Why I missed yesterday

 I went surfing yesterday morning.  First time in my life to do this.  Natsuki picked me up at 8:30, but before that Susan stopped by.  She had gone into campus to get ready for next week as we are back online (one student on campus in another building tested positive for covid, so campus is closed for a week).  However, on Friday she went through some of her son's things she still has.  She found a swim shirt for me to use.  It was a little tight because large here is not quite the same as large in the States.  On the other hand, you want the swim shirt to be tight.

In any case, Natsuki gave me some idea of what to do, and I kind of understood things.  Where I really learned was the lesson from one of my students.  She was a kind of highly ranked professional surfer for a while.  The issue is competing against other people isn't in her nature.  She would rather see people happy because they are doing something they like than see them sad because they are only the third best in the world at what they do.  I'm paraphrasing what she told me a little.  One thing I learned about surfing is it means a lot of waiting for a reasonable wave to come in.  With waiting comes a lot of time to chat.

I managed to kind of ride two waves out of maybe 30 attempts.  The motion of going from laying down to standing up is pretty straightforward, but it has to be done smoothly and at the right time.  The first one I managed to get upright on was one my teacher also rode.  I mimicked her.  The second one I was upright on I did on my own.  My other major problem is I can't see when a decent wave is coming in.  Aside from being a pure novice, I don't wear my glasses.  Text becomes unreadable at 20 inches and facial features unrecognizable at 48-60 inches.  Still, it was a lot of fun.

After surfing Natsuki and I went for lunch.  She took me to an Italian restaurant in Naruto with a view overlooking the sea.  It was very delicious, but I was way under-dressed.  Most people were in pretty nice clothes.  I was in a black swim shirt and grey exercise pants with black glides on my feet.  My hair was not combed, but at least I had a rinse off in the shower.  So, there wasn't a heavy salt-water smell about me.  At least I think there wasn't.

We talked about a lot of different things.  I learned about her life, she learned about mine.  A server took a picture of us.

When we were surfing there were several of my students there.  Two of them with my instructor.  They commented that I have "beautiful legs" with very little hair.  I wasn't sure what to make of that.

In any case, when I got home I took a shower and changed because I needed to ride down past Tokushima Station to meet Naoko and her husband, daughter, son-in-law, and 18 month-old grandson.  Daughter, son-in-law, and I took a river tour in a pontoon boat.  It was nice to see the sites from the water.  Then we went to dinner at an izakaya.  I ate lots of food and talked mostly with Naoko's daughter.  

She's a neuroscientist who studies vision processing.  Specifically motion caused by our own motion.  Think "what you see when you walk past a car" not "what you see when a car passes you."  Turns out very different parts of the brain are activated in these two situations.  That's why when you are in a train or car stopped next to another train or large truck you can get this disorientation when the other thing starts to roll.  She told me they are starting to "see" the neural pathways within the white matter by using "diffusive functional MRI."

She recommended (at my request for a recommendation) the book "The Man Who Tasted Shapes."  I will check it out.  The mind and brain are incredibly complex and I'm really interested to learn what I can about it.  I recall reading once some scientist talking about understanding our own brains.  It was something along the lines of a brain complex enough to wonder about its own function is probably too complex to understand itself.

Then again, just because something might be impossible is no reason to avoid it entirely.