Big man in a little country

That guy up there..yeah that's me...oh wait you didn't know?

So last night was the end of my training and what do you think I did? I stayed in like a good little boy and studied and studied and did lesson plan after lesson plan after practice after practice and....yeah right. I PARTIED!

Our trainers took us all out to dinner and we did a family style dinner where they had food set on the table and we just took our share. It was so much fun. For the parents who may be reading their children this blog post, please substitute some of the following words with more vivacious childreny words ;).

A lot of people got drunk. Haha. I had some drinks myself, but I wasn't bad. I tried Sake for the first time, and it reminded me of some wine I had back in the states. It's pretty good, although I believe you were supposed to sip it and here I am taking shots of it, haha. But anyway. After the dinner with our trainers and ALL 14 other people I trained with, we decided to go to Karaoke. Now, for those of you who don't know, in Japan, or at least at this place (called Big Echo), instead of singing on a stage at a bar in front of everyone, you reserve rooms and you all go in a room and pick out your songs and of course, you sing.

Ok, now that we have that out of the way, let's back up. So we are ALL outside of Big Echo and there are a lot of Japanese people out front (well..duh..becasue we are in Japan, but trust me, this is going somewhere). As we are all standing out in front, acting a fool (i.e. such as me jumping on Chris' back and him running through the street and us getting honked at and almost hit by a car, well..maybe not ALMOST...it was far enough a way to dodge...obviously) we start saying HEYYYYY and talking loud and stuff to all the Japanese people. All of a sudden they start chanting

OBAMA!

OBAMA!

OBAMA!

And I screamed out YES WE CAN!

And they screamed YES WE CAN!

YES WE CAN!

YES WE CAN!

And they thought I was the coolest thing since the invention of the cell phone and I was SO happy that I look like my president, haha. I felt so famous. I want to call Obama and just thank him for making me so famous in Japan. So we are yelling with the other Japanese people and taking pictures and taking video (which I hope to have for you all soon, it was on someone elses camera on both counts) and just having a good time. All of a sudden this Japanese guy comes out with an Obama MASK on and people start chanting "OBAMA!" again. So when the guy took the mask off I grabbed it from him and put it on and started posing and people were taking pictures and I felt so...Presidential...or at least famous like a President.

One of my friends, Tom kept saying, "Man! How does that make you feel?! Isn't that awesome! This is so awesome!" And he was absolutely right, I'm getting so much attention because I'm tall and black, but I'm also getting more because Obama is in office. Just today in Tottori (which I will have pictures of my apartment up later this week, no specifics as to when yet), at the grocery store I met one of the students that goes to Amity (yes it's a small town) and I was with one of the women who work at Amity who speaks Japanese and the little girl said something to her mother in Japanese and my co-worker translated for me and said, "She said you are on TV." And yes, yet again, this little girl thought I was Obama. I guess it really was a good decision to cut my hair. I didn't know if I could...but YES I CAN! ;)

And then later that night we all went out dancing, and their clubs here dont close until around six. I went home about four and it was still poppin. I danced with a couple Japanese girls and they were really diggin my style (yes, I just said that). I did the worm, I went back into a bridge, I was doing all sorts of stuff. I had people jumping up and down with me when they played "Arab Money," it was so much fun.

Well, that's all for now, my apartment is awesome but that posting is to come later. Until then.

ja ne (see you later)

-Jeremy

aka

OBAMA! OBAMA! OBAMA!