Workin' hard, or hardly workin'?

The last couple days of work have been more fun, in that they finally found some stuff for me to do. Perhaps the keyword here is "stuff," however, and not "work." They have me going to some of the seminars and lectures that some of the senseis who work at the Education Center give to other teachers who come to the center to receive training and whatnot. It's been crazy interesting, as a native English speaker learning Japanese, to attend classes for native Japanese speaking teachers of English. I get a look at foreign language education from a twofold different perspective: that of the teacher, rather than the student, and that of the Japanese speaker, rather than that of the English speaker. Also, I get to listen to Japanese people try to speak English, which is always hilarious. One teacher said she "eats her right hand," but I think she meant that she eats with her right hand. That must be how I sound to them.

Also, the other interns and I met the governor of Ishikawa prefecture yesterday. He has one of the most ridiculous combovers I have ever seen. One of the interns said that his host-father calls the governor "Barcode-san" (Mr. Barcode), since when he bows, it looks like there's a big ol' barcode on his head. Anyway, the governor gave us our money for the summer. We don't get paid biweekly or anything normal like that, but instead received the entire summer's payment in one huge chunk, which for someone as flaky as me is quite a scary thing indeed. Someone who would her head if it weren't attached to her neck should not be carrying around $2000, so I was pretty anxious to get that ass home and locked up in a desk or something. But first, I went to a sweet restaurant with the other interns and blew $25 of it on steak and beer. Incidentally, I ordered the last steak the restaurant had (and quite possibly the last steak Japan had), so when Tom, one of the other interns, tried to order one, he got pwn3d.

Then I'm the cock of the walk...