Had a really bizarre day on Monday. The last few weeks I had been thinking about all my high school friends who I hadn't seen or talked too in nearly a year. We were really close in grade 12 and I have felt bad that we haven't seen each other more often than once every 8 months. Anyway, after the AUS meeting I ran into a couple of them. We talked for a bit but they had to class so I bid them adieu and went my own way. About a half hour later, I ran into my old best friend. We talked for a bit and then I decided to join him for some lunch in the SUB. As we're walking through the conversation pit, I see a friend I hadn't talked to regularly since september of first year. I had seen him once since then, during final exams in first year. He was with his girfriend (which was an additional shock) so I didn't bother saying high. We continued down to the basement where I proceeded to run into another 3 old friends, none of which I had seen since early first term. Despite frequenting the SUB regularly, I have not seen ANY of these people at all this year, and somehow within a day I saw 7 of them.... odd, but in a good way.

Anyway, things that happened this week:


1) I have been desperately trying to force myself to work on my polisci paper.... I have to admit that I'm already pretty burned out this term and I haven't even had much school work... I think it's a combination of ELI Work, Academic AUS work, and the documentary... I feel guilty that I haven't been able to help out with ACF nearly as much this year, but I will definitely be giving up myself next week for that.

2) On Wednesday night, we took the students to the Plaza for a farewell party. It was a lot of fun.

3) Last night I attended a farewell dinner for this Japanese girl that has been here for a year. It will be sad to see her go. Anyway, Mike filmed me having an interesting conversation with an Arab student about tensions in the Middle East, or more accurately, I should say, I was having an interesting conversation with the student when Mike interrupted to start filming. So yeah, I'm sure they'll use some of that footage for the, "Jayme is sympathetic resentment against the West" sequence...

4) After the dinner party, I entertained about 30 students (mostly Japanese, 1 arab guy) at my houme for a farewell party. Most were part of an exchange program from the Tokyo University of Agriculture. They were a lot of fun and I will miss them. We did the usual drinking and spilling/nearly breaking Jayme's TV, but it was good times. They presented me and Claude (my co-worker) with surprise novelty thank you cards (the kind that are about 3 feet high). It was really sweet. Claude's had a picture of a teddy bear on it, mine had a football cheerleader on it. Says a lot about what they think of me and Claude, but hey, I'm not complaining.