I am so glad this week has finally come to an end. . . it’s been a long one.

This afternoon just after lunch, my boss came to me with a request to translate the lengthy minutes from a meeting he attended earlier this month into English. “Can you finish it within today?” he asked in such a way that make it sound like a demand rather than a question. I figured I was up for the challenge and immediately went to work on it.

Seven hours later, I was nearly finished and looking forward to saying “osaki ni” and getting the hell out of the office, when all of a sudden, the telephone rang. It was boss, instructing all of us to pack up and get ready to go out drinking. My coworkers promptly began shutting down their computers and tidying up their desks. Five minutes later when my boss came strolling in, everyone was putting on their coats while I remained seated at my desk, frantically trying to finish up the translation. My boss came over to check on my progress, and upon seeing that I was nearly done, he said, “Good, please email it to me when you’re finished. I’ll send it off tomorrow.” And with that, he and all of my coworkers headed out to go drinking, leaving me behind, alone and feeling dejected in the empty office. Eventually, I finished up the translation, send it off, locked up the office and headed home.

It was a bit of a depressing way to end the week, but at least tomorrow’s Saturday, and unlike my coworkers, I won’t have to spend the day in the office finishing up work from tonight.

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I haven’t yet had time to go through the photos I took in Asakusa last weekend to see if there’s anything worth putting up, so in the meantime, here’s a photo of a defaced political poster featuring Hideko Murakami and Shintaro Ishihara (the governor of Tokyo) that’s posted on the side of a building near my office. There’s a high school in the area, so it was probably some of the students who did it, but I’m sure if Ishihara were to ever see it, he would likely blame it on the evil foreigners.