Internship Report, 11/18/95

My last moments as an intern at Seino Information Service have been quite busy. Not only have I been rushed to close up all my affairs at work, but I also have been hard-pressed to find time to play with all of our acquaintances who want to get in their "last second playing" with the fun gaijin couple, before it is too late.

The fact that I have had little time even for sleep lately has not helped me recover very well from a bad cold, and my joumu finally ordered me to take a couple of days off work and rest. This meant that I had to miss a meeting I had scheduled to present my translation of an important company pamphlet to Miura-buchou, the man who was in charge of producing the Japanese version of it.

Friday, November 3 was bunka no hi (culture day), and it made for a very tiring three day weekend of cultural traveling. My wife and I first made journey to Takayama, a historical mountain village portraying life and community as it was hundreds of years ago. The trip and tour took an entire day.

On the following Saturday, we rode a train to Anjo-shi, a small city in Aichi-ken, to spend the day and night with some friends. They took us to a large historical doll museum, an expensive, traditional restaurant, an aquarium, and a naval museum. We spent the night and returned the next day.

On another Saturday, some friends were dying to take us to a place called Tanigumi, where there is a very old and large temple, the last of a famous 40-temple tour. Other friends of ours had also been excited to show it to us, so this was our second time there.

On Tuesday of next week, another friend is going to help us paint the prefecture red. The agenda includes a trip to Yourou no Taki (a legendary waterfall) and our first onsen (natural hot spring).

At work, things are concluding nicely. During my last week, I did an unusual amount of overtime to make sure all my projects are in good enough order to hand over to someone else when I leave next Wednesday. My main project, the company's web pages, is not really something that can be finished, as it is an eternally evolving monster. In a previous report, I mentioned that I had loaded all the web pages onto my computer science account at BYU so that a real internet demonstration was possible. The company enjoyed that benefit and publicity so much that my jichou begged me to keep it on the server for a little while longer, even after I leave. Since it was no skin off my back and a good parting gift, I agreed.

I had my parting interview with Torii-jichou this week. He praised me for the work I have done at SIS, and admitted that because of my work, the company would be able to establish their permanent internet presence about a half of a year sooner than they had originally anticipated. This will probably be one or two months from now. Sonku-joumu has invited me to stay a little longer, but there is no way my visa -- or my wife -- would allow this.

Sonku-joumu held a special, personal soubetsu-kai (going away party) for my wife and me at his house. We enjoyed all kinds of wonderful food. My department also held a soubetsu-kai for us at a restaurant famous for its sumo wrestler guests. Later, they held a special going away ceremony for us, on my last day of work. At church, our branch gave us a yummy soubetsu-kai, and many other friends did the same for us. I've never had so many soubetsu-kais in such a short amount of time.