Japanese Whiskers

The school has been arranging photo shoots this week for next years pamphlet to introduce and promote the university. Of course, being one of few gaijin (foreigner, mostly used for westerners) students, and the only one known as "Angel", I was of course forced into hard labour. I knew modeling wasn't exactly a glamourous profession, but now I finally understand how boring even a short session can be. And tiresome. We did a shoot with 6 of us "running" from the front doors of the lecture building. Of course we couldn't actually run, so we had to try to look like were running, first by just standing in a "running" position, then taking a step forward timed with the camera. I'm not sure if either really worked that well, but in typical Japanese fashion, the crew was of course very thankful and thought our performance was absolutely great.

I also appeared in a shot where eight or nice students sat and stood around a couple of benches, chatting, laughing and generally having a good time. Which was actually pretty fun, since we din't have anything to talk about and so talked absolute nonsense. "So wasn't dinner aweful today?", "why yes, it stunk. I especially hated the baseball players", "I take it to be self-evident that all men are created with carrots sprouting from their noses", and so on. Maybe not a hundred percent accurate quoting, but you get the general idea.

And no, I won't send you the pamphlet, unless I by the grace of God allmighty (whom I don't even believe in) actually look decent in the shots. I'm not even sure I want to see the pamphlet myself... hey, a good self-esteem doesn't have to have full coverage, right? I don't like to see myself in pictures (I'm more ok with video), and like most people think it's very strange to hear my own voice. Which reminds me of the fun times we have in Japanese class. We do pronounciation practice where we read stuff to tape and listen to ourselves. Of course everyone in class gets to listen to everyone else. Which actually works better than expected. It seems like listening to your own voice speaking a foreign language feels less strange than listening to it in your mother tongue. Either that, or my voice has just became nicer. Hard for me to tell, though I wouldn't think so.

I promise, a picture update will come soon!