Maid Cafe

Hello, everyone~!

As I was browsing through the websites that I visit regularly, I found an interesting website of a cafe in Los Angels, which obviously are inspired by the Japanese Otaku culture. (Have you heard of that?)

I've heard that a Japanese term "OTAKU" can be understood in the US just like "SUSHI." I don't know if it's true, but by looking at the website like this, it makes me want to believe that.

It's ROYAL/T Cafe.

A lot of cafes just like this are everywhere when you go to Akihabara.(It's a region in Tokyo, and famous for big electronic stores. Needless to say, it's known as heaven for geeks, Otaku in Japanese.)

And related to today's topic, "maid cafe"(meido-kafe) is one of the things that is famous when it comes to Otaku culture. Though I haven't tried to visit there, I once looked up for it because I and my friends did a presentation about Otaku's communication. The word "OTAKU" originally means "out-group", and when you hear it today, it's basically about a person's character. There are several fields of Otaku such as Anime Otaku, Manga Otaku, Game Otaku, and so on.

I'm wondering what it would be like to visit Maid Cafe in LA!

A New Thing I've Been Learning Through The Semester

Hello, everyone~!

As July is about to end very soon, I recall the exciting feeling that I had last year about going to AGU 2006 program! I presume this year's participants are already excited about it, too! Even though I would not be there, I'm already looking forward to talking to you through the online chat, reading what you guys do in the US on blogs, and hopefully meeting you guys face to face in Japan after coming back!

Well, I would like to talk about the thing I've been learning lately, CCNA. Have you heard of it? It's a training program conducted by Cisco Systems, and the word "CCNA" stands for "Cisco Certified Network Associate". Some of you might wonder why on earth I'm learning about this kind of thing because the department I belong to(which is International Politics, Economics, and Communication) and the things I've studied have nothing to do with IT or something like that. However, contrary to people's expectation about what I've learned, don't you think it's great for me to be able to have knowledge about networking?

As more and more people have realized how important it has been and will be for us to always connect with each other, I think it would be useful to have knowledge about how we can get connected with each other. That's why I decided to take the class. I would not get a credit when I finish the class, but I absolutely think it is worth learning not only because it's for free (Yay!) but also I have given the opportunity to meet the people from the departments such as Integrated Information Technology and Electrical Engineering and Electronics. Some of them are graduate students. They are the people I wouldn't have encountered if I just go and attend the classes in Aoyama campus, so it's quite interesting for me to talk to them and I'm really grateful for their knowledge about what we do. Most importantly, every time I have difficulties doing the tasks and resolving the problems, they always help me!

These things are the devices and the cables I deal with in the class. There are personal computers, routers which helps information go to the right places, and the cables which connect the devices physically. What I learn is to connect them with each other properly, and to learn about how to operate them through the software. These days, being connected through the Internet has been taken for granted, but we won't be able to get connected unless the infrastructure for it has been properly developed. So, I think not only engineers but also the people who connect to the Internet need to learn about this kind of thing. ^^

I'm a bit sad that many of my friends had no idea about what I talked about today on this blog, but I guess that's how students with majors in the school of humanities would respond because in my opinion they basically don't need to know the thing like that. Moreover, they are likely to regard the people who are familliar with computer as "Otaku" (In English, I guess it's "geek"). So despite the fact that they usually get connected through the Internet, they don't think that having knowledge about computer is cool or useful....I just don't know why. As for me, I definitely think that being good at using computer is great and very fun!

Anyway, I've enjoyed what I'm learning and that's all that counts!

Alright, that's all for today!
See you soon~

Amazing Woman

Hello, everyone~!

I've recently been fed up with the news about Anna Nicole Smith's death... Why do so many people find it fascinating? I just don't figure it out, and even the anchors of the shows I watched wondered why. The death itself was sad, indeed. However, there's so much more interesting, meaningful, inspirational to talk about, right? Moreover, I'm not particularly interested in where she'll be laid to rest. I should probably think about following headlines on the Internet and try as much as possible to go to an Anna Nicole Smith-free zone, shouldn't I?



Meanwhile, I've found an interesting video on YouTube. I originally happened to know about its existence on CNN. The woman in the video, Amanda Baggs, is 26 years old and diagnosed with autism.I've heard of the name of the disease even though I didn't know what the symptoms were very much. So this video helped me understand what the disease was, and I felt that there's a lot of things out there I don't know about or I even pay no attention to. Moreover, it made me want to rethink about the definition of communication. The way she communicates and intracts with things around her is fascinating, isn't it?