Of mites and men

I don't have a lot to say about men, other than my very strange dream that I married one that worked at a gas station just because he said "Hello there!" in English... but mites! I mean MITES! I was picking out some larvae to electrocute yesterday, under the scope as that is the Kuromi way, and by george if the embryos didn't have legs and were crawling around. Upon closer inspection of the little white blobs, I saw at last the mites I looked for to no avail in the Reist lab. Evil white mite creatures zipping all over the place. It was a new discovery for everyone, and the problem has been confined to one incubator in a room separate from the stocks room. Annihilation procedures have begun. I wonder if Noreen will let me back in the lab when I get home or if I will have to shave off all of my hair and marinate in bleach for two weeks before I can go back to work.

I can do ephys in Japan and I am glad. My electrophysiological self-esteem was very low when I left the Reist lab, but I am again inclined to blame electrodes for most of my problems. It's fun to be here and see the checklist people go through when they are having ephys problems. The order of go is a little different then ours back home, and somehow before the end of time I am sure I will discover the hidden truths of electrophysiology. I do not believe in the rubber chicken. That said, I do have a Yoda clip on the rig here. I got it with a diet Pepsi, and now have to drink diet Pepsi all summer until I collect them all. I don't like diet Pepsi, I wish the deal came with Coke.
Star Wars episode II was on last night and I caught the last half. It really is a bad movie with extremely bad acting. It's easier to notice when everyone is speaking Japanese and you pay attention to the facial expressions.

I cleaned my apartment today, top to bottom. It was pretty gross, who knows when it last had a good cleaning. I didn't find a wife for my cockroach, and now it is too late. He died of a broken heart. My beetles are hard at work this weekend though, I soaked their log in water and now Heidi is digging holes like a mad woman. It's inspiring to watch, she's relentless! Maybe I will have a million beetles before I leave and can contribute to environmental protection efforts in Japan. According to some old news articles, it seems that beetle smuggling is a problem here - foreign ones coming in and native ones going out.

I need to do some grocery shopping. I was down to rice today so had to try cooking it, and it turned out horribly slimey. This is indeed a good time in my life to become a better cook, but difficult when I can't read the instructions. I mixed it in with some pudding and now have invented Japanese rice pudding which is probably equally gross.

Journal club last night was a great Current Biology paper about Drosophila spectrin. I like the work ethic here! It's hard core all week, there are at least 2 postdocs and 2 graduate students who work 10am until about midnight every night. I have no idea when Dr. Yanagawa sleeps. Maybe in his office. It feels kind of like boot camp -- I have no car, no T.V. (at least that is any use to watch unless Star Wars happens to be on), no animals, no movies, no friends to call on the phone... hehe. I'm 16 and grounded again. I'm glad I brought a few books, that was advice well given by previous program participants. I bought a great Japanese phrase book/dictionary for learning some more Japanese. I can say useful things like "even a monkey can fall from a tree." Hehe.

I'm going to go commune with Yoda on the rig. It's fun here, the potentials always jump straight to -65. Those of you tortured by rig demons know what I mean when I say that is REALLY fun to watch!

Janel