Cleaning up

Yesterday I cleaned my entire place. This time, I cleaned all of the windows, too. They looked like leopard patterned windows because of the rain and dust, since I didn’t clean the windows for a long time.

While I was cleaning the windows I remembered a question which was asked me before — “What would you do if you could wipe the slate clean?” When I was asked that question, I didn’t really think about it. But this time, while the dirty windows were getting to be clean, it reminded me of it.

“What would I do if I could wipe the slate clean?” I couldn’t come up with anything. It didn’t mean that I haven’t done anything bad or wrong; of course, I have some… no, many regrets.

If I could see my future like in the American TV drama “Flash Forward,” if my future was horrible I would try to avoid it. I also wish I could see my past by stepping into a time machine and give some advice to me like the Japanese animation “Doraemon.” But actually, I don’t want to erase anything that I felt or thought or did from my past. Even though they were bitter, sad and awful, they are parts of my history.

Even if only one piece was missing from my past, my life would change a lot. If I changed my past I wouldn’t be in the same situation as I’m now. Maybe I could have been happier, or have a brighter future, but I wouldn’t want to lose lots of memories that I can’t buy, whether they were good or bad.

As I said, I’m not completely satisfied with my past and current situation. Also, I sometimes do things I regret, especially when I’m drunk. I have a lot of embarrassing memories that I hate to talk about, but I don’t want to sweep them clean. That’s because I’ve enjoyed my life up to now and I believe I’m a lucky person. I’m surrounded by many nice people who always care for me, help me and have good time with me. Even if a super horrible thing happens to me I’m sure I can get over it, and I’ve done so. When I’m really feeling down, they always help me out of the dark situation I’m in. Once the nightmare changes into a good old memory, we can drink for several hours while talking and laughing about it. I can appreciate the importance of them, and enjoy having drinks with them, because of my terrible past.

I think everything which happens to me has a meaning or a reason. About 11 years ago, I lost my father suddenly. Unfortunately, until he died, I couldn’t recognize how much I was protected by him and I had a happy life because of him, which I took for granted. His death was an unthinkable sorrow, but it opened my eyes and taught me how awfully happy things were.

I always try to think like that when I have to overcome hard situations — think of my happy sweet histories as chocolate bars, and think of my bad awful histories as potato chips. If I always eat only chocolate bars, I’ll be tired of eating them and I won’t feel they’re sweet or good, even though they’re awesome. Then, I will definitely want to eat something salty. Here comes potato chips. If I eat potato chips in between chocolate bars, I can really enjoy tasty chocolate bars more than when I eat only them. In the same way, we’ll lose feelings of the happiness, if we only experience dreamlike things. We can’t appreciate our current situations even if we’re happy now. We sometimes feel fear, anger, sadness or disappointment in our daily life. Because of that, we can find happiness, and we strive to be happy or try to make our life better.

For me, the nightmare things give me a chance to take a closer look at my attitude, behavior, situation and myself. They also give me a chance to realize that I’ve earned my place in the sun. I think that a bad event sometimes has the possibility to become a kind of a spice of our life, depending on how we accept it.

After the cleaning, I looked at the windows again. The shiny beautiful windows are OK, but the dirty leopard patterned windows were not so bad. If I see them from a different angle, I can enjoy feeling like I’m at a safari park even though I’m in my house. In the future, maybe I’ll face a variety of issues that I want to eliminate from my life. Even so, I want to trust that I can overcome them and change them into good memories. It’s just like how I miss the leopard patterned windows now. So, my answer to the question is this — “Nothing. In my life, there is nothing that I want to wipe clean. I don’t need to clean up anything.”

English essay

Why do I write English essays, even though my English isn’t very good?

I have several reasons, the first of which is learning English. I have only a limited vocabulary, I know that I need to build it up, but I don’t like to memorize and I can’t learn by rote. What I mean is, if I try to memorize something that I’m not interested in, I’d forget it after 5 minutes. After thought, I decide to learn vocabulary by writing English essays. If I write an essay I will write about something that I’m interested in. It means I can learn about things I’m interested in. It’s a good idea, if I say so myself.

The second reason is that I like to write. For me, writing a letter or an essay slakes my desire to create. I really like the process from beginning to end. First, I choose a topic and think about it. Then I see many images and ideas in my head. While I try to cast my ideas into shape, I organize my images and ideas over and over. I also enjoy expressing my situations and feelings using a lot of onomatopoeia. In Japanese, there’re plenty of onomatopoetic words and I think sometimes they help people visualize images easily. Many people tell me my writing seems like talking, because I use a lot of onomatopoeia and quotation marks. This process makes me feel like I am making a plastic model. There are only tiny parts at first, but they are going to be put together to reveal the whole picture. I am so happy and excited when I can describe my ideas as I like. The process of creating something has an irresistible attraction for me.

The last reason is that I can organize my thoughts by writing. When I’m writing, I look for words or phrases that precisely explain my thinking or feelings. In Japan, there are many subtle nuances and a lot of onomatopoeia which are difficult to explain in English. That’s because I need to be clear in my thoughts and feelings when I write an English essay. Choosing correct words and phrases helps me to understand myself; what I’m thinking about or how I feel. So, I can’t finish writing an essay when I can’t form a clear view of the topic, because I can’t explain my opinion even to myself. Even though writing helps me to organize my thinking and understand the unconscious part of myself, I don’t want to write in Japanese. If I write in Japanese I can describe my thinking very clearly, but sometimes it might blurt the whole story out. On the other hand, I want to make sure what I think or feel, but I reluctant to describe in details all of my thoughts.

 

This is why I write English essays. Today I learn these words — “rote,” “onomatopoetic,” “reveal,” “irresistible,” “precisely,” “blurt something out,” and “reluctant.” I’m not sure I can use them correctly next time, but I’m going to keep writing English essays and interweaving them with new vocabulary.

Trick or Beer!

“Nothing better than an after-work beer. Cheers!” My friend and I gulped down beer in a fantasy world. All of my cells enjoyed drinking cold draft beer, too. Actually, we didn’t work that day. We visited Tokyo DisneySea with the thought of riding the Tower of Terror and having a beer while eyeing Mickey Mouse.

Oct. 2nd, it was a beautiful day. About 2 and half hours had passed since we arrived at DisneySea. It was the first day of nice weather we had had in a while, but we were still standing in line to get on the Tower of Terror. I was thirsty and starving, because I hadn’t eaten anything since morning, and my leg had gotten bitten by a mosquito an hour earlier. A horrifying thing was that I had to wait for another 30 minutes while battling with hunger and itches. While we were waiting, we tried to only think about something fun, such as having cold beer with some nice snacks after this.

We had patiently waited out our turn. How could we wait such a long time? There was no doubt that Mickey Mouse’s magical power had been working on us, because we hate to stand in line and usually we don’t outside of DisneySea. Additionally, between Sep.9 and Oct.31, DisneySea is celebrating Halloween and it is decorated for that. Maybe ghosts helped to increase Mickey’s potency more than usual. Last time when I visited here, I waited for an hour and half to ride it. This time I had to wait for 3 hours which doubles the length of the last time. If I come here next time, will I wait for 6 hours?

“Oh, no… yieeeeeeep!” I felt my stomach float like yo-yo. “Uh-oh, yieeep!!” We waited for 3 hours and rode it for only a couple of minutes, but we were so excited we forgot about the long wait. We could reach our first objective. When we got out of the Tower of Terror the sun had almost set. The rest of our objective was having a cold beer. We were desperate to search for a place where we could drink beer.

“Hey, look! There is a stand selling beer!! Now, we can have a cold draft beer and sausage, whoopee!!”

We downed a glass of beer in one gulp. Cold beer coursed through our bodies. “Another one?” “Sure, why not!” We enjoyed having beer with tasty snacks — black pepper flavor popcorn and bone sausage — in a fantasy world. The wind felt so good. That was our ideal weekend at DisneySea, even though Mickey and Minnie Mouse were missing.

                                                      

Drinking a couple of beers brought about a pump-priming effect. We embarked on an adventurous journey to find other places where we could drink alcohol. Drinking beer then riding an attraction which we didn’t have to wait long; it was like a sandwich. While we were looking for nice restaurants and unpopular rides, my friend pointed at a map and said to me, “Look at the map, there is a Mexican restaurant here! It has wine also.” “Sounds yummy! Let’s go!!” We scurried to the restaurant — “Two glasses of white wine, french fries and salsa sauce, please.”

                                              

Now, we slaked all of our desires by drinking chilly white wine. We ended up enjoying drinking more than riding attractions. When I look back now, we didn’t see Mickey and Minnie Mouse, but we could enjoy an early Halloween at DisneySea in our own way — Happy Halloween, Trick or Beer!

 

 
 
 
 
 

Getting out of my rut

Since I can enjoy watching movies again, I’ve gotten carried away with watching a lot of movies in a short time. I tried to watch many genres that I didn’t like very much before.

About a month ago — there were many movies that I hadn’t seen yet, on a pay TV channel’s program guide. It had been a while since I last recorded and watched movies on TV, so I decided now was the time to get my money’s worth. I thought that it was a good time to get out my “movie” rut of always choosing the same type of movies. I thought I could try enjoying some kinds of movies that I normally don’t really like.

First, I started with a movie which I was interested in anyway. Then I tried a movie that my friend really wanted to watch, and then, a film with big stars. After that, I watched my favorite types of movie. When I was watching a boring movie, or one I couldn’t get into, I just kept watching and looked forward to the next one. So, I decided to watch my favorite types’ of movies in between them as motivation.

 

“Well… it was OK. How about next one?” About 2 hours later… “I see… hmm. Let’s move on to the next one!” — I watched all of the movies above just like this.

I ended up only enjoying the movies that were from my favorite genres anyway. I enjoyed “Sunshine Cleaning,” “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead” and “The Wrestler” which were movies that I really wanted to watch. “Harsh Times” and “Doubt” are OK, but they are a little bit heavier than I expected. The movies that my friend talked about are typical chick flicks: “The Ugly Truth” and “He’s Just Not That Into You.” I told her that I saw them and how I felt. “The most memorable scene is when Ben Affleck and Bradley Cooper are talking on the boat, in the movie, He’s Just Not That Into You — Ben Affleck really likes his girlfriend but he doesn’t want to get married. Not because he will lose the chance to have fun with other girls if he gets married, but because he doesn’t believe that marriage is the only way to prove how much he loves her — I completely agree with his attitude!” She said to me, “Generally, most women feel a tugging at their heartstrings when we see girls’ situations, feelings or lines in chick flicks. I have no idea why his attitude resonates with you.” Yep, that kind of makes sense.

Anyhow, it was very difficult to change my taste in a single month. Instead, I realized my taste in movies clearly once again. Basically, I don’t like movies that are too much commercial — a big budget, big stars, a bumper crop of CGI with a cheap or clichéd story. My favorite movies are “NUOVO CINEMA PARADISO(Cinema Paradiso),” “Apocalypse Now,” “Dog Day Afternoon,” “Primal Fear,” “Planes, Trains and Automobiles,” “Edward Scissorhands,” “The Negotiator,” “The Butterfly Effect,” “Match Point,” “Rear Window,” “Psycho,” “The Prestige,” etc.

 

 

 

 

I can’t explain my taste in movies in word, even though I have looked at a list of my favorite movies again. I like suspense, drama, comedy or crime with a good story. I’m not comfortable with watching Sci-Fi or horror movies. Actually, how I get into the movies is more important than their genres.

When I watch the famous scenes from “Apocalypse Now” — helicopters sweep over the sea and napalm the jungleplaying Richard Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” — I really get into the aggressive scenes without CGI and the movie’s world as usual. When I watch “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” it delivers tons of laughs. It also touches my heart and I always cry at the ending. When I watch “Cinema Paradiso” I am always reminded that I like movies and I am happy and lucky person who could get a job in the movie industry. I can watch movies over and over if they are my favorite. Even though I already know the whole story, I am excited, laugh or cry at the same scenes all the time.

The other day, one of my teachers asked me, “Who is your favorite main character from movie and why?” I couldn’t answer her question right away. The next day I found an answer. I have 2 favorite main characters who are in the Italian movies, directed by Giuseppe Tornatore. The first one is from “Cinema Paradiso,” Alfredo, played by Philippe Noiret. The second one is from “The Legend of 1900,” 1900(Danny Boodman T.D. Lemon 1900) played by Tim Roth. Both guys could find what they really love to do, and they kept doing that until the end. I always feel that I want to be like them when I watch those movies. If I can find something that I really get into and I have a talent for that…There is nothing that would make me happier than doing that until I die. The music in the films by Ennio Morricone also creates a deeper feeling.

As a result, my “getting out of my ‘movie’ rut” operation didn’t succeed this time. I half expected that getting out of my rut would not be so easy, but I’ll give it a try again someday. Not only the “movie” rut, but I’ll try to get out of all of my ruts, too.

 
 

Voices

I have a lot of stuff, the same things in many colors. When I go shopping I usually buy 2 colors of the same shoes, blouse, etc. because I can’t choose only a single color.

Basically, I’m not wishy-washy. I am a kind of determined person when I make a decision. As many of my friends say to me, “It is a waste that you are a woman, because you make a decision and take action very quickly even if you are in a tough situation. You are sometimes manlier than real men.” Yet, only when I go shopping I lose my determination. Especially when I come across something to my liking, I can’t choose only one. A part of my manfulness comes out and tries making a decision quickly, but as a result, I buy the same things in different colors.

When I was young my mother always said to me — “You’re kind of a shopaholic. You can’t stop buying something, even though you already have a lot of things that look almost the same.” I always said to her, “What? Are you kidding me? They are completely different! How could you say that without REALLY looking at them?” Now, a little older and a little wiser, I can understand why she always said those things to me. From my mom and my friends’ point of view it seemed like I always picked up similar products.

Sometimes, it is really difficult to understand other’s likes and tastes and find subtle differences in them. Well… honestly, it’s still said to me, “Oh, you bought a similar one again? You really like that kind of style,” but not as often as before.

Do you know the movie, “Confessions of a Shopaholic”? Did you watch it?

Even if I can understand the girl’s feelings a little bit, who is the main character of the movie, it doesn’t mean that I’m similar to her. I don’t buy anything that I can’t afford, and I never borrow money to buy anything. I don’t insist on buying brand names, but I stick to certain materials and construction. I only buy something that I like. I’ve never had a kind of experience that mannequins speak to me like a scene from the movie, but I can hear the voices from the products. They make an appeal — “Hey, come and look at me. I’ve waited for nobody but you. Pick me up! Listen, this is a fateful encounter, so please take me your place with you!” They talk like a pickup artist, or a girl who is good at flattery. After I hear their voices, I feel like I am an adopter; if I don’t take them in, will they spend a long time on that shelf?

Just to be clear, I’m sane. More so than other people, I think I have a kind of sensitivity to understanding others’ feelings or situations, whether they are human or not. This time, I happen to be talking about something that I fell in love with at first sight. So, when I come across something in different colors, it is hard to pick only one of them, because I feel guilty that I make them get separated by buying only a single color. Of course, I can’t take care of all of them, so I tearfully choose only products which I can get on well with.

Eventually, a lot of twins, triplets or quintuplets end up in my house. If I couldn’t hear their voices, if I were a cold-blooded shopper… I would live with lots of only children.

To end with, let’s me introduce you to some of my new residents.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Movies

17 months have passed since I quit making movie trailers. Now, I can enjoy watching movies again.

I liked watching movies since I was a child. So, I was really happy to get a job making movie trailers for a TV station. When the trailers I made first were aired I was so excited. I never forgot their titles; Speechless and Marty.

          

From foreign films to Japanese films, timeless masterpieces, recent mega-hit movies, documentaries, animations and chick flicks, low brow comedies or unscreened films in Japan: I watched so many movies and made their trailers for 12 years. I repeated the same work over and over all day — watching a movie, picking several scenes and lines from the movie, offline editing, making an edit decision list and telop data (information about director and actors’ name and awards winning in the film), and writing scripts of narration. After I finished preparation for online editing, I went to post-production and wrapped up the trailers, which were completed for the air.

** Please see the URLs below for details of contents of making them.

about telop

about offline editing

about online editing

about audio mixing

Usually, I made trailers from original aired tapes, but sometime I couldn’t use the original tapes. Basically, the TV station can’t broadcast the movies without Japanese subtitles or voice-over acting. It takes time to insert Japanese subtitles or make a dubbed version. At that time, I had to make them using the EPK — Electronic Press Kit for the movies. The EPKs include several kinds of trailers, behind the scenes, interviews and some sound bites from the movies. I could watch other countries’ movie trailers when I used the EPKs.

Interestingly, the trailers were a bit varied from country to country even though they were the same movies. For example, the film ”Pearl Harbor,” which is directed by Michael Bay; it is a war movie about the attack on Pearl Harbor, as can be expected from the title.

 

                      

 

 

 

In Japan, it was sold as a romance movie rather than a war movie, such as a war-torn tragic love triangle of 3 young people. So, if you have a chance to watch the Japanese version trailer, please compare your country’s and the Japanese. You might have a little bit different impression, especially if you are an American. It’s not only about the “Pearl Harbor,” these changes are often made in many movie trailers. I really enjoyed making the trailers because I could spend a lot of time with movies I loved. I was also happy to learn about the difference in cultures by watching movies trailers. It was my ideal job.

During the busiest time I made about 60 trailers in one month. It means I had to watch at least 3 or 4 movies per one day. When I started watching the 3rd or 4th movie, I completely forgot the stories of the films that I had watched before. I watched so many movies, so I didn’t remember what I had watched and what I hadn’t. It often happened that I didn’t realize that I had already watched a movie until the middle or end of the story. I also couldn’t watch movies at my leisure when I went to the theaters. I watched them from a job view point; I would choose this scene and that dialog. This scene would come next to that bomb scene — I always thought like that in my mind when I watched movies.

About 8 years later, I didn’t enjoy making them anymore. In fact, I thought it was my ideal job before, but watching movies became a chore for me. I felt a little bit sad that I couldn’t even enjoy watching movies.

Furthermore, I felt I was too old to make recent movies’ trailers, because I was losing a kind of sensitivity to understand or find good selling points from the movies with age. I didn’t like the movies, which seemed to be in competition for the latest and greatest CGI, instead of paying attention to the story line. For me, those CGI films were good for only enjoying the latest footage, not as a movie. If I could watch only the movies that I was interested in, watching movies would not become like a task. After I made the trailers for 12 years I quit the job. Unbelievably, when I finished the job I had no regret about it since I felt I had done all I could. The only thing that I looked forward to was watching movies without a job view point. I thought for sure that I could enjoy watching them like before.


Unfortunately, habits died hard more than I expected. I still chose several scenes and dialogs when I was watching the movies, even though I didn’t have to do that. I couldn’t watch movies without a job point of view. All told, I was about ready to give up enjoying watching movies as entertainment. Recently, it suddenly dawned on me that I could enjoy watching the movies without a job view point; I could enjoy it as entertainment like before. I didn’t notice that I was enjoying them purely for pleasure while I was watching them. I was able to recognize that 1 or 2 weeks later.

             

Yes, finally I can watch films without a job point of view after 17 months had passed since I quit my job regardless of genre: comedy, science fiction or chick flicks.

I still don’t know that if we should seek out a job based on our interests, or if we should think of it as “just a job.” But now, I feel that I was the lucky one, who had an ideal job, even though making countless movie trailers felt like a bit of a chore.

i-Pod nano

Basically, I don’t like carrying bags, regardless of the size. If I can, I go out without my bag. I usually choose the smallest bag as possible or I don’t carry it. I just put my keys, wallet and cell phone in my pockets, even though it is unpopular among my friends. They say the same things when they see me, “Where is your bag? No bag? You are not man… You can’t reapply your makeup! Unbelievable!!” “Hey, what a small bag you have! What is in your purse? You can only put snot in such a small bag, eh?” I’ve been told this for a long time, but I can’t change. I don’t want to carry anything that I don’t need. But, one thing appeared which I want to carry all the time, even though I am the kind of person who hates carrying a bag. I carry it all the time — it’s an i-Pod nano.

 

 

I used to listen to music all day, such as AEROSMITH, BON JOVI, GUNS N’ ROSES, DEF LEPPARD, MOTLEY CRUE and more. Yeah, I loved hard rock music which was very popular in the 80’s. Especially AEROSMITH and loved Steven Tyler’s bluesy singing voice. At that time, I was working a part-time job at Tower Records in Shibuya. I used to buy some CDs all the time after work. I spent a lot of money buying many CDs — more than I earned. My family always asked me, “Why are you working part-time? You seem to work not for money… but, for what?” “Because I think that working part-time helps me learn something about the world. And I can buy CDs a bit cheaper than the selling price, too!” In the 80’s, I was a happy-go-lucky music lover.

 

 

 

Yet, in 90’s, hard rock popularity declined and I didn’t listen as much. I only listened to my favorite bands, AEROSMITH and NICKELBACK when driving my car. So, after I sold my car, I seldom listened to music.

 

 

 

 

Time has passed. Portable music players are becoming mainstream and people buy music on the internet. I am not good at using a computer, so I hesitated to buy it. But I jumped on the bandwagon — I finally bought an i-Pod nano.

 

 

 

 

 

At first I only downloaded CDs that I had. After a little while, I got bored listening to only music that I have been listening to for a long time. Then I mustered up enough courage to buy music on the internet. “Wow! What a convenient system it is!” Since I started buying music on the internet I can find other favorite bands easily — THEORY OF A DEADMAN, SHINEDOWN, ALTER BRIDGE, SKILLET and more. Actually, it is hard to find favorite singers, who have a singing voice like Steven Tyler and Chad Kroeger. But now, I enjoy listening to music like when I was happy-go-lucky music lover.

 

 

My i-Pod nano became a necessary item for me when I go out, especially when I take the train or wait for someone. When I am listening to music I can wait for my friends without being irritated, even if they are late. It also helps me not to think about many things. That’s why I carry it all the time, even if I don’t carry my bag.

 

 

Recently, I have a new problem. Using mug-me earphones — the distinctive earbuds associated with the Apple — makes my ears ache. It is too big for my earholes. I bought 2 earbuds for a little while, but now, I’m still thinking about buying another earphone. How many earphones do I have to buy till I can find a perfect set for me? If this goes on, I’m going to be a very good customer of LABI Yamada, one of the most famous Japanese electronics retail stores.

 

 

Please let me know if you know a nice in-ear earphone, which is for small ears and good for bass before I spend a lot of money at LABI Yamada.