A Bug's Tale

It's the last day of January and my new year's resolutions have come, lingered for a while and gone -which was to be expected given my previous track record (chocolate, anyone?)! One goal that I had aimed for in 2007 might actually become reality though, as my job hunting has recently resulted in some interesting -or should I say surprising?- opportunities... Through a bizarre twist of fate & my inability to say 'no' on the phone I found myself in a recording studio last Wednesday night imitating a sexy grasshopper. Yes, you read that right, that's the job description I was given by my Japanese 'talent' agency International Stars & Brains (no smirking at the ridiculous name please!). An hour before the session started, panic & terror took hold of me and I desperately tried to come up with a believable excuse to back out at the last minute. After all, I'm not an actress or have any previous experience with voice work, not to mention that sounding like a sexy grasshopper seemed an impossible feat! But I showed up, was given a piece of paper with badly written English lines & then did my thing in the recording booth. To clue me in on the tone they wanted, the director showed me the commercial: a short animated film inviting people to an insect exhibition, with the image of a female grasshopper showing of her legs in a sensual manner. Weird, but also rather original & funny :-). The all-male recording team was certainly having a ball giving me instructions, because after every "More sexy, more whisper" they burst into a laughing fit. So somewhere in Japan there now exists a tape of me whispering "You like that, don't you?" in the most husky, seductive voice I could muster. Let's hope it never finds it way out west or mortal humiliation will befall me ;-).