I have been busy.

I've been very busy with work, so I can't have time to write my blog, there were lots of things I wanted to write.
But it seems that my work is going to calm down a little bit. I hope so.
I shouldn't let work control my life.

Happy Birthday to me, 2010!!

I haven't written on my blog for about a month. I started my new job at he end of the last month and I've been incredibly busy.

My new job is... hmm... there are a lot of issues I have to solve. That's OK. That's why I'm in the company. The matter I hate most is that there are some people whose attitudes is annoying and disgusting. I should ignore them. Concentrate my tasks and missions to achieve my vision.

Today is my birthday, and I went to a nail salon. I had been doing nail art myself, but I'm going to have my nails cared in the nail salon. A small splurge. hehe.

Impossible to pronounce

Long time ago, I wrote on this blog that I was bad at pronouncing "S" sound. Especially it's hard for me to pronounce "insist" and "expect."
http://sandfriend.blogspot.com/2008/07/hard-to-pronounce.html

I found harder words for me to pronounce. "Seriously" and "uncharacteristic."
About "seriously", there are two "S" sounds I'm bad at in the word.
"Uncharacteristic" is... it's rather "impossible to say" than "hard to pronounce." So I'm going to say "That's unlike him" instead of "That's uncharacteristic of him." I hope both of them are completely the same meaning.

Finally I signed the contract.

Today, I went to sign the contract. I'm starting new job the week after next. It took only one month since an agent introduced me to this position. Very fast!

I'm very interested in the roles of the position, I'm satisfied with the salary, the people I'll work with seem nice, the working environment seems good because many employees work for a long time. Everything seems great except for the social company reputation which I have mentioned on this blog before.

So I understand that one of my roles is improving the company reputation. I'll make the company famous as one of the excellent companies in the world in 5 years!

Lunch with future colleagues?

As I wrote, I'm in the screening process of one company. After I had the 2nd interview on 3rd, I met HR manager on the agent office on 7th. According to the agent, they consider me favorably, but HR director is now in the US so they can't finalize until he comes back later in this week. Meanwhile, they arrange casual lunch for me with the team members who would be my subordinates. I haven't gotten the official offer though.

I went for the lunch and met the people.
They were all nice people. I enjoyed the conversation with them.

Two of them have worked for the company for more 10 years. It seems that many employees of the company work for a long time. The job-retention rate is high. It's quite rare for foreign companies.

Movie: Vantage Point

Vantage Point was one of the movies I wanted to see. It was carried on TV yesterday, so I watched it.

Hmm... it's a bit disappointing. The story is a bit boring. My impression of the movie is only too long a car chase scene. It's just the filmmaker's self-satisfaction like many other movies.
Some people commend this movie for its element of surprise. But, at least for me, there wasn't any element of surprise. It was somehow predictable.

The high school reunion

I attended the high school reunion yesterday.

It was great!
Over 100 people gathered and we enjoyed meeting each other for the first time in a long time. It brought back the good memories of the past.

Some of the people didn't change, and some has changed too much to recognize them. haha.

Many of us attended the follow-up party.

I hope this kind of gathering is held sometime again.

Lethal Weapon??

Whenever I study a new English dialogue, I learn a lot of new words and idioms.

I learned a new word "lethal" the other day. I thought I've never heard this word before and it was completely new for me.

However, I suddenly noticed, oh, it's lethal of the movie "Lethal Weapon" by any chance?
I see!

I got a quick response again.

I had the 2nd interview today. First, I had an interview with a Japanese for an hour. Then I had an interview with HR director who is American, which means the interview was in English.
Two hours interview was a bit tough, but it went quite well. The English interview too, because mostly the interviewer spoke. haha.

And, once gain, I got an incredibly quick feedback, just 3 hours after the interview. I can advance to the next step. Next week, I am visiting the agent office to talk with the agent and a person of the company I had the interview with. So far, so good.

I got a quick response this time.

I had the interview with one company today, which I mentioned the other day.
The interview went quite well, because it was conducted in Japanese. haha.
Although I once declined this position when an agent introduced me because of the company's bad reputation, I got more interested in the position through the interview.

To my surprise, I got the feedback of the interview from the company through the agent just 2 hours after finishing the interview. What a quick decision making and response! It's completely different from the company which I had an interview with last month.

I can advance to the 2nd interview. It's on this Friday. In that time, unfortunately the interview will be conducted in English, because I meet the HR director who is American. Whew...
I'm going to take as much time to prepare for that as possible.

Using possessive case or not

Tim was kind enough to point out my English mistakes and explain about them in details.
(Thank you, Tim!)
One of them is the following.
http://sandfriend.blogspot.com/2010/08/current-situation-of-my-job-hunting.html

It's very detailed explanation, isn't it?

I've always thought that possessive case is used TOO often in English sentences, such as "She took HER glasses off", "He divorced HIS wife", "The children are enjoying THEIR English class."
In Japanese language, using a possessive case like those is very strange.
But I thought I got used to using possessive too often in English. I have picked up the habit of adding possessive case when I speak English.
However!!
Tim taught me that people say "have a future", not "have one's future." Ohhh!
I guess there are other more expressions which you shouldn't add possessive case.
That's good to know, but I have no idea what expressions I should add it or not. It can't be helped.

Anemia?

When I got up this morning, I felt ill and my vision went dark purple. So I went back to bed.

I wonder if it was anemia. I've been incredibly healthy, so I have no idea about the anemia symptoms though.
Just in case, I went to buy nutritional drink with iron.
I hope there isn't any problem anymore.

The current situation of my job hunting.

I got the feedback of an interview I had last month. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to advance to the next step.

I got the feedback a month after having the interview. Don't you think it's very slow response? Actually, it took no less than one and a half months to get the result of resume screening. How slow they are.
Actually, if someone asked me what kind of companies I don't want to work for, I would immediately answer that it's a company which is slow to do anything, especially making decision. I don't think such a company doesn't have has their a future. And working for a slow-pace company is stressful for me. So the result this time may be good for me. Am I too positive? (^o^)

Just after I got the negative feedback, an agent introduced me to another position. The position itself is really interesting, but the reputation of the company is bad. I usually don't care about a company such as company's size, name value, industry etc. I just care about a position, I mean it's important for me what I do in a company. However, the case of the company in this case, actually some other agents have already introduced the same position to me before, and I declined all of them due to the company's reputation.
So I once declined in this time too. But the agent emphasize on how attractive the position is for me. I agree with her. Then I decided to try to apply for the position and talk to them.
My resume screening went well and I'll have the 1st interview next week.

My bad listening comprehension #19

I write the "My bad listening comprehension" series for the first time in a long time. That doesn't mean I haven't misheard English during that time, needless to say.

This time, I caught the following sentence when I did dictation.

And robot happy with our respective jobs.

Of course, this sentence is strange and I obviously misheard it.

The correct sentence is;

And we're both happy with our respective jobs.

I wonder why I can hear "robot" for "we're both." Those are different at all.
However, although I have already known the correct sentence, I can still hear it "robot."
I tried to listen to the sentence repeatedly, but it's still "robot" for me.
Whew...

My hearing wrong of the past:
http://sandfriend.blogspot.com/2009/11/my-bad-listening-comprehension-18.html

The Trick Art exhibition was a bit disappointing.

I like trick art, and found that there was a trick art exhibition in a museum in my neighborhood. I went there the other day.

Hmm... those trick arts were not so surprising arts. They were not less impressive than I expected. It's too bad.

Dinosaur exhibition

I don't know why, but I like dinosaur. I'm not familiar with their names, features or figures at all unlike small boys who love dinosaurs. But somehow, I like them, so when there is a TV program which features dinosaur, I always watch it.

I went to a dinosaur exhibition the other day. It's summer holiday for kids now, so almost all visitors were small boys and their mothers. haha.

I put some pictures.

At first, there were skeletal preparations.

Someone bites someone?!

Or a mother brings her kid?

Mammal ancestor, Exaeretodon. G,g,gross!!!

Oops! Backlight.

It's on the 52nd floor. So the view from windows were great.

You can see Tokyo tower on the right side.

Movie: Inception

It was an amazing movie! And the story was very complicated. I knew it was complicated, so I read the preparation site before going to see it. It was a kind of spoiler, but I really thought that it was good to read it in advance. If I had watched the movie without the preparation, I wouldn't have understood it.

3D images were really amazing, but I was more impressed by the story's intricacies. How did Christopher Nolan come up with the story?! He has incredible imagination!!

12 hours napping

I was lying on a bed yesterday and I fell asleep around 3:30pm. Then I woke up 3:30am this morning. It symbolizes my laziness...

Hang in there! Baby Panda!

How cute!

3D aquarium

There is a famous aquarium in Okinawa, which is "Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium." I really want to visit there sometime.

Every summer, there is an event in Tokyo which shows a part of Chraumi Aquarium in 3D display. Today, I went there for the first time.

First, there was a real tank out of the building.

Shark!!!

On the 1st and 2nd floors, there are some small displays and fixed 3D glasses. You can see 3D images looking through the glasses.

Fixed glasses looks very strange, do they?

Finally, I arrived a small theater. I was handed 3D glasses at the reception.

People are waiting for starting the 3D aquarium.

Many non-Japanese who probably tourists came there too
3D aquarium was great!! Especially a manta!! Big manta swimming slowly with elegance come out of the screen. What a grand image!
Like this.

haha. Of course it's not a real photo. And it's not a manta, but a whale shark.

I'll go to the real Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium without fail!!