Two good weekends and really getting into my work

The 3rd/4th week in the lab was finally spent collecting a ton of data. So much in fact that 2 weeks later I am still analyzing it. I did a lot of other things in that time too like finish the first draft of my prelim background but you get the point. While collecting all that data I walked by this wall of quotes a lot and it all seems fitting. I am doing science internationally, my experiments might just not work as I hoped, and I have been questioning if this is real since I got here, maybe before. Luckily my experiments are based on physical phenomena and thus is not subjective but the interpretation sure will be. So yay, imaginary constructions…

I will spare you the details of the pressing of buttons every 10mins or so and the physics, while extremely energetic, would take way to long to explain here. The jist is, I am bouncing x-rays off my materials which allows me to measure the distance between planes of atoms. Then I am doing it while applying an electric field to my materials. I then compare the two states and from that analysis can hopefully understand how these materials change shape. Make sense?

That weekend was mostly more work and then some polo. We played at the same court as the previous week but after went to a sento and then to dinner. Since we were headed to the Sento, Wooyan gave me this awesome polo mallet flag that i used as a towel…. A sento is a public bath house were for like 400yen you can take a Japanese shower (seated on a little stool) then relax in a really hot tub. There were some jets and this electric shock corner that I actually kinda liked. Dinner was really nice especially since they were just ordering food for the group and all I had to do was eat. It felt like a typical hangout and bs but since I don’t know nihongo someone was always doing some translating… after a few drinks and a buch of food. We all split the bill then headed for the train station. They all bagged up their bikes so they could get on the train. You can’t take a bike on but if it is in a bag you are good. I think it is mostly to make it a pain otherwise the train would be packed with bikes…

I went and explored the park near my apt on Sunday but it wasn’t to exciting but it is rad how many parks there are. By Tuesday I had had enough and decided to take Sekky up on his offer to cut my hair. We tried to rally some people to play polo that night too. It was a good time with 5 of us and man did I feel cooler. Batteries ran out before the beard could be slayed so I kept it for two more days. I saved my hair cause it was long enough to donate so i will do that when i get back to the states.

That week was a ton more data collection and finishing up the background for my prelim doc. The next weekend was again polo at the same spot and this time I convinced Kamrie and Kasia to come check it out. They think we are all nuts. After polo Kamrie got the lowdown from Aita (amazing polo player and rad person and she speaks great English since she lived in Australia for a year) about where a good a sushi-go-round was and we headed there for dinner. Being on our own we ended up completely confused as to how this one worked but after a bunch of scharads with an employee we figured it out. The ones on dishes were peoples orders, when your order is arriving the screen yelled at you, and the ones not on dishes were up for grabs. Then at the end they just tally up the colors of the plates you have.

The next day I met Kamrie, Chris, and Balazs at the beach. It was about a 1hr ride and I accidentally sat in first class until I got kicked out. The beach was packet and so was the little island (Enoshima). the water was almost a little too warm and there weren’t much for waves. On the island was a bunch of shops, a shrine, and some cool cliffs. There is also a observation tower you can pay to go up and caves that we didn’t get to in time. It was a really nice day and ended with a sweet sunset view.