Unsent Mail

A quick look in my drafts folder reveals this little gem. I'm not sure why I didn't send this but, so much water has passed under that bridge now that I'm kind of glad I didn't bother. Some problems are best ignored it seems.

Dear [DELETED]

Please refrain from talking about me behind my back, it's been ten months now of me hearing second hand what you've said to such and such about me. It's become tiresome and it's exhausting.

I don't care to hear your motives, I'm not interested whether it was in my or other peoples best interest. I do not like hearing about myself from other people. I don't think anyone does.

This is not about [DELETED], please don't confuse the two issues. This is about me feeling resentment toward you due to things I've heard second hand over a matter of months said by you about me, from more than one person on more than one occasion.

I do not enjoy feeling that way, I take no pride in the things I've said as a result of hearing something said about me, nor am I pleased that this ill feeling persists. I think that discretion on your part could help the situation and I would urge you to remember that people do talk and that I do have ears and feelings.

Regards

Stephen

Mad as a Cow

I was just asked how to say "Bovine Spongform Encephalopathy" and I told them. I pronounced Bovine... Bow-vine or Boh-vine and then a discussion ensued infront of me questioning my pronounciation, whether it was Bow or Ba, in this discussion it was said I'm pretty sure, that UK pronounciation of Bovine is different to that of American and I often say things wrong? WHAT THE FUCK... That would be like me going to china and telling them that their readings of Kanji are wrong and only the Japanese readings are right. Considering that all I heard on the BBC was BSE this and Mad Cow disease that for about 2 years, it would be suprising if I couldnt say BOVINE correctly...

I woke up in a good mood, and come to school and get wound up straight away, I work in an enviroment where my opinion doesnt seem to mean a thing and I'm tired of just living for the weekends. FACT!

Grace Loves Me

So, Grace from Mydamnchannel loves me! But only in the same way I love her... which is a shame.

Check it out by following this link.

Oh... and this is the comment that she's refering to:

I was totally feeling the whole pancake thing, I love Shrove Tuesday or Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras (in ol'Blighty we gorge on pancakes before lent).

Buuuuutt... What is going on with the Muzak in the background, it's all a bit Carrey from Sex and The City shoe shopping sequence.

P.S. I love you.

That was in response to this.

Yep... I know, I lead an exciting and fulfilling life and you wonder how you can be just like me.

You inspire me to be less like you.

From now on I think that I will mainly be doing stuff that you think is uncool. You're so judgmental and opinionated that it borders upon fascism, and I have no qualms with going out of my way to look absurd in your eyes.

Why? Because your opinion, far from meaning nothing to me, is actually held in quite high regard as a windsock that indicates the direction I shouldn't be going in.

Soooo...

• You think reading comics is uncool... I'll be subscribing to everything from Archie to Superman.



• You think that computer games are uncool... I'll be bidding on a Game&Watch in my living with the internet channel on my Wii.



• You think that poetry is uncool... I'll be on the spoken word stage placing awkward pauses in my staccato style speech and wearing a beret .



• You think that films without big explosions, special effects and a script lifted from a comic aren't cool... I'll be sat in front of There Will Be Blood followed with a healthy dose of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest to follow.



• You think that blogging is uncool... need I say more.

And who is the titular YOU? It's you, honestly, it's you... OK, just kidding it's not YOU... but yeah, it is you.

Peace... I'm off to write some fan fiction for Harry Potter.

Ghost In The Shell

From BBC Website:

Spielberg In 3D
With his studio boss hat on, Steven Spielberg is masterminding a live action version of Japanese Manga classic Ghost in the Shell. Dreamworks has nabbed the rights to the futuristic cartoon cop caper and plans to turn it into a 3D movie with proper actors and everything.
The film will follow the adventures of a top secret unit that specialises in techno crime. First published as a comic in 1989, the series has spawned three anime movies a TV series and a bunch of videogames. "Ghost in the Shell is one of my favorite stories" Spielberg told Variety. "It's a genre that has arrived, and we enthusiastically welcome it to DreamWorks". Either that or he's been watching Saturday morning telly with his kids again.

Is it me, or is everything going Live Action these days? Is it me or is Hollywood pilfering a lot of ideas from Asia these days? Is it me or is every other movie that comes out a comic related film?

No, no Stephen, it's not just you.

I like comics, I love them in fact and have really missed them during my stay here in Japan. Comics are awesome and more power to the creators if they can take their intellectual properties to the massive audience that cinema has. But film is also awesome, and in film stories that can't be told in comics are totally possible.

this device is totally cinematic, it can't be repeated in comic, or book without greatly diminishing the effect

I was watching a heavily comic influenced film just two days ago, heavily comic influenced but not a LIVE ACTION film of a comic. In fact it's actually based on a Philip K Dick story. Theirs a device in the movie where multiple permutations of the same event are laid over one another and played out at the same time, and considering that 'comic-time' isn't real time (not that film time is either, it's actually the illusion of actual time) then this device is totally cinematic, it can't be repeated in comic, or book without greatly diminishing the effect.

So why aren't more films just being films? Why aren't we seeing more innovations like 'bullet-time' instead of seeing frame for frame recreations of comic books?

I'm hoping that it's just a stage that the industry is going through, I'm hoping that although it's very vogue now to borrow from comics, in a few years time maybe the Hollywood will realise how much of a boon it really is, and how much they could really differentiate film and comics (without the use of gimmicks like 3D) from each other.

The Age of The Understatement

Once You Accept Life, You're Free

Let the job hunt begin!

Yokohama was cool, not bitterly cool, but just fresh. The sun was out and the skies were blue but it was still definitely jacket weather. So if it wasn't the heat, then what could explain my uncomfortably sweaty pits?

I went to Yokohama for the Returners Conference, a JET run 3 day business conference for JETs who have come to their senses and realised that "teaching" a bunch of teenagers how to 'repeat after me' isn't the best way to spend their lives. Armed with this revelation JETs take paid holiday, hop on buses, planes and ferries and find themselves in one of the most populated cities in Japan.

 'JETs are extremely employable, we just need to communicate this'.

At the conference we're treated to speeches by ex-JETs, recruiters, entrepreneurs and professional thinkers about the state of the employing world and our chances as ex-JETs in finding work out there.

To paraphrase the overarching message of the conference, 'JETs are extremely employable, we just need to communicate this'. I personally don't have a problem with this message, I believe that I would be an asset to any company I'd work for... so considering this staggering self belief then, why was I leaking like a sieve?

a job that is ostensibly only limited by the scope of your own imagination but in reality it is confined by the limits of other peoples

The world, the big wide world, it's an awe inspiring concept isn't it? Endless horizons, blue skies that go on forever, so many comings and so many goings. Yokohama, with it's tall buildings, it's globally influenced architecture, it's port that welcomed ships from the different continents of the planet, the people that walk past you and don't stare! In Yokohama, much like the rest of the world, you're are not special by virtue of the place you were born, the colour of your skin or the languages you speak.

It's exciting, it's amazing, and it's boundless. At the conference I realised how very hamstrung I had been. In a country where I didn't know the language, in a job that is ostensibly only limited by the scope of your own imagination but in reality it is confined by the limits of other peoples lack of imagination. I've learnt and grown a lot working in Japan, but it has been the cloud to my silver lining more often than not.

There are negatives, I suppose, to all aspects of life, but what Yokohama presented to me and what was making me all excited was that I now could see my power to change things, to navigate my own course and find a life that suits me. I felt dwarfed by it, overwhelmed somewhat, but still, as I stood in the shadows of so many skyscrapers, monuments to success, expansion and entrepreneurism, I felt that if one of them would collapse and fall over my head I could survive it. I mean, I had survived two years in Japan, I can do anything, take on all comers.

So, Yokohama was cool, but it ignited something in me. Positivity, self-belief, something... and I had my first interview yesterday and I have my second tomorrow. Let the job hunt begin!