The IWA Christmas Party (14th Meeting)

THE IWA’s CHRISTMAS PARTY (14th Meeting) on Saturday 18 December was very successful.
9 members attended with 2 husbands accompanying.
Thanks to the introduction by Mrs M the restaurant MIZUYA-KOURIN was a huge success and highly recommended. (Tel: 018-863-0002. Akita City) The room was spacious and very comfortable and the set menu was very, delicious and of course very beautiful to look at. We met the chef who was successful in winning an All-Japan Award.
We had some fun with traditional British Christmas Cracker Jokes…
‘Why would you invite a MUSHROOM to a Christmas Party?’
‘Because he’s a FUN-GUY to be with!’
Also, we guessed the titles of famous Christmas songs from initials of the titles…
ISMKSC = ‘I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus’.
Thanks to Mrs K for driving 5 members and also thanks to Mrs M for sorting out all the charges, etc. the whole party was so enjoyable and ran smoothly. Thank you to all and HAPPY CHRISTMAS!



Also, given out at the party was an interesting letter from my sister who had just finished a course at the local college in UK…
‘I just finished taking an evening class at Stanford. The last lecture was on the mind-body connection. The relationship between stress and disease. The speaker (Head of Psychiatry at Stanford) said, ‘among other things, that one of the best things that a man could do for his health is to be married to a woman whereas for a woman, one of the best things she could do for her health was to nurture her relationships with her girlfriends’. At first everyone laughed, but he was serious!

‘Women connect with each other differently and provide support systems that help each other to deal with stress and difficult life experiences. Physically this quality ‘girlfriend time’ helps us to create more Serotonin-a neuro transmitter that helps combat depression and can create a general feeling of well-being. Women share feelings whereas men often form relationships around activities. They rarely sit down with a buddy and talk about how they feel about certain things or how their personal lives are going. Jobs? Yes. Sports? Yes. Cars? Yes. Fishing, hunting, golf? Yes. But their feelings? – rarely. Women do it all of the time. We share from our souls with our sisters/mothers and evidently that is very good for our health’. He said that ‘spending time with a friend is just as important to our general health as jogging or working out at a gym.

There’s a tendency to think that when we are ‘exercising’ we are doing something good for our bodies, but when we are hanging out with friends, we are wasting our time and should be more productively engaged – not true’. In fact, he said that ‘failure to create and maintain quality personal relationships with other humans is as dangerous to our physical health as smoking! So every time you hang out to schmooze with a gal pal, just pat yourself on the back and congratulate yourself for doing something good for your health! We are indeed very, very lucky. Soooooooooooooo, let’s toast to our friendship with our girlfriends. Evidently it’s very good for our health’.

So ladies let’s keep enjoying our IWA and let’s always have fun!