So I spent the first couple of hours at work on Monday preparing for the talk I was to give in the afternoon. Luckily, since I had just given the lecture to the 3rd year undergrads this past Thursday, I was able to recycle a lot of the basic information and just add in some more specific details.

Let’s hear it for Copy/Paste!

I spent most of Monday afternoon before the meeting preparing for the experiment that I am running today (actually as I write this) in the 3000-ton press on the first floor. For synthesis experiments like this, I most commonly use the 2000-ton and 3000-ton presses here in the GRC. For those of you who have never seen such equipment before, here are some pictures.

Haruka with ORANGE-2000.

Me with ORANGE-3000.

To put two things to rest right away… First, yes, these pictures are a few months old, from back before I started shaving my head. Second, although it may not seem it from these photos, the 3000-ton press is actually significantly larger than the 2000-ton press. As proof, here is a picture for scale:

Me with Haruka.

As you can see, I am significantly larger than Yano-san. Significantly. Like, a factor of 2-point-something.

Anyhow, I had originally intended to do this experiment last Friday, but the last experiment I did ended up rupturing several anvils, and the new batch had not arrived yet. I had to postpone the experiment to the next available day on the schedule, which was today. Thankfully, the anvils arrived late Friday afternoon (just barely too late to do the experiment; grrr…) and I was able to run today.

After the group meeting got out, just before 6 pm on Monday, I was asked whether or not I had submitted my research grant proposal. I said that I hadn’t, as the deadline is this coming Friday. I was then informed that the deadline for non-Japanese proposals that are to be submitted in English was last Friday. Needless to say, I was taken aback by this, as I had no idea. I was told that this information had been emailed to me, and I went to check, and sure enough it had.

In Japanese.

I will repeat that. The administrative office sent an email saying that non-Japanese speakers who were submitting English proposals had an earlier deadline, and they sent this email to the non-Japanese-speaking GRC folk in Japanese.

Hence my confusion.

Anyway, it turns out it is not a big deal, as it is only a soft internal deadline, which is a week before the hard internal deadline, which is three weeks before the actual JSPS deadline. (JSPS is the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, and acts kind of like the National Science Foundation in the U.S.) Another excellent example of the multi-layered bureaucratic structure here.

I finished preparing the proposal about 2am Tuesday morning, and finished revising and polishing it on Tuesday. In addition to working on the proposal, I also finished preparing for today’s experiment, which was another few hours of lab work.

I also had my first Daddy/Husband panic attack on Tuesday afternoon. Sara was supposed to go to City Hall to pick up some paperwork so she could finish filing the last of the necessary forms for her and Emi’s Visas at the immigration office that afternoon. What should have been a 1 hour excursion turned into four hours without any sign of her. Several phone calls went unanswered, and I began trying to figure out how the hell to report two missing people to the local police in a language I can’t speak.

Luckily, she finally arrived here about 5 minutes before the aneurysm actually burst, and my mind was put at ease. I finished the lab work at about 7 pm, and Sara stuck around here so we could walk home together. We stopped at the grocery store on the way home to pick up some snacky foods and ketchup, the latter of which I had ruthlessly devoured the last of that morning.

Emi was really good the whole time, and it was time to eat when we got home. She got a tad fussy for a while, and now you know the reason for the Stewie Griffin video I posted.

So, today I got a bit of a later start than I had intended, and came in here to start the experiment. It was a bit different than usual because the computer that monitors the pressure and controls the heating in the press died yesterday. It was replaced, but the programs and such work a bit differently than what I am used to. Haruka helped me get the press cleaned and ready, and after a brief explanation about the new computer from Shinmei-san, it was time to begin compressing.

Which is a five hour process, by the way.

So, during this five hours, I worked with the Research Administrator for the GRC, Yamada-san, on translating the title of my research proposal and submitting the preliminary proposal to the JSPS website. We ended up taking care of a lot of things today; see if you can follow this trail with me.

1) I write the proposal in English. No problem.
2) The descriptive title must be translated into Japanese for the submission process, and can be no more than 40 characters. Yamada-san took care of this. I don’t know what I would do without him.
3) Submit the proposal to the JSPS web system. Which is written entirely in Japanese. Again, thanks go to Yamada-san.
4) Receive PDF file of proposal with new cover sheet.
5) Print this PDF file.
6) Take hard copy of PDF file across campus to the research office at the University for them to look over and check for formatting errors or other logistical problems.
7) Receive either corrections or the green light from the research office. (Rinse and repeat Steps 6-7 as needed.)
8) Submit final version of grant proposal to JSPS web system.
9) Wait 5 months to find out whether or not the proposal is funded.

Today, we got through steps 1-6. Hopefully things will be in order and I can finalize all of this tomorrow.

The huge amount of bureaucratic machinations aren’t the most difficult part of the proposal process, however. We are not given a character limit or anything, but we ARE given a very limited amount of space and a minimum font size. This is universal, whether written in Japanese or English. Since I am writing in English, I don’t have the luxury of using Kanji characters, which significantly reduce the amount of space taken up by Japanese writing. This means I am limited to saying about half of what the typical Japanese proposal has room to say, which makes it harder to fully develop and give enough details, and that can be frustrating.

On a good note, though, I received the final electronic version of my latest paper, which has just gone live in the Journal of Earth Science. For those of you who are interested, it can be found by CLICKING HERE. Good times.

And that leads us to now, where I am about 3 hours into the 4 hour heating cycle. Unfortunately, the thermocouple broke during compression, and I can’t seem to find the reason why. I hesitate to call shenanigans, but I will keep an eye out for signs when I take it out tomorrow. So, one more hour until I can quench the sample and set it to decompress overnight. The press is booked by a student tomorrow, so I need to make sure to vacate the space for her as early as possible.

Now that I’ve bored pretty much all of you to tears, I suppose I’ll call it a day in Blogsville and head back downstairs to check on my little alchemical concoction. Thanks for stopping by, people, and until next time, I bid you all a Metal farewell.

-Matt

I was pleasantly surprised.

The talk itself ended up going quite well, and I used about 40 minutes of my 90 minute allotment. I know that some of the students at least did not understand some of the things I was saying, but overall they seemed to follow along quite well. At the end of the talk, because I had so much time left over, Tange-san went back through my presentation and gave Japanese translations for some of the words that the students may not have fully understood, which was nice of him.

Afterward, I got a few questions from some of the students, but nothing overly serious. Most of them pertained to my love of heavy metal music and my reason for giving my daughter a Japanese name. Still, Tange told me there were a couple of students in particular who were quite interested in my research, which is a good sign.

Another good sign: apparently I am the only professor who has given such a lecture in recent history that did not have a single student fall asleep during the talk.

After I let them go to break before their last lecture of the day, the two students I had written about meeting previously came to me to ask me some more questions and seemed genuinely interested in the research and my answers. Overall, the whole thing went a lot better than I had feared.

Then, later tonight, I had my research seminar for the Doctor Course students, which also went very well. Now, though, after a long day, I am pretty much tapped out. I need to get some sleep because tomorrow is the day that the third year students go to meet with Professors whose research they find interesting. Time to clean up the office some and get ready (hopefully) for some discussions.

So, to summarize, I am doing my best not to get my hopes up, but they weren’t dashed against the rocks as I feared they might be after today, either. Wish me luck, y’all.

-Matt

Aside from the meeting, I also discussed with him some of the other things I mentioned in my previous post. I appreciate the fact that he took about an hour and a half out of his time to talk with me about all these things, as he definitely helped to put my mind at ease.

One of the big things we discussed was the topic of the research group meetings. The Ultra-High Pressure Group is the largest group at the GRC, and as such the meeting commonly runs close to two hours. So far this semester, we have had 225 minutes worth of meeting, less than 4 minutes of which were conducted in English.

This, for me, is quite problematic. If it was only me, then I wouldn’t complain as the onus would be on me to learn the language and catch up (which in many ways it still is, and I am trying, slowly but surely). However, one of my main responsibilities as an educator at the GRC is preparing their students to be able to engage in scientific discussion in English for international meetings and the like.

Basically, I’m the English Police.

Looking at the participants in the meeting objectively, I don’t worry so much about myself and the post-docs who don’t speak Japanese, but I do worry about the students. There are three undergraduate students and two Master Course students in the group, all of whom are Japanese and have varying levels of English proficiency. English is NOT a requirement for their degree programs, so the meetings are held in Japanese largely for their benefit. However, the problem arises with the three Ph.D. students who regularly attend the meeting. First, English IS a requirement for them, which is one of the main reasons I run my seminar courses in the GRC for Doctor Course students. More importantly, however, is that all three of them are from China.

None of them speak Japanese.

This leaves us at an impasse of sorts, because no matter which language we have the meeting in, someone will be left confused. I would push for English, simply because it wouldn’t hurt for the students to be exposed to it more frequently, but it would be a major change from the way things have traditionally been done. Also, it seems that a couple students over the last year or so have actually dropped out of the GRC because it was too English-heavy, which is why I think the pendulum has swung so far back the other way in our meetings this semester. It’s a difficult line to walk, and unfortunately for now, we have no real solution other than to be aware of the problem and do what we can to accommodate everyone as best we can.

The other major topic was the issues with collaborations that I mentioned briefly in my previous post. As it turns out, it’s just a difference in the way things are done here that was causing the problem. All it requires is a specific approach. I am happy to say that after taking the advice from this discussion with the bossman, I now have three new active collaborations on my hands, and I couldn’t be happier (or busier) about it.

Overall, we discussed a lot of things, and I feel like I made a lot of headway in our discussions. I feel a lot better about things moving forward, and am learning more about the small, subtle differences between here and the U.S. in day-to-day operations and such. I’m doing my best to overcome my ignorance on such matters, and thankfully the people here are willing to work with me toward that end and others, which is all I could ever ask for.

Now, I need to get back to writing this proposal for a Topical Session in the International Symposium at the 2011 Japan Geoscience Union Meeting. I’m hoping to get some good multidisciplinary discussion going this year regarding the Earth’s core.

Good days ahead, even though they’ll be busy. Wish me luck.

-Matt

I can’t really go into any details about what happened or anything, but a massive change is underway in the Geodynamics Research Center on many levels, and it is the kind of change that is unprecedented at Ehime University. Some people are leaving, some others are having their positions changed, and some of those position changes come with physical location changes. 95% of all this is on an administrative level, and deals very little with the research and education roles of the GRC. Still, it’s something that will change how things run around here in many ways.

So imagine my surprise last Friday when I came back from City Hall after doing a load of paperwork for Emi, and I find everyone in the conference room having a meeting. Every faculty member associated with the GRC was there.

Except me.

I had a lot of thoughts going through my head as I saw this, and even more thoughts over the weekend. I know I have felt a bit like an outsider on the faculty here, which is understandable as I am the only foreign faculty member in the GRC. I get most official emails and can’t read them. Because of this, I either don’t know about University meetings, or when I do, I am lost because I don’t speak the language. I’m trying to learn as best I can, but I’ve never been very good with languages, and Japanese has almost nothing in common with English, which makes it even harder.

There is a very cooperative research environment here, with many faculty members having strong collaborations with each other in their research programs. I have had a bit of difficulty getting involved in that. I feel at times that people are more than willing to help me with my research, but when it comes to theirs, I find myself on the outside looking in. I am hoping this is because of the simple fact that I am new and haven’t had time to integrate to a great degree yet, and not part of the outsider feeling that I get at times.

I met with the bossman today, and had a really good, if brief discussion about some of these things. Unfortunately, he was preparing to head to Tokyo, so we had to table the discussion until his return later this week. He told me that it was his decision to leave me out of the meeting due to its sensitive nature, and that he intended to fill me in about the events that led up to the meeting and the results afterward. He gave me a brief overview, and I’ll get more details when we talk again later this week. He did put my mind at ease a bit, and I’m hoping that talking candidly with him about these feelings and such will help me get past all this and become better integrated in the department here.

Any advice or personal experiences that anyone is willing to share would be greatly appreciated.

On a more upbeat note, I will be giving a presentation to the 3rd year undergrads here on the 14th about my research program. All of the GRC faculty will do the same over the next week or so, and on October 22nd, the students will choose the faculty member they want to work with to do their undergraduate thesis research. I met with two students today and gave them an overview of the experiments I do, and the equipment and such that I use in the lab. The meeting went fairly well, but at the end of the discussion, they were more interested in asking me whether or not I really liked Heavy Metal and Karaoke like they had heard.

It seems my reputation precedes me.

One thing I am nervous about is the language barrier. I know that the students I met with today were rather shy about using English, even though they understood probably 90% of what I said. I fear that many of the students will write me off completely because they don’t want to deal with the language issue. One of the other professors here told me that I shouldn’t worry too much about it because I am kind of like a rock star to these kids, and I give them a unique opportunity to work with someone from another country, practice their English skills, and work on research projects that are unique to our group here at the GRC. I am hoping that he’s right.

We’ll see how it all plays out in a couple of weeks, and in the meantime I’m keeping my hopes high, but realistic. So much to do, so little time. No rest for the wicked awesome.

Until next time, peeps.

-Matt