I received an email from Youness last week with an interesting request. He asked if I could meet with him because he had "a homework about commercial presentation" and was hoping I could help him out. I was not 100% sure what this would entail, but I was humbled Youness was asking for my help and was happy to agree. We planned to meet Thursday in the library to tackle his assignment and I was excited to interact with him in this new situation.
When Youness walked up to me in the loud section the first thing he did was pull out a bottle of cologne from his backpack and set it in front of me. Probably being able to tell I was confused, he then took out some papers and began to explain his project. His class had been assigned to pick a product and gradually do various projects to eventually come up with a commercial to sell it. Youness and his partner had already done all the preliminary projects, such as interviewing people about the product and things like that. They had chosen to do their assignment on the cologne he put in front of me, a men's cologne named La Nuit De L'Homme (which Youness translated for me as "the night of man"). At this point in the project, he and his partner had to make a one to three minute commercial for the product, and Youness was asking for my help to write up the script. My inner high school theatre nerd came to the surface and I was thrilled to help him with this project, so we started brainstorming right away.
Youness came prepared with an idea for the commercial, and it was what we ended up using. The commercial starts with a man and a woman on a date at a bar, with the lady less than interested in being there. The man desperately tries to engage her in conversation, but to no avail. He then escapes to his friend who is also at the bar, asking for some help on how to improve his night. The friend suggests he try La Nuit De L'Homme, and after the man puts it on he heads back to try and connect with the woman again. When he does return the tables have changed, and now the women is the one interested in talking to him.
By the end of our meeting, Youness seemed excited about the script we had prepared. We ran with his idea because all he had needed was help with manifesting his ideas into the proper English words. It was exciting for me to know that I was finally able to contribute something to our friendship. This whole time I have felt like I have only been receiving learning experiences and personal enrichment from this, not contributing much to the relationship other than asking "what?" more than usual. Now I felt like I was about to give something back to Youness after everything he has given me this semester.
Also an exciting piece of news: Youness asked me to be in his commercial video so as of now I will be making my film debut sometime next week. We'll see how that goes.
This is SO cool!! That's amazing that he feels comfortable enough with you to ask for help! It's also really cool that you got to help him put together the script, especially since you just helped write a rap song :). I'm thrilled that your film debut is coming soon. You should expect me to be in the front row when it debuts. It's also really impressive that he had this amazing idea, it seems like such a typically situation on a date in the US so it's interesting that that's a situation around the world for men.
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