Category: experiences

I’m still busy with my big project, and last week, I went to the library for some “real” research. In other words: I looked up a few scientific articles on my topic that I couldn’t find online.

For all of you who don’t know: Scientists publish their research in journals (after lengthy peer review). These journals are sold to libraries, mostly research libraries of universities, but some other libraries also carry them. Depending on the journal, the libraries get them monthly or quarterly; there are also special editions of conference proceedings.

The latter are usually already bound by the publisher, since they are made available to the participants during the conference (I recommend, just for the smell alone: Springer LNCS – Lecture Notes in Computer Science). The other journals are bound by the libraries themselves into large books containing at least one, but sometimes several, years of a journal’s output. This makes looking at the “real” journal so much more fun than doing it online: You can browse a year of two of it and often discover other papers that are related to your current research.

Now, if you want to see one of those papers, you go to the library and ask for the book they made – journal title, year and volume is usually enough. If you’re lucky, the journals are in open access, so you can just pull them off the shelves. Otherwise, they are somewhere in storage (often underground, books are heavy) and the librarian has to do the picking for you.

In my case, I had to ask a librarian for help, unfortunately. There is something almost magical of wandering among shelves and shelves of volumes that all look the same, their only distinguishing factor the number on the spine. I would’ve loved to do that, but it wasn’t possible. This time.

It was nice to go back to uni, so to speak, and I’m expecting to do more research like this. It is fun and oddly soothing – I guess I’m still a researcher at heart.

When I woke up this morning and staggered into my kitchen, I found a dead cockroach in the middle of the floor. Pumpkin was unconcerned, but to be fair, he’s not allowed in the kitchen during the night.

Anyway, I really hope it’s one of these scenarios: It died from old age (not likely given how it looked), dropped dead because it had too much of my blackcaps, or it committed suicide (is that a thing with roaches?)

If it was neither of these, then there is probably another HUGE hunting spider hiding out in my kitchen. Or it’s worse, and I have mukade centipedes lurking somewhere…

In other news, I’m pretty busy with some writing assignments right now, hence the short post. Don’t worry, I’m otherwise fine, please hold off from the “are you still alive” emails for a while.

Update a week later: The most likely potential culprit has been identified. It was either the massive spider I found in my bathroom two days later, or it was the massive spider I found in my kitchen on Monday. How I know there were two? Because I promptly (well, more or less, the screaming and shaking always takes a while) dispatched the first, the second could be coaxed into the garden with minimal effort (but a lot of shaking after the fact).

That makes 3 massive spiders in my house within 2 weeks. I really hope there aren’t any more…

Sorry for going AWOL for a month. I was very busy during Gion Matsuri with lots of appointments. Now the festival is over, I’m busy catching up with all the things I didn’t have time for in July. And we’re in the middle of a heatwave to boot, so things are going slower than usual as well.

Even Pumpkin, who is an elderly gentleman and doesn’t move with much vigor in general, takes it super easy these days. He’s now trying to find the coolest spots in the house to sleep in. Sometimes that’s under my desk. Sometimes that’s in my office’s oshiire. And sometimes it’s … I have no idea where. He does come when I call for him, though. Sometimes.

In other news, my new residence card has arrived past the due date for renewal and telling banks and other official places that yes, I am indeed legally here again, please don’t shut me down, took less time than I had feared. Now that I’ve been through the process once, I’ve learned a few things that will help me keep my cool in case there are more delays in the future.

I will try to keep posting here in summer regardless of all the things I need to do – including staying cool. Just in case I can’t, don’t worry, I’m just busy with all kinds of stuff – I’ll keep you posted when I have something to show for it.

Summer has arrived in Kyoto, and it’s been blistering hot the last few days, a few showers here and there notwithstanding. From now until the end of next week at least, we’re looking at 37 degrees with bright sunshine every day. Thankfully, the nights are cool enough, so sleeping is still possible. However, the heat itself is exhausting, even Pumpkin, who now spends his days hidden deep in my office cabinet, looks more sleepy than usual. And the kids next door who usually pitch baseballs back and forth for hours every day are not venturing outside right now either.

Although I’d like to do the same, I do have to go out regularly, to work, to go shopping for me and Pumpkin or to simply escape to my favourite library. While I try to avoid the heat of the early afternoon, it’s not always possible, and to my chagrin, I have made a rather painful discovery: My nice 10 mm hairstyle, cool(ing) as it is, does not provide much scalp protection…

As a remedy, I have two options: Go full-scale Japanese lady and use an umbrella. Or buy a sun hat. Since I’m very much a hands-free kinda girl and umbrellas are really cumbersome on a bicycle, I decided on a sun hat.

Interestingly, finding one was surprisingly challenging: First, I need one small enough so I can wear it on the bicycle without losing it, but still big enough to provide some protection for my neck. And second, I seem to have a surprisingly small head (I’m talking circumference, never mind my ego) compared to the average Asian. And it’s true: I have old photos where my small face stands out among all the Koreans around me. I wonder if that’s me or if that’s a general thing…

Anyway, after some looking around, I found a good sun hat of the right size and proportions. Believe it or not, this is my very first such purchase after living in Asia for 16 years! And the best part of it: I got it for just 300 yen in a second hand shop. So, from now on, I’ll be wearing a sun hat on my trips to the grocery store and the library. Give it a bit more time still, and I’ll blend in perfectly with the locals!

This afternoon, I took a break and went to see a woodblock print exhibition with my friends. One of them exhibited her latest prints, and we were very surprised that they were so much more colorful than usual.

It was a special event because the teacher (whom I’ve also known for many years) was there to comment on some of the prints. Because it was quite technical, I didn’t understand much of it, except a comment about perspective.

Anyway, we sat and chatted afterwards for a while to make it a nice afternoon.

Lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of BATI-HOLIC: after the free concert on May 18 mentioned earlier, there was another one last Friday. Not only did they play for 60 minutes, which is rare outside a solo concert, but they also presented a brand new song with lots of sing-along potential! I hope they’ll play it again next time on June 11. In other words: three concerts within less than a month (and another one on the horizon at the end of June)

This recent surge in my BATI-HOLIC fangirling prompted a friend of mine to ask, “But, isn’t it boring?”

On the one hand, I get where she’s coming from: They only have two CDs out, with a handful of additional songs, and they do play current favourites, both the band’s and the audience’s. So yes, on the surface, it does get a bit repetitive.

On the other hand, BATI-HOLIC only play two or three solo shows every year (the next one is in July.) Except for that, they share the stage with other bands, sometimes only one, sometimes as many as five or six if they play at a festival somewhere.

That means: Whenever I go to a BATI-HOLIC concert, I am automatically introduced to new bands and artists. This gives me the opportunity to learn about Kansai’s indie music scene, even though not all of them fit my taste. And besides the music, I’m getting to know new people, which is also a good thing and one of the reasons I started going to concerts to begin with.

So, no: not boring at all. Sorry to disappoint.

As I said before my holiday, I spent a lot of time setting everything up for a week off, and I was quite busy on Sunday (27) until midnight or so to experience bliss offline. So much for my plans.

Reality hit me on Monday (28) with a cold that knocked me flat out for a couple of days and turned into a sinus infection by Thursday. “Holiday” indeed, and I’m still coughing. At least I didn’t have to worry about going online and coming up with daily social media posts. And those eight books I had prepared were handy too.

Other plans had to abandoned, even though I didn’t have to spend all week in bed. (Not that Pumpkin would’ve minded that.) I only completed 8 out of the 20 projects I wanted to tackle; these were mainly small-scale home improvements that didn’t take much time.

By this week I felt good enough again to go out again, so I dropped by my neighborhood shrine for their main festival. Interestingly, that’s the first time I’ve seen it, which means I’ll give you a full account this Sunday, if I don’t get sick again.

Which is unlikely, because now I have to get back to work and my body knows it can’t let me down in times like these.

For once, Easter isn’t just passing by unnoticed, so: Happy Easter!

Other than Christmas, which has been thoroughly commercialized, Easter is not much of a thing in Japan. I guess that’s because it tends to fall somewhere between hanami and Golden Week, when the Japanese are busy with their own traditions. Also, there are only very few shops – mostly those that sell foreign goods – where you can get Easter-related merch like chocolate eggs or decorations.

Personally, I’m not very big on holiday decorations, so I tend to skip these occasions completely. However, a friend of mine gave me the above painting, so I put it on display as a nod towards Easter.

It’s a little female rabbit bowing politely at a tea ceremony. I hope the calligraphy says something appropriate… I’m still struggling with the kanji, and handwritten Japanese will probably remain elusive forever.