The Playful Antiquarian

What would Kitty do?

April 16th, 2004

When I spotted the Hello Kitty posters while walking through Harvard Yard today, I knew that they could only mean trouble. I avoided reading them for this reason. Sadly, my attempts at avoidance were futile…Cynthia Rockwell just revealed the awful truth on her weblog, and now, I am faced with a real dilemma. Conference on kawaii culture versus conference on blogging–which should I choose?

HPAIR and the Reischauer Institute for Japanese Studies are sponsoring a one day conference on kawaii culture tomorrow, April 17. This was the type of conference that I wanted Harvard to hold five years ago when I was a full-time graduate student in East Asian studies and everyone laughed at me (and generally, failed to take me seriously) because of my research interests. Things change, I guess.
(Hmmm…I checked with Hello Kitty at Sanrio’s fortune corner, hoping to get more guidance on this dilemma. Kitty was vague in her characteristic way: “Lacking motivation? Get up early and exercise! Go jogging or do some stretches.” And, apparently, my lucky item this month is a glass craft kit…the one craft kit that I do not own…)

Entry Filed under: Conferences, Personal Miscellany