Time to time my cousin comes to visit me, or vice versa. She, her brother and I practically grew up together when we were young, and we feel like siblings all in but the name. We always have so much fun when we are together, and our last meeting culminating in cross-national journey spanning remote forests of Korea to the Metropolitan center of Osaka and temple of Kyoto. We had so much sushi back then. And of course, sake. Lots and lots of sake. Oh god I miss all those food.
Her brother is in New Zealand right now, finishing up his studies though. And she should be busy prepping for college in Asian cramschool hell (where school day for average student not particularly diligent starts at 5 am and ends at 12 am) so I was a little lost to see her here. I guess she's thinking about attending NYU or something if her testing doesn't work out?
I was still a little woozy at the time she showed up so I went back to bed after letting her in, at which point she began jumping up and down the bed and such, the usual for her... Apparently she's only staying in the states for two days (well, at least in NYC, she still needs to stop by San Francisco) since she can't take a break from her studies for too long. It's a shame really, I was secretly looking forward to seeing the guys before the summer's over. And with the pace at the internship I can't really take a break until the summer's over. I guess life is catching up with everyone having fun.
She brought some of her NT novels and mangas along (yes, even for a few day trip). And she introduced me to a series titled 'Mahou Sensei Negima.' I wasn't really interested in the manga at first, especially since the manga was written by the guy who made that harem manga with guy and lots of girls in love with that guy for some inexplicable reason (can't remember the title). But then I read through a few chapters (I was forced I tell you) and I was captivated by a single location/plot device within the manga.
They call it the library island. The physical design of the library island is lifted off a real world location of the island of Venice.
It's an island within the school Negima works as a teacher. The island itself is a huge library that goe back hundreds of years and it seems no one is really aware of the full layout and content of the library. It's apparently of such complexity that there is a separate department and clubs within the school that are devoted to exploring the library and all it's secrets. Who cares about the creepy setting filled with crazy pedophiles and incredibly dense (yet certainly likable this time, unlike that other previous work I can't remenber the name of) elementary school student who has magical powers with such an awesome library as one of the primary settings?
I don't know why but there's something about the idea of a magical library that really makes me feel giddy. What mysteries and hidden truths of the world await? It's a real shame that our civilization at this time does not seem to have enough understanding of the universe to be able to build such a library... Perhaps the coming of the self-aware web would be the first step in putting together the disparate informations of the human world together into a cohesive form, a singular library where the collective spirit of the humanity lies.
Anyway, it's about time to take my cousin out to something delicious. I'm thinking Max Brenner's with either sushi or bbq.
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