Retake

The weather is always an issue here in this hippie town. Last Friday, I had an exciting experience of commercial shooting, but it was raining. So, the TV crew who was editing the footage told me I looked cold. Of course, I did not only look cold but also was really cold. Anyhow, SB, the guy organizing the commercial, asked me to do that again today. It was unbelievably sunny today, actually. I had no objection against his suggestion. So, I went for shooting. Again, I made sure if my pronunciation of Rotary (roudri) was OK. SB and the crew said, "You've got it." Oh, how sweet they are. I've been spoiled by those sweet people in this country, and my English has never gotten straight :P

Commercial Shooting!

I had an exciting experience today. Well, not so exciting, but it was fun to meet new people and do something extraordinary. Anyway, today, I went to commercial shooting with local TV people. Actually, they shot me, not by a gun, but by video.

The commercial is about Rotary. I was supposed to say how much Rotary means to me. Before shooting, I asked the crew to correct my pronunciation of "Rotary." Rotary is one of the most difficult English words for me to say. SB turned out to be a great speech trainer, successfully correcting my pronunciation. He gave me a piece of advice, "Try to say 'd' instead of 't.'" It ended up sounding like "roudri." That worked! I've got perfect pronunciation of "Rotary"!

It is a local TV commercial, and it's low-budget, simple one. The equipment was digital video camera and microphone, and that's it. Video production major students or the like sometimes ask me to participate in video interviews, and they shoot videos of me. Today's commercial shooting was almost like what students do. Then I thought, journalism school here is giving students practical skills. Students can use their skills that they learn at college on the job if they get a job in such field. Getting a job in the media is another issue, though. And, it is also another issue that such educational focus has turned universities to be vocational schools.

9-Year-Old Speech Trainer

I'm housesitting my friend's place with a 9 years old and 11 years old. They are easy-going nice kids to hang out with.

The 9-year-old boy is a smart pants. Yesterday, I told him something, and he didn't understand my English, or pronunciation, I should say. I explained him, "You know what? The Japanese tongue is really lazy. When you speak, you move your tongue a lot, right? Touching your upper jaw, lower jaw, teeth and everywhere. But, The Japanese tongue just stay in the air when they speak. That's why we can't say 'r' correctly." The boy just made an "uh-huh" face that time.

Overnight into this morning. Because the boy would have a violin lesson after school, I made sure by telling him, "Don't forget to take your violin to school." And, I wondered if I pronounced "violin" correctly. I asked him if I did. Then, he said with a big smile, "You know, violin doesn't have 'r' in it. So, you were OK." What a smart pants! He is so funny.

Branding

Well, Starbucks' new logo looks weird without its name. Maybe, they are following the example of NIKE. You know, NIKE got rid of its name from its logo, and the swoosh soon came to represent NIKE. It is kind of cool. But, I'm not sure the same strategy works with Starbucks. Nay, it's not my business. I'm just a customer of Starbucks.

Disney Hypocrisy

Yeah, this is a fun movie. But, this is Disney (I didn't know what we would watch until we arrived the theater). Too much gender stereotype. Too much "princess." Too much fantasy. And yeah, I remember, too much singing. Those things really annoyed me while watching the movie. I never like this genre of Disney movies.

Rabbit

Happy New Year!

But honestly, I'm scared because I don't know where I will be and what I will be doing by this summer! I hope this year will work out good to me and, of course, everyone.

Skype Business

Well, I hadn't known about the outage that Skype recently experienced until I read news stories online. According to news, Skype was giving away $1-worth vouchers to users. I didn't pay attention to this news too much because I thought I was not qualified for the voucher. In fact, I didn't experience any inconvenience because of the outage. I don't use Skype all the time, anyway.

Unexpectedly, I received an apology email from Skype yesterday. Alright then, why don't I use the voucher?

What happened was, though, the email didn't have a voucher code to activate. What a stupid mistake Skype made (again!)! I sent an email to the customer service to complain about this. Unexpectedly again, Skype responded to my email early this morning. Wow, that's fast. Skype seemingly sent out a bunch of emails without a voucher code, and they said they would resend emails to those who didn't get a voucher code soon. Unexpectedly again and again, I received another email with a voucher code by this evening. I was impressed by the quick responses of Skype. Very nice.

So, I activated the $1-worth coupon, which was supposed to worth 30-minutes call to international land phones. This is New Year's Day in my time. I called my mom to see if they were having fun. I had known they had been because my brother had sent me a couple of family photos that he took during this break a couple of days ago.

Anyway, I chatted with my mom for a while, say, 10, 15 minutes. Then, I realized I spent more than $2! Then, again, I realized this is the business of Skype. They say, "Here's $1 coupon. I'm so sorry about the inconvenience." Then, you feel Skype is a nice company. You use the free coupon, expecting you can chat for 30 minutes. Then, you spend more than you should. Geez, but a good business strategy.