Say Cheese and You're on TV

The third Hirose laboratory study tour (study tour was the name indeed, but it's actually a vacation :-) ), and even though we never been part of Hirose laboratory, for the third time Makii and I joined the trip :-).

It was in the BBQ that Hayashi-san saw the pocket of Calbee, and he told us that there's a photo contest held by Calbee, with the winning picture will be used in TV commercial. With the additional incentive of Calbee supply for the whole year (that's the actual prize), it wasn't hard to pull all to strike a pose in front of the camera.

Now I just realize that I haven't sent the picture yet to the contest... Don't know what to tell Hayashi-san if he find it out... :-)

Another Jumbo Ice Cream...

Another jumbo ice cream, and this time at Fuuka's and my birthday...
The taste was strawberry, since we'd tried chocolate before. May be blueberry next time?

Old Curse Hard to Wear Off...

Ari used to trust his camera to me to take pictures of gp96 events, and I don't know why, up to now that kind of jobs are often being entrusted to me - even for a non gp96's event.

There was a honjo presentation last week, and since Kawashima-san was off for a visit to Korea, I was asked by Miura-san to take the video of the presentation. The funny thing is that Miura-san never saw me take picture or video before...

Anyway, there was no problem at all with the video taking, and after one week, I received one box of Itoen drink... :-)

Failed Charm

Tita and her son Tomoki were visiting Aki's house, and I was also invited to have dinner together. It's been a while that I didn't meet them, so I wonder how big Tomoki-kun now (he's around one year at that time). When I arrived it was Aki who's opened the door, and at the time Tomoki-kun heard my voice, he started crying.
"It seems that your charm didn't work on boys, isn't it?", Aki was laughing (so far I have no problem with small kids, and even some of them didn't refuse when I hold them around in the first meeting, that's why Aki sometimes think that I use charm :-) )

Anyway, gradually Tomoki-kun began to used to with my presence, so he didn't cry anymore. Tita said that her husband was very busy that Tomoki only had little time to play with his father - the thing that we thought to be the cause of his shyness.

Thinking about it, I and my sister mbak Tini were also shy when we were kids (and still now, I think :-) ), while my brother mas Yudhi and sister mbak Wiwin were very outgoing. I can remember that in my childhood I hardly had time to play with my father (my father was so busy when I was a kid) - seems like the same reason for Tomoki-kun's problem.

I just can hope that Tita can find a way to solve the problem... anyway, I think I would try to spend time as much as possible with my kids (if I have :-) ), and also make them meet a lot of people during their growth, so they won't grow bashful like me... :-)

And more important, I think I should change to a more stronger charm... :-)

Karaoke Party

Yoriko-san was about to leave for UK for one-year stay, and since she's crazy about karaoke, we (we? actually it was Miyuki's idea...) made a karaoke party for her. Yoriko-san was around 50 years-old, so you can expect that most who came were also around her age... among 8 who came, only me and Miyuki who were still under 30...

At first I was worry what kind of song that I would sing... they were all Japanese and I didn't know at all what Japanese songs that were hit at their time. But Miyuki told me that I could sing any song that I want, so I just picked some song that I like. My first song was L.O.V.E from Nat King Cole, and I was really glad that most of them know the song (lucky me, it was used for CM song in Japan some times ago). During the course I tried to control my desire to pick Bon Jovi song :-), I didn't sing Bon Jovi at all, but I sang Aerosmith... :-) In the end, I realized that it doesn't matter whether the other know my song or not - as long as it's a good song, everybody will happy to hear it - and they might try to sing it as well...

Jumbo Ice Cream

Going out with my master-course-time friends, and since Kurata's birthday was close, we order a big ice cream buffet. A big one, but less that 10 minutes it's already over...

Experiment with Natto

Visiting Akamatsu elementary school again, and this time the students made a presentation to us on Japanese culture. There were lots of interesting stuffs, range from koto to manga, but the most impressive one was presentation about natto. They didn't only present the standard fact of natto, but they also presented the result of their own survey (like: why some Japanese don't like natto?). Moreover, they were also experimenting with natto: how to make it easier to eat (specially for those who hate it). Well, according to the test, natto fried rice get a quite good appraisal. I also ate it there (they even made natto fried rice for the audience!), and it was good (I don't hate natto anyway, so my view was not count :-) ).

Coming home from the presentation, I was thinking why I didn't have such a class when I was a kid. It should be fun to have a small project by our own, and then present it to other people. I think to do something that we like will result to a greater result than usual...