cir mid-year

So this Tuesday-Thursday was my first CIR mid-year conference! This is the one time a year when all the JET CIRs are all together in one place, going to various training sessions and exchanging opinions. It was good to see a lot of first-years I'd met at Tokyo Orientation and to meet all the rest too, though actually I don't think I met as many people as I could have; next year I'll try harder!

Anyway, I went to work as usual on Tuesday in the morning (one disadvantage of living in the city where mid-year is held, haha) and then headed to Makuhari at the lunch break to meet up with Laura and Kim, two out of the three other Chiba CIRs, for lunch! Kim got there a little late so we just grabbed Subway (yep, there's Subway in Japan!) in the food court before heading to the hotel for the conference.

The first day was just an opening ceremony and a keynote address-type thing, followed by a dinner reception! The food was pretty tasty, though there wasn't really enough of it (all the dessert disappeared before I even got to see it, haha), and I met a bunch of new people. Afterward I went with a group back to the food court to try the taiyaki parfaits I'd seen before but never gotten (delicious), and we ended up just hanging out there and talking for a few hours before Kim and I went home.

The next morning we got up bright and early (aka didn't get nearly as much sleep as we needed) to catch the bus and train back to Makuhari. I spent the morning in the introductory translation/interpretation seminars, which were pretty helpful, and then got lunch with Laura, Kim, and my predecessor Erica, who was actually presenting a session at the conference. After a few more seminars in the afternoon, we met up with Stephen (the other new CIR from Carleton) and had sushi at a little place nearby. After that we went back to the hotel to try and find some other people to hang out with, and after meeting another 2nd-year CIR we headed to a Spanish bar and just chatted for a while.

The last day was more seminars until the whole conference wrapped up around noon, and Laura and I headed back to work for the afternoon (even though for every other CIR it was the beginning of a 3-day weekend, haha). I grabbed some quick lunch at a little noodle shop in the station and went back to work, where I actually ended up staying for almost 3 hours overtime because there was just so much to prepare for the upcoming Quezon visit! Which I am super nervous for (they're coming tomorrow!), but hopefully it will go well.

On the way home I realized it was actually Thanksgiving! Once I got home, chatting with Cory turned into going to Funabashi for impromptu karaoke, which was super fun, even with only two people. I also discovered that the Keisei bus station near me isn't as far as I thought it was (in fact it feels much closer than Chibaminato, even if only because the way there is more interesting), which is an exciting discovery. Anyway, it was a great way to end a long and busy Thanksgiving day. :D