Chris Leone

• 05Feb

  2-5-08

  Aimachi No Comments

  Last night was a blast. We easily found the restaurant (which we had never been to before) and got our seats right in front of the big screen TV. The place was considerably nice and as the evening went on, more and more Americans piled in to watch the game.

  Despite my best efforts to avoid any news about the results of the game, I stumbled across the score hours before we ever made it to the restaurant. This took something away from the experience of watching the game, but I was still having a blast. Knowing who was going to win seemed fairly insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Still, every time I saw someone with a New England shirt or hat walk by, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for them. They weren’t going to be very happy by the end of the evening.

  About halfway through the game, we started mingling with people at our neighboring tables. The guys sitting next to us had been living in Japan for 3-5 years and were teaching “survival” English to Japanese natives who would soon be moving overseas. One of the younger guys was Puerto Rican. Coincidently, he was from Flushing, NY - where my Dad grew up- and went to The American University - my brother’s alma mater - and even graduated in the same class as him. This guy in particular was teaching English part time and is studying Japanese full time. That’s sounds like a pretty fun gig.

  Today was the monthly church festival so we’ve had to lay low around Aikiyo. I spent my day studying more Japanese, reading through some books about job hunting, eating plenty of snack food my parents sent over, and wrote some more music for my friend’s marching band in Thailand.

  Time is passing, as it consistently does, and I’m becoming excited for what lies ahead of me when my time in Japan finishes up. Namely, finding a job I enjoy in a good company and start putting all the great lessons and skills I’ve learned to use. I feel I have a lot to offer and as a 23 year old, have experienced as much, if not more, than many 40 years olds. What is most important to me is that I don’t sell myself short in whatever career/industry I enter. I know in my heart what my passions are and what I am capable of producing when given the opportunity. As my time in Japan comes to an end, I’ll continue to drop as many lines in the water as I can so when I land a job and someone asks me what I do, I’ll be proud to answer them.

  -C

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Tags: Aimachi

• 04Feb

  Superbowl Monday(?)!!!

  Aimachi No Comments

  Another Sunday is in the books and now it’s Monday. But not just ANY Monday, it’s SUPERBOWL Monday! Ok, that might be a little confusing. Isn’t it supposed to be Superbowl Sunday? Well, yes. But I’m half a day ahead of America time. That means the Superbowl falls on today, Monday, instead of Sunday.

  Just because we’re in a country that doesn’t celebrate this American holiday, it doesn’t mean we won’t. We’re taking a train into the city to an American bar and grill to watch a taped broadcast of the game (they also showed it live, but that was at 8 am) while we chow down on American burgers and drinks. This may seem a little silly, but from both my experiences living in foreign countries, I can tell you there comes a point when you like to feel as though you’re back home - whether you do that with food or celebration or movies. It’s a nice feeling to have that familiarity every now and then -especially when you’re in a place so different than what you’re used to.

  This is the beginning of my 5th month in Japan. I love it here, I really do. But there are some thing at home that I’m missing more and more. I guess you can call it homesickness. I believe I can completely adapt to the Japanese lifestyle, and almost any lifestyle in the world for that matter. But I miss being close to family and friends, being able to do and watch things American things, being able to take my car out somewhere, etc. I’ve lived comfortably without these for 4 months and know I could do it for another 14, but having those is something that means a lot to me and it’s what I look forward most to when I go home.

  Because of this, I think going out tonight will be that much more fun. When I called and made reservations, the girl answering the phone was clearly American. Not only was that a surprise, but it was refreshing being able to communicate with a stranger so comfortably.

  It’s seem I only get nostalgic on days that are a big deal in America. Halloween, Thanksgiving, and now Superbowl Sunday..err..Monday.

  I guess four months here and only 3 or so days of noteworthy “homesickness” is a pretty good record.

  I can’t wait for my burger tonight

  C

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Tags: Aimachi

• 02Feb

  Friday/Saturday 2-1/2

  Aimachi No Comments

  Friday was a day off for us - but of course that didn’t mean anything was too different about our day.

  I needed to do some more work and even some reworking on the bass drums. I took all the drums up (pitch wise) and will do that again tonight before rehearsal. Hopefully they’ll be pretty close to where we want them by Sunday. I’m skeptical at this point that the new heads are going to sound good. We’ll keep them on for a while either way. After that I did some practicing and then studied some more Japanese. This one Japanese grammar book I’ve been working out of has done a great job of tying some loose ends in my understanding of the language. Almost overnight, I think my language skills have improved significantly.

  This morning was pretty unique. Frances found a new English school for young children and toddlers that was holding their first trial lesson and we were invited to come help out. So I spent my afternoon teaching young children colors, left, right, forward, back, and how to play “London Bridge is Falling Down.” It was pretty eye-opening how difficult it is to teach such young children with short attention spans and only a basic understanding of almost everything. Huge kudos to Kindergarten teachers. I definitely had fun, but it was harder that it sounds.

  Helping out was another Japanese girl who was born in LA and went to school in Boston and a guy named Jake. Jake’s married and was working here with the English teaching school NOVA until they laid off all their employees in September. He suggested some other fun places to go see in Nagoya City including a bar hosting a Super Bowl party this Monday. We’re all hoping to make it out for that. I could go for some football!

  It’s 5:40 in the evening right now so I’m going to go practice, tune, and eat before heading to rehearsal.

  Thanks for reading -

  Chris

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Tags: Aimachi

• 31Jan

  January 31st - 100th Post!!!

  Aimachi No Comments

  Today was one of, if not the most productive day I’ve had of the New Year. I was up by 10 am - early start - and was in the drum room by 11 am to do some moderate overhauling on the bass drums. That sounds contradictory - is middlehauling a word? According to spell check, it’s not. But you get my point. The plan for the day was to do a complete head change of the bass drums along with adding 4 new air holes to each drum.

  I wanted to do this job right for several reasons. Most importantly, this is not my equipment. Aimachi has put their faith in me to physically drill holes (approx. 1 cm in diameter) in the shell of their bass drums. Among the things that could go wrong are the damage of the outer shell - important for esthetics - or worse, the cracking of the drum shell itself which would be a very, very big problem. The purpose of drilling holes is to improve the sound quality of the drums so the better job I do, the better our drums would sound (ideally). And finally, if you’re going to do a job, DO IT RIGHT!

  Right??!

  I took it slow; I planned ahead; I measured twice and cut once. I’ve been fortunate to have some great mentors over the years - namely my Dad and Grandfather - who taught me how to work with tools and wood and I put that all to use today. I got better as I went and I always thought about safety (the drill I was working with seemed industrial in strength). After that, I put a protective metal casing through the hole to protect it and make it look nice. These were sent over from America by our drum manufacturer just for this purpose.

  I was really happy with the way it all turned out. The combination of the air holes and new heads should make our overall sound quality go way up. The one caveat here is the heads are not yet tuned as high as they should be - they need a few days to stretch - and the new heads are black which are notorious to have bad sound quality. We’ll know in a few days if we want to stick with them or not. In the case of the latter, we have some new white heads I could change out in half a day. The one cool thing about the black heads is they look sweet.

  5 bass drums = 10 news heads and 20 new air holes. I became pretty efficient as I went along but still finished at 7:30 pm having worked for nearly eight and a half hours straight. I was faint with hunger by the time I was done but having missed lunch, I didn’t feel guilty about having double portions.

  Uichi - the “assistant director” of Aimachi, my contact before I came over here, and the Japanese native with the best English - came up to me after rehearsal and commented on the new heads. I assured him once they get up to pitch we’ll have a better idea of the sound and then I showed him the air holes. He expressed his gratitude for everything I am doing for Aimachi. Not only the bass drums but also helping with the rehearsal videos that he said are proving to be a big help for the designers back in America. I really appreciated him saying that. Not because I am searching for recognition, but because I am doing something that is helping people and improving this program. That really does mean a lot to me.

  I’m feeling good tonight.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Tags: Aimachi

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