Staff meeting, foreign style

Just found out (because I just read the email, which arrived about a week ago) that our yearly teachers' meeting at one place is scheduled for THIS COMING SATURDAY, and is scheduled to last for THREE AND A HALF HOURS. (Which is actually better than the memorable five hour one a couple of years ago.)

Three and a half hours of sitting around a room of screaming, yelling, laughing foreigners, while the head of department, who is Japanese, sits there pretending to take notes but actually making nervous dots on his paper. (I know. I checked one year.) In Japanese staff meetings everybody politely falls asleep, and I think we frighten him.

I hope the food at the party afterwards is better this year. Last year I was forced to drink too much. They'd provided vast amounts of unexpectedly good wine, along with horrible food. Every bite you took compelled you to quickly drink something, to drown the taste. But then you forgot how bad it was and had another bit of greasy fried chicken (or whatever) because you were so damned hungry, and the next thing you knew your wine glass was empty but then somebody would instantly fill it up again. By the time I got home I couldn't remember what the meeting had been about.