Salsa night

My Chinese teacher, Rachel, wanted to take some salsa lessons and planned a girls’ night-out yesterday. One of her students has been learning Salsa, so she took us to a Salsa bar in Roppongi. They have a free lesson and after the lesson you can just stay in the club and dance.
Well... Salsa is not quite my area of dancing. I can dance to hip hop, house, techno... but salsa....You have to dance with someone. Also, the guys have to lead the dance. hmmm... It doesn’t sound too good to me :P well, I like dancing with a partner, especially if he is my friend and can dance well, but I couldn’t quite imagine what it’s like dancing Salsa with someone who I don’t know.
But well, just for a hell of it, I decided to go with them. I was a bit curious to see what kind of people show up.

It’s been a while that I’ve stayed up all night dancing.
I could’ve left around 2 or 3am since I drove there by my motorcycle, but Rachel left early after she took the lesson and it was just me and the other girl who actually took us there and she basically had to wait until the first train starts, so I stayed with her till morning.

The lesson was OK. It was about one hour and our teacher was cute :) He taught us basic steps and we were ready to go.

Now... What kind of people were in the club...?
If I compare the crowds with a normal club, people there may be a bit older. Sometimes you see a very nerdish looking Japanese guy dancing salsa crazily. Some people don’t look like dancers but when they dance, they are actually pretty good.
It was kind of interesting.
One thing I’ve noticed was many Japanese dancers were more into “skills” (steps and turns, etc.) and they are good at it, but then they are not quite into the “rhythms”.
There were some Cubans and Peruvians (actually, there were many Peruvians in this club) and they were dancing more naturally. (Although... It is really depend on a person... )

At the beginning, I was kind of avoiding dancing, but it’s not so polite to turn down when somebody asks you for a dance, so I tried. I was hoping not to step on somebody’s feet. You can basically dance Salsa if you know the basic steps, but guys lead the dance and they always give some signs for the next movement — like which way you need to turn, etc.
Understanding those signs is hard! Also, for a little bit more advanced Salsa, there were a bit more movements I needed to know besides the basic steps that I learned. So, sometimes I could feel that my partner wanted something different but I wasn’t understanding and doing different things. Sometimes there were many many turns and at the end the arms and hands were all twisted which I’m sure my partner didn’t plan :P
Well, overall, it was kind of fun. Some people look strange and you almost don’t want to dance with them, but if you just get rid of your prejudice against people, then they are generally nice and some people patiently gave me some lessons while we dance together.

Although.... there is a dance called “Merengue” which is slightly different from Salsa and a guy and a girl dance very closely. And this music is played in a Salsa bar a lot between Salsa music. So, if you don’t like that, you need to escape and go buy a drink or something :P

Will I go out for a salsa night again? ... hmm ... maybe not...
I kind of prefer free style dancing which you can just move your body whatever you want. (not waiting for someone’s signs ;P) and just enjoy dancing without worrying about who to dance with.

Although, I think Salsa is good for men. They can dance with girls naturally. It’s not so obvious that you are picking up girls and you can change partners after one song...
If you want to be popular with girls, you should learn Salsa :P

音楽２

ラジオを聞いてて、ちょっといいなと思う曲があった。
でも曲名を聞き忘れた。
Erykah Baduというのは判明。後は何となくQ-tipっぽい声がする、、というのを便りにsearch。
結局 A Tribe Called Quest & Erykah Baduの "I C U (Doin' It)"という曲だった。
でも、、、どうやらLPでしか出てないらしい。。。本当かな。。CDないのかな、、。Amazoったけど成果なし。
結局Erykah BaduのCDを買って我慢。グスン :-{

音楽

いつの間にかアメリカに戻ってしまったNateにメールを書いてみた。
なかなか元気そうで何より何より。
Nateは、私の想像する"geek"という像にたぶん一番ピッタリくる人のような気がする。いつもコーラ飲んでて、ヘッドフォンしてprogrammingをガンガンしてた。初めてNateに会ったときの印象は「好青年」という感じだったけれど、それがちょっと変わったのは、確か初めて皆で一緒にclubとカラオケに行ったときだった。
あそこで恍惚と踊っている人は誰？。。あ、、Nateだ。。

そんなちょっとcrazyなNateは音楽を作ってる。
http://www.bravedragonfly.com/
今CDを作ろうとしているそうだ。頑張って欲しいね :)

Crazyな人は素敵だ。

cost cost cost save save save

I don’t like complaining.
I don’t like being negative.
But.... When I have to think about cost saving and how to please clients in that area, I get so frustrated.
If I have an MBA or some accountant skills or good at numbers or good at politics, does it help me manage this better...?
How can I cut costs and keep the quality of work and please clients and please staff at the same time.. :-?
Hmmm....

I have ups and downs at my work life. When I have to think about costs, it definitely puts me near the bottom of the down curve.... I wonder what I am doing here... Is this something I wanted to do?
I much prefer pulling all-nighters doing design work.
Well, I like people that I work with and being a manager is interesting and challenging. And dealing with cost issues may be helpful when I want to start up my own company later on. Yes.. I know... but... I sometimes get so tired and just feel like escaping from the situation. grrr..

I guess I just don’t like the situation that I can’t control well.
I want to be good at doing things. (maybe I have a psychological problem ..? :P)
I should follow Taro Okamoto’s words:
“If you are weak, just admit you are weak. Just be the way you are. “
Ok... I admit I’m not good at numbers....

Hmm.... That’s enough complaining. A good thing about me is after one night of sleep, I can forget most of the things (good or bad), I would feel much better and become positive. Tomorrow morning, I’ll probably think.. why did I write this..?
but you know....
work is just work. ... words are just words.... :-}

白鳥と岡本太郎

Matthew Bourneの「白鳥の湖」を見に行った。
男性だけの白鳥は結構見応えがあった。
４羽の白鳥の踊りをバレエのレッスンの時にやるけれど、私はたぶんMatthew Bourneの振り付けの方が踊れるんじゃないかと思う。（ちょっと笑える振り付けだ。でも、、絶対やってみたら大変なんだけど。）
ダンスやってる人の筋肉はすごくきれいだと思う。body builder的な筋肉はやたら大きい気がするけれど、踊るために自然に作られた筋肉はもっと控えめでコンパクトな感じ。

最近思うのは、バレエダンサーって、そんなに細い人ばかりではないということ。イメージ的に骨と皮という感じがするのだけれど、実際舞台で見てみると、結構ボリュームがあったりする。そして、筋肉。
バレエはものすごく筋肉を要求するダンスだ、、。
、、頑張って、バレエのレッスンに励もう。。

バレエを見た帰りに本屋に立ち寄る。
ついついその力強い言葉に引き込まれ、岡本太郎の「強く生きる言葉」を買った。
最近マイナス気流に乗ってから、まだ上にあがれていない。心にぽっかり穴があいた状態。だから、岡本太郎の言葉はとっても強く響く。

瞬間、瞬間

自分という人間をその瞬間瞬間にぶつけていく。
そしてしょっちゅう新しく生まれ変わっていく。
エネルギーを燃やせば燃やすほど、
ぜんぜん別な世界観が出来てくる。

傍観者

人生に命を賭けていないんだ。
だからとかくただの傍観者になってしまう。

--「強く生きる言葉」岡本太郎

進化

最近読んでる本の中で面白い話があった。
進化はより高度になるとは限らないのだそうだ。
その中でホヤ（Ciona intestinalis) に関しての例があった。

この小さな連中は、幼生のころは運動して獲物を捕るので、脳を必要とする。しかし、いったん適所を見つけて固着生活に入ると、もう考える必要がなくなり、エネルギー面で負担の大きい脳を自分で食べてしまう。脳は大量のエネルギーを消費するため、それが必要がなくなれば、処分してしまうのが得策なのである。　 -- Galileo's Finger

hmm...何か考えちゃうね。　何だかそんな人間もいるような、、。

Meeting a soul mate

I met my soul mate.

Ok... It’s not true...
I met a person who my friend thinks he could be my soul mate :P

Well, my friend Rachel likes to match make people.
Although, .... her success rate in matchmaking is so far 0% :P
Also, she doesn’t really like my ex-boyfriend nor anybody who I was interested in the past (well, the number of people I was interested in is very small because it’s hard for me to find/meet someone I like .. :-{ ..) and she thinks I have strange taste in men... :@ So, you see how the result goes.

Anyway, she usually tells me something like “he is nice. You would like him...”, but this time, she was more excited and telling me “I really believe he will be your soul mate!! You should see him!”
Haha... but again, I know how it goes, so I wasn’t expecting anything, but I was more curious to see what kind of person he will be. It’s kind of interesting to see a person who my friend thinks could be my soul mate. That will tell a bit about how my friend sees me.

So.... what kind of person was he...?

He was a very very nice person -- a long-haired hippy artist type. Smart and gentle :)
Yes, I like hippies.. I like artists..
... but...no... he wasn’t my soul mate :-{

I tried to think “why not” ..... and this is more general thinking and nothing specific to this person that I met ;)
I guess I like a flexible person who doesn’t fit in one category.
It’s a bit hard to explain, but... if I could easily put somebody in one category, then, that person is probably too much for me... For example, if I meet someone who looks like a hippy and if this person acts, talks, thinks like a hippy person that I kind of predict, then... I feel this person may not be so flexible. I can’t imagine this person will accept different ideas, values, a way of thinking, or even a type of food he/she eats, if those things are out of the category he/she is in. Maybe I’m wrong, but that’s the feeling I get.
I like a kind of person who likes organic food but also can go to McDonald’s and eat french fries with me. :P I don’t know if this is a good example, but basically someone who can try different things.

Well, I guess being flexible is probably not a hard criteria. There are a lot of flexible people out there...
But I also like nerdy type of people who have their opinions and policies on certain things and this may a bit contradict with “flexibility” :P
Hmm.. I guess it just needs a balance...

Well, my soul mate searching will be continued...
I don’t know how other people could find their soul mates... How could you :-? ....

languages

さっきシャワーを浴びてて、ふと思いついてやってみたくなった。Just testing my brain... How I use different languages when I think or write. だから、頭に浮かんだ言葉でちょっと書いてみたくなった。何だかこういうチャンポンな話し方って、時々まわりの友達とはやってるけど、well, I wanted to know how it goes if I try to follow what comes up in my head and just write down. ちょっと思ったのは、次に何を書こうかな、って思うタイミングのときに、言語が切り替わるような気がする。我說漢語的時候, 結構頭がChinese仕様になる。まだまだ中国語は頭の切り替えが必要なのか、、。

可是, writing is a bit hard. 考えてるときはもっと素早く切り替わるでしょう。when I write, my hands are too slow and I can't follow my 言葉、、頭の中に出てくる。。<- これ、なんか変な日本語ね。

Well, 我的中國話不太好, so, 我不知道你會說很多種的語言的話 (more than 3 languages), どうなんだろう？

この間も友達と話してて、英語が母国語なのに英語がちゃんと話せなくなってるっていう話題が出た。私はちゃんとしたbilingualじゃないけど、when I was talking with a Chinese person in Japanese the other day, at the end she asked me 「Yukiさんは、どこの人？」。。。ちょっとショックだった。私の日本語がなまっていたらしい、、。

I was just wondering if all these globalization, multicultural things get もっと発展したら、いろんな言語話せる人がもっともっといっぱい出てきて、だんだん本来の言語が壊れてきたりするのかな、、。


我以前看過一個 website, it's called The Face of Tomorrow. 世界のいろいろな都市で撮った写真をmorphして、未来の顔？を作っている面白いプロジェクトだ。でも、合成された未来の顔は確かにきれいなんだけれど、各都市とも同じような顔に見えて、写真の元になった人達の個性的な顔がとっても素敵に見える、、。

言葉もそうかな。

Ajax

... Async Javascript with XmlHttpRequest

Shishou sent me this link a few days ago. Hmm... I better study a bit...

The biggest challenges in creating Ajax applications are not technical. The core Ajax technologies are mature, stable, and well understood. Instead, the challenges are for the designers of these applications: to forget what we think we know about the limitations of the Web, and begin to imagine a wider, richer range of possibilities.

Ouch! ... ganbaru...

笑顔

今日はリコスにランチに行った。久しぶりのリコスランチは美味であった。
テーブルに通してくれたお姉さんは、常にものすご〜く満面の笑みを浮かべている人で、「そんなに笑わんでもええのに。」とちょっと思ってしまうぐらい、笑顔を絶やさない人だった。
あんな笑顔、会社では全然見ないなぁ。「よし！これからみんな、笑顔で仕事することにしよう！」って言ったら、Naoに「しばくで〜。」と言われた。確かに、最初は笑顔で始まっても、そのうち目が笑ってない笑顔になって、なんかすっご〜く怖い集団になるやろな。

なんだか最近とってもギリギリな感じがする。朝ギリギリで起きて、仕事ギリギリでやって、夜ギリギリで寝て、遊ぶのもギリギリだ。もうちょっと心に余裕がないと、笑顔なんてつくれないね。
後一日頑張って、ちょいと休もうかね。

Generation Y is... lazy ..?

I've been reading a series of articles about “Generation Y”. It's on the evening version of Nikkei.
It's kind of interesting. Today's article was about how Generation Y in Japan favors “convenience & ease” -- I don't know how to translate but they like “楽ちん” things.

Nikkei had a opinion poll (1,031 people answered). There were 11 options of “dream technologies” and asking them to pick which technology they hope it would be available in 20 years from now.
Generation Y picked:
No.1: transporter (瞬間移動) 36.1%
No.2: space travel 30.6%
No.3: Time machine 21.9%

People who are in their 30s picked also the same items, but the percentage is equally divided (30-31% each).
The article says Generation Y is accustom to Convenience stores, Keitai and internet and they are more interested in getting things/doing things easily (and less interested in going somewhere far away like outer space).
(I’m not sure if this makes sense... doesn’t 瞬間移動 also allow people going somewhere far away.. :-?)

The article also mentioned a couple of popular things among these Generation Y people which shows their “楽ちん志向” (preferring the convenience/ease?)

かかとケア ルームシューズ
You put some special film contains mineral oil, urea, etc. inside these room shoes and by just wearing them exfoliates the dead skin cells out of your feet and make your feet beautiful :)
The selling point is you don't have to do anything special. You just need to wear shoes.

出前館(demaekan) is also popular and when they started the service works for Keitai, the number of users who are in their 20s became more than 50% of total users.

They use Keitai to order some delivery food (pizza, bento, etc.) before they go home and just after they get home, the nice & hot food will be delivered. They can skip going to a convenience store and save time.

Hmm... I wonder if these are something special to only generation Y... It doesn’t seem so special... Does it mean I am also in generation Y? :P (違うね ;)