Yesterday, I spent the day monkeying around on a boat and learning all sorts of strange new words: ラダー, ジャイブする, タクする…
Today, there’s an ojiisan (loudly) demonstrating the use of Japanese semaphore flags to a dozen people standing in the middle of the small backstreet behind my house (many, many kilometers away from the closest navigable body of water)…
DaveCorp Gardening International, has announced the diversification of their portfolio. Keeping their recent investments in CTRO, MINT and BSIL, and staking new positions in A.MINT, L.GRAS and L.BSIL…
Market analysts are very optimistic on the Summer prospects of DaveCorp Gardening International and predict a bullish market on delicious Thai curries and fresh mojitos1The real kind, using apple mint & spearmint, not that poor ersatz some people make with peppermint..
Yesterday’s skiing was brilliant indeed…
My latest paper has nearly received its stamp of approval from my academic peers and newfound friends at the Public Library of Sciences1In the science publishing world, “accepted with revision” is a journal’s way of saying “I am not that kind of girl: first buy me dinner, then I’ll let you rip my clothes off”..
The weather is sunny and nearly getting to the point where I’ll need sunglasses to bike to work.
My new 20-meter-wide monitor was waiting by my desk today..
My personal supplies of high-grade chocolate is at an all time-high. With more on its way as I write..
But most importantly…
Flight EK 316 to Osaka is on schedule…
I am one good news away from breaking out in an elaborate choreography with the local avian life…
Hearing the details of the submission strategy for our next publication, feels like attending a mob meeting.
My advisor is the hidden son of Sun Tzu raised by Machiavel.
(context here, if you have never seen the original movie)
Yesterday, a friend emailed me about a New Year Party thrown by some friends of hers. I hastily misread the description of said friends from 狂言 (きょうげん: stage actors) to 狂信 (きょうしん: religious fanatics) and was, understandably, slightly less excited by the prospect than I should have been.
I could of course play that silly anecdote as yet another illustration of my terminally inept Japanese skills. But in the end, even though I had to quickly look up 狂信, the fact I instinctively knew its reading and felt confident enough to make that mistake makes me feel surprisingly happy about the shape of my Japanese.
About 8 years ago, I decided to learn Japanese. Or more exactly: I hurriedly learnt a dozen Japanese words, fragments of grammar and notions of kana reading, landed in Japan, promptly got drowned in an ocean of linguistic helplessness, then decided that, one day, a visit to my local bank would not turn into low-grade stand-up comedy (at my expense).
When you think about it, 8 years is a pathetically long time for someone who still can’t read a newspaper without a dictionary (and lots of spare time)… Slightly less shameful, I guess, if you account for my constantly travelling back and forth over that period. Also: while I have come to appreciate countless aspects of Japanese culture and developed a perverted obsession with matters of kanji writing, I did not grow up obsessed with Japan. I never had a strong personal interest in learning this particular language (or living here, for that matter) and might just as happily have taken on Russian (maybe will, who knows). It slowly grew from a mix of absolute happenstance, necessity, frustration and stubbornness when confronted with near-impossible challenges (yes: I am the kind of asshole who will devote a sizable share of a decade to learning a language, just because: fuck-it-I-can-do-it).
Dear PLoS editor,
I know our relationship was doomed from the start and it’s not like I did have high hopes for it.
But dumping me with an email and some very generic editorial comment? After our three months together, I feel I deserved at least a little peer review love.
Ouch, baby. Ouch.
Local campus health center is currently advertising a study on the effectiveness of TCM (漢方) vs. Western medicines as treatment for the common cold. In addition to free medications1Provided you are one of the lucky 33% landing in the one group that won’t provide you with sugar pills or dragon scale extract powder., you get a bonus ¥2,000 (in bookstore coupons) for agreeing to be their guinea pigs!
All you have to do is show first-day symptoms of the common cold and sign up.
Screw that scarf-and-winter-coat thing, I am biking home in my underwear tonight…
Accidentally binning a couple old moleskines and losing a few years worth of miscellaneous pointless notes made me realise that I really ought to commit more of these here. Nothing beats the comfort of geographically spread, redundant server mirrors and automated weekly database backups, not even, it turns out, the soft touch of overpriced paper under that mind-boggingly fancy ball-pen birthday gift.
Last friday’s concert had the delayed effect of throwing me into a Bach-obsessed mood for most of the weekend (in addition to their gorgeous take on cantata BWV 156, the cellist played the perennial Cello Suite 1st movement during a solo interlude). Unlike a lot of the noisy music I belatedly got into as a teenager, Bach and the whole pre-20th century crew have always been in the background when growing up. Bach’s music has such a connection to non-music related childhood memories that my emotional response often tends toward diffuse nostalgia rather than actual musical appreciation, particularly if I am not paying active attention. His famously humongous body of work feels designed to cover an improbable spectrum ranging from the universally accessible and uplifting down to some seriously dry stuff (parts of the less crowd-friendly cello suites — movements in #2 and #4, for example — will test the nerves of even the most adept cello lovers). Some even see mathematical beauty in there, but I have never been too sold on that one.