uf, missed the FedEx man today. FedEx can only mean one thing - Mom. FedEx is the exclusive carrier for all things sent by mothers. My hard drive stood outside of my front door momentarily at 11:30 today. At least they have English support, as my date/time confirming skills in J are still developing (prolly woulda asked for the thing to be delivered in March or December). They will leave it in my genkan at lunch time tomorrow. w00+. Too bad my front door broke today. And I can’t figure the thing out - it doesn’t fit inside the jam any longer. This morning ok, go grocery shopping, disfunction.
The JET forums elsewhere in the ether led me to more strongly consider (and then finally decide upon) linux as my OS of choice for editing this crazy doco. I was informing the unwashed masses about video camera purchasing in Jland, when a guy asked if I did my editing in Linux (I never hesistate to drop the *nix in a sentence, so the question was natural). I said no, but couldn’t reply without including some helpful links, and I stumbled on some killer software. I am now determined to make this project entirely open source.
Hrm, outside technology… Well, here’s a transition at least. I used my new camera for the first time on Saturday. There was an open mic nite a nice bar in Shizuoka. Aroop was playing, so I decided to film him. It’s really fun to film when your ears are connected via head phones. Hearing what the mic detects is really enlightening. The onboard mic is pretty good - no motor hum - but it’s too far from the subject, so the sound is too inclusive of the background and a bit tinny. Next on the testing block are lapel mics (my preference for interviews).
Before the open mic night, I went to a meeting for another camp (which I’ll be going to). A private high school in Shizuoka has connections with the JET program (their English director was on JET before it was called JET) and eventually my shoulder was tapped. The camp sounds pretty fun and I got to meet the students after the meeting. Up to snowy mountains of Japan’s Southern Alps (seems like a lot of countries have these mountains).
This week is a review lesson week, and finals are next week. I will have heaps of time to plan and research this film, if only I could get started. Funny how when you know you need to do something, you don’t wanna do it? And then you start doing something else instead? Well, at least my Japanese study has picked up….