Arts, Crafts, and Soba

 I received my class rosters today.  I asked for them so I can try to figure out how to identify student names if they are in Japanese.  Several sessions of concentrated study spread over the next few days should get me there.  Any students reading this please recognize how I am studying.  An hour here and there on a single topic is better than multiple hours cramming one thing into your head.  You give you brain time to process, and just as you are starting to forget you give it a reminder.  It really does work much better this way.

In any case.  When we first got married, Jen taught art classes to children at a recreation center in Lexington, MA.  One of the things she considered (maybe she taught it - I don't recall) was origami.  She checked out a book or two from the Waltham Public Library, which was literally right around the corner from our apartment, and we sat down to learn.  Turns out I am pretty capable with it.  I made a dragon back then.  Based on that, I decided to look up some origami boxes thinking I might be able to use them for giving gifts while here.  Here is the tutorial I found.  I only have quad-ruled notebook paper with me now, but practice has to start sometime.  This is my second attempt with a 3d printed flexible octopus inside.  (My first attempt went bad very early.)

And here it is empty.

I've made another one, and I'll probably do more after I grade the final exams. 

Despite Tami's disappointment in me, I had Nissin's soba with tempura last night.  Nissin is the company that originated cup noodles.

 The key to recognizing this as soba with tempura is in and around the green box of text on the left.  The red box is hiragana for "soba," with each character representing one syllable.  The green box is a kanji character followed by two hiragana for "tempura."  Finally, the red text just to the side reads "irodori shichimi-tsuki" according to Google Translate.  It means "with colored shichimi."  I did not know what that is, so I looked it up.  Shichimi is a spice mix.

Open it up and this is what's inside.

The red packet is the shichimi, and the purple is the sauce/soup flavor.  It says to warm this on the lid.  That's coming up.  The last packet is the tempura.  I'm not sure what all is on it.  Inside the bowl are the noodles and green onions.  There's a little line scored on the inside of the bowl.  I assumed that is the "fill to here" line, so I added boiling water to that level and folded the lid back down.  The first night I made noodles, I removed the entire lid.  That was bad.  If you look at the first picture of the bowl you should notice a hard break between the picture of the noodles and some text above.  That's where you peel back the lid to.  Then, once you've added the water, you fold it back down and a little tab sort of clamps it shut.  Then you wait about 5 minutes.

I put the sauce and tempura on top.  I'm not sure if the tempura is proper, but it did warm up everything.  I gave it the time needed, opened everything up, and added the packets to the noodles.  Mix well.

Itadakimasu.  For the most part, pronunciation of Japanese words is very straight-forward.  Nearly every syllable ends with a vowel sound.  Some have -n or -m attached (like the end of "ramen" or the first part of "tempura").  And, words ending in -su typically don't pronounce the "u."  The vowel "i" is given a long "e" sound from English.   So "itadakimasu" is said "i-ta-da-ki-mas."  It is said before eating and loosely means "Thank you for this meal I am about to eat."  I shouldn't be holding chopsticks while I say it, though.

The tempura stayed pretty crunchy, and the sauce gave everything that distinct umami Japanese flavor.  I can't describe it better than that because I don't typically think about the words used for flavors.  I mostly eat and enjoy myself.  Sorry.  It wasn't spicy at all, even with the shichimi.  One bowl is filling - about 500 calories.  The steam coming from it really clears the sinuses. 

When you are finished eating, it is customary to say one of my favorite things to say in Japanese so far.  Gochisoosamadeshita.  "Thank you for the meal I just ate."  Pronouncing the last bit "-deshita" is more like "desh-ta" with the "i" slurred away.

So, there you have it.  Origami and a bowl of noodles.  Now, I have to grade.  At least I have more noodles to look forward to tonight.

And now, this.

 I woke  up at 2:30 am today to proctor a make-up final starting at 3 am.  Then, the actual final took place starting at 5 am.  Then Gabe and I talked some physics at 7 am.  After all of my efforts to get my sleep adjusted, I kicked it wonky.  That's okay, though, because exams are finished and my son had a chance to talk about his upcoming quiz.

The hotel moved me back to my original room.  I spent the time between talking with Gabe and the phone call to move making sure I had everything packed.  Once I checked that the 47th time, I sat down and played some Empire at War.  After my move, I walked to the 7-11 and picked up food.  I have 5 cup noodles.

I try to be quick about making choices, since I am supposed to limit my time around people.  It wasn't until I made it to my room that I realized I bought two different brands of the same variety.  They give you one pair of chopsticks with a toothpick for each cup purchased.  Beginning with tomorrow's post, I will review each noodle bowl.  Mainly this is so I can practice associating the writing with the particular type.  We'll see how it goes.

As a last note for this post, the University hopes to resume face-to-face instruction on May 10.  However, if infection rates in Tokushima stay "high" (yesterday Japan, as a nation, added 3,796 positive cases and over the past week Michigan alone has averaged 4,851 new cases per day), the school will stay remote.  I'm reminded of the year an old lab mate from grad school was doing a post-doc in Quebec.  The Province wanted to raise tuition charged to students by something like $250 per year.  The students were upset and considering a student strike because "we don't want to end up like the US."

One thing to consider is the testing rate.  Maybe Japan is not testing enough to catch all of the cases.  The positive test rate is 4% here.  I have only found national data on Japan, though, so it is not an entirely fair comparison.  CovidActNow.org provides state and county level data, and I'm a little lazy about digging for a different source right now.  I guess I have another project that can take up part of a day.  Hooray for small victories!

A few obligations left

 I am now finished with obligations at Shikoku until I am there.  Next week's national holiday means no classes.  As I write, it is Wednesday afternoon here.  Tomorrow morning I have to be awake around 3 am so a student can take their Physics final early.  This student's second dose of covid vaccine falls during the regularly scheduled final.  Originally they were going to take it at 6:30 this morning (here), but owing to Ramadan fasting and having two other exams that day, the student was not feeling up to it.  As I told the student, getting people fully vaccinated is far more important than me being adjusted to Japan time.  Then, at 5:30 am, the rest of the class will take the final.  By 8 am tomorrow morning, I will be left with grading.  (For my department colleagues, I have not forgotten the meeting on Friday.)

My second class was today.  It went well, even for Zoom class.  I had been warned the students would likely struggle with listening.  However, I asked them if they wanted me to speak slowly or at a more regular pace.  They wanted the regular pace, so that's what I'll use.  I hope they will let me know if I'm going too fast or if I say a word or phrase they don't understand.  Tami let me know her class enjoyed learning about food in the States.  I can talk about food.  But we're going to talk about TV shows instead.

Food and television is a nice segue into the pictures I want to share.  The first is for coffee in the hotel room.  I told Jen about it, and she said "Yeah.  Facebook has been advertising that to me for a while now."  I hadn't seen it and thought it was cool.  In any case, the room has an electric kettle instead of a coffee maker.  What is provided for coffee is this.

(See the cup noodles in the background?  I'm working on a post just about those.)

Tear the top off at the "magic cut."  That's what they call the notch in packets that helps you open them.  The white cutout cardboard is on both sides and you pull them out to sit over the edges of the cup. 

Pour boiling water into the packet and it becomes a single cup coffee filter.  The cups are tiny by my standards, so I save the filter in a second cup and get three servings out of each packet.  The third is getting pretty weak, but I let it steep for longer.  It's drinkable.  I thought they were neat.  Jen was all Mike Myers playing Linda Richman opening Coffee Talk.  "No big whoop."

As for television, NHK (the Japan Broadcasting Company) has an educational channel.  Today I saw a show where they were talking about the properties of triangles.  You may remember from your math class that right triangles have a 90 degree angle and two acute angles.  They also make it easy to calculate sine, cosine, and tangent because these can be defined as ratios of pairs of the sides.  In the US it's common to use the mnemonic SOH, CAH, TOA to help remember the relationships.

SOH - Sine of an angle is the Opposite side divided by the Hypotenuse.

CAH - Cosine of an angle is the Adjacent side divided by the Hypotenuse.

TOA - Tangent is Opposite divided by Adjacent.

This is what they showed to help students remember these expressions.

I recreated it in a notebook.  The angle to find the trig functions of is in the lower left.  The right angle is marked with the little square.  The script S at the top joins the hypotenuse and the opposite side.  C joins hypotenuse and adjacent.  t joins adjacent and opposite.  Any of you math teachers who have "visual" learners (even though the theory of singular learning types is probably not correct), try this.

Upcoming Posts

Most of the novelty of things has worn off, and I am not going to be interacting or preparing for students for a while.  The upcoming posts are going to talk about the television shows I've seen, the different foods I will be eating, progress with the DAQ card, and any changes in my room that lead to changes in view.  In short, some of these in the next week are probably going to be pretty boring.  I will keep posting them because keeping a schedule when you are semi-isolated is a good way to maintain sanity.  I'm aware of most of the people who have been reading and can send emails/messages/whatnot to let you know when things will pick back up.  If you're want to make sure I contact you, either tell me in an email or message, or you can leave a comment.

Zoom Classes...

 They're the same everywhere.  "You are muted."  "Please turn on your camera."  "Is my microphone still working?"

Yesterday I dropped in on a three student seminar to meet one of the faculty and introduce myself to some people.  This morning I attended a course on Japanese Culture intended for exchange students and professors.  At 1:00 I held my first class for Shikoku University.  We did introductions.  I asked them their names and majors and something they do not like.  When I told them that was the game, several looked up like they were thinking they were not ready for that.  They pulled through.

Horror movies, drinking milk, reading books, staying at home, getting up early, watching sports, all insects, cheese, cola, and bok choy.

It's a pretty typical list.

I had a chance to ask follow up questions and have little discussions.  Some had traveled outside of Japan, but most had not.  All of them want to - or at least they all raised their hands when I asked them if they wanted to.  One wants to go to America to have an American hamburger "because hamburgers in Japan are small, and I think in America they are bigger."  I'm inferring here that this student wants to know if we are as absurd about food as they think we are.  **Spoiler Alert** We are.

Tomorrow I have another class.  Whereas today was 10 students, tomorrow is expected to be 32.  I can't manage 32 at once with conversations in a remote setting.  It was suggested I use breakout rooms.  Since tomorrow's class is Comparative Cultures - the one I'm planning to talk about stereotypes Japanese people have about Americans - the breakout rooms may be useful.  Zoom supports up to 50 rooms, so I can split them into pairs and have them write down ideas they have about American people, culture, life, whatever.  We'll also watch some Buffy, Angel, and Psych in this class.  I don't know how "representative" these shows are, but they are ones I like.

Back to work, I guess.

Moving Day

 Today is the day of my first move.  It is also the first day that the clouds cleared off.  There was some lightning and thunder last night, but I didn't hear any rain.  Given I can't hear the jets taking off (when they do), the lack of rain noise was probably a good sign.  In any case, when I looked out my window this morning, this is what I saw.

On the flight in I was hoping to see Mt. Fuji, but I could not.  Instead, I get to see it from my hotel window.  Until tomorrow, that is.  Today is moving day.

I think I mentioned the hotel wants people in quarantine to switch rooms every 3 days.  They say it's for cleaning (which is probably true), but I think it also has to do with me keeping my stuff all together.  Since I know I have to move everything after three nights of sleep, I keep everything packed.  If I feel like I want to get something that might be buried I stop myself and ask "Do I *really* need this?"  Most of the time the answer is "no," so I leave it be.

The other change today is I had the Japanese breakfast.

Clockwise from the top left is rice, coffee, grilled smoked salmon with egg (yellow squares) and some dried fruit, pickled greens, pickled white (I have no idea what it was), and custard-y something with wasabi (on the blue-green leaf plate), salad, green tea, miso soup (in the dark bowl on the lower left with the bowl's lid right next to it).  The lid is resting on a small plate with soy sauce and nori.  Between the coffee and tea is a square bowl with pickled radish and turnips, then a round bowl of natto.

To start, it seems the difference between a Japanese salad and a Western salad is onions and beans.  That was the only difference there.  I'm rather enjoying having a salad like this at breakfast.  The only things I didn't finish were the nori (I inadvertently left it to the end, and dried seaweed is very salty) and the as yet unidentified pickled white stuff.

The custard was pretty good, but I couldn't begin to guess what it actually is.  The natto I read about after I opened the container.  The opening was a process in and of itself.  First there is a layer of plastic film.  Under that are two small plastic sauce packets - one with mustard and one with "special sauce."  Then there's another layer of plastic right up against a mound of small beans.  Lifting that second film was a challenge because the beans are really sticky with some coating.  This is when I turned to Google Translate, found it was natto, and searched for it online.

Natto is fermented soybeans.  It's slimy and sticky and has a very strong odor owing to the bacteria responsible for the fermenting process.  70% of Japanese citizens enjoy the taste.  Meaning 30% don't.  I discovered that normal practice is to mix the natto with chopsticks until it is gooey.  The beans don't breakdown at all, but the bacterial coating changes texture quite a bit.  Then add the sauce and mustard and mix again.  Finally, dump it on rice.  At home many will add a raw egg on top or perhaps some type of onion.  I wouldn't say I enjoyed the flavor, but I will definitely eat it again.  It's a food that has been part of this culture for almost 1,000 years.  Of course I'm going to eat it many times while I'm here.  It's also an excellent source of vitamin K, which helps with blood coagulation.

Tomorrow I will have my first Zoom class meeting with the students from Shikoku.  I'll spend a reasonable part of today preparing for that.  

Onward, ever onward like the Fighting Sycamore I am.

"Emergency" procedures

Jen let me know some people were asking about subscriptions or notifications to the blog so they would know when I've posted something new.  The company that runs the "gadget" that allows email push notifications will stop supporting it in June or July of this year.  As such, if you didn't have it active at the start of 2021, you cannot activate it now.  What I'll do is create a single post each day after midnight in Michigan.  That should add some consistency and make it easier for those who want to follow along.

Several prefectures are under emergency orders as of today.  Covid cases are surging in and around Tokyo.  According to The Japan Times (an English language Japanese newspaper) Tokyo Prefecture currently has 6,759 active covid cases with a near record 876 new cases Friday.  For scale, Tokyo's population is a little over 13 million on a land area of 2,200 sq miles.  As I was perusing newspapers for my upcoming Intercultural Communication class I saw that recently the state of Indiana registered something like 1,100 new cases.  That's in a population of just under 7 million on a land area of 36,400 sq miles.

This development means restaurants and shops are asked to close by 8 pm every day, and bars (both karaoke and non-karaoke), large commercial shopping areas, and movie theaters are asked to close entirely until May 11.  Since I'm at an airport hotel, two of the TV channels show departure gates, times, and statuses of the various flights.  All international departures were cancelled this morning.  My assumption is all international arrivals are also cancelled, but those were not shown.  Domestic flights, like the one I'll need on May 8, were operating.  I saw a flight to Tokushima listed as "Boarding."  So, that's encouraging.

 

A major obstacle Japan faces is vaccine reluctance.  It seems in the 1970's a small number of infant deaths were attributed to whooping cough vaccines.  Then, in the 1980's there was a problem with MMR vaccines leading to some bad side effects.  This history caused the government to halt a push for the HPV vaccine in 2013.  (Link to story.)  Fewer than 600,000 doses of covid vaccine have been administered in the entire country.  That's out of 126 million people.

The other pressures are nearly identical to those in the States.  Business organizations are worried about the loss of revenue and the impact the state of emergency will have on the economy.  Prefecture Governors want the Prime Minister to enforce more stringent conditions and provide financial assistance to the population and businesses.  Next week (starting May 3 or thereabouts) is Golden Week, which is a significant, national holiday.  Many people usually travel, but surveys suggest this is going to be curtailed by choice.  I think the fact that some feel like a 2 day visit to a large city is safer than a week long trip will lead to trouble.  Events in the U.S. suggest those types of trips become seeders for more widespread outbreaks.  One thing that seems different, though, is there does not seem to be a huge anti-mask campaign.

I'll continue to mask and distance just as I have for the past 13 months.  Just as I know all of you have.  Looking out the window (my view is below), I don't see many people foregoing masks, but I have a very small sample.  Here's to hoping my vaccination is robust enough against whatever variants exist here.

 

Whichever of you wished me an "interesting" trip got your wish.  Still, I'm happy and excited I get to do this.

What I did on my first day of quarantine.

 Before I write about my exciting first day, I need to show you the instructions for the toilet control panel.

Jen asked me what the difference between "Spray" and "Bidet" is.  As near as I can tell, it's the aiming angle.  I didn't know that when she asked, though.  All it needs to do is talk and I'd feel like Mater in Cars 2.  Enough of that, though.

I didn't realize I would be expected to take and report my temperature every day.  I should have, I guess.  It makes sense.  However, I didn't bring a thermometer.  Every day at 11 am I will get an email from the Ministry of Labor, Health, and Welfare asking me to fill out a questionnaire by 2:00.  If I don't, I'll get in trouble of some sort.  This problem needed solving, so I channeled my inner MacGyver and got to work.

What I did bring was a data acquisition card, wire, and a 10 kilo-ohm thermistor.  (I am planning to do some preliminary research work for my sabbatical in the Fall.  It's not like I travel everywhere with these things.  Although, given what I needed to do, I might start to.)  The thermistor is an electrical component designed to have a resistance that varies with temperature in a highly predictable and easily modeled way.  If you have a digital, under tongue thermometer at home, it has a thermistor in it.  Likewise for an electrical/smart thermostat.  The result is I have what I'd wager to be the most expensive thermometer being used in the building.

I don't have wire cutters (I'm planning to buy a pair when I get to Tokushima), so I "stress fatigued" the wire to get usable lengths.  That means I twisted the wire around and around and around, then back the other way until it broke.  I used the edge of a door hinge to help me strip the insulation, connected the wires to the proper terminals on the red thing (LabJack U6-Pro), then twisted the thermistor's leads around the other ends of the wires.  I was reluctant to stick the thermistor directly in my mouth.  Partly because I don't want that in my mouth, but mostly because saliva conducts electricity and it would mess with the reading.  Fortunately I have the plastic wrap that was used to cover my breakfast.  I tore a piece of that and wrapped the sensor, insulating the leads from one another, then into the abomination you see above.

The data acquisition card (DAQ) plugs into the computer.  Provided you have the program to talk to it, you can read the information from it.  I had to download the datasheet for the termistor to know the constants for converting from resistance to temperature.  I was lucky because I brought the thing in its correct packaging which meant I had the manufacturer's serial number.  Otherwise it would have been who knows how long on Digikey's website trying to find the right one.  Once I had that, though, 15 minutes of Python coding and debugging, and ta daa!

 

 

Not only will this read the voltage (which is all any DAQ card really does), but it converts that reading to temperature in Celsius and writes the output to a file.  $450 for the DAQ, $600 for the computer, $0.10 for the thermistor, wire, and plastic wrap.  When it worked, I sang "Problem Solved" from Peg+Cat.

This is what happens when I need things to do.

Dawn of The First Day.

Okay.  It really isn't dawn right now, but I felt obligated to make that reference.  How could I not bring up The Legend of Zelda when I'm here?

I'm going to throw this out there right now.  Google Translate is going to make my life so much easier.  It's already helped me solve a problem. 

I did not pack a power adapter because Japan uses 100 V AC power with the same kind of plugs use in the States.  If you look at your cellphone charger (in the U.S.), you can see the input and output power.  Mine says 100-240 V - 50/60 Hz 0.3 A with an output of 5.2 V, 2.0 A.  Anything between 100 and 240 volts at 50 or 60 Hz (we'll get to that in a moment) with at least a 0.3 A capacity will allow the converter to output 5.2 V at 2 A of current.  There's something similar on my computer charger.  The significant difference between the two is the phone charger is two prong (ungrounded) and the computer is three prong (grounded).  The three prong outlets are a significant minority in Japan.  Chalk one up for U.S. safety regulations because the grounding reduces the chance of electric shock.

I asked the woman who brought my breakfast this morning if I could get an adapter.  Unfortunately she does not speak English.  Bring out the phone.  I type in "Can I get a power adapter?"  It spits out in a mix of kanji, katakana, and hiragana (with romanji below it) "Dengen adaputa wa moraemasu ka?"  She pulls out her phone, taps on it, and shows me "I will check at the front desk."  10 minutes later, I get a phone call asking what type I need.  5 minutes after that, the doorbell rings (every room has a doorbell) and the adapter is in a bag hanging on the handle.  The man who brought it is about 10 feet away and asks me if it's correct.  It is, and I thank him.  That one I remember from Monica Dix's class.  "Arigatoo gozaimasu."  I can now work with my computer and play video games without worrying about it dying on me.

Google may be a capitalistic empire that preys and profits off scraping every bit of information about our lives as possible, but at least they are helpful.

The 50/60 Hz thing is because there are two different power grids in Japan.  The Eastern grid operates at 50 Hz and the Western grid operates at 60 Hz.  This means the two grids cannot share power.  It's like the U.S. and Texas, only without the animosity (I assume), but worse.  If it came down to it, Texas could be integrated with the rest of the States.  Tokyo cannot provide power to Osaka without significant issues.

Breakfast -

Given where I am with adjusting and all, I opted for the Western style breakfast this morning.

This is a horrible food picture because it is exactly as it was delivered.  It doesn't help that Jen is usually the one who takes care of photographing anything.  She is just better about seeing pretty much anything than I am.  In any case, under the cutlery is a mixed greens salad with red onions, chick peas, black beans, edamame, radish, and some kind of savory dressing.  I very much enjoyed the lightly pickled julienne carrots with steamed cauliflower.  There is also a slice of bacon on an egg that is like an omelette, but with soft scrambled egg on the inside instead of cheese, and some kind of salsa.  The large cup on the right has a bacon, onion, and carrot broth.  Next to that is plain yogurt with berries, orange juice, water, and coffee.  Rounding it out is a croissant and a roll.  It was a unique breakfast and more food than I have had in one sitting since Wednesday night.

I'll make a separate post with the room features.  I'll also provide evidence supporting why I believe Japan is so steadfastly against drug use.  From what I've read, most of the population believes marijuana is a very dangerous drug.  Given what I've seen of their children's programming, I think they just don't feel the need to have anything that could make one hallucinate.  Tara on Buffy, The Vampire Slayer said it best.  When Willow asked her "You know what's weird?"  Tara answered "Japanese commercials are pretty weird."  That, they are.

Greetings from the Future!

I made it to Japan, and I'm in the hotel.  Getting through the quarantine check-in took about an hour and a half.  They shut down an entire wing of the terminal and snaked us around it.  Check papers here, one gets stamped.  Move on.  Check all papers again, another gets stamped.  Move on.  Spit an inordinate amount of saliva with no bubbles after being dehydrated from flying into a plastic tube.  Give it to someone and get your number.  (Mine was 181.) More walking, getting papers checked, getting stamps.  Then wait for test results.

But wait... There's more! Once you have your negative results, show the pink slip to 5 people along the way.  Then, wait at immigration.  I got pulled to the side because I'm officially a resident of Japan. At least I think so.  I've got an ID issued by the Japanese government.

My hotel is attached to the airport.  No worries about how to get there since I can't take _any_ public transportation for 14 days.  I'll post pictures later, but I'll say right now the toilet has instructions.  They are in many languages, including Japanese and English.  And pictograms.  The "Begin rear washing" is pretty obvious.

I need to email Shikoku, and then sleep until morning.  It's 5 pm here.  13 hours ahead of Michigan.  I think 25 hours of being awake is enough, don't you?

The pace of posting will slow

Seattle airport is under construction.  I wonder if I'll ever take a trip where none of the airports are under construction.

I had to get a documents check before boarding.  Then, while I was downloading the required tracking apps for when I quarantine, I was called to board.  It took all of 5 minutes to get everyone (and I mean everyone) on the plane.  Let's say there's plenty of room in the overhead compartments.  Getting situated took longer.  I think we'll leave early.

I plan to make it an enjoyable 10.5 hour flight.  For the longest time I thought Japan is 12 hours ahead of Michigan.  It's 13.  Still, not horrible.  And, bonus, the review session I'll hold for my 211 students won't require me getting up at 4 am to be functional.

What I Learned on Flight 1

First - It looks like your phone's GPS shuts off when you reach a certain altitude and speed.  I was going to keep track of that off and on through the flight.  No dice. I did get the following screenshot, though.

We were going 500 km/hr.  Here's the acceleration during take off.

A quarter of a g seems like a lot more.

Second - If the people in the rows in front of me are any indication of general attitudes, Michigan is screwed with covid.  They are going to a wedding in North Dakota, and are super pumped about the lack of a mask mandate.  "I'll be able to breathe normally for once." If you can't breathe through two layers of cloth against your face, you probably have other, more serious, health concerns and shouldn't be going to a wedding right now.

Third - I think the gate agent here at Detroit has worked a gate I went through before.

By the way. When I post, it will be mostly  stream of consciousness thoughts.

Through security

Jen and Malachi dropped me off at MBS a bit ago.  I've installed the Blogger app and can use that for making posts today.  We'll see how it works.

My one checked bag was a bit over weight, so I had to shift things around a bit. The other was well under.  Jen laughed at me for having so much stuff, but I'm taking a ukulele and several electronic instruments for research.  I am a bit disorganized for this trip.

The fun begins in about half an hour.  Exciting!

Negative News!

 My covid test came back negative.  Which is positive because it means I'm going.  Tomorrow morning, a little before 5:00, Jen and Malachi will take me to the airport.  Gabe has opted to stay home, and I don't blame him.  He will stay home with the cat.  Speaking of Tesla, she has been going bonkers with the suitcases out and getting packed and us not putting extra food and water out for her.  She must think we're leaving her for a long time, and doesn't want us to forget the cat needs to eat and drink.  (That was Jen's observation.)

I'll let the printer run through the night making as many gifts as possible.  Cursory research leads me to believe very few people in Japan have 3d printers, so I hope the novelty of the gifts will come through.  When I get the bigger gifts assembled there, I'll post pictures.  But that won't happen until after May 8.

For now, we should let time slip into the future and see what it will bring.

My First Entry

I've tried to write the initial entry to this blog about a dozen times.  I talked about the history of me trying to go to Japan.  I talked about the packing process.  I talked about the ups and downs of the uncertainty.  None of it felt right.  I think that's because even now, at 5:00 am on Wednesday, April 21, there's still a chance things could fall apart.  I received a text message at 3 am informing me lab results are available.  That must be the required, pre-travel covid test I had administered on Monday.  I can't see the results right now, though.  I don't have an account with the medical lab that processed the sample.  So, I have to wait until the clinic I went to opens to know that I have a good, negative test.

Still, Jen, Gabe, and Malachi have been helping me pack and prepare for the flight I should be taking tomorrow morning.  I guess I won't really believe it is happening until I'm on the plane from Seattle to Tokyo.  There really isn't any convenient place to stop in between the cities at that point, so I should be okay with admitting I'm going to make it.

For today, I will be doing the last bits of running around.  Yesterday was my intended last day on campus.  I drove home, reached our neighborhood, and said "Damn."  I left my business cards in my desk.  Right after Tami reminded me of the importance of having them to hand out.  I'll be on campus this morning.  I'm also going to get some cash that I'll be able to exchange for yen, do a bottle return run, and print one more gift.  I need to finish packing, which means a single load of laundry needs done.

Here's to hoping all goes well.