Sake and pig ears

I haved morphed. Or evolved. Or devolved. Or mutated. I had some pig ear, Kirin beer and sake at dinner tonight. My brother would be so proud of my beer consumption here! If he believed me. Ha. The sake wasn't too bad either... 16% alcohol, no wonder the glasses are small. We all went out for dinner after Dr. Kidokoro and Dr. Kuromi presented their recent research. We fried our brains for two hours trying to figure out where all the calcium channels are in reference to the active zones, what the heck the T-bar is, and of course, what is the reserve pool. Dr. Kuromi thinks about things on level 9, others in the lab are maybe on levels 6-8, and I'm trying to break 4. The techniques he uses to come up with his ideas are so interesting and puzzling, drug combinations and FM-dye combinations galore and I start to wonder if I should break my head over these maggots or find a more obvious way to help the human race. I couldn't find the reserve pool today. I should have seen it for sure with the 0.2 mM calcium/veratridine treatment, but just as I was finishing staining Atsuko ran in and asked why I wasn't at Dr. Kidokoro's presentation. Hmmm, didn't know about it! Ha. This happened in Yokohama as well, when everyone discussed at dinner how they would probably be heading back to Maebashi by noon, therefore I surprised them royally back at the hotel when I mentioned that I hoped I would get a chance to meet Timothy Ryan after his 4pm talk! I speak only the English, or as Brie says, I speak only the English not so well. Hehe. I can say, "I have a problem, I cannot see fluorescence" in Japanese, and that is probably enough Japanese for my purposes this summer! I'm not exactly sure about the translation for problem. I hope it doesn't mean mental problem or something like that.

Well it is amazingly hot in this laboratory right now or perhaps the sake is roasting me from the inside. Watashi no ie ni ikimasu. I will go to my house. How do you say messy house? Ahh. Watashi no kitanai ie ni ikimasu. I still haven't unpacked. I think I will try to climb Mt. Fuji this weekend. I would be good to run from the larvae for a day. I forgot to mention that Dr. Jeckyl died and his wife ate him. Only his head was left. I found a nice cockroach replacement in the bathroom sink at home, but considering the demise of my last cockroach I thought he/she would fare better outside. My fish are doing well though, Absalom is growing a nice new tail and his wife has stopped acting like a male and changed to a beautiful reddish-purple color. I'm interested to find out who shows up in my dreams tonight. Tuesday night Jim Bamburg appeared as director of the Romeo and Juliet play I was acting in and couldn't remember my lines, and last night Noreen Reist was teaching me how to pronounce words. It could potentially be very interesting. Ueno-san told me about the 808 Shinto gods that meet every year and discuss things, so I've been thinking about old turtles with hair on their tails and white foxes with 9 tails that eat sasadango. Japan is unendingly interesting, I will miss it when I go home!