Through Hollow Lands and Hilly Lands

Lately I’ve been unaccountably tired (I nearly fell asleep in the hood. what is wrong with me ;_;) and so, for the first time, have turned to (mostly) black coffee. Unfortunately, it seems to take about 8 hours to take effect… so I’m still dead in the mornings (when I do all my work, which sucks because lunch is so early that I’m always late, and also I don’t have enough to do in the afternoons) but then near the end of the day I get jumpy and agitated and every little thing makes me way too excited so then I end up spending longer at work because the results seem SO COOL and then I get home late and then I sleep late and it all starts over again. Note to self: it’s just linear regression, dude. It can wait.

Today, I may have actually gotten a real result, after 6 months. It was the very last receptor I tested. What are the chances of that? (Well, roughly one in 300, but…) That fact, and some other quirks associated with its cloning, make me a little suspicious of the results and it will need lots of confirmation but after months and months of blue, blue, blue seeing that dim gleam of red, plus the aforementioned caffeine, made me dash around the lab and want to hug people or jump up and down or do something, I don’t know! And I was planning out my excited Japanese explanation to tell Kumihashi-san the great news but he was nowhere to be found and as the hours dragged on he still wasn’t there and all my nervous energy just roiled and twitched.

And so after that tense interminable waiting, as I came down hard from my stimulants, I slowly came to realize that my job is terribly, terribly lonely. I do like running my own project, the independence, filling my days and making plans and reading papers and trying to be a Real Scientist. But I am so alone, a tiny island in the vast impersonal sea that is my company. Awkward lunches I have dealt with before, and can live with, and I enjoy the solitude of my room very very much. Science, though… at Protiva I would have been able to talk to Amy or Vandana if I got awesome results, or with the other co-ops for smaller things, and we could have tossed around ideas and I would have learned things and stupid things I was confused by would be so obvious to them and it was nice, it really was. There’s so much that I don’t know, and so many places to go from here, and I want to show it to someone and work things out together, want to say “look look this one finally worked but then again the cPCRs were only 15% successful so maybe it is a bit suspect and don’t you think that concentration is kind of unusual and oh speaking of concentration look at this possible correlation to the weird viability issue that I was graphing all day yesterday although I’m not sure if this normalization method is fantastic but it’s the best I can do under the circumstances man isn’t it frustrating to not have a positive control after all what else is science about?”

I am just too n00b, and this job is making me better in some aspects, but mostly mechanical (I can probably transfect in my sleep now). I want to shake them and say, I don’t know what I’m doing! Are you really going to trust a second-term undergrad with the entire odorant project? Do you guys realize that everything I know I learned from google and following smarter people’s papers? But it’s not like they have many other options, and in the grand scheme of things, I’m sure the tiny island that I am is a tiny blip in the budget, too. Grah. It shouldn’t matter. It only bothers me because I like what I’m doing, and it could be so wonderful, and I want to still be here when it’s getting awesome - but time is running out, and I waste so much of it running down unfruitful avenues. Live and learn, I guess. I suppose if I am learning, it’s all good. I just hope I really am.

Okay dead tired and feeling kind of sick (not so good with late nights nowadays) but if I don’t write it I’ll forget it. Today was excellent! It was Ueda-san (one of the temps, she is cool and hardcore and talks like a dude)’s birthday two days ago so I was invited by her and Toda-san (other temp, works in my group but not my team, awesome lady) to a semi-celebration semi-just-having-fun-time today. It was very fun!

- First, we had tasty dinner at a bizarre-sort-of-themed-restaurant but I couldn’t figure out the theme. Western things? Pseudo-old Western things? I don’t know. Anyways, the food didn’t really reflect the theme anyways so it didn’t matter. The food was tasty enough, and at the end they brought a cake for Ueda-san! It was 8:30 pm by this time (work over at 5 and we drove about an hour).
- Next we headed to bowling! I had warned them I was bad at it, but in Japan, when someone says “I’m bad at X” it’s pretty meaningless. They clued in after my 3rd frame with 0 points, probably. My highest score was 54. Go me! And I only discovered that left-handed balls existed in the 7th frame of the last game =( Although, who knows whether it would have made much difference. [Incidentally, I stand by my claim that all the cool people are left-handed {or all left-handed people are cool?}. Kumihashi-san! Barack Obama! And, um, Michael?]
- Afterward we got some free game centre tickets for having bowled so we wandered around using them up and not winning much. Except Toda-san who is…insanely good! She started off with twenty medal-things, tried out a horse race and won 60 more (giving Ueda-san and I a handful each which we promptly squandered), then tried out one of those shoot-the-coin-in-and-try-to-push-some-over-the-edge games and…she just kept winning! I don’t even know if there was an exchange system, though, and we just played until she stopped winning, so it was pretty meaningless. Later she got Ueda-san a keychain in a different game though.
- We finished off with photo booth! It was pretty fun actually, but I don’t think I will be showing people the pictures anytime soon (I sort of mis-angled my bunny ears and I ended up looking like, as they termed it, “yo, yo”. -_-) Then home and after this is done I will collapse into bed.
- It was nice having people who talk to me. They talk to me in Japanese but simple Japanese! And sometimes Toda-san will practice her English (she stayed in Australia for half a year ish. she also knows some Korean! how awesome is that). We talked about all sorts of things including Ueda-san’s and my mutual affection for Kumihashi-san. Truly a fine fellow. Oh man, I just remembered that Ueda-san will probably quit soon cause she’s getting married! Nooooo ;_;
- Anyways, they said that we should go somewhere again and bring Kumihashi-san and Takatoku-san along (I am not the only person that thinks my team is the absolute best team ever!). Maybe to the aquarium or zoo! They are fun friends to have. And it is very very nice to hang out with people who are not kaisha-in (company employees), because… it takes a certain kind of person to be a kaisha-in (I guess a lover of security, or someone who stays in step with the standard expected pattern of life). Nothing against them, but sometimes it is boring to hang out with people who do not differ so very much from each other. And they don’t like me much, anyways, so I would rather ease the burden of my silent obtrusive presence. But anyways. Happy times! Perhaps happy times in the future! Now sleep! Grafhlgargh.

I passed! I passed! I will talk more about it later but need food and water and R&R now arr in so much pain.

Okay, better now. As promised:

Going there: Ugajin-san picked me up at a delightful 7:30 am (and I couldn’t sleep from nerves till 1 ish, so I got 5 hours or so of shuteye) and then we drove for what felt like ages and ages and ages. Tochigi is too big. I had only managed to eat half a bowl of cereal before leaving and I didn’t want to drink too much beforehand, so that’s pretty much what I was running on for the whole day. And half a granola bar at lunch. I don’t know how I managed. We arrived on time, although Ugajin-san got a bit lost, and headed up to the (sparkling and lovely, as all Japanese ones seem to be) dojo.

Then Ugajin-san ran around introducing me to all his friends, which was a bit awkward but also fun, and they were all very encouraging. As was Ugajin-san! The whole way there he was giving me lots of advice and I think it actually helped tons. Mainly what he said was that I should do a lot of men cause my men is good but my kote-men is awful, and at shodan they don’t care about renzoku-waza, heh.

System: Everyone comes in (everything is always so organized in Japan), gets their number taped to their tare, and then lines up for introduction/instructions. There are three sections: jitsugi (what we’d call jigeiko), kata, written exam. You only do the kata if you pass jitsugi (5 judges), and the written exam if you pass kata. If you fail either the kata or the written exam you can take only those parts at the next exam. There were a lot of people there…about 80 shodan, 20 nidan, 8 sandan, and apparently there was another shinsa being held at the same time in southern Tochigi.

Introduction: I can see why the Americans thought kendo was militaristic. When we were listening to the sensei speak we were alternately barked at with the equivalents of “Bow!” “At attention!” and “At ease!” (although at ease isn’t any more at ease than at attention, really). Then the first four shodan people (ladies first) demonstrated the system - it’s very efficient! There are two sets of tape-lines, and you bow in on the closer one (to the judges), then when yame is called, you sonkyo on the further one and the next set bows in on the closer one.

Jitsugi: is very short. Only 1.5 minutes is what my paper said, and it doesn’t feel anywhere like that while you’re waiting in line. I was a bit nervous before lining up, and then very very nervous when lining up, and then deadly nervous right before and then… it started and it was okay and then it was over (I was also reciting the Litany of Fear, which may have helped, but only cause I’m terribly geeky). I don’t really have much memory of it, except that I flagged near the end - what pathetic endurance (Ugajin-san noticed, too). I may have actually done NOTHING but men, I’m not sure. Only one match for shodan and nidan, but sandan went twice each.

The nidan and sandan were very impressive. One guy took jodan, and Ugajin-san exclaimed and then started muttering “ganbare, aite, ganbare” (roughly: stay strong, [his opponent], you can do it) and he totally did. The jodan ended up with his shinai flying out of his hand and his miserable face as he took off his men afterwards told all. And then, the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen - a guy broke his shinai in half. I don’t know if he was going for tsuki, a terribly missed-do, or a keeping-the-maai mune, but it actually struck the other guy full on and …splinter-cracked the way, well…the way a shinai being driven into someone’s do with incredible strength would crack - kind of folding and bursting outwards - I can’t describe it properly but it was incredible! The referee grabbed the shinai of the next guy due for a match (heh) and handed it to him and it went on with barely a pause but…wow. Dangerous, but seriously amazing to see.

After all the people testing had done jitsugi there was an agonizing wait (although actually, I wasn’t worried - I could tell from Ugajin-san’s enormous grin that I probably hadn’t failed) for the results to come up - they don’t tell you your pass percentage, just hold up a sheet with the numbers of people who passed on it. Then they get everyone to line up for kata.

Kata: was, unsurprisingly, a joke. I wouldn’t have passed me - but then at least half the people going wouldn’t have passed - and in fact, everyone passed. I think unless you fall on the floor, they’re going to pass you; my aite kept screwing up and laughing about it, which wasn’t too conducive to my own kata, plus my feet were cold and asleep and I’m just ashamed of my performance, considering how much I like kata, and how much we practice at home (here, they only do it in like..the two practices before the shinsa). We went 5 at a time.

After kata there was a short lunch break (where someone told me he would teach me the questions for the exam and then disappeared and I hung around waiting for him to come back and then realized I was really late and ran upstairs and it was terrible) and then the gakka (written exam).

Gakka: Turns out that guy meant he would /translate/ the questions for me (his previous offer wasn’t cheating, though; like I said, we are all told the questions/answers beforehand and just have to copy them out). Anyways, it was fine, although there was a bit of a kerfuffle when they were trying to find the translator guy, and afterwards he told me I got perfect (hooray for being able to memorize lines of text. what a useful skill). Oh yeah - we all lined up in seiza to be given the test papers - and then we WROTE IT in seiza! So it was a gym of a hundred students in seiza, bent over scribbling on test papers on the floor. Japanese people must have terrible, terrible backs.

Afterwards: While waiting for the results, Ugajin-san’s friends all came up to ganbatte/compliment me. I am baffled, and I think Japanese standards for shodan are lower than at home; everyone there is probably elementary/middle school after all, and have only been doing it for a few years. I cannot explain in any other way the comment of one nana-dan, which was that my jitsugi was “subarashikatta” (awesome), and “ichime” (the best there, of the shodan [girls I assume]). Ridiculous! At least, superlative. Of course, he followed it up with noting that my kata was abysmal (well, he just said “subarashikunai” (not awesome), but he was being nice), which I definitely agree with.

I liked the guy a lot - he is not like Ugajin-san, who, though I love him, is a sport kendoist through and through. The nanadan said that kata should be beautiful, and that he would send me some videos to watch (and that he was one of the best or second-best kata..doers in Tochigi). Then he said, “do you know where to hit in kendo?” I was bewildered, and Ugajin san said “you know, men, so on..”, as I was wondering why he would think I would not know such a simple thing the nanadan shook his head and said “not men, not kote, not do, not tsuki. kokoro. then your kendo will be beautiful.” Which is very true, and I’m glad he said it. Awesome dude.

After-afterwards (Keiko): Results (a few people actually failed the gakka, which I am surprised by, but I don’t think anyone studies all that hard for it either), then paying for the certificate/testing (7000! ridiculously expensive). And then a “congratulatory” keiko! Nanadan dude (who Ugajin-san calls “fat guy”, and who had a white gi and was trying to explain the meaning of it but Ugajin-san couldn’t translate and… I think I understood, but I’m not confident enough to propagate possibly false information here) asked me to practice with him first, so I dashed to do so (unfortunately accidentally skipping a dude who had already asked him. Whoops =/). Then I went with Ugajin-san’s sensei, a hachidan hanshi, and then a few more people, and then it was over (it was only an hour and there were long lines).

I… I can’t tell if they were being easy on me because I’m a foreigner or what; lots of people in front of me were getting scolded, especially by Ugajin-san’s sensei, but for me he just said “jouzu da” (you’re good) and told me to keep practicing with Ugajin-san and get better and go for nidan soon. Probably they figured I wouldn’t understand the scolding, so why waste their breath?

Language barrier, so I can’t put much that I was told to work on here, but - as always - motto tsuyoku, hayaku, massugu (stronger, faster, straighter). I really have to work on going through - no one shoved me through today, but it’s happened lots in the past. I just don’t want to end up like those people who end up kind of bouncing up and down when they hit the end/turn-around. It looks very silly and it’s a very vulnerable position, too (and not so great for demonstrating zanshin).

Conclusions:Well. I am a shodan now! And…that is not what I gained from this, really. What I have gained is a confidence and an understanding of what good kendo is that I didn’t have before, maybe. I succeeded because, I think… because I knew that I could - and not in the abstract - if that makes any sense. Being told that my men was good and my kotemen was not and being able to feel the difference between them, to say that is a shodan-worthy cut, and that not, perhaps? I don’t really know. And the training I have been getting is very good too, because there are so many seniors here! Today’s keiko was all composed of sensei, and at weekly practice there is always Ugajin-san and Kobanawa-san, both 5-dan, and usually an assortment of 3- and 4-dans. And sempai here are not at all shy about giving advice loudly, repetitively, and harshly, which I suppose is one good thing about a deeply engrained heirarchy. It has helped, though. Being shoved through my cuts and having Ugajin-san say over and over again tsuyoku! hayaku! massugu! has made it more of instinct for me.

I miss Matsu Kai tons and would much rather practice there than anywhere else, of course, but I really wish we had as many high-level seniors there, too. At least I’ve got Ben and Rei and Woojin and all, but for them they only have Sensei, and - alas! - he is only one person, and there is only so much time in one practice. Boo. Anyways - good luck for everyone taking shinsa this month! (well, and any other month too!) I’m certain if even I can get shodan you’ll all pass with flying colours. I can’t wait to be home and to practice at home again! I miss you all! <3

I know today is momentous but there are other venues for squeeing, so I shall leave the politicking out here - just a kendo post ahead. I know that is like 50% of my blog already, sorry…what can I say? Being invigorated after practice makes me want to talk all about it. Nothing specific to say so I’ll just ramble a bit about things in general:

- The girls were pretty giggly and shy about talking to me at first, but somehow in the intervening months they’ve gotten much less so. Today they proudly showed off their english (”My dinner…is..pork fry..today!”) and, although I’m not sure they realize/believe it, I can grasp most of the intervening japanese. And they were all very nice and even complimented my tai-atari! (Because Japanese people never say anything mean and that’s pretty much the only thing about my kendo that isn’t 180% fail >.>) I am glad they are there, cause to the boys I pretty much don’t exist.

- I should retract that “Japanese people never say anything mean”, maybe. Ugajin-san has kind of baffled me in the past because I can never tell if he hates me or wants me to quit kendo or something. =( No, it’s probably not that bad, but for a while he just always seemed incredibly disappointed with me after practices (which is a big part of why I skipped a lot). However, after talking about it with Tiff I guess it is possible that he is just a proponent of tough love?

Today would seem to bear that out, because I went up against him in my last practice and I was feeling pretty good about it; I had just gone against a senior and gotten some nice cuts in (he probably let me, but it doesn’t matter; when you get a nice cut it feels good, you feel good, they feel good, everything is good) and I was FIRED UP! READY TO GO! (okay maybe I slipped in a little fangirling) and it seemed like I was doing well and I was really happy!

But then Ugajin-san stopped me and he was like “If you don’t put your all into it and really try and really care about it you’re doomed, you’ll never make it, you have no chance!” Glum, I tried to start up again and try even harder, although I didn’t think I could, but he just went into sonkyo. And then the whole way home he kept repeating that, or minor variations thereof, to me, and I felt like such a failure. But then finally he looked at me, and with this huge grin, said, “But you know, if you do put your heart into it - you’ll definitely pass!”

Soo…. picking the perspective that makes me look better, I guess, but it seems like his motivational technique is to make you terrified of failure and doubtful of your own ability so then you’ll try harder? (Other example: When I went to the shiai at his dojo, I got totally owned in my first match. Afterwards he was like “how do you feel?” I said “okay, I guess, because I tried my best” and he shook his head and tsked and said “You know, he’s only ikkyu…you’re trying to get shodan,” and tsked some more. And then on the way home, while I was beating myself up, he was like “Hey, just a random fact…did you know that guy is the best junior high school student in Tochigi?” GRAH) I think I prefer Sensei’s, but maybe that’s cause I can’t handle the heat. =/

- 4 days left, oh god. I’ll have to spend the time doing mental practice and, ugh, studying for the written exam. I don’t mind studying kendo and I don’t mind written exams. But this is a Japanese written exam: which is to say, hardly one. Basically, Ugajin-san gave me all the possible questions and answers, and I just have to memorize them word-for-word. Hooray, rote! It’s been a while! When did we last meet, elementary school? Oh well. At least I’ve learned most of these in other contexts (e.g. “We should begin kendo practice with rei and end it with rei.”) and it provides a good look into kendo mentality here (my favourite (because it was sort of unexpected) is “we should treat bogu and shinai as something precious.”; there’s also “we should never fail to do warm-ups and cool-down exercises” but indeed we always fail at practice here. Unless kirikaeshi counts as both. =/).

P.S. Kendoka, do you guys want kendo omiyage or just Japan stuff like I’ll get for everyone else? I’ve been scouring the shops, but a) we shouldn’t have non-dojo mon, and the stickers would actually be pretty..tacky on your do, b) the tenugui here aren’t any different/better from at home, but they are a wee bit cheaper; same with tsuba/(dome), c) they’ve got nice shinai bags, especially if you want the simple kind with kanji and stuff, d) I got a couple books on taking care of your equipment, and kata, in case anyone needs to do emergency repair/kata practice when no one’s around to show you, e) I’ll go take some pictures later so people can request stuff if y’all want.

Today I had a most excellent day (for a change)!

It started off with shodo in the morning. I made present for Saito-san/her kid, who was born on Monday! It is a girl (…I think. I hope! The present is kind of girly). Here it is!

It is a haiku that my teacher and I wrote together. I know that it is very ugly (as I was bemoaning it to my teacher, she said, “But it is very Amelia!” … make of that what you will), but considering that in my normal practice, even after a week devoted to a single character it still comes out looking awful, I shall have to settle for this. The haiku goes:
Aka-chan to
Tomo ni irozuku
Momiji ka na
Which means something roughly like “the baby and the maple leaves change colour together”, which doesn’t sound very good in english. But irozuku means both “put on a colour” with people and “change colour” for leaves, which is kind of punny, and the aka in aka-chan (baby) is the same character as “red”! And also the kanji for momiji (japanese maple) can also be read as kouyou (leaves changing colour)! And you know, it’s all.. autumnal..and stuff. *cough*

Anyways! After that I headed out to Utsunomiya. It has been pretty cold lately, but the sun was brilliant and almost warm. On a whim I decided to take a walk by the river and, well… I’ve maligned Utsunomiya unfairly. It’s much nicer in the quiet rushes, far from the boisterous traffic and boarded-up shops. I stupidly forgot my camera, so you shall just have to take my word on the peacefulness of koi glinting in the sunlight, ducks preening on the rocks, tiny lazy kittens napping contentedly, indifferent to my adoring presence. About an hour and a half out I checked my map and realized the river did not go around the city so much as, um..go straight out of it. Probably to Tokyo or something.

So I headed back to the madding crowd, bumping into an excellent jazz band playing on the street as well as a festival for the restoration of the city shrine’s torii (gate) on the way. I really wish I’d brought my camera (also to show the amazing house a presumably homeless person built under one bridge. It actually looked relatively comfortable; all the boards were tight, and no rain since it’s under a bridge, and it was overflowing with blankets and stuff. And it had a padlock on the door. Most of the homeless people sleeping under the bridges were not so fortunate, depressingly). Then I (shamefully) bought some Japanese books, bumped into Claas, a dude from Kao Germany who’s here for a couple weeks on a business trip, and finally headed out for some solo karaoke!

I know, this is pretty much the pinnacle of sadness in a very sad life. You don’t have to tell me. But it was really fun! Nobody around meant I could finally actually sing, and I had a whole hour to sing anything I wanted for the grand total of 360 yen. And I mean anything - the song selection is eighty billion times better than at home - they had a Death Cab for Cutie song, the entire Weezer red album (the latest one) and even Rent music! If I were a) actually able to speak Japanese, b) brave enough to be an entrepreneur, c) the least bit knowledgeable about how to run a business, and d) not dead set on doing science for a while anyways, if not the rest of my life, I would totally open a decent karaoke place in Vancouver. Decent, mind you. With a lot of songs that update every month and karaoke scoring that’s actually accurate and little handheld song-pickers/key-changers/etc. and mikes that don’t screw up and yeah. Speaking of scoring, my average song had an impressive score of 55%. Karaoke machines here are not quite as concerned with hurting your feelings. Oh, and they had free drinks! I am definitely going back a few more times before I leave.

Finally I went to do my grocery shopping, when I was seized with the sudden irrational fear that there was no 8 o’clock bus today (the bus stop has changed and they reposted the schedule, and I didn’t remember seeing 8 o’clock), so I cut the rest of my fun-filled plans short. Which were playing DDR and, um… buying cereal. Like I said. Sad life. And now I am here, eating delicious chicken karaage and rice (shut up shut up shut UP) and tomorrow my Japanese teacher is taking me to a festival? fair? craft-display-event? in Mashiko, with pottery and glass art and bonsai and foodly things! (Note to self: take up pottery when you get home.) Then next week to meet Liu-san (who quit Kao, eliciting stunned and horrified gasps from my group when they were told) and oh gods, my shinsa. So yes! I’d say sorry I haven’t posted for a while, but you guys are better off when I’m not posting. I hope everybody had an excellent Halloween!

Okay, I am with my mom and my sister now so I shouldn’t be writing but I just need to note momentousness:
- The bond of kendo is strong. I have never felt so universally loved and accepted at a nomikai before! They were all wonderful! And such kendo otaku. Some dude got dumped by his girlfriend and someone was like “do you think it’s because he liked kendo so much?”.
- I got hikiwake (a tie)!!!!!!! 1-1!!! I don’t think I’ve ever scored a point in a shiai before and it was amazing and it just happened and it was so unexpected (and then of course I decided I had no chance of getting another so I did indeed get owned and was unable to take it back) and woo! And later at the nomikai Ugajin-san was telling a guy who hadn’t been there “Oh Amelia got the very first point” and then the (only other) girl was like “it was really straight and pretty!” eeee I am so unabashedly tickled right now. I’ll probably have to make up for this by totally failing my shodan test.

- By the end of this week I’ll have worked at least 55 hours. That means I’m making $3/hour =( Shouldn’t complain, though - today I met Kikkawa-san on the 7pm bus and he was like “work hasn’t been busy at all lately, it’s awesome!” and I said “..you’re on the 7pm bus?” and he said “I know! It’s really early, isn’t it?” ;_; And anyways it’s all fine because…

- I am taking a day off to make a four-day weekend on which I will meet my mother and younger sister in Tokyo! Woooo! I was thinking about going to the Tokyo Game Show, and I could, but I doubt my mom would enjoy it and anyways I never have enough time to play games nowadays (and incidentally booo for new DS coming out. I just got this! =( ). Probably just go to the cool places Michael and I found last time (if they are game for onsen. mmm… it was a good onsen.)

- Today I was chatting with Kikkawa-san at dinner and then this girl whom I’ve spoken to a few times (she likes FMA and console RPGs too, but sadly, as we noted, those aren’t very communal activities, so we don’t hang out or anything) came and ate with us. On the way up she suddenly said “do you like oranges?” Off my assent she said “wait a minute” and then darted out of her room and piled oranges into my hands! They’re from her house’s orchard, apparently, and are still a bit yellow (she warned they were sour, but who cares! fruit!) and it was just really unexpected and nice and woo! I am delighted!

Okay, I don’t know how many people this will actually apply to, but anyone I can hit is worth a try! UBC is hopefully fielding an iGEM team next year, and it would be awesome if you all could join. (I was trying to organize it, but it seems that the chance has been snatched out from under my nose … that’s what you get when you are millions of miles away, I guess. Oh well, being on the team will be fun enough, I suppose…) Before I start talking about it, the requirements, so that you can stop reading early if you want:

- Lab work from May 2009 - September 2009, Jamboree in November 2009: close to full time, so you can’t balance this with a co-op term or a full course load, though probably one course or a part-time job would be fine
- Must be an “undergraduate” student (at least for the summer term; I don’t know if you have to be one at the Jamboree too…and if you are graduating in May but want to do this anyways, you might still be able to - come to the info session or ask!): actually anyone but PhD candidates are okay (undergraduate, high school, Master’s), and if you ARE a PhD student, you can be an advisor!
- Any discipline (SHOULD be, if I have my way, but…) welcome, but probably engineers and biologists have the most relevant experience; still, all viewpoints are valuable, so if you’re interested, come out anyways! (artsies: ethics is important too! calgary has an entire team working only on ethics)

So, what is iGEM? (aside from awesome?) iGEM = the International Genetically Engineered Machines Competition. In essence, it is biological engineering inchoate. What biological engineering is now is more like engineering [chemical, electrical, physical] for the sake of biology; this (also going by the name “synthetic biology”) is about engineering with biology. Components like inverters (e.g. receptor activation -> promotion of repressor protein) and oscillators and wintergreen scent are designed in a standard form (known as “BioBricks”) that can easily be slotted together. Lego with plasmids, it’s beautiful! iGEM is, well…it is a contest to make something, anything! New BioBricks, devices made of existing BioBricks, equivalences to components in other engineering systems, components that do things we see in nature, all that sort of stuff. It is fun, and hard, and exciting, and new, and wonderful.

I am getting a bit gushy I know, and I apologize a little, but not too much; come, I live by loving, and I’ve found a work that I could love. I will gush even more, so you can stop reading now. Most of you know I’ve been meh-y and vacillating about grad school. I still am, but not if I could work on this. Just thinking of the field makes me thrill with delight! I mean…this is the real thing, guys! I don’t have to get another degree in engineering! I don’t have to scrape together my own lab using coffee straws as pipette tips! I love biology and I love science, and research is interesting, but research - as the name would suggest - is only ever going to be about finding out what’s already there. This is making things, this is realization, this is the first step to taking all the hundreds of years of labour and devotion to understanding the living world around us and finally being able to hold it, harness it, learn from the shapings of billions of years and try, ever so audaciously, to build upon it. People have called this playing God. I don’t think so; or at least, I don’t think it is so any more than breeding dogs or building solar panels (did not God make light as well as, and far earlier than, life?). If you disagree, feel free to talk, because with this so nebulous and nascent it is important to hear all that can be said. Anyways. That is my geek-out. Oh, I am hoping, hoping, dreaming to work on this, wanting to do whatever it takes, though not being entirely certain what it will take. There aren’t a lot of people doing this. MIT is very high to reach, and I know full well the sin of hubris. But I have got to try.

P.S. I’m sorry in advance for the whining I will be doing come next year. The person who’s already started the team seems…much saner than I am, which is to say not as goo-goo ga-ga delightedly obsessed, so I’ll probably have a million things shot down if she is in charge.

P.P.S. I almost forgot! If you want to join (and please tell me you do, please please! You’re all brilliant and creative and awesome, and I would be dearly delighted if you could work with me on something so dear to my heart) then you should go to the meeting being held at UBC! It is on Wednesday, October 15th, from 5PM at MSL Rm 102 (Lecture Theatre). There will be food, if that’s what it takes to get people to come out!

I was randomly invited (at 5pm, and Fukagawa-san was like “you have no experiments right? can you meet us in the lobby at 5:30?” and so I had to go run and upscale my (12!) midipreps and so I’m pretty sure they only decided to invite me at the last minute, which stings a bit, cause these are really fun =() to a farewell nomikai tonight, hence the ridiculously late posting time. It was excellent fun, and strangely parallel to my first - same restaurant (though much tastier food this time, somehow, plus I’m actually legal now) and then karaoke afterwards (much lousier place, alas).

Not much to say since a nomikai is a nomikai. Some random notes, though:
- Drank my first real drink, and since I find beer nasty it was a fruity girly drink I’m afraid. Did not appear to have any alteration in behaviour nor in mood, so I don’t think it’s really worth it. On the other hand, at least in Japan, all-you-can-drink is pretty much always included, so there will probably be more alcohol in my future.
- Japanese people are strange about touching/bodies/whatever (as would we be to them, of course). There were at least 3 couples there tonight - granted, one is “secret” - and they never sat next to each other, never hugged or stood together or even talked much more than anyone else. I wonder if it too is a part of Japanese politeness, to not rub your together-ness in people’s faces? Anyways, on the opposing side, once the guys were pretty drunk they resumed their touchy-feeliness, so baffling to Western me. But today they went even farther - they started pulling up each other’s shirts and measuring their belly fat (”metabolism” as they called it) and poking nipples. My mind, possibly scarred forever.
- I think we all need to get drunk before singing karaoke. It is a thousand times more fun that way, because karaoke isn’t really any good when you’re inhibited. Not that I see why Japanese would need to be, because I’m really not kidding. Every single Japanese person is an amazing (by our standards) singer. Even the chainsmokers. Gar!
- I don’t know what it is, but alcohol seems to turn Japanese guys incredibly nice. This is not very good for me, since I am a sucker for niceness, and they’re all married or as good as and blargh. Or maybe it just turns Kumihashi-san nice. I think I’ll stop there before I make a fool of myself off residual alcohol. The best part of tonight though was this grumpy guy, who I say good morning to every day and who kind of just harrumphs back at me, getting really drunk; then he sat next to me and started talking to this other girl about how he was amazed that I was such a good kid because I always said good morning to him every day and he really appreciated it. Man! Why do they need alcohol to bring this stuff out! I was on the verge of quitting saying anything at all cause it seemed like it inconvenienced him more than not.
- Nomikais are fun. Maybe the alcohol really did help and I don’t think it did? Either way, I’m glad I went today. And that I jumped up and down during TRAIN TRAIN.

When I first came here I was dreaming - never really thinking it likely, but - of a return offer/contract, of possibly someday working at a Japanese company. Now that it’s been just over 4 months and the bloom has faded a bit… yeah, I’m pretty sure even if they begged me to come back, I wouldn’t. It really is just kind of ridiculous, the shame of people who leave after working only an hour overtime, the pride in people’s voices when they talk about how many weekends they’ve come in.

Today Kikkawa-san was telling me about an employment-standards law that forbids more than 360 overtime hours per year, and more than 120 per 3-month period. He was saying that a lot of people in his lab run up against that 120 hour limit… and so, the obvious solution? Come in on the weekends without logging your hours, obviously! So not only are they working almost 6 hours overtimenot getting paid. Guys! You are missing the point of having an employment standards act!

For all that, though, I wonder how much work really gets done. Sometimes it seems to me that despite the temps clocking in at 8:30 and leaving at 5 on the dot, they get 5 times more real work done (and, of course, make a fifth as much money) than the senior scientists. This is because they have meetings and business trips constantly! I mean, we’re talking all-day meetings practically every week. And then the part of the week that is not the meeting is spent making presentations and posters for the meeting. Collaboration is good and all, but somehow it seems like they are missing the point of the research…

These are actually not what bother me the most, though (shame or no shame, I still have to leave early most days and I do so without qualms [well, maybe a few]. 10 hours a day is enough, thanks). The first years are all a-twitter about the upcoming “Freshman Forum”, where they present their progress to everybody (including the Vice President). I was saying that I wished I could go (stupid confidentiality rules) because it would be pretty cool to see what all my friends were working on and get a sense of the breadth of research being undertaken at the company. Kikkawa-san, though, said, “Well… I suppose theoretically it is about showing your work and integrating your research with everybody else, but actually there is another purpose… we all get scolded severely by the higher researchers and vice president. We must be criticized.”

This is a) baffling, and b) horrifying! To be honest, for all that Japanese companies have better career security, I’d rather risk being fired than have to be publicly reprimanded every year, and for no reason than …what? To bring you down a peg or two? (That’s what he implied, but Kikkawa-san is kind of bitter so I take what he says with some salt.) The people around me already work so ridiculously hard, without complaints, and this is their reward? I suppose I’m taking this a bit hard because I crumple under cruel criticism, and become bitter and ashamed and resentful, like the wimpy, cocky, fail0r I am; perhaps because it is expected - indeed, institutionalized - Japanese employees don’t take this sort of thing so harshly as I would, but… yeah, I’m staying home. Feedback is one thing, shaming is another. God, I hope this doesn’t happen when I make my end-of-year presentation. I’m bringing my shinai.