When I arrived to my city in Japan we were promptly given an earthquake preparedness training session. It consisted of our boss telling us that our area was overdue for the massive tokai earthquake, which could come tomorrow or could come far in the future, and for which there was basically no point in preparing much since it would be improbable ( Read more... )

I found some audio clips I took during the graduation ceremony of one of my middle schools in Japan. The students were singing 旅立ちの日に. It made me cry!

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(this isn't them, but it's the song ( Read more... )

Today I realized a few things as I was running a meager 5k on the treadmill ( Read more... )

My paper came out. So, it's not Johnsen et al., but it says that three of us contributed equally, so it's kind of like I'm first author. I'm maintaining that I'm a first author, anyway ;) Go check it out! http://www.plosgenetics.org/doi/pgen.1000709Read more... )

My paper came out. So, it's not Johnsen et al., but it says that three of us contributed equally, so it's kind of like I'm first author. I'm maintaining that I'm a first author, anyway ;) Go check it out! http://www.plosgenetics.org/doi/pgen.1000709Read more... )

Today was a sad day, because it was the end of Koike's trip to the United States, and thus the end of my being able to imagine that I'm still somewhat connected to Japan. Now I'm officially just one more American irrationally obsessed with Japan, but with no actual purposeful connection (no apartment, cell phone, foreigner registration card) ... ( Read more... )

We left Shizuoka at about 5:30 am this morning. I celebrated my last few days in Shizuoka in an unspectacular way, taking a drive to a couple of my favorite locations along the Okitsu river and eating at my favorite ramen, oden, etc. restaurants ( Read more... )

After being told by the travel agent that it was best to wait before buying the within-USA flight (ie between LAX and Fresno), when I went in the other day I was told that the cheap tickets were all sold and it would be about $300 per person for the flight. That wouldn't be sooo bad, except that the next flight is at 2 pm, when we get in at 9 am. ( Read more... )

The past while has been full of rainy, glum days. Today was sunny, but it doesn't promise to stay. It makes it difficult to go out and enjoy my last days in this country, and even more difficult to stay positive and sunny myself ( Read more... )

One night of dancing, down! Koike stayed and watched my group the whole time, so I could drink between every song if I wanted to :) Towards the end a group of ALTs came and saw me too. ^__^ A lot of people I didn't think I knew waved to me ( Read more... )