Coming Soon to a Blog Near You:
I washed my hair twice and it still smells like an ashtray. Oh well. In any case, I'm still working on the draft for my last project write-up, so you all you get is a teaser trailer. Coming soon (hopefully within a couple of days), photos from:
Fun with Fake Eyelashes
My head is about to explode from all of the reserach papers that I'm attempting to cram into it. So to make myself feel better, I decided to invest 3 British pounds (wooo, big spender!) on a pair of false eyelashes. Being asian, I wasn't blessed with beautiful long curvy lashes. But with most things, if you weren't born with God-given good looks, a bit practice and a good eye for selecting an appropriate make-up color palette is all it takes to fake it.
I spent about half an hour learning how to place them just along my natural lash line and it's much harder than it looks, especially because I can't adjust the angle of my bathroom mirror (which would help greatly, at least for intial attempts at gluing fake lashes to my eyelid). I still don't have the technique perfected, but I think I've gotten to the point where I no longer paste the fake lashes at weird skewed angles.
I must say, it feels a little weird, though. I can see the fake lashes when I'm looking straight foward and it'll probably take my brain a little bit of time to automatically cancel them out. Ah, the things we do for fun and fashion.
It's That Time Again
With lab work done, I no longer have any excuse to not start writing up my third report in earnest and compiling all three reports into my masters dissertation. But as always, all I end up doing is putting it off for one more day. And another. And another. Good news: I started writing up my materials and methods section weeks ago (however I never got around to finishing it, surprise surprise) and since I had to give lab meeting last week, most of my results figures are already finished. Bad news: I've been really really lazy this time around about reading research papers so my introduction and discussion sections will be super-hard to write. In the interest of saving time, I've resorted to re-reading the 3 or 4 papers my supervisor gave me at the beginning of my rotation and comparing the references lists of those papers in order to glean the most pertinent papers (I'm guessing that if three un-related labs all mentioned the same paper, then it MUST be really important. Hooray logic, don't fail me now). I don't think it's cheating. I mean, why reinvent the wheel? Also, don't tell me that no other grad student
does this. That's why supervisors give us key papers to start with, right? It's way more efficient than just putting "PH domain proteins" in PubMed and getting 108,976 hits.
If there is a hell, and there are seven deadly sins, I'm definitely going there on account of sloth. Sooooo lazy.
Anti-American
Since day one of arriving in Manchester, I've had to put up with hearing about how much the British think Americans suck. About how stupid our president is. About how stupid we all are as a nation for voting for Bush. How obnoxious we all are. How fat, how big-headed, how arrogant, how ignorant, how conservative, how close-minded, how loud-mouthed, how white-trash, how spoiled, how wasteful, how inconsiderate, how generally unpleasant all Americans apparently are.
And when people find out that I'm American, they don't apologize for saying something offensive, they just merely say that I must be the exception to the rule. Yes, I am the ONLY sensible American in the world. My friends, family, the university educated, the 56,655,487 people who didn't vote for Bush... They all came out of the same stupid hick war-lovin' American mold and I just happened to get lucky. I'm not saying that the U.S. is perfect; it's not. But I'm just so tired of people America-bashing.
I overheard someone say in lab today, amongst a barrage of other anti-U.S. sentiments, "Americans
deserve to have Bush lead the country. They were all dumb enough to vote for him" Since when did it become OK, and even encouraged, to take cheap stabs at the entire 300 million-person population? Is it OK to say that all Arabic people are terrorists because Osama Bin Laden is? Is it fair to say that North Korean citizens deserve to be poverty-striken because they're not willing to stand up to their dictator? Should Britain, and any other nation that colonized or exploited any other nation for that matter, be forced to give back every last bit of manpower, time, land, and money that had been taken from them? No, of course not. But it's perfectly acceptible to say that the opinions of all Americans are reflected in the actions of the government only half of the population chose to elect. It's easy to point fingers at the U.S. and blame us for being a war machine, or for manipulating the politics of other countries, or for taking advantage of underpriviledged people. Becuase ALL Americans think exactly alike and of course, no one else in the world is guilty of doing these things.
A list of common complaints that British people have voiced to me about Americans in general:
Complaint: Americans so fat and unhealthy.
My 2 Cents: Yes, many Americans are obese. Yes, a lot of us eat too much. But as a counterpart to the 30% of Americans who are overweight, 70% are not overweight and a lot of those people live healthy lifestyles by going to the gym, playing sports, having outdoors-y hobbies. It's hardly like every British citizen is a beacon of health, with the binge-drinking, hard-partying, chain-smoking culture. For me, the smell of beer and stale cigarette smoke will forever remind me of pubs in England (and bars/clubs in Japan, too).
Complaint: I can't believe only 5% of Americans hold passports. Hasn't anyone over there heard of travelling abroad?
My 2 Cents: Let me remind you that the continental U.S. is over twice the size of Europe. You also don't HAVE to have a passport to go to Canada or Mexico from the U.S. A valid driver's license or American birth certificate will do. Therefore, one can essentially travel over practically the entire North American continent sans passport. And again, it's not as if all British nationals are well-travelled. I've met plenty of people who have never left the British Isles or ventured further than Western Europe.
Complaint: American tourists are so obnoxious and loud.
My 2 Cents: You cannot say on one hand that Americans aren't well-travelled enough and on the other complain that there are too many American tourists running all over the place. As I recall, for the recent World Cup, thousands of English hooligans were
BANNED from entering Germany because they are drunken rowdy obnoxious assholes. The ones who weren't banned from attending still managed to
uphold the English football fan sterotype by being drunken rowdy obnoxious assholes.
Complaint: Stupid white trash Americans.
My 2 Cents: Yes, there is Kevin and Britney. And yes, there are some pretty dumb people in the States. That is, however, hardly a valid criticism when your own country has it's fair share of stupid chavs, scallies, and euro trash to clean up after.
Complaint: I can't believe you guys voted for Bush.
My 2 Cents: Actually, I didn't vote for Bush. Also, with giving people the privilege to vote, comes the chance that every now and then, we will elect someone who is maybe not entirely the best logical choice. At least we CAN choose. I believe Britain still has an intact monarchy with a queen and a royal family and an
official website... the whole nine yards.
Complaint: I hate how Americans cashiers tell you to have a nice day. They're just trying to get you to buy more stuff.
My 2 Cents: Did it ever occur to you that maybe those cashiers really just want you to "have a nice day" instead of a crappy one? Not every salesperson is on comission and not everyone is just pretending to be nice so that you'll spend more money. Besides, I'd much rather go shopping in the U.S. The state of the service sector in this country is pretty dismal.
Complaint: Americans smile too much.
My 2 Cents: Now it's a crime to be happy? Sheesh.
I can keep going but I'll stop. I'm not going off on this topic because I want everyone to become a flag-waving America-loving person. The U.S. has it's flaws, I know. But of all of the countries that I have lived in and visited, I would choose living in the U.S. anyday. Give us a shot; we're not all that bad. And please, lay off the anti-America jokes. They were kind of funny at first, but it's getting soooooo ooooooold. Besides, I know you all secretly dying to visit and you're just gonna have to put up with all of those friendly smiling patriotic Americans when you do.
Things That Make You Go "AHHHHHHHhhhh"
Instant relief comes in many varieties:
Scratching a mosquito bite.
Sitting down after a looooong hard day.
Taking a nice hot shower after camping for a weekend.
Getting into your own bed after a 20-hour trans-Pacific flight with layovers in Seoul, Korea and Vancouver, Canada.
Taking off your high-heels at the end of a night out and walking around barefoot on soft carpet.
Going to the bathroom just when your bladder is about to burst.
On that note, taking a big poo.
Finishing off the last Power Point slide on an important lab presentation. AHHHHHhhhhh.
El Año Pasado
A little over a year ago, I left Japan (July 25th I believe) after a crazy hectic whirlwind two weeks of cleaning, packing, sayonara parties, last minute teaching, organizing tax papers (which I have yet to turn in. God I'm lazy!), attending summer festivals, and generally saying goodbye to two years worth of the good, the bad, the ugly, and the beautiful of life in J-land.
I know that a lot of you remember how much I struggled, especially in the last 6 months or so, but as it is with most bad/painful memories, time heals all wounds and I can hardly remember what exactly it was that I resented about living in Mie-ken. All I remember now are how much fun I had with my friends there, how rewarding teaching CAN be (these memories are probably left over from the classes I taught at the "good" school, not the two evil ones), how much I miss takoyaki and ramen, and how I loved having the freedoms of a job that pays decently yet still gives you tons of vacation time (living a student life on a student budget in student housing is NO FUN). I'm feeling a little nostalgic because over the weekend, I went down to Kent to see my friend Charlie. She came to Japan at the same time I did, but decided to leave after her first year, so it has been over two years since I last saw her. She was having a good old fashion BBQ/garden party and had invited a bunch of other ex-JETs whom I also haven't seen in years. It was good to catch up with them, but most of all, it feels good to reminisce about Japan in a way I can't do with people who haven't lived the experience before.
It's been a whole year, but I feel as though I've only been away from Japan for a few weeks. Like I'm on a really long vacation and I'll go back soon to resume my life where I left off. It seems particularly crazy to me that in what my mind perceived as being an incredibly short time, I've been living in the UK for nearly a year and I've almost completed my masters course. In 5 weeks I will have to turn in my dissertation (oh NO!) and in only 6 weeks, I will be travelling around Eastern Europe with Kim and all I've prepared for that trip is my flight there and back from Manchester. A month after that, I will be on my way back home and will have to resume the next stage in my life: tricking someone into thinking I'm qualified for the kind of job I want to do.
So much is going to change in the next couple of months and I'm feeling the same way I did a year ago when I was getting ready to leave Japan and thinking of getting ready for grad school. I must say, after all of this, all I want is to settle down in one place for a looooong while, with a stable job, a nice apartment, and just see what it's like to live a normal life. I have moved every year since 1999 (with one exception between by junior and senior year at Cal), and with 3 of those moves havaing been international, all I can think is that it's time to sit down, relax, and enjoy having a place to call my own. But who knows, maybe I'll get itchy feet and need to take off again. We'll see.
