Show 131 Monday 11 September

Watch today's show at YouTube or BlipTV.

Intro

Hi, I’m Sarah. It’s Monday the 11th of September and this is The Daily English Show.
I have another video to recommend today. It’s called The Real Me: Going to Japan.
It’s a video blog by an American guy called Marcus – or Namaeganai Films - who is coming to Japan in a few months to teach English. And in this video he’s talking about why he decided to come to Japan.
So I think this is great to watch to study how to explain a decision that you made.
And the topic is really interesting especially for Japanese students.
People ask me this question a lot: Why did you come to Japan? And it’s a good question to ask, because ... everybody’s different and everyone has a different reason for coming.
So you can watch Marcus’ video and hear his reasons for coming.

A bit of vocabulary to help you:
To have doubts about something means to feel uncertain about something.
Marcus said that he started having doubts about coming to Japan when he first applied.

To bail on. This is a slang.
Marcus says: I bailed on the interview. Which means: I cancelled the interview. Or I didn’t go to the interview.
Bail can also be used in as a slang term in other ways. So in NZ I used to use it a lot to mean leave, or go home. Like if you were looking for one of your friends in a bar…
“Hey where’s Kirk?” “Oh, he bailed ages ago.” Means: he went home a long time ago.

To babble on. Marcus says: I hope I didn’t babble on too much.
In the dictionary it says: babble v. talk rapidly and continuously in a foolish, excited or incomprehensible way.
I like the word babble. Ramble or ramble on has a similar meaning.
So in a conversation if you’ve been talking a lot you might say: “Sorry, I hope I’m not rambling”. Which I think is a useful thing to say because it shows you care about the listener.

So conversations with sarah and questionanswer today is about the video The Real Me: Going to Japan.

STICK NEWS

Kia Ora. In Stick News today, the king of Tonga has died. He passed away last night at a hospital in Auckland, New Zealand.

The Kingdom of Tonga is an independent archipelago in the southern Pacific Ocean. It’s made up of 169 islands.
Tonga is a constitutional monarchy with a population of 102,000.
The latest king took over from his mother in 1965 when she passed away.
He had 4 children.
The king suffered from heart problems and had been receiving treatment in Auckland.
He was 88 when he died.

The next leader will be the king’s son.
And that was Stick News for Monday the 11th of September.
Kia Ora.

conversations with sarah
# 85 Where’s he from?

Keiko asks Sarah about the video she's watching on YouTube.
Step 1: Repeat Keiko’s lines.
Step 2: Read Keiko’s lines on the screen and talk to Sarah.

Keiko What are you watching?

Sarah Um, It’s this guy called Marcus talking about why he’s coming to Japan.

Keiko Where’s he from?

Sarah America.

Keiko So why is he coming to Japan?

Sarah Um ... What did he say? He said that he studied finance and then decided that he didn’t want to work in finance and then he found out about this opportunity and ...

Keiko Is he going to teach English?

Sarah Yeah.

Keiko When is he coming?

Sarah Ah, November, I think he said.

Notes

Music
Artist: Manuzik
Album: Nouvelle Shortstories
Track: TriptoJazz
site
music at jamendo

Today's news.
Tonga.
The King.

Script for the video studied in today's show:
The Real Me: Going to Japan
watch the video here

Hey, what’s up. Today I wanted to talk to you guys about why I decided to go to Japan.
But before I do that, I just want to say one quick message. If you made a video response, or you posted a comment and you don’t see it ... it’s because YouTube is buggy and not because I declined it or deleted it, so you might want to send it again.

But now onto the Japan thing.
I graduated from San Diego State University with a degree in finance. I did pretty well in it. But it’s not something that I really enjoy. So I didn’t really want to work in the finance industry.
And then by accident sometime last year I discovered about the opportunity to live and work in Japan at places called ekaiwas. They’re basically conversational English schools. And there are several of them that hire within the United States.
And they provide the teachers they hire with an apartment ah and other things to help you get set up there. So it makes it really easy to transition into Japan.
So when I first found out about that offer, you know, obviously I wanted to do that. And I did my research I found the one school that I felt fit me the best and I applied.
And that was back in ah October or November. And they sent me an email like a week later saying apply again when you’re closer to graduating.
So come February I applied again and they set me up with a group interview.
And around that time I started having doubts. Basically, as good as an opportunity these eikaiwas are, they don’t pay a lot and it’s not really a career opportunity.
It’s basically you know a year or two. And most of people who do these things are just looking to travel or basically party in Japan. I’m not really after the second one.
But anyways I set up the group interview right during the week of a lot of mid-terms.
And I had second thoughts and I just, I bailed on the interview basically called them the day before and said “hey, I’m not interested in showing up”. So I didn’t.
Then I graduated from school and I still didn’t have any jobs. So I started to apply to a few different places, and I applied to a finance company. And after going through the interview process I realized that I most certainly did not want to work in a finance company.
So I went back and applied to the very same eikaiwa that I had rejected and applied to twice before. And they granted me a group interview again. And I went to the group interview. They liked me. They called me back in a couple of days and invited me to a personal interview. They liked me again. And before I knew it I had a job, going off to Japan.
I’m going to Matsuyama City. It’s a little rural. And it’s a bit south of ... it’s in the southern po ... uh.. the southern portion of Japan in Shikoku. Ahh, from the pictures I’ve seen, it’s a pretty nice city. It’s not very big, but it’s ... I think it’ll fit me pretty well.
Now as to why the job itself seems so appealing. It wasn’t just, you know, going to Japan. The job itself is basically teaching conversational English. And it is a business. So you have to make that teaching experience enjoyable. And as you’ve seen from my videos, I like to talk. I don’t mind socializing with people. I don’t mind making an idiot of myself to make people laugh. And I think that just fits my personality really well. Even though it is a business. It also gives me a chance to help people, which is something that I want to do. Far more than work in the finance industry.

Um, what am I expecting to get out of Japan? You know, I, I really don’t know. It was sort of something that just came to me and I tried to run away from it. I tried to convince myself that it was the wrong thing to do. Well if you work in finance you’ll have a much better salary
But it’s one of those things that you feel like you had to do. You know.
It was just like “Marcus, you need to do this. You don’t know why you need to do it, but you need to do it. So, I did it. Well, I haven’t done it yet. But so I applied for it and I’m going to do it in November. And I look forward to it quite a bit.
I don’t know how long I’m going to be there, I can’t ... I can’t tell you that.
I don’t know if that’s going to be the beginning of my stay in Japan. Of it’s just going to be an escape from the United States for a year. Or if it’s just going to be the beginning of me traveling to different places in the world.
Anyways, I hope I didn’t babble on too much. I realized I stumbled a little bit. But that’s why I wanted to go to Japan. How I did it and whatnot.