Hello Kitty Class

Background: Hello Kitty is an ultra-loveable (and of course ultra "cute") japanese cartoon cat loved by many asian girls. I've seen Hello Kitty pencils, pens, pencil bags, school bags, lunch boxes and everything else you'd think a girl would bring to school. It's so popular that they've made a theme park (Sanrio) for it in Tokyo... and yes, my mom forced me in there when I was in Japan two years ago. In reality, I left the place ASAP, and played in the Sega arcade for the two hours while my tour bus stopped in that location. (Let's not talk about my Totoro search that followed. It involved 5-6 department stores and a million giggling sales ladies. And I sometimes wonder if my ex appreciated my effort...)

One of my housemates, Jazz, was explaining why Hello Kitty would soon die of natural causes. To show this, he used my notebook and did a google search for Hello Kitty Pictures. After we found some, he explained to us that it was because she didn't have a mouth, and so she would starve to death.

Fast forward to the first CISC497 class of the semester. I brought my notebook to class and was using it to take notes. About two hours into the three hour seminar, our prof needed access to the internet, but she was unable to connect to the wireless network. Noting that I was on the wireless network, my classmate, Kyle (who's one of the top CISC students of 2005), points out that fact to the prof. I immediately offer my notebook to be used for the benefit of the class. Not even one split-second passed before I realized my error: I needed to clean my machine. I quickly changed my wallpaper from anime to earthlights and removed my history and offline files for all my web browsers. In a matter of seconds, it was all ready to go.

No problem... right?

WRONG.

A couple of webpages into the presentation, my prof accidentally clicked on the google toolbar, and right there, smack in the middle of the overhead screen: HELLO KITTY PICTURES. Some asian members of the audience immediately picked up on it and all of them gave me that "I know what you've been up to" glance. I wanted to disappear... Add insult to injury, my friend later coined the nickname: Hello Kitty-chan....