We’re right in the middle of Golden Week now aren’t we.
How are all of you spending your time??
I’m sure… there are some of you who have to work during Golden Week
as well as some of you who are taking a long vacation,
but I hope you all can at least get a little rest right?? ^^

The other day I had a day off,
and I went to a great restaurant, took a long walk
and really recharged and refreshed myself.

Also, Mo-chan brought me some Kisoba!

Apparently her relatives own a kisoba shop…
and so Mo-chan is always eating that soba at home,
but it was so easy to eat and so delicious!

…so I was able to fully recharge

and now today, I’ll be going back to giving it my all at work.

It’s already been one month since I joined the company too.



After joining, I just happened to take this picture of a sakura blossom on my way to work
and I already feel like its from so long ago

This one month has felt so long yet so short…

That’s how much stuff I’ve been learning everyday and how filled everyday has been for me.

I’ve been able to see how little I know and how hard speaking is.

Every day really requires my full concentration and practice!

I’ll do my best!

As expected there are so many smart people in the announcer department.

When I talk to them…
It feels like I barely know anything at all, and that I have so much to study

I’ll start off by getting into the habit of asking questions on anything I’m not sure about!
and then work to form an opinion on all the information I get

Also
“An announcer should be a master of proper Japanese”
is what my senpai Ishida-san said

For example,
when reading a script ８匹 is not “happiki” but rather “hachihiki”
I make so many of those mistakes

I hope to improve upon my word reading, usage and background knowledge.

I know I won’t become that knowledgeable overnight
so it’s something I’ll have to study towards every day!!

Continuing on with my voice training,
I also got to practice some table tennis today!

The world table tennis championships will be airing on TV Tokyo starting in May.
It’s an important tournament that will determine participants for the Olympics!

To be honest though… I don’t really know much about table tennis at all ><

All I know is pretty much from elementary and middle school gym class.

But back in January at the national stadium
I was able to watch the “All-Japan national championship”
and I started to find table tennis pretty interesting

Personally, I’ve only ever dealt with sports like dodge ball or futsal…
with big balls on big courts
so I always had the impression that table tennis was a really delicate sport

But! when I actually watched it, it was pretty intense

Particularly in the men’s matches
I was so surprised like “I had no idea they could still hit the ball while being so far away from the table!”

Also, apparently there’s only a specific time when the players are allowed to grab their towels
so until that time comes, they are playing while glowing in sweat

Rallying back and forth on the table with such a small ball in table tennis…
it’s just so amazing
Watching the rallys just take your breath away

There’s still a lot I don’t know about the sport
but I hope to continue learning about table tennis

With the world table tennis championships this time
the players to look out for are Fukuhara Ai, Ishikawa Kasumi, Hirano Sayaka
and for the guys: Mizutani Jun, Kishikawa Seiya, and Matsudaira Kenta.

It’ll be interesting to watch the players fight to represent Japan

It’s coming up soon so I hope all of you guys will watch ^^

By the way, regarding the 2011 world table tennis championship in Rotterdam
that will be airing every day starting May 9th
We will be starting the Tohoku earthquake victim support project called “WASURENAI 3.11”
they also have opening a home page as well

The Japanese table tennis association has set up a donation account
and will be working together with TV Tokyo
(TV Tokyo channel 6, May 9th ~ 15th)

They are aiming to provide long term support with this
so throughout the 2011 world table tennis championship
the players will place the charity slogan “WASURENAI 3.11”
on their uniforms as they play.
After the tournament, the donation account and website
is expected to continue working to accept support

We appreciate your cooperation

The official “WASURENAI 3.11” website is here

Good afternoon

I had another training day with my senpais!

For our lesson with senpai Shimada-san,
we practiced talking in a loud voice over and over

“Ma-o-u”

was the word, and I practiced saying that word as loud as I could over and over.

The “Ma” part was pretty easy to say in a loud voice

but with the 3 of us saying “Ma-o-u Ma-o-u” over and over…
it gave the room such a weird atmosphere

But I guess that’s a common thing in speech ^^

My maximum volume is still pretty low,
but when I hear Shimada-san’s loudest voice,
I can really see how one’s voice can be a powerful weapon.

For example, if you’re calling for help in an accident or emergency
or for girls, when you’re out walking at night and someone approaches you

With that kind of voice I’m sure you would get noticed
… is what was going through my mind as I listened to my senpai’s voice

So I’m going to train hard to get a louder voice!!

Also, speaking uses up a lot of energy
so I gotta make sure I get proper nutrition

Today, I brought my favorite pumpkin with lotus root and beans
sprinkled with sesame seeds

Although I ate more than just this… ^^

Lunch time is an important time to recharge your energy

After that, I went into my afternoon training
And after that I wrote in my training diary

I summarized all of the things I learned throughout the day.
I learned a lot of new things today.

I’ll be hard at work again tomorrow!

Good afternoon

I’ve been working hard during my training again today!

Allow me to introduce my training buddy
This is something we got this week. An accent dictionary.

Since the bookstore didn’t have any on hand I had to get a back order for them,
so last week we borrowed books from our announcer senpais Saito-san and Shiraishi-san

but this week, I now have my own accent dictionary.

I still need to practice a lot on my breathing, speaking and vowel pronunciation,
and I haven’t had a lot of practice reading scripts so,

I’ll be looking up a lot of words that come up when I don’t know how they should sound.

I did a lot of talking today and used up a lot of energy
so I’m pretty hungry,

I guess I’ll go have a big dinner now ^^

I’ll update again tomorrow!

Good afternoon

I’m going into my 2nd week of announcer training.
Every day our senpais are taking turns giving us lectures,
and advice.

They taught us that in addition to our breathing and speaking,
for announcers it also important to be prepared with a wealth of background knowledge.

When I read newspapers though
I feel like the amount of knowledge I have is so tiny…

But I hope to get in the habit of looking things up
and stop leaving things unknown!

Also, my colleague Ueda,
(I always call her Mo-chan, but I’ll use her last name here)

was like “I’m going to start bringing flats (shoes) from now on”!

Since it’s so much easier to speak without heels on,
I’ll be doing the same starting tomorrow ^^

Breathing and speaking.
In order to be able to speak clearly I need to practice these fundamentals so,
I hope to build up more and more of this every day through practice!

Time to work hard again tomorrow!

Hello!

I am Konno Asami and as of 2011 I will be an announcer for the TV Tokyo corporation

The other day we had our induction
and now this week we will be finding our assignments for the different announcer divisions

I will do my best to uphold the duties and responsibilities of a TV Tokyo employee.

I’m not really used to setting up blogs,
so it took me forever to log in today…

But as a new blogger,
I hope to update as much as I can, please support me.

And now, off to training!