Visiting Kocho-sensei's house

On Sunday, I was invited to my principal(kocho-sensei)'s house. He lives in Kita ward(northern part) of Kobe, so my supervisor picked me up from my apartment and drove me there. In addition to my supervisor and me, we were also joined by my supervisor's two sons (ages 6 and 10) and one of the other teachers from school. 

We started off with a tea ceremony demonstration, after a couple rounds, they asked me to make some tea also...let's just say that I wasn't such an attentive student because I wasn't expecting to demonstrate for them. But since the boys were so fidgety and causing a bit of commotion the whole time, everyone was super laid back and no one was really serious at all. Even when I was starting to remember the order and the position of things, they kept stopping me at awkward points to take pictures of me with my phone.

See that bowl I'm holding? Apparently it's over $400 (40,000yen)?!? Thank goodness I didn't know until I was done with it. And thank goodness tatami is soft enough that that nothing gets hurt--I mean, damaged, lol.

This is my sensei's 6 year old son, Koki. He and his older brother were fighting over who would be able to take pictures of me...and somehow he took a picture of himself ;)

Here was our spread of food! We ate and drank and ate and drank and talked practically nonstop from 5pm-11pm! But of course, it was mostly the teachers talking :) 

It's kind of funny to hang out with older people so much of the time...it's like hanging out with the Titas and Titos back at home, but since I'm not someone's kid, it's from a totally different side. I can't help but still feel like I'm much much younger, even though no one really treats me like they would their kids, even if I am the same age or even younger than their kids.

I always wonder if I am supposed to be directing the conversations more in these type of gatherings, or if it's okay that I just let the senseis talk about whatever they want, and if there is a lull, then that might be where I might ask them something. But for the most part, it seems like they always have something to talk about or catch up on, so the conversation is always flowing, and just following the Japanese takes up quite a bit of brain power. I'm never usually a talkative person, and I get hit in the face with how quiet I can be sometimes when I am at these type of gatherings. And I think part of the reason why I feel so young sometimes is because that tendency to sit back in conversations is one that I associate so much more with the way I was before (aka, outside of college). And so I wonder about the Brown bubble, and if the person I was inside it was really a development from my high school self, or a sort of anomaly that just existed in that special space and time. It sounds silly, but I do wonder a lot of the time if I am still that crazy-awesome person I felt like I was on College Hill. And obviously I know I am not exactly or even close to exactly that same person I was in high school, but it still makes me wonder...

This post took a different turn than I had meant for it to, but I looked at the calendar and realized, 6 months ago was graduation...half a year has gone by already...life just moves so quickly sometimes...