Welcome Party/Karaoke

Apparently one welcome party at the beginning of my stay here wasn't enough because they went ahead and scheduled another one. Lol. This one was going to be with the people in Taisho (town next to us) as well, but they didn't end up coming so it was just our Board of Education again. Anyway, at the beginning Marisa and I had to make a speech (in Japanese of course) and I was so nervous. I was like shaking and it was kind of ridiculous, lol. I said, "Because of my love for stories, I studied English literature at college. But because I thought Japanese food, culture, and language were interesting, I also studied Japanese. The time i spent studying Japanese was really fun, so I wanted to come to Japan and let the students here have fun learning English. So when I heard I was coming to Shimanto Town I was really happy. Thank you for taking care of me until now and please continue to take care of me." It is kind of a literal translation so it might sound a bit weird in English but you get the jist. Anyway, there was lots of food but Marisa and I got whisked away to go greet the head honchos and we had to pour them all sake so we didn't get to eat a lot. It was kind of weird to be pouring drinks for other people when I don't drink, but it's a show of respect and culture here I guess. Anyway, toward the end I had had some conversations with people, and then a group of office workers were asking me questions about being Mormon (as they always do in a drinking setting becuase I don't drink) and what I can and can't do/eat/drink. I had actually found out that one of the girls from the ward I go to knows one of the girls in the office. They went to high school together, so that was pretty cool because she already knew a Mormon, and a Japanese one at that. Then, a few of us went out for karaoke after. Lol. I didn't want to sing by myself at first, but after a while we were all just choosing songs and singing whatever we wanted. All the songs I sang were in English (got some Boston, Mama's & Papa's, Disney, Backstreet Boys, and Queen in) and then the last song I sang was in Japanese. My voice was a little shakey and I couldn't catch all the words because it was hard to read it (it was going too fast), but I got through it with applause at the end, lol. Fun times.