Friends and Family Weekend

Japanese follows. 日本語は下に

Today I am thankful for everyone around me.

I saw in many emails and on Facebook that this past weekend seemed to have been a "Friend and Family Weekend" in the States. I am not sure if that was ture, but that was exactly what my weekend had been.

On Friday, I met a very good friend of mine whom I haven't seen for about half a year. He is much older than myself, but one of the older friends who I see very regularly. We had both been busy and had gone through a lot individually, so I fell out of touch. It was a great catch-up dinner. (And the food was great, too.)

The restaurant he chose was very coincidendally housed in an old, classical-looking building, which I had been eyeing for my potential restaurant location (in case I should open a restaurant myself... which I don't have any plan so far... but just in case). The 2-story building had been so under-utilized that I was wondering why nobody would buy it and convert it into something fancy. Well, someone had the same idea, obviously. It's just.... now it's pink.

On Saturday afternoon, there was my high school reunion. I am not going to count the years after graduation. Who cares?

I was so reluctant to go, but my best friend literally dragged me to there. Thank you!

My reluctance was derived from two reasons, in afterthought:

(1) My college reunion was so not fun. People had changed so much, and I only saw very snobbish people flashing their gold, or very humble people who were about to fade into the background. I wasn't sure where I belonged.

(2) My self, my identity, my character was so unestablished back in high school. It's almost like, people who knew me back then knew me before I was born. Does that makes sense?

I did not know who I was back then, what I wanted to do, what I liked. The only thing hasn't change was I spoke English back then, I speak English now. People remember me by that, how funny.

(Oh, and there was the third reason... (3) I am not married.)

But I realized my mistake when I went there.

My high school friends, 150 people who came yesterday (out of 450), still feel like my buddies who I grew up with. We all became who we were, fighting, joking, studying, agonizing over ourselves, together.

Out high school was rather special that, due to the education system in Japan, we belonged to the top several percentile in terms of the achievement level, which means we all came from the similar family background. But it's a public school in the suburb so that there was no son and daughter of super-riches. We were all so naive in a good sense, and we all had to study hard to get on with our lives (no family advantage).

My first year classmates used to be especially close. And it still feels to me that they are my brothers and sisters.

... Anyway, after I recuited several single/DINKS girls as my dinner-mates, I went to visit my sister's family.

My baby niece had grown so much since the last time I saw her!

As you can see, it was truly a Friends and Family Weekend for me.

日本語で書くのが面倒になっちゃったのですが。

この週末はわたしの周りの人たち総てに感謝する週末でした。

何故か先週から「Friends and Family Weekend Special」という広告メールを色々な会社から受け取り、アメリカではどうもそんな週末があるらしい、と薄々感じていたところでしたが、今振り返ってみると、まさに私の週末にピッタリのタイトルでした。

金曜日は古い友人とディナー、土曜日は高校の同窓会、そのあと妹の家に泊まりに行って、お喋りいっぱいの週末を過ごしました。

高校の同窓会は本当に面倒だな〜と乗り気ではなかったのですが、親友に無理矢理連れられ、陰のように寄り添って辿り着いたところ、実際はとても楽しかった！大学の同窓会があまりにも詰まらなかったのと、高校当時の記憶が余りなくて実感がなかったのもあったのですが、行ってみたら記憶が蘇ってきました。ああ、一緒に大人になった仲間なんだな〜、と妙に感動してしまいました。

妹の家では妹夫婦とお喋りし、赤ちゃんと遊び、犬と戯れ睡眠を妨害され、でも犬も可愛く、とても楽しかったです。

どうみても日本語が少なくて済みません。。。英語が出来る方はぜひ、詳細は英語の方で。