Some of the things potential ABC3 hosts should be made to do…

Friday: a normal day for the most of us; the end of a working week so it’s time to party; Thank God It’s Friday; sleep-in Saturday.

However for the lucky 41, this Friday is “ABC3 potential host bootcamp training session 1″ time! I don’t know what this exactly entails but it does sort of sound like something participants of “The Biggest Loser” get put through. I wonder if this will include jumping through tyres, crawling under nets through mud and filth, eating cold hard rations… and if it doesn’t, then it definitely should! (Please take note here, ABC3 staff.)

Anyway these are a few things that I personally think should be included into their training sessions. (Once again staff, please concentrate on below).

1. As with any job that has a lot of interaction with people, a killer smile is a great asset. A Smile School session at the bootcamp sounds like a great idea – just make sure you have plenty of Vaseline to go around!

2. If you’re going to be working with children, then you should be fit enough to keep up with them. Thus I present to you the be all and end all of exercise – the Bunny Hop. Three times a day, five times a week and I’ll guarantee you’ll be able to keep up with a active, sugar-consuming kid!

3. Everything in this video; need I say more? Come on, got to show your skills man!

ABC3 writes back!

Contact made! Remember the previous post about me emailing some questions over to ABC3, well someone there has written back. This is a fantastic response and fingers crossed that I will get everyone’s questions answered. Below is the list of questions that I’ve sent over:

1. One of the most popular question flying around the message board concerns the selection criteria for ABC3. Can you elaborate a bit more about this?

2. As this is a television medium, how important was physical attractiveness in choosing a host or was it more of a balance with other things? Gender? Race? Age?

3. This is a question straight from the message board: Was ‘techness’ of video a factor? In other words, were applicants who provided a better quality video instead of a pixelated one have more of an advantage than others? In that same vein, did gimmicks such as the cereal box/life-size cardboard picture/etc, help elevate those applicants?

4. How many people were involved in the selection process and who are they?

5. Lastly, please tell us how was the experience of watching over 5000 videos?! How long did this process take? I think this was another question that fascinated a lot of us especially since we never really thought that that many people would apply. What did you do to keep the focus on all those videos/applications/pictures? Tons of coffee? Popcorn?

Watch here and I’ll keep you guys updated!

MeOn3 video application

By the way, this was my video application for ABC3.

Thanks for watching!

I wonder what was the selection criteria for ABC3?

Hmm, this question has been on my mind and the minds of my fellow applicants for the past two weeks… Basically the entire process reads like a regular job application and so I can’t help but wonder what went through the mind of the selectors as they culled our numbers down to their chosen few.

I personally would be very interested in finding out: is it all about the physical aspect, did selectors look beyond the photos (because after all they did have over 5000 to get through in a short amount of time), did people who sent in quirky art get a heads up over others who only did as the application said (this is a bit unfair if you ask me), did they consider age or race, what were the keywords they were looking for when reading the answers, what were they looking for?

I’m sure these are the same questions that have been going round and round in everyone’s brains and it sure would be cool if someone from the ABC could answer it. Let me see if I can something about it (utilise some of that journalist skills I supposedly learnt) and I’ll get back to you.

Update: I’ve emailed the moderator for the ABC3 website and Kim Dalton, ABC’s Director of Television. Hopefully they will answer some of my questions. Fingers crossed!

Quest to be a host for ABC3

It’s time to shake the dust from this faithful blog of mine and start filling up its belly again with my spewful chatter! It’s been on a diet from words these past few months and I’m sure it would love to stuff itself silly again – lucky I’m here to please.

Lots of stuff has come and gone these past five months that I’ve been back – gosh, time does pass pretty quick when you sit back to look back. I’ve turned 23 (eep, halfway to 46!), bought ANOTHER cat (on my way to being a cat lady), started my final semester of uni (I’m a pre-graduate after four and a half years), and I applied to be a host for ABC’s new children channel, ABC3.

Let’s talk about ABC3 for a while… About a month ago, ABC shouted out for people to apply to be hosts for their new channel to be released at the end of this year. You had to fill out their application form, shoot a two minute video, send in a few photos of yourself and wish, wish, wish! Hopefully they will answer your wish and invite you back for their next round of grueling auditions (note the stress on ‘hopefully’).

Anyway after two weeks of wishing and hoping, today was the last day for applicants to expect a callback to move on to the next round of selections. Sadly for moi, I wasn’t one of the lucky 41 outta over 5000 people. But holy moly guacamole, knowing you were rejected for an unknown reason sure doesn’t feel very good (more about this later). If there is any consolation, finding out only a small number of people made it through made me feel a little better, not by much but a little…got to grab what you can!

Huu, I guess realistically there had to be the successful and the not-so-successful – the way of life, keeping the balance, ying and yang blah blah. Whatever! =) To the successful, congratulations for getting into the next round. To the not-so-successful, would it seem evil if we were to voodoo doll the successful ones and then the ABC will have to call out for a second shortlist? Fufufu…drop me line.

End of a chapter

Well it has been about a month since I returned; inevitably I’ve settled back to living in Sydney and all of its craziness. Time to focus on my last year and hopefully not fail any subjects if I want to graduate next year!

So what am I doing now since my return? I’ve taken Japanese 7 and 8 as my last two electives. Classes are good and continue on well from Gifu University class C. Unfortunately I do feel that my Japanese is slowly deteriorating since I’m not using it as much and I don’t have that everyday exposure. I guess it is up to me to keep practicing and learning Japanese if I want to keep on pursuing it. Bummer, that is so much harder to do! At least while I was in Gifu, the teachers always handed out homework and taught new grammar.

Plans for the future? I’m hoping to graduate with a job in hand but that seems overly optimistic when one looks at the current economic situation. If that doesn’t pan out, I plan to apply for a masters course, ideally somewhere overseas. There is this Japanese course that I am interested to do but we’ll see how that goes. When you don’t have a job, you might as well keep on studying! Also, I would like to continue with Japanese if possible, otherwise it seems a waste of four years. Who knows, I might end up in foreign affairs with ties to Japan or something!

This is probably my last post for this blog. It is really sad for me because this blog has been almost like my diary and confidante. It is where I’ve poured out my feelings, hopes and disappointments as I’ve gone through the ups and downs of my Japan year. I have really enjoyed sharing my experiences and impressions with all my readers and I thank you heaps for reading this blog. When I met Richard at the ICS 2008 and 2009 meeting, he praised me on my blog and I got such a massive rush from it. I’m glad I could be of help and I hope there is enough information available for future ICS Japan kids, especially for ICS Gifu. Let me know otherwise. Hopefully in the future, I can start another travel blog if I do decide to study my masters overseas and then you can read about my experiences as I do battle with another completely different culture. In fact, count on it guys!

My love to my family, friends and blog supporters. You have been great and thank you so much! Nothing sums it better than the line from The Truman Show -  Good morning, and in case I don’t see ya, good afternoon, good evening, and good night!

Peace out!

International Studies Student Profile

IIS wanted some student volunteers to do profiles so that they could add it in their future brochures. Hopefully you’ll see mine in them!

1. What course are you studying?

I am currently a fifth-year student in communications and international studies.

2. Why did you choose a double degree at UTS?

I was interested in studying another language and learning about a new culture and ICS was a great way to achieve it. I learnt so many new things while I was in Gifu University, made a lot of new friends and experienced so many interesting things. It was an added bonus that my fourth-year felt almost like a vacation after the previous three years of stressful studies!

3. What country is your major?

I chose Gifu University in Japan because:

a) It was much cheaper to live there in comparison to the bigger cities such as Tokyo and Kyoto. My rent was three times cheaper than ICS Tokyo and it meant that I had more money to spend on shopping, travelling and going out! I did so much shopping; I went there with 30kg and came back with 100kg! I also saved a lot on transportation cost since the student dormitory was right on campus, making it so easy to go classes in the morning.

b) It was right in the middle of Japan and so near the bullet train line. I could easily travel to the north and south of Japan as regional transportation was really accessible.

c) I didn’t know it at that time, but Gifu is so much fun! It is a much smaller city in comparison but the people there are so lovely and friendly and I really enjoyed the country atmosphere.

4. Why did you choose to focus your studies on this particular country?

From young, I’ve always been reading manga or watching anime and this exposed me to a lot of their culture. As I grew older, I became more curious as to whether these media actually reflected their culture truthfully and so what better way to find out than to live at that particular country for a year! By the end of the year, I learnt what I had wanted to learn and I even did my major project on it.

5. What is your favourite part of the course?

Obviously the not waking up really early everyday to get to my really early classes! Even though the Japanese classes were really good and taught me a lot, the most enjoyable part of my experience was to travel and see Japan. Living there for a year afforded me the time to properly explore and interact with the people as you wouldn’t get if you were just there for a short time. In other words, you could study Japanese anywhere in the world but you can’t experience Japan unless you are actually there.

6. What did you enjoy about your year overseas?

One of the best parts was meeting and making new friends from all over the world. There were heaps of people from China, South Korea, America, Sweden, Scotland and Malaysia, and I was glad to have met them. They really enriched my experience there as they taught me more about their culture and language. I now know that Sweden is one of the most gender equal country in the world and Scottish people enjoy a bit of black pudding (made from animal blood) for their meals! Oh yeah, I also found out about the deep-fried Mars bar from my Scottish friend – so bad but tastes so good!

7. What were some of the obstacles you faced during your In Country Study?

The main one was the language barrier. I had studied two years before my departure but it didn’t fully prepare me for what to come. This became a lot easier with time as I studied and learnt more but I still struggle with conversations. Another obstacle was that I didn’t feel like coming home when my time was up; I was having too much fun!

8. What are the most interesting differences you have encountered between your chosen country and Australia?

The Japanese at my university dressed up a lot when they came for classes; the girls were all shiny and sparkly and half of the guys had crazy hair. Put my sweat pants and sweater to shame!

9. Where do you hope your degree will take you?

My future? It is a bit too soon to say but I am still studying Japanese at UTS and hopefully I can continue it in a masters program overseas. It could be a start of a new adventure for me and one that I look forward to!

Anything else to add?

If I could only pass on one piece of advice to future students, then it would be to do ICS or go on exchange. The experiences that you get from stepping out of your comfort zone are so valuable and you learn so much about yourself. Travelling is all about learning more about a different culture, meeting new people and expanding your horizons. I can guarantee that you’ll come back changed for the better so go do it!