well, I went home and basically just lazed about all weekend, reading books and watching movies. From here on out, my weekends are gonna be pretty busy, so I figured it’s probably good to lay low for a bit and just relax. I’ve got another Christmas party to plan for this coming weekend (some of my ex students will come over), then the week after that my sister will be in town and we’ve got Christmas and the like.<\/p>\n
Speaking of taking it easy and laying low, tomorrow’s another long day, so I should probably get some sleep.<\/p>\n
I’ll post more pictures soon as I get the planning underway for the next Christmas event. Until then, back to work!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1043"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1043"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1050,"href":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1043\/revisions\/1050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}