never gonna give you up [2008.07.08]

The Saikai City ALTs (and friends!) got together last Saturday for our going away party.  If you hadn't guessed by now, yeah, we got rick rolled.

(And if you aren't familiar with it, rick rolling is an internet meme where someone pulls a switch on you, tricking you into watching Rick Astley sing "Never Gonna Give You Up" instead of what you thought you were going to see.  The voice that comes out of this guy combined with the dancing...)

Dino set the whole thing up, and he did a damn good job of it.  Thanks Dino!  The first stop was the all-you-can-eat meat place.  We reserved their separate karaoke room, so we had the room to ourselves for three hours of grilling all sorts of meat combined with as much ridiculous karaoke as we felt like.  (note: it was a fair bit of both).  Dino brought a camera so that the three people leaving (me, Claudia, and Elizabeth) could say a little something to go with the presents we were all leaving for our successors.

The rick roll came at the end of our reservation, when Wendy's husband Ron queued it up and everyone (yeah, everyone) ended up singing it together for the last song before we went to stage two back in Oshima.  If you just listen to the song and don't watch the ridiculous video, I think it's all right.  But maybe I've just got a positive association, ha.

Dino (again, rock!) knows this great Filipino bar in Oshima called Pico Poco, so we went there for more karaoke.  You'd think we do this stuff all the time!  Personally it takes a certain kind of atmosphere for me to do any kind of karaoke at all, but we all were having a good time with it.

My personal highlight of the night came from Wendy and Ron, but not the rickroll.  See, Ron is actually a reggae singer back in Jamaica and that boy can SING.  Up until now Wendy had not gone up to sing a single song, content to provide "backup" from the comfort of her seat.

They picked out "Bob Marley - Is This Love?" and for this song she got UP.  She can sing too!  How about that?  Watching them sing it together was just beautiful.  And let me tell you, it was a pretty damn good night, but that just shows you how nice it was to see them singing this song for it to top everything else.

It'd be nice if all of the other goodbyes could be as fun and entertaining as this one.  I've got my last day at one of the elementary schools this Thursday, and school in general is only in session until next Friday, the 18th.  So now I'm trying to get my speeches written and everything else squared away.  It is not going to be a fun process.  I'll probably even cry some when I have to give my speech at the junior high next Friday.  It's also crazy busy and things are starting to ramp up, so this might be it for me.  We'll see.

mad love from the never gonna give you up,

-greg.

ps: just to be clear, i am really excited to be coming home and seeing everyone.  it's just, you know, that's kind of outweighed at the moment by having to say goodbye to all of these people that i've spent the last year really getting to know and become close to.  kind of rough.  but i love you guys a lot!  it'll even out.  silly world traveling, haha.