Dead man walking

Japan. The only place where a normal end to a conference is to get naked together in one big bath. 

I was at a three day "Leadership Workshop for Female Faculty" which --despite its rather wooly title-- has consisted of well thought-out sessions covering each of the main roles in a faculty position; conference presentation, academic writing, course design and mentoring. It was held at a Hilton hotel situated at the foot of the Mount Yotei; an active stratovolcano sometimes referred to as 'the Fuji of the north' due to the physical resemblance with its famous southern cousin and the similarly exciting possibility of violent death by lava. 

So far, however, I had not appreciated either the scenery of the luxuries of the hotel. As soon as we left Sapporo, fog had swept over us in an exciting bid for Autumn. When I pulled back the curtains in my hotel room this morning, I had to raise a hand to check I wasn't missing an extra net blind that had turned my view to white. I had not: oblivion was outside my window. Normally, there is a mountain. I've heard it's ace. 

Still, the workshop itself was not for mountain gazers. We were timetabled through until 11 pm (not a typo), where the last session was listed as 'optional' but with a footnote that made it clear it was as missable as potty training. 

Fortunately, everyone treated the long hours with an element of humour that causes you to band together to form a brave front. Plus, they compensated us with food. I'm going to have to be rolled out the door tomorrow.

Wrung through and full of information, I headed down to the hotel's onsen to relax in the hot spring waters. There's the benefit of the active volcano; possible horrifying death, but great baths until then. 

This was the point where I caught up with the rest of my colleagues and I had the very genuine problem of recognising them without their clothes on. 

To go to and from the onsen, the hotel had provided traditional Japanese yukatas; a simple version of the kimono typically worn during the summer or while visiting the onsen. Overheating in the 42 C water, one of my non-Japanese (this fact will become important shortly) friends and I bade everyone goodnight and went to dry off, folding our yukatas around us and tying them closed at the waist. 

As we turned to leave, one of our Japanese friends caught us with an expression of deep amusement:

"You've tied it wrong," she indicated the yukata, where we'd folded the right edge over the left. "That is only for dead people!"

Either it was a mistake, or it was an unconscious reflection of how we felt at the end of that day.

--
Photo was the best I managed from my window during a semi-break in the fog.

You've made me VERY desperate

When I called my parents on Saturday night, I had had a headache for three days.

Or was it four? The details had become vague and I was cranky. 

A heat wave has engulfed Sapporo for the last two weeks, sending the temperatures into the humid 30s which might have been tolerable if anyone had believed in air conditioning. 

The problem --I complained to my parents-- was that this headache wasn't bad enough to stop me in my tracks, but it was sufficiently painful to make looking at a computer screen or book genuinely difficult. 

While I was deeply glad not to be rolling around in agony, it had become plain that if you took away my laptop and reading material, I had no other interests.

So far that weekend, I had cleaned the main room, bedroom, toilet and shower, brushed the cat six times and played dead on the sofa. In short, I was bored. 

"Well, I think we've run out of our news," my Dad said after we'd been chatting for a while. "And I don't think much of yours."

"I have to whine to you," I responded, matter-of-factly. "I don't have the depth of vocabulary in Japanese to go on about it to anyone else."

"How about going to see a film tomorrow?" Dad suggested. "Cinemas are usually air conditioned and you'd be far away from a large screen, so it shouldn't hurt your eyes."

And that was how I ended up going to see 'The Avengers' on Sunday afternoon.

The arrival of Western blockbusters in Japan varies from that of 'Harry Potter' (released the same day as the rest of the world) to 'The Hunger Games' (still waiting). Both dubbed and subtitled versions are usually shown, so the trick is to: 

(a) recognise the movie title in Japanese

(b) get tickets for the showing with the original sound track.

Western words --which extends to foreign movie titles-- are typically written in katakana; the phonetic script for words not originally Japanese. The majority of these words are originally English but reading them is like walking into a parallel universe in which Samuel Johnson was a crack addict. Fortunately, it's an acquirable skill made easier when presented with a limited list of options... although occasionally, mean tricks can be played such as when 'The Iron Lady' was released in Japan under the title 'Margaret Thatcher'. Fortunately, the 'Avengers' was written as literally as possible:

アベンジャーズ
(or 'abenjaazu' in roman letters: trust me, that's pretty good)

leaving me only to worry about subtitling versus dubbed editions. 

At a 50/50 bet, the odds here were reasonable. Plus, 'Avengers' was a movie with an optional plot: there were special effects, a bunch of familiar looking good guys (none of whom you'd select for your side if the alternative wasn't Armageddon), a bad guy with a magic stick and a cube clearly stolen from the 'Transformers' movie. What more do you need? 

In fact, I picked the correct showing due to a tip from a friend who told me to look for the Chinese character for 'knowledge' when hunting for subtitled movies. The same character is also in 'university' so it's an easy one to spot.  

I also therefore got the rather awesome one-liners from the bad guy, which can't have translated well into Japanese since I seemed to be the only one laughing. Alternatively, I was the only person present who was handling the heat quite that badly.

Mercifully, the cinema was air-conditioned. In fact, the multiplex resembled a cinema anywhere else in the world except that the popcorn and soda options on the concession stand menu were listed in katakana. In typical Japanese style, there was the odd, isolated sign displayed in bare English:

"Theatre 4"

Um. Thanks. 

Due to a love of order, you get to chose your seat at the ticket counter and the plastic cups of soda are more sensibly proportioned than their American counterparts. The number of trailers is also much shorter and you are not allowed into the theatre itself until five minutes before the time shown on the ticket. Still, since you already have a determined seat, there isn't the need to get there early. 

I picked up a coke and examined the movie posters for the other showings that day. There was a mix of the usual Hollywood blockbusters alongside Japanese movies starring brooding hot Samurai warriors. 

Damn.

I need to work on my language skills. 

Fill her up

When it comes to containers, my mother is a pack rat. During my childhood, she would stand in the kitchen and examine the freshly washed packaging that had recently contained a take-away or pickles or some other condiment and ask if it could be used for anything else.

This was an entirely rhetorical question, since my father invariably replied 'No', asking what she thought she was going to do with the first twenty jars that we already had stashed down in the cellar.

One day she filled them all with homemade jam, which rather answered that question.

(A updated retort might have been invented, but everyone was too busy eating to produce one).

Being the king of rubbish sorting, it is perhaps not surprising that Japan has solved the problem of excess waste packaging. Here, everyone is all about refill pouches. These plastic bags with screw top caps are available for shampoo, detergent, soap and pretty much anything else you think you might want to buy twice, along with quite a few things you only bought as an experiment but now feel obliged to use for ever more. 

Once emptied into their mother bottle, the pouch can be scrunched up and thrown out with minimal waste. (I wouldn't totally put it past my mother to reuse such an item, but I do feel that it's more of a challenge). Like so much of Japan, this is the height of benri; convenient.  

I also like the fact the original bottle I did buy for my shampoo has a squirty push nozzle that means I don't have to shake it upside down when it starts getting low. If the best things come to those who wait, I am more than prepared to opt for the second choice.

In my apartment, the only slight side effect of this system is the below-average chance of a container truly holding what its label would suggest. Currently, I would say it is a reasonable guess that a shampoo bottle will contain shampoo, but I wouldn't bet anything you truly cared about beyond that point. After all, variety is the spice of life. 

Or some of us have the sticking power of gnats, depending on your viewpoint. 

Shutter bug

My phone was set to silent. None of the keys made a sound. Texts, voice calls and emails screamed like banshee in space. I pressed the camera button and…

CLICK SNIIIICK

… and everyone in the public restroom became rudely aware that I had just taken a photo of a toilet. 

Ahh --I hear you say-- but you can just turn the shutter sound effect off in the preferences menu. This is surely an obvious and reasonable assumption since my iPhone does not actually have a shutter. Of course, you would be right...

ANYWHERE EXCEPT JAPAN.

All camera sold in Japan must, by law, make a shutter sound. Options to silence it are therefore removed from all hardware. This is because in Japan there are apparently SO MANY PERVERTS that it is COMPULSORY for a camera to emit a loud noise to announce to everyone in a 5 metre radius that YES, I AM TAKE A PHOTO. PROBABLY UP YOUR SKIRT. 

When I first discovered this, my second idea was to start wearing cycling shorts under my skirts with immediate effect.

The first was to stuff a long flesh coloured sock and hang it from my waist.

This is an immensely annoying law, since there are many legitimate reasons why you would want a silent camera. Photographing wildlife, for instance. Or toilets. Also, while taking photographs of exciting and crazy Japanese products in stores around town. Of course, anyone privy to my photo albums will know that I do this last regardless of the inability to conceal my actions.

Does anyone stop me?

No. 

Why?

Because doing so might involve speaking English. It is one of the advantages of having the sales staff flee behind the nearest rack of goods when they see you coming.

Shoplifting would be another. Just so you know I've noticed. 

So this is why I've rarely post photos of the crazy high-tech Japanese toilets. The ones I've taken have not come out well and I'm only prepared to try once every six months. 

Procrastination

I have a confession to make. 

I hate reading research papers. 

I'd love to blame this on the fact I'm dyslexic. But --since I read half of 'Game of Thrones' yesterday on my kindle-- I can't honestly say that really holds me back. 

It's not even that I don't want the information contained within their double-columned depths; I just find the majority of them turgid, somnical toilet roles.

I'm pretty sure this makes me a terrible astrophysicist. 

However, today I was out of excuses. I had a paper that was so overdue for publication, it could have predated Brian May's thesis. The introduction had to be drafted and for that, I had to find out what everyone else in my field had been doing while I was failing to form a world famous rock band. 

Unfortunately, I had the insurmountable problem of not possessing the right coloured highlighters with which to probably annotate the papers. Clearly, they needed to be purchased before any progress could be made and --since I wanted to be sure of a suitable selection-- the store to go to was the one on the other side of campus. If only I had remembered while I was eating lunch in the canteen next door. So sad.

Admit it. You're impressed with my ability to avoid work.

The highlighters in the shop were easy to locate and --in true Japan style-- they had every single shade imaginable to choose from. The difficulty of the selection was being proved by the elderly couple standing directly in front of the shelf trying every single pen.

Every. Single. Pen.

I have no idea what they were avoiding doing, but man! It must have been bad. 

Even the woman behind the cashier was hiding smiles as the couple kept turning away, selection in hand, only to change their minds and continue to block the display. 

I filled in the time by selecting a clear file. Frankly, I don't really understand clear files. They are plastic wallets but are too thin to take more than a few sheets of paper. For incomprehensible reasons, they are immensely popular in Japan and are sold in all different colours and designs. 

Finally, the elderly couple departed and I was able to pick up my highlighters. I tried to dawdle and convince myself that the EXACT SHADE OF BLUE was desperately important but … it just wasn't and I knew that. 

I was finally out of excuses. I returned to my office and promptly wrote half the introduction. Then I stored the papers I had printed out in the clear file. It already felt overfull. I looked down at the design I had chosen; it had a picture of a train track on it. Where is that track going? TO PAPER PUBLICATION LAND. 

PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWERS! …. Itty-bitty living space.

 "You may have heard that you are included as a candidate for the MEXT grant. It will be a great honor and of huge merit in research fund if you are selected. I have to discuss with you, however, about some possible demerit you would face ..."

I sat back in my office chair and pondered this email. The grant in question I had applied for at the end of July; the details had been scant but it involved a HUGE SUM OF RESEARCH MONEY for five years.

… or possibly the details hadn't been all that scant but I hadn't read further than the HUGE SUM OF RESEARCH MONEY. 

Either way, it was apparent to all involved that I wasn't aware of the small print. 

Money for academics comes in two types: First, there is my salary which I may squirrel away to spend on a stack of Pokemon plushies if I desire. Second, there is my research grant. This grant money broadly covers items such as paper publishing expenses, conference trips, laboratory or computer equipment and sometimes students. While my salary is part of my job (and I'd have to be sacked not to collect it), research grant money needs to be applied for through different national or international bodies. MEXT is the Ministry of Education in Japan. 

'Small print' in this context usually applies to what the grant money can be spent on. For instance, my last grant allowed me to buy my computer but not an office chair. 

Evidently, comfort was not considered essential for work.

This particular grant, however, turned out to be different. 

"MEXT would take over your salary as well as supply a grant..." It was explained to me at a subsequent meeting with our faculty office. "… the University will be very pleased and this would be a prestigious award for you...

So everybody wins?

… but you'd lose your pension contributions, your annual leave would be halved and you'd get no maternity benefits."

Except my mental health. 

I opened my mouth to make a response and then closed it. Well, what does one really say to that?

The message was clear: people who receive this grant are supposed to RESEARCH NON-STOP UNTIL THEY DIE! 

"However, the Japanese Government has made it compulsory for pregnant women to take 5 weeks maternity leave." The plot thickened as the details were expanded on. "But, on this grant, it is not possible to pay you." 

"Well … uh …" I had a sudden image of nursing a small infant surrounded by cans of pickled eggs akin to wartime rations. 

In truth, I had no plans to have a baby but the whole process did feel like a Borg-esque assimilation. You are now 3 of 5: research drone. There was however, some light at the end of the tunnel. 

For a start, the chances of me actually getting the grant were slim. My name had been put forward by the University but my competition was researchers in every area of science all through the country. Let the medics eat the pickled eggs.

Secondly, while the rules surrounding grant administration were strict, a few backdoors might appear. Such as 'work days' at that …. World renowned… astrophysical... institute in the small Leicestershire village my parents happen to reside in.

Of course, I could turn the grant down but it would be rather hard to refuse a HUGE SUM OF RESEARCH MONEY when there is no guarantee of getting funds through an alternative source. 

FUNDING… SANITY… FUNDING… SANITY…

DAMN IT.

Feeling dazed, I returned to my office and promptly took a 90 minute lunch break in protest. 

The final part in this stage of the saga came in an email yesterday evening:

"The dates of individual interview in Tokyo at set for September 21 and 22. They ask you to save the both days for the purpose intended in case you are selected."

Where am I planning to be on September 21 and 22? North Hokkaido on a holiday with my parents. I sniffed the air. I smell cubic space ships.   

Crowminators

Ever wonder what would happen if the Sapporo crows really did get into the garbage?

Imagine if 3 year olds became city workers.

And then one tried to steal your motorbike.

Welcome to the real meaning of 'Skynet'. 

PayPal, we are less than friends

May I just say, I kinda hate PayPal.

Until today, I did in fact hate them. With a fiery passionate all consuming burning-in-all-seven-circles-of-hell-simulataneously kind of hatred. So great was my rage that I was contemplating tracking down the director of PayPal Japan and walking through his house in the dead of night with filthy shoes.

It was that bad.

The bud of my irritation birthed with a tea towel. I wanted to send this particular drying item to my Dad in the UK because … well, who doesn't like tea towels? PayPal allowed me to make the purchase but insisted on the delivery address being either my home in Japan or --rather randomly-- an address I could specify in the USA. Neither choice really hit the mark; in fact they were off by thousands of miles. I contacted PayPal and confirmed this was a "feature" of their service, not an error and proceeded to resolve the matter with the online shop directly. (Who were lovely; go and buy a tea towel. Don't use PayPal). 

A few weeks later, I was in the situation of two people owing me money and being entirely willing to pay. Normally, this would be classified as a GOOD SITUATION. Since neither of them lived in Japan, we agreed PayPal would be the easiest choice all around.

One of these people paid me successfully. Hooray! I'm off to buy a giant pikachu. 

The second person tried and was told: "This recipient is currently unable to receive money."

I can assure you, this recipient was TOTALLY ABLE to receive money. PLENTY OF SPACE in that bank account. 

It turned out I'd hit secret limit (and by 'secret' I mean probably in the terms and conditions I've never once read) that stops you using PayPal until you get 'verified'. This verification requires PayPal users to confirm their identity and home address.

It was a nuisance but according to the first PayPal representative I spoke to (are you getting a flavour of where this is going?), the process was very simple. As a foreigner living in Japan, all I had to do was scan and upload a copy of my alien registration card. 

And done.

I waited.

One week later I receive an email saying they could not complete the verification process since neither my name nor address agreed with those on my identity card. 

Not the same…. yet, all transactions with my bank account have mysteriously always gone through. 

I examined my PayPal account details and my identity card carefully. There were two differences:

(1) In the address field for PayPal, I'd included the name of my building. Since my registration card had been updated by hand, only the street name, apartment number and postal code had been included.

(2) My PayPal account did not include my middle name.

Now WHY does either of those cause ANY SENSIBLE PERSON to believe there is a REAL INCONSISTENCY? The middle name problem I had hit before; it is rare in Japan to have a middle name and there is frequently confusion surrounding how to deal with them on official paperwork. Nevertheless, PayPal is an INTERNATIONAL COMPANY. Seriously, how hard can this be?

I wrote a blunt email and then realised this was pointless. Instead, I went to the PayPal website and deleted my building name from the address field. Then I tried to update my name. To update your name with PayPal, you need to provide them with proof of identity. Naturally, there was no way of specifying you have previously provided identification, so I uploaded my registration card for the second time.

They updated my name.

And put my middle name in capitals.

Hello everyone. My name is Elizabeth JANE. 

I emailed customer support and pointed this out. Nothing changed. Nor did my verification process status get updated. A week later, I emailed yet again. This time, I got a reply saying I needed to upload my identification to get verified. 

It was an online version of Groundhog Day. 

I emailed them yet again, detailing the dates of all our previous communications, the steps I had taken and how I had every intention of leaving PayPal.

This was an empty threat. I'd already trawled the web for different options but for international transactions, there isn't an alternative. If I quit astrophysics, I'm setting up an alternative.

I uploaded my registration card for the third time. 

Finally, I get an email back saying my verification pin number is being mailed to me.

This would be to the address for which you didn't allow me to include my building name?! 

Miraculously, Japan Post sorted it out and the slip of paper came through. My account is now verified. The sum of money I am owed from this second friend will be spent on analgesics.

PayPal, you and me have a lot of rebuilding to do. 

Lord and master

A Japanese maid cafe is the closest you can come to having sex with an anime character.

Before you get too excited about this blog post, I should clarify that it's not really all that close. 

While it sounds like the most obvious front for a brothel imaginable, maid cafes feed off the anime role-playing subculture of Japan and are (reasonably) innocent. They are more accurately bars, where the premise is to pretend you are a Lord (or Lady…. but unsurprisingly, more often a Lord) having a drink on your estates, served by one of your beautiful young maids. They address you as 'master' and --despite your obvious wealth-- you seem unable to provide your staff with entirely adequate clothing. 

These cafes attract the lonely, the curious ...

… and astrophysicists taking their visiting seminar speaker out of a drink.

Don't you all want to come and give a presentation at Hokkaido now? Thought so.

Before I get called up in front of the head of faculty, I would like to say it was all the speaker's idea. He even knew where the cafes were located in Sapporo. I hadn't a clue. 

This particular cafe was small, with about 16 seats lined up along the bar. Anime posters hung on the walls and figurines above the bottles formed a ferocious line-up consisting of ninjas, giant robots, space aliens and high school girls. Two bookshelves of manga stood at cat corners and serving the drinks were three young maids. 

These girls were dressed in something approaching a traditional maid's uniform, but with an anime twist. They wore black skirts and waistcoats, with white shirts and aprons. The frilly extents of the skirts were just about decent, ending a good few inches above where the long black socks started. 

Upon sitting down, we were presented with the rules of conduct. You were not allowed to touch the maids or ask for their address or phone number. Photographs were strictly forbidden. There was an initial cover charge for the first hour and then an added amount for each extra half hour you stayed. You were also expected to buy a drink. In total, I spent 1400 yen (~ £11 or $17) for an hour and a half, which was cheap for a maid cafe and frankly totally worth it.

When I initially sat down, however, I was perplexed. Sure, the girls were attractive and looked like they stepped off the pages of a manga, but doesn't the novelty of that wear off after the first five minutes? Possibly the answer was 'no' for a particular brand of lonely salary man, but maid cafes were popular throughout Japan. What was the attraction?

What I didn't appreciate was the level of interaction you had with the maids. They chat continually to the customers, drifting up and down the bar as if it were the stage of an interactive theatre. We only bought one drink each during the 90 minutes we were there and the rest of the time chatted with the girls and each other. 

As well as bringing you a beverage, you can also ask your maid for a picture. One of the maids had a collection of photographs of herself in different anime-related costumes that you could buy for a few extra hundred yen and all of the maids would draw you a picture on a coaster. When I told my maid I like the anime show, Prince of Tennis, she drew me a picture of the progenitor. 

Of course, the main skill in being a hostess is saying what the customer wants to hear. In my case, this was clearly "Can I draw you a picture from the anime you are obsessed with?" but for others it was more about the pretence of the relationship with the maids. 

This is probably because they have never watched Prince of Tennis. 

Seated next to us at the bar were a couple of young men. As they left, one told a maid that he had no friends. She replied that she did not either and would be delighted to be his friend. He went away happy, but it was really a business transaction; he would keep paying to come to the cafe and she would make sure to be pleased to see him when he returned. 

My companions --having translated this conversation for me-- were highly dismissive.

"The ones that come with people are weak," one of them informed me bluntly. "They want to come alone but they dare not, so they bring someone."

Well then. I was just enjoying the atmosphere but apparently my friends were all about judging all the other customers.

Still, I had the temptation to return for quite a different reason; feeling obliged talk to each customer and not speaking a word of English makes the poor girls excellent subjects to practise my terrible Japanese. 

Wish upon a star

I had lost my student.

This was unfortunate, since I wanted to blame him for our group's analysis computer suddenly and mysteriously dying. 

Walking into the last office at the end of the hallway, I found my other student dutifully working. (This was quite impressive since I'm fairly sure each and every time my supervisor crept up on me, I was reading the BBC news). Stopping this productivity mid-flow, I asked if he knew the location of his counterpart.

"He saw a star last night," came the explanation.

… and so …? Left the field of astrophysics in shock? Was kidnapped by aliens? Made a wish for a real job and is even now on a flight to Tokyo? 

My present student made a whooshing motion with one arm. "He saw a…. comet?" 

He'd been crushed by a falling meteor. That would definitely make a fairly original excuse. 

Then a more likely explanation occurred to me. "Oh, he was watching a meteor shower; shooting stars?" 

"Yes," my student nodded as I filled in the correct English term. "All night."

Aha!

"So… why isn't he in?"

I'm a bad ass supervisor. 

Dirty experimentalists

"Look." I stood at the boundary between two areas in the Faculty of Science. In front of me was the building's foyer with rooms leading off for the office staff and mail room. Behind me was the ground floor of one of the adjoining twin towers; an 11 storied building containing physics and chemistry laboratories. My own office was on floor 9.

The foyer area was sparkling clean; gleaming floor tiles in a peachy marbled design reflected the attractive ceiling lamps and white washed walls. A central stained glass window depicting symbols of Hokkaido University splashed coloured patches of light across a collection of tables and chairs.

In the tower, a bulb in the dimly lit corridor crackled and went out.

"Why don't they clean past here?" I asked. "We get grimy grey flooring with foot deep grit embedded in each corner and there is clearly the ability to keep it nice!"

"It's because there are experimentalists here." I was told. "It's not worth it."

Dirty experimental scientists.

I knew it.

Theory needs a new building.  

Drowning sorrows

"わすれてもいいですか。"

I gestured at the cluster of delicate tables over to one side of the cake shop. The woman behind the counter blinked at me, looking slightly surprised, before giving her consent. Clearly --I decided confidently-- she was amazed at hearing a complete sentence in Japanese from the mouth of a foreigner. 

That was one interpretation.

A second conclusion could be formed by noting that switching the first two characters in the verb above would result in: 

すわってもいいですか。 
May I sit down?

compared to what was actually said, which was:

わすれてもいいですか。 
May I forget?

However, I do not believe in admitting to such mistakes. Therefore, I claim "May I forget?" was EXACTLY what I meant and it was merely a polite way of ordered enough sake to knock me under the table. 

Perhaps this was why it was a surprising request in a cake shop. Still, I was not fussy:

Enough sugar to induce a coma would have been equally acceptable.

After all, it had been a tough week. If it was not a deliberate statement then it was most certainly a Freudian slip. 

BRING ON OBLIVION. 

… hello

It was 3 pm on a Sunday afternoon when I finished the last part of my class preparation for the following day. Looking at the clock, I felt almost irrepressibly excited; I had finished early enough to go grocery shopping AND clean the bathroom!

… it was shortly after this that I realised I was failing at life. 

Arguably, the cat-biscuits-in-the-rice-cooker incident was an earlier indication but I've never been one for dwelling on events. 

I was planning to write long, insightful posts about my experiences as a first year faculty member. They were to be filled with thought provoking statements about the balance between research projects and teaching commitments; the rewards and difficulties, the pain and the pleasure. It would undoubtedly be nominated for a Nobel Prize and become a white paper for future developments in higher educational resources. 

... if only it were possible to move a touch further away from the odor of RAW HYSTERICAL PANIC that filled my mind each time I attempted to rationalise my situation into coherent thoughts. 

Guys. It comes down to this:

Teaching.

Is.

Hard.

Who knew? Well… teachers. But who believed them? No one. 

I am now half-way through the year (Japan is a half-year out of sink with the West, so I've completed one semester and taught one course and still have a second semester and a second course to go) and have been sent a cheerful reminder that my first tenure-track assessment will be next month. 

Picture the gateway into Mordor.

ONE DOES NOT SIMPLY WALK INTO MORDOR.

Because one must teach a class. Then, the gateway is behind you, that small box in the top left corner of the form is ticked and the rest of the assessment will be on the WORLD CLASS RESEARCH YOU'VE SURELY DONE TO FIND THE ONE RING TO RULE THEM ALL.

Frankly, I'm holding out hopes for big marks allocated for keeping on top of things to the extent of not posing a significant health risk to the rest of the department.  

The saving grace is that I WAS in fact told life was gonna be this way. I was assured that first year faculty was tough but --unless you had the grievous misfortune of teaching a different class the following year-- the second year was significantly better and you might actually get to do research. Or shower. I'm hoping this means my review committee have seriously low expectations. 

Meanwhile I have six teaching-free weeks. I'm thinking 6 research papers. Or 60. Aim for the stars! Because if you fall short… I'll be doomed because I'm an astrophysicist. Darn. 

Goodbye sanity

Friday night I came home about 10 pm. It was late, but I was hungry and keen to relax for a bit before going to bed. I put the rice cooker on and then stepped out to the nearby convenience store to pick up some juice, which I'd run out of the night before. Convenience stores in Japan are 24 hours which is nothing short of wonderful for late-night working researchers. 

I came back to a terrible smell.

My first thought was that I'd turned the stove on and left a tee-towel or plastic container resting on the heated ceramic surface. My second thought was that the rice cooker had exploded. The third was that the cat had exploded. 

None of the above proved to the true. The stove was turned off, the rice cooker seemed to be bubbling normally and the cat appeared fine, as did her litter box. 

I sniffed.

Everything.

I stuck my nose down the sink, in the rubbish bins, behind the sofa, in the fish tank and in the fridge.

Nothing.

Admittedly, for something of that ilk to have kicked up such a stink while I was at the shops, some crazy mutant bacteria would have had to be at work. However, after eight months living in Japan, nothing really surprised me anymore. 

The only point I could conclude was that the stench was coming from the kitchen. Perhaps my downstairs neighbours were trying to determine which of their waste was 'burnable garbage' in the most obvious fashion. I opened the balcony doors and tried to breath through my mouth until the rice cooker finished. 

It was only then that I discovered the source of the smell.

I'd put cat biscuits in the rice cooker.

I'd love to tell you there was a typo in the above sentence, but there is not. I had put cat biscuits in the rice cooker. 

For the record, Hill's pet science diet should not be cooked in a rice cooker. What is more, I'm prepared to postulate that this would apply to any heating device. I can confirm categorically that it was not a good choice to put with the sea food stir fry I was planning.

I stared at the vomit-coloured lumpy mess and realized there was only one possible conclusion.

Teaching has sent me insane.

It's sad, people. But it's true. 

Fishes

Meet Bonita and Manchas. 'Bonita' means 'pretty' in Spanish and 'manchas' means 'spots'. Manchas is the fish with black… yes, you guessed it. 

How did I end up with two goldfish with Spanish names?

Well, I'd acquired them from a Chinese friend in my Japanese class. Obviously. 

Finding herself leaving Japan in the switch from postdoc to faculty, my friend had been unsure what to do with her fish. Taking a cat and dog on an aeroplane was one thing but…. had people even written import regulations for fish? Live ones?

Despite the obvious problem (pictured in the lower pane above), I had volunteered for adoption services. Regardless of my best efforts, I had failed to lure birds to my ninth floor apartment and thought that the fish might provide something in the way of feline entertainment. How long this would last depended partially on the strength of the tank lid.

My friend came over with the tank and water filter, I watched a youtube video on how to clean a fish tank and rested a book on European history on the lid. The lid promptly buckled. I swapped the book for one on American history. 

This was a few weeks ago and I still have two fish. This means that:

(a) my cat has not eaten them.

(b) I narrowly avoided killing them through the temptation to dump them in a tea pot of tap water while I cleaned the tank. It's a good job I tweet my important intentions. 

Tallis hangs out by the tank from time to time during the day. She's never attempted to remove the lid, either because the watery contents filled her with horror or because I placed a large stuffed cow on top of the history book. She does occasionally bat the tank with one paw when she feels there isn't enough action. The fish are unmoved. Often literally.

The fish themselves are surprisingly interactive. I never actually thought fish acknowledged (in a distinguishable manner) the world outside their tank. Once the glass was clean, I experimentally placed a photograph of the galaxy by one wall. It was an attempt at a Total Perspective Vortex but it apparently just confirmed was great fish they really were.

Each morning when I appear, the fish come to the front of the tank and glare at me. You wouldn't think fish were capable of demanding breakfast, but apparently there is no limit to what can bully in my household.

I am going to take my revenge by eating my seafood dinner on the sofa beside their tank. 

Bugs & birds

I stood in my new office and looked around. Everything was big. The room was big, the white board was big, the bookcases (and their number) were big, my desk was big and my desktop computer was big. 

Then there was me in the middle wearing jeans and a baggy 'grape Fanta' sweater. Ho hum.

Until last week I had been sharing an office. While slightly unusual for a faculty member, I had not minded the situation. My office mate was friendly, spoke great English and --perhaps more to the point-- was never there. He was involved in the design and construction of astronomical instruments and spent most of his time at various observing sites preparing his mechanical off-spring for their deployment. 

Unless observational astronomers are vastly different from their theoretical counterparts, I could see why getting a new instrument to the stage it could be safely left was a prolonged process. 

The previous owner of this office had retired. In academia speak, this meant he had accumulated the addition of 'emeritus' to his professor title and moved to a different building. As I examined what had been left in the drawers and cabinets, I wondered if retirement happened through choice or was something that was foisted upon you once your office contained a critical number of floppy disks. By the time it is my turn, that unit of measurement will probably be USB thumb drives. 

In addition to the large box of floppies, I discovered a collection of astrophysics books in Japanese and a variety of small magnets of the type used to pin cards and notes to metal surfaces. I picked one up and attached a card to my white board. There. Much more homely. 

Most of these magnets were a standard round shape in a solid colour such as blue or red. However, two were shaped as pink hearts and four were miniature lady birds. I raised an eyebrow. 

When a couple of students rolled into my office, I pointed out these surprisingly aesthetic additions. The ladybirds were promptly stacked on top of each other and attached, pointing outwards, to my board. It looked like an erect org--- Well, never mind. 

"In Japanese, we say 'tentoumushi'. 'Mushi' means 'bug'." I was told. "What are they in English?"

"Ladybirds," I supplied. "In UK English, 'Ladybird' and in US English 'Ladybug'."

"Bird?" came the surprised retort. "But they are not birds, they are bugs!"

I opened my mouth and then closed it. Then I scratched my head and examined the magnets. "Look, " I said at last. "It doesn't happen often, but sometimes the Americans get it right."

"And why lady? They are not ladies!"

I scowled. "Because ladies are pretty and delicate unlike boys."

Sometimes, even professors need to resort to school-yard insults. 

Do the iRobot

"MEEEOOOOOOOWWWWWWWW."

I looked down at my feet in time to see my cat's teeth almost pop out of her jaw through her impassioned screech. I knew the sources of her distress:

We were currently experiencing a magnitude 6.0 earthquake.

And she was being pursued by a robotic vacuum cleaner. 

"Have you seen that thing? Is it a robotic cat? Why does it bump into walls? LOOK! ITS BUMPING HAS MADE THE WHOLE BUILDING ROCK! HOW COULD YOU HAVE LET IT IN HERE?"

Up until that evening, I had been using a cordless stick vacuum cleaner I had bought second hand. That particular device had many good points; it was light and easy to maneuver, it didn't take up much space in my apartment and it had a built-in dust buster than was great for cleaning up cat litter. What is truly failed on was carpet.

The study area of my apartment is almost entirely covered by a thick rug I bought from Ikea in Canada. This is the location where Tallis uses her scratch pad and rolls around in a box filled with cat nip. It is also where I normally eat dinner while watching an episode of 'Naruto'. The stick vacuum can take this area from 'major biohazard' to 'probably won't kill you if you leave quickly'. I can't honestly say I've ever found this totally satisfactory, although there are some weeks where the thought I might not make it through the month acts as a ray of hope. 

Buying a new vacuum cleaner was therefore on my list. However, the choice wasn't obvious since the machine had to be able to clear a carpet but not be so bulky that storing would be a problem. After deep consideration of many models, I went for the most logical compromise:

Screw the practicalities and get something amusing. 

An amazon review then made the choice of a Roomba iRobot cleaner obvious: "Smart technology, no work for me, drives the dog nuts - what's not to like?!" 

It sounded perfect. 

I confess, I was skeptical as to its real cleaning powers. What I actually required (apart from a good laugh at my cat's expense) was a machine with better suction than my stick vacuum. It seemed to me that the amount of oomph you could get from a Roomba's spinny centripetal motion was never going to rival a large upright cylinder with room for all kinds of exciting upward air currents. 

Yet, amazingly enough, it does the job. 

OK, its cleaning random walk is sometimes a little too random. Rather like me, it needs to be boxed into an area for maximum efficiency to ensure it doesn't wander off into the kitchen and leave patches unfinished. Sometimes it loses the location of its docking station. Sometimes this is because I accidentally locked it in the bedroom. Once it found its way under a chair but then couldn't escape. It kept devotedly cleaning the same purple square of carpet until I came and rescued it. 

It is a little too loud for comfortable background noise. Ideally, I'd turn it on and then leave the apartment but I'm reluctant to do this until I'm certain it won't have a show down with the cat.  

Its instruction manual is in English which I feel disproportionately grateful for after the difficulty with buying a microwave. I have made full use of this good fortune by storing the manuals safely on my bookcase and then just hitting the vacuum's large central button labelled 'start'. Ideally, I'd move onto the more advanced options, but it's hard to summon up the necessary effort when you can get so much for so little.

Now my carpet is clean and the cat is exhausted. It's really one big win all round. 

In other news, please excuse my lack of updates… teaching is eating me in one mega goat gulp. 

The world in pink

I was trudging through the rain back to my apartment when I saw it. 

A lone tree between the supermarket and the car park.

A lone tree covered with blossom.

The sakura cherry blossom had finally reached Sapporo.

Down in Tokyo (where blossom festivities had finished a month ago), the sakura is preceded by several weeks by the plum blossom. Here in Sapporo, where the snows only stop for about 20 minutes, the trees have to get a move on and both plum and cherry blossoms appear together in a riot of spring pinks and whites. Since these tender tree flowers last only a precious couple of weeks, I took off to Sapporo's main shrine in Maruyama Park as soon as the rains shows signs of abating.

As did the rest of Sapporo.

Literally Every Single Person. It was a miracle the subways were even running.

It had rained solidly from Thursday to Saturday, but on the last Sunday of Golden Week (so named for its multiple national holidays), the sun peaked out between the showers. I reached the park to find the lower ground had become the land of a million BBQs while the upper blossom grove swarmed with people and cameras. Mainly cameras.

If one were to paint the scene, a grey sandwich for the threatening sky and photographic equipment with a thick pink and white jam splurge in the middle would capture the moment. It was beautiful and the atmosphere of excitement was contagious. 

So contagious that I bought a giant squid on a stick and half a sweet potato from a nearby stand. 

The arrival of the sakura is a major event in the Japanese calendar. Weather forecasters plot the advance of the cherry blossom as it moves across the country and everyone gets ready to eat, drink and be merry. It's like Christmas, only outdoors. I strongly suspect every Japanese family photo album is 3/4 full of identical close-up pictures of the tiny pink and white flowers. 

Just as I sat down with my sea creature and spud lunch, the skies opened in a downpour. People ran for cover and started moving the picnic tables into the shelter of the food stands. Except they couldn't move the one I was sitting at since I hadn't budged. I am British after all.

One of the women working at the food stalls came up to where I was nonchalantly seated and tucked the spare chairs underneath the plastic table. "Are you OK?" she asked me.

Are you dying? Is that why you haven't moved? Don't you know if you DON'T MOVE OUT THE RAIN YOU WILL DIE?

I peeked out of her from underneath the hood of my rain jacket. "I'm good!" I told her with a squiddy grin.

She looked astounded. 

I finished my grilled squid. Typically, the rain then stopped. It really was just like being back at home.

Towing the line

I approached the woman behind the counter at the 'Tokyo Hands' department store and put my purchases on the counter. I had done this exact same action the day before. Same time, same store, same goods. I hoped very much it was not the same shop assistant. Does it count as deja vu when you really have done it before? 

One of the first adjectives I learned in my Japanese class was 'benri' meaning 'convenient'. At the time, it struck me as an odd word to have come up so early (how many times do you use the word 'convenient'?) but that was before I understood more about Japanese culture. 

The ideal Japanese life is perfectly described as benri and nowhere is this more apparent than inside a Japanese apartment. While small, apartments in Japan are designed extremely efficiently with every inch constructed with a specific activity in mind. If you are able to curb your rebellious streak, it is indeed a very convenient lifestyle. The built-in cupboard by the door is for shoes (a fact that escaped me until my movers tried to put my foot wear in there when they unpacked), the one above the washing machine perfectly fits a bottle of detergent and not much else. Flushing the toilet runs water into an integrated wash basin as it fills the tank and any Japanese homeowner believes the kitchen cupboards should be filled in a very particular manner. The balcony, meanwhile, is a place to hang out clothes to dry. 

The presence of a small balcony is a common feature in Japanese apartments. While --with a bit of a squeeze-- you could put a chair and small table out there, it is obviously not what the architect had in mind. The barrier that stops you plummeting to your doom is normally a concrete wall high enough to block any view a seated martini drinker might enjoy. It also boasts two built in racks designed to support a pole on which to hang washing. 

It is normal for each apartment in Japan to have its own washing machine, but not its own tumble drier. Potentially, you could buy a two-in-one device (there is no space for a separate machine, the apartment design completely forbids you buying one) but most people hang their laundry outside during the warmer days. In Sapporo, this actually means a few scant months when the place isn't filled with snow, which explains why this was a new venture for me. 

'Tokyo Hands' offered a range of sizes for washing poles and, while I had measured the length I required, I wasn't sure which pole would be best. This goes someway to explaining why I ended up buying two poles on subsequent days; the first pole was a success so I went back to buy a second. I also hadn't bought enough pegs, which explains the second repetitive purchase. 

I attempted to break this strange real deja vu sensation by going up two floors, rather than one, to use the bathroom after I'd paid. This plan was flawed by the men's and women's restrooms alternating floors. I resigned myself to a predictable afternoon. 

It must be said that drying clothes outside basically rocks. Of course, I had done this many times at my parents' house but since then I had either not had an outdoors area, or lacked a fail-safe way of erecting a make-shift line. Now, however, I could put my wet clothing neatly out of the way on my balcony, go about my day and when I returned it would be all air dried and wonderful. 

…. I was just congratulating myself on my purchases when it started to rain. You would think my memories of the UK would remind me of this obvious drawback. Since I had hung items out on my single washing pole, I expected to return to find a soggy mess. Instead, I discovered the balcony above had protected them from the light shower and they were perfectly dry. How…. convenient.  

Close encounters

There is only one elevator serving the eleven floors in the physics department. This makes any trip from my 9th floor office to the Great Outdoors one to be considered carefully, since the wait time on the return journey can turn even the quickest trip to buy a soda into a day's expedition. 

On Wednesday, I had gone outside for two reasons: the first was that I was hungry and my computer monitor was starting to look like a large slab of extra dark Lindt chocolate. The second was that it was a beautiful afternoon and the rest of the week was forecast for nothing but rain. 

The rest of the week was also a national holiday. That, people, is what we call UNFAIR.

On my return, I chewed on the straw of my grapefruit juice and waited for the elevator to make its round-robin way to the first floor. I was just regretting not purchasing more food (maybe dinner and tomorrow's breakfast) when the doors slid open to reveal a young man standing in the centre of the elevator. His phone was flipped open but rather than looking at the screen, he was staring at a spot on the floor just in front of my feet. 

He did not move.

I hesitated. Clearly, there were two possibilities for what was going on here:

Either the elevator had become a stasis chamber or its occupant was a cyborg.

I almost didn't step inside. Then I realised that my hesitation might mean the cyborg knew his cover had been blown. No doubt he had been programmed to open his phone while updating, thinking this the ideal cover in a country where everyone is permanently glued to their handsets. YOU GOT TO LOOK AT THE SCREEN, MORON CYBORG. Yet another classic example of why computers won't take over the world. For others, see my published research. 

However, revealing I had discovered his ploy would undoubtedly result in alien abduction and probing and memory reassembling that would wipe my preparations for my next class and the whole thing would be in Japanese, so I wouldn't understand and therefore couldn't even blog about it!

Besides, I was meeting representatives from a nearby high school at 5:30 and an abduction was bound to over-run.

I stepped into the elevator. Time appeared to run normally. I flipped open my phone and tried to blend in. This was pointless since I had no signal while we moved. SEE HOW DUMB YOUR SCHEME IS, CYBORG BOY? After three floors, the cyborg looked up, then down again. This time, his eyes found his phone screen. 

I escaped on level 9. The cyborg continued going to level 11. Particle physics is probably history.