Time for an Update… or two… or three.

The last few days…

Friday 12th August 2011:

Friday was pretty damn okay. I woke up nice and early, headed onto campus, and finished writing up my project report. Yes – finished! I have one complete draft. Score.

All the practical work is now complete and so I’m done with labs. I’m pretty sad about this actually, because I really enjoy being in the lab – but at least it means that everything is finally coming together!

I now really need to start working on my presentation. It will take place at 4pm on Tuesday and so I need to draft up some slides and begin practicing ASAP. Unfortunately, I’ve been pretty ill for the last few days though, so that’s not progressing with quite the haste I would have liked! More on that later.

So… Friday… Friday (Gotta get down on Friday)… I sat at my desk for effectively the entire working day. Anything interesting happen during this? Not a lot. I had a few emails… Oh, and Toshi came back from his internship for the last few weeks so was talking to me and Davis for a while. Other than that 20 minutes of socialising, I did nothing to warrant blogging about, haha.

I left at around 4pm to go to Anna and Kyle’s UTRIP presentations. They were really interesting, and I enjoyed it a lot. After that, we had a brief beer party with the Astronomy department. They’re cool guys. Yoshi was there (from the Onsen) so it was nice to see him again. We all sat around chatting and drinking (apple juice, in my case), and then left after about 2 hours. Anna, Kyle, Anet and I then went out for dinner. We had Okonomiyaki again. It wasn’t as nice as the one I had with Maria, but I still enjoyed it a lot! There were 8 of us and so we spread out over 2 tables. I was with the UTRIPpers, and the other table was TODAI students.

After the okonomiyaki (and perhaps a few too many Highballs), we headed back to Hakozaki. Kyle stayed with the TODAI guys and I think they went out. I probably should have stayed too because I ended up spending the evening lay in bed watching “Breaking Bad” on my laptop. You know… ’cause I’m cool like that?

So… When I said Friday was ‘pretty damn okay’. I meant it. It wasn’t a bad day by a longshot, but relatively little happened. I feel like the bustle and business of the early UTRIP days have passed now. Too many people have gone home. The end is nigh.

Saturday 13th August 2011:

I will make this brief. On Saturday, I did buggar all (Excuse the unnecessariness).

Why? I felt ill.

Why? I’ve woken up for the past 3 days in cold sweats. I’ve spent most of my waking hours feeling nauseous. I have no energy. I feel completely and utterly drained.

Why? You tell me.

As much as I love Tokyo… It is knacking my immune system.

So yes. Saturday I spent in bed. Apart from a brief walk to 7-eleven to pick up some lunch, I didn’t leave my room.

It makes me feel terrible that my last Saturday in Tokyo was spent this way, but I felt physically incapable of anything else. I think I had (wo)man flu.

In the evening, I heard drums and music outside, so I went to my balcony to have a look. There was a festival going on in the park below. It looked pretty cool actually: Lots of people dancing around in yukatas. I was going to go check it out, but was getting dizzy when I stood up.

I could have perhaps worked on my presentation during the day, but I was just too exhausted. I could have blogged, but no.

Failofaday.com

Sunday 14th August 2011:

Today I was out of bed! Woohoo!

Albeit, at around 1pm. I was still in sickness-recovery-mode until then.

I met up with Maria and Hiroaki today. They had rented a car to take me around Tokyo. So far I’ve travelled everywhere (with the exception of the excursions to Kamakura and Fuji-san) via metro/train and so it was awesome to be able to see some of the city above ground for once!

We were originally planning on meeting up at 11:00, but because of unforseen (and unblogged) purposes we had to postpone. It was a shame, because we kind of lost half of the day, but never mind. We still had an awesome time.

After a brief drive around, we decided to go to the Shinagawa Aquarium. We had to queue for about 45 minutes just to get a parking space in the end, but it was worth it! It was a lot of fun, and really nice to get out of the insane August heat for a while. As we were going around the tanks looking at all the fish (etc), Hiroaki was telling me the Japanese names of them all and I was telling him the English.

I took a lot of photos, but you were not allowed to use the flash in the aquarium and so they are all too blurry to use on here 😦 Massive technology fail.

My favourite was the turtle. It was enormous! So cool! (Wow. I sound like a child, not a twenty-something research intern. Woops)

We went outside for a while and had some Kakigori while we waited for the dolphin show. It was so hot today (34 degrees Celcius) so it was nice to have something cool. I managed to screw mine up though by putting way too much syrup on, and so it tasted like I was drinking hot, gooey lemonade rather than actual kakigori. Yet another of today’s many fails.

I still felt horribly ill today. In fact, much worse than yesterday. I really didn’t want to miss out on spending the day with Maria though so I fought through it. I felt like I was going to actually be sick for most of the day. I was probably great company.

We watched the dolphins perform, and it was damn impressive! I really enjoyed this bit, but found the heat outside pretty difficult to cope with. After the dolphins, we headed back to the car because Maria was worried about me in the heat and thought I should sit down somewhere with air con. i.e. the car.

We then headed to dinner. We were a little early, so when we got to the block that the restaurant was in, we had a look in a bookshop for a while. The books in Japan are beautiful. I really wish that I could read them, and then I could justify buying one to take home. Unfortunately, it would just sit on my bookshelf unread, and as a book geek, that’s not something I can deal with.

We then headed to the restaurant itself. It was a really nice tempura place. I ordered something off the set menu because it was easier than ordering each piece individually, and Maria and Hiroaki were doing the same. The food was beautiful. I had various types of vegetable tempura – my favourite was the shitake one – plus gohan, miso shiru and daikon (not a fan). I felt so greasy and fat afterwards though haha – I’ve never eaten so much fried stuff in my life! So… what do I do then? Order icecream tempura for dessert – Yes – It exists! It’s bloody good too!

After eating an excessive amount of amazing tempura, we went back to the car, and Hiroaki drove me back to my apartment. They couldn’t come in because we got lost a few times and the closest we got to the apartment was a one way street, with no available parking. I said goodbye to the two of them (although I’ll see Maria next week when she comes back to England) and walked the remaining way back to the apartment.

When I got back, I could hear the music from the festival again, and since I didn’t go last night I decided to check it out. I headed to the park (and nearly trod on a massive cockroach on the way *shudders*) to take a peek. It was awesome actually. There must have been about 100 people stood in a big circle, all wearing yukatas, and dancing to the beat of a drum and some traditional music. I loved it! I didn’t stay too long though, because it looked like they were trying to get people to join in the dancing. Considering that, a) I’m a terrible dancer; b) I’ve spent the last few days feeling like I’m on the verge of vomitting; and c) I just ate a massive serving of tempura… I decided to go back before I attracted enough attention.

So now I’m in my room, blogging, considering preparing my presentation, and also considering getting a very early night.

Only time will tell…

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It’s Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday…

… And so we did.

But first, what happened during the day time?

 

Friday 5th August 2011:

I woke up after the worst night’s sleep ever (as ranted about on my blog at the time), and then went onto campus. The presentations were due to begin at 10.30am, so I arrived for around 10.05. I went through what I was going to say at my desk again, and then we were called over.

Davis went first. His presentation was on the application of his area of work to structural biology, and how that ties in with systems biology. I personally didn’t like his presentation very much as areas of it were somewhat condescending (for example, a beginner’s introduction to glycolysis, complete with a few glaring inaccuracies) and the whole thing overran massively. He spoke for approximately half an hour, and despite being asked by Kuroda-sensee at one point how many slides he had left, he continued to proceed at a similar pace. I found this quite disrespectful to the schedules of the other lab members, and completely unnecessary since as it was his idea to do the presentations in the first place, he had had plenty of time to prepare it better so as it wouldn’t overrun. He later blamed it on his fluency in English, although the problem was much more to do with content than expression.

But never mind. After that, I did my presentation. I worry that it was very boring, as (as I mentioned before) I haven’t done any research of my own and so I just had to run through my brief background and mention my future dissertation plan. Because we were short on time after Davis’ presentation, I ran through mine much faster than I had prepared, and cut our several large chunks of content. I finished the presentation in around 6 minutes, I think. Perhaps this made me look rushed and unorganised (I hope not!), but my priority became ‘don’t hold up your labmates’ rather than ‘make yourself look good’. I was rather uncomfortable, but I think I got through it okay.

After the presentations were finished, it was time for lunch. I went to the second refectory and met up with some UTRIPpers for a little while. It was Rachel’s last lunch on campus, and so we were all talking about how fast it’s gone and how none of us really feel ready for it to end. It was a lot of fun, and it was nice to catch up with people. I feel like I haven’t seen them a much as I’d have liked recently because everyone is so tied down with work.

I went back to the lab to start the afternoon practical work. At 1pm, we began. I was both excited and nervous, because the experiment was now differing from the initial, and my own protocol was becoming important. It was the first time that I’d been able to plan my own project from scratch and work it through without the strict guidance and regulations of the University of York staff. Fun stuff!

First I had to prepare the clean bench – I’ve started really enjoying this step because it’s a little bit OCD and very me. I then make my EGF dilutions. I followed my calculations precisely, and had the samples lined up in my ice bucket within no time. Then the exciting bit happened – performing the stimulations.

I had my timing protocol attached to the cabinet above my head so that I could check it easily as I went along. I had planned it so that there would be at least 2 minute intervals between each step. A good move, I believe, as it meant that the procedure was much less stressful than it could have been.

Good timing was essential, and the repetitive mechanical processes started to seem like a well orchestrated, well synchronised dance. Science dance. Wow… I’m such a geek.

The stimulation was separated into two parts, which I inventively named “Experiment 1” and “Experiment 2”. After I had finished Experiment 1, which took exactly 61 minutes, I took a short 5 minute break before proceeding to the next one. It was weirdly relaxing and the time flew so fast.

I refrigerated all of my samples, and then went to buy a Mountain Dew. Davis had another 35 minutes to complete, and so I enjoyed a rest before the next step. I also took my antihistamine tablets and slathered my legs in steroid cream, because I’d got more new bites. Ouch!

The next step involved retrieving the proteins from the freshly-lysed cell samples. The best way of doing this was to simply extract all of the liquid from the plates. Easier said than done when the mixture is rather viscous. We were shown the best way of extracting it, by strong mixing, addition of further buffer, and subsequent pipetting. This step took much longer than it did in our initial experiments because of the added washing step, but hopefully our data will benefit as a result of it.

The final step of the day was making the gel for the Western blot. The ratio of ‘ingredients’ differed somewhat from the first time because it was too solid to add the samples effectively. I was a bit concerned about it solidifying because of this, but I think it worked out okay.

I poured my gel, cleaned the bench, and then left the lab by around half 6. Not bad, considering we’d been told it would be a late one!

I really enjoyed the day in the lab – it felt like the most successful and productive day so far, despite the awkwardness of the self-centred presentation. Haha.

When I got to the lounge, I was told by Kubota-sensee that the office would be closed on Monday and Tuesday and so I needed an electronic key card to get into the building. Kaki was asked to show me how it worked, so he walked me to the entrance and showed me. It was pretty obvious actually, and I felt a bit sorry for him having to stop work to come show the silly white girl how keys work. Haha. He told me that he finished today and so wanted to know if I fancied going sightseeing on Saturday. I said yes, but completely forgot that I was meant to be going to Odaiba with Maria, and for numerous other reasons it wouldn’t really have been possible, so I had to email later and cancel again. I felt really bad for altering his plans and then cancelling, but it just couldn’t be done.

Then I headed home.

In the Evening…

This deserves its own subheading as it was pretty amazing.

As it was some people’s last weekend in Tokyo, we’d decided to go clubbing to celebrate. I met Stas in the Hakozaki lobby and we started to walk to the river. Anet had asked me to buy some Sake, and I hadn’t had dinner yet, so we went via the 7-11 to get some grub (I had sushi and a waffle, as per).

When we got to the river at about 9.15pm, we couldn’t see anybody from the program. At all. We started to get a bit concerned that we’d come to the wrong place (neither of us had met them there before, hence why we decided to go together) so we walked around half a mile down the river each way. Eventually we gave up, sat down on the steps, and started eating without them. It was only then that Anet turned up and we were told we were in the right place after all!

Shortly after, Anna came, and then Till, and then Mark and his girlfriend Kumi. We had some sake, enjoyed some good company, and the mosquitoes enjoyed eating my legs. Mark and Kumi left after a little while so she could change her shoes, and they told us they’d meet us in Shibuya. We left the river and headed to Suitengumae to get the last train into town.

Kyle met us at the station, but we couldn’t find Mark and Kumi anywhere, even after we’d arrived in Shibuya. We posed for some terrible photos (see above! haha) and made our way towards the clubs. We were planning on going to a specific one, but when we arrived the doorman was demanding something crazy like 4,000 yen per person for entry alone, when the website said 1,200! Obviously that wasn’t going to happen!

We walked around for a little while and met some other Westerners who were in a similar situation. They had a Japanese friend (I can’t remember her name right now, which makes me feel bad because she was really nice!) who told me that she’s only been to England once, and only visited York while there which was amazingly weird!

We never met up with Mark again. When I got home I had an email from him saying that Kumi wasn’t feeling well so they went home. It’s a shame, and I hope she’s feeling better now!

We found a club in the end which was free entry, and apparantly a good place to go. It was called Gas Panic and was in a basement. I’m going to be completely honest – I was disappointed by the venue. If that was somewhere I’d been in England, I wouldn’t have stayed. It was effectively a glorified bar with no dancefloor, pretty terrible music, and  extortionate drink prices! The company made it a great night though! Everyone was really fun (albiet Stas was very drunk and as such became a bit of a pest) and we had a great time. We all danced and sang and it was awesome. After what felt like maybe 30 minutes, Till told me he was feeling a bit funny from the music and heat, so we went outside. It was only when we got out that I saw the time on my phone and realised how long we’d been there! It was about 4.10am by this point. Mental.

We sat outside and chatted for a while, as my ears got used to the silence and Till started to feel a bit better. Kyle, Anet and Stas joined us soon after and we went to get some junk food. Anet had been saying she wanted a burger for weeks, and so we found a Burger King and she bought two! It was getting light now, so we sat in Shibuya as the sun rose, and then made our way to the station in time for the first train.

The journey was so bad. It was just one train, and it didn’t take long, but I just really wanted to get some sleep. It was impossible though with the movement of the carriage.

I got back to my room at an obscene time in the morning and went straight on Skype to Matt. I have never stayed up all night in my life, and so felt absolutely rotton. I wasn’t particularly drunk at this point, but exhausted! Matt either found it funny or pathetic. I can’t really work out which 😛

I managed to go to bed at around 6am, and slept until about 9. After a bath and a few glasses of water, I was ready to start the day!

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