ヘロヘロ

先週、今週とずっと忙しかったせいか、今日はさすがに疲れがたまりすぎて、一日ヘロヘロしていた。本当は友達の飲み会に誘われてたけど、気持ちは動いても身体は動かず、今日はやっぱり家にいることにした。graphic designerの集まりといっていたから、行きたい気はすごくあったのだけど、、。まぁ、つながっていれば、きっとまたどこかで会える人々でしょう。

夕方、代官山にある皮膚科クリニックへ、てくてく歩いて行った。普段は大体どこでもスクーターで行くのだけど、雨も降っていたし何だか歩きたい気分だったから、歩いて行くことに。歩いているときの視線とバイクに乗ってるときの視線はやっぱり違う。いろんなお店があって、変な小道もいっぱいあって、今度もっと探索しようと思った。

クリニックについて、待つ。
待ってる間に、離れたところにあった観葉植物が話しかけてきた。
ん？変？　でも時々、植物とか物とか、話しかけてこないですか？
、、なんてことを書くと、気狂ってんちゃうの？と思われるかもしれないが、、。まぁ、話しかけてくるっていうのは語弊があるかもしれないけど、何か気持ちが伝わってくるというか。あくまで自分の空想なんだろうけど。

その観葉植物は、すごくきれいにまとまってて、ちょっとセンスある感じのクリニックにぴったり合っていたのだけど、とっても繊細で寂しそうだった。僕も外に行きたいよ、って言ってる感じ。でも、きっと外に出たら、ちゃんと生きていけないだろうと思う。

私は全然植物のこととか知らないのだけど、観葉植物って、自然から切り離されて家の中とかでも育つように、何か特殊な品種改良が加えられているのだろうか？それとも、たまたまそんな環境でも育つものが、観葉植物として売られているのだろうか？
自然の中に生まれたかったな、と思う瞬間とかあるのかな？それとも、ただ育っていくことに手一杯で、他のことなんて考えないか？人間じゃないもんね。。

こんなとりとめもないことを書いていると、どんどん時間がすぎてゆき、寝不足の日々が続く、、。

connected :: not connected

I was planning to get a cat. A black female cat. I already had a name for her.. "kiki".

Well, my Chinese teacher's student's mother's friend's cat (phew..) gave a birth and my teacher told me that I should contact her student if I want to get a cat. So I did and told her that I'm interested in getting either a black cat or a silver tabby cat if there are any. She told me that it seems like there are 2 black cats.
I thought, oh! it must be my fate to get a cat finally!

But then, yesterday, it turned out that those 2 black cats are already taken :(
I guess I wasn't connected to those cats.

It's kind of interesting that you get connected to certain people (or cats ;), places, things, whatever) and sometimes not.
It doesn't really matter how long you spend your time with or how impressed you were at the first time you meet, etc. You get connected or not connected.

"Connected" I mean .. they become a part of your life for a long time... as a friend or a partner, a pet, etc... There are few good friends that I have this kind of connection. We don't meet so often or sometimes have a long period of time that we don't talk to each other, but the connection never disappear and comes back. And we start talking without feeling any gaps.

There are some other kinds of friends.
We get along very well and it seems like we are connected, but after some changes in environment (changing jobs, different places to live, getting married, etc.), the connection disappears.
You never know when it happens.

Well, someday I will find my cats who are connected to me... as well as my soul mate ;-? Where are they ..??

北京

我十二月打算到北京去上中文課。
北京大學給外國人集約中文課。
可是, 我今天發覺那個課只是一個星期。
(我以為那是兩個星期。)
他們看起來有兩, 三個星期的課, 可是, 那是在二月。
hmmm... 我應該等一點兒。因為, 十二月的一個星期課的費用跟二月的兩個星期課的費用差不多一樣! 那麼奇怪:( -- 大概, 十二月的機票比較貴啊?

我得打算別的計劃。如果我年末一個人住在家, 我可能寂寞! 啊! :O

p.s. 請你fix我錯的中文!

ギターレッスン

さっきギターのレッスンが終わった。「あ〜、仕事しなきゃいけないなぁ、、」と思いつつ、レッスンをキャンセルすることもなく、仕事が進まず週末が終わろうとしている、、。Naoに怒られるなぁ、、。:P

で、ギターレッスンは今日で４回目。習ったコードはC, G, G7, F, Dm, Am, Gm .... かな？
そろそろ何か曲を弾けそうだ。が、しかし！Fが難しい、、、。押さえられない、、。人が弾いているのみると簡単そうなのに、やってみると全然だめだ。
昨日、友達の友達のパーティで、赤ちゃん（実はGeorge:）が来たけれど、彼はまだまだ自分の身体の動きをコントロール出来なくて、倒れたくなくても倒れたり、きっと何かをしたいんだろうけど、身体がついていかなくて、何かfrustrateしているように見えたのだけど、私のギターを弾くときの左手はそんな感じ。
薬指動かしたいのに、小指が動いちゃうとか。そのあたりを動かす脳の線が開発されてないんだね。頑張って練習しようっと。

ギターの先生、Thomasはスイス人で、家まで来て教えてくれる。
料金もとってもreasonableで、２時間で3500円。それに往復の交通費。安いでしょ？
でもね、安さよりも何よりも、彼の人柄がとっても良いのです。
世の中にこんないい人がまだいたんだなぁ、、と思わせる、とても心のきれいな人で、何か考えさせられるものがある。

彼も、自分の好きなことをやっていきたいというタイプの人で、まわりはやっぱりいろいろ言うらしいけれど（定職についてないとか、そんなフラフラいろんな国に行ってどうするの？、、みたいな。）、でも自分が一番いいと思うことをやりたいのだそうだ。だから彼はたぶんお金もないし、通常のキャリアコースみたいのに乗ってる人と比べたら、ものすごく不安定なのだろうけど、なんか清々しい顔をしている。若いっていうのもあるかな:-?

好きなことやってる人は、いい顔してるね。
そんな風に自分もなれたらいいな、と思う。

:)

Earthquake ... scary?

I usually don't get scared when there is an earthquake and this time also I wasn't scared. Well, mostly because I was at my friend's friend's House Warming party and there were a bunch of people there and also, even though it was a bit bigger earthquake than usual, it wasn't so bad in Tokyo.
I couldn't get much information yesterday except that it was magnitude 6.8 in Niigata, but today I read some news and yeah it was scary.
I hope there won't be another big one in Niigata and people there can go back to normal life soon. (but I guess once you experience something like that, you never go back to where you were before.)

Although, I guess we won't be able to completely away from earthquakes if we are living in Japan. A big one may hit Tokyo someday.
Am I prepared for that..? Hmm... not really. Food wise... I have some stock of mineral water. (that's it!) Mentally... I always assume it won't be a big one when an earthquake starts. And so far, my assumption has been right. But yeah, someday my assumption will be wrong and I can imagine myself panicking or saying "oh no.. I'm dying..." and giving up.

While reading a newspaper about the earthquake, one article about an terrorist attack in Iraq caught my attention. It's not because the article itself was something special. We read about this almost everyday now. A point which caught me was the fact that I feel disconnected from the article. I feel bad about it. I imagine what it's like being there and experiencing this everyday. But that's one moment of my thought and I'm not thinking about it most of the time. The same thing that I can say about is the earthquake yesterday. I probably won't think about it after the next few hours. I don't know if it's because I'm a self-centered person... and it would probably much different if somebody who are close to me (my family or friends) were involved in those incidents.

Well, I don't know what kind of point I want to make here, but I just felt a bit sad ... and a bit scary how emotionless I can be when things are not related to myself or my loved ones. Maybe it's normal. But it is kind of scary. Scarier than earthquake ;-?

design

I started reading a marketing book. I'll write about it after I finish reading it, but it basically talks about how you can add extra value to a product or a service so that customers/users will buy your products.
Nothing really new but it's kind of interesting to see how people buy things based on "experience" they get from the products they buy. Of course, the actual quality of the products matters but now a days the technical aspect of the products is pretty much similar so the difference is in somewhere else.

I sometimes think about what to do in the future.
Do I want to keep being a designer? (even though I'm spending more time on management now a days ;) Should I just do something completely different?
The reason that I think about that is because sometimes I feel that design is a bit superficial and doesn't really do anything to a society. It's not a core work. If there were no designers in the world, people still could survive ;) (But then, it probably wouldn't be a nice place to live ;-?)
Anyway, I'm now getting back to a designer mode.
I appreciate design and reading the book like above that I mentioned gives me the idea that design actually can play a big role for providing those "experience" that people want to get (which leads to happiness).
That's kind of an encouraging thought :)
I don't have to wonder around my future for a while ;P

But I guess, another important factor will be I will be able to do the design work for something I like. Something I believe in.
Otherwise, I feel like I'm lying...
Hmmm... I hope I can get to that level soon ;)

I found some nice design work while surfing the web. It's a radiator but it's like a sculpture. Pretty, isn't it?
Designer: Joris Laarman
http://www.reluct.com/featured_designer.html

何だか落ち着かない

何故だろう？最近忙しいからか、何だか落ち着かない気分 + ちょっと疲れてる。
やりたいことはたくさんあって、でも頭と心と身体がちょっとバラバラになっていて、うまくかみ合ってないみたい。ちょっと休んで、うまく回るようにしなくっちゃ。

で、話は全然関係ないけれど、今日の日経を読んでいて、PoweredComの広告(見開き全面)にぶつかった。
真っ赤な地に白抜き文字で、

◎ ネットワークサービスのパワードコム
◎ 日本最大級、光ファイバーケーブル25万km
◎ 顧客満足度第1位
◎ 広域イーサネット利用率3年連続No.1
◎ でもなぜか認知率たった49.6％

っていうコピーがあるだけなんだけど、なんか最後の一文可愛くないですか？
今、なんとなく「お家ブロードバンド化計画」を練っていて、そろそろ光を入れるかな〜と思っているのだけど、実はコピー通り、PoweredComなんて知らなかった　;P
でも、広告見たら、ちょっと調べてみたくなった。（広告成功？）
広告の手法的には目新しくはないのだけど、何かちょっとピッと来たので書いときました。。。



疲れた心にちょっとPowerをもらった、、、かな？

中文

你好! 我現在在學中文:)
我想要試試看我可不可以寫中文在這個website.
我的中文不太好嗎? :-(

Getting started

This is my first attempt to start my blog. Yeah!
Well, I was talking with Nao today and he suggested that I should just start without worrying about not being able to make a great blog site ;)
So, I even haven't changed the template or trying to understand more advanced settings.. After all, I just wanted to write and I'll take care other stuff later on.

Why do I wanted to start a blog... :-? Hmmm.. I don't exactly know.

I guess I just wanted to write what I'm thinking about and I thought opening them up to a public may bring something new to me (and hopefully to someone else as well.) I tend to think too much and sometimes get in a circle if I just think about it by myself.
I'm not sure how much I can write about my personal thinking here, but I'll see.... I don't even know how long I can continue this :P

Another thing that I wanted to do here is ... Ideally, I'll write in Japanese, English and Chinese. That's mainly for my Chinese studying.
I have to figure out how I can do that though.

Anyway, this is my first trial, so wish me luck :)