My first Japanese Haiku

鳥を見て、
通りを見てません。
壁、えとね。。。

So, it has nothing to do with the seasons, I think I cheated in the second line, using the wrong reading of the kanji, and I learned later that I actually misspelled the last word.  But, this fits the 5-7-5 format, actually happened, and (probably) makes sense in Japanese!

In phonetic romaji (representation of Japanese words using Latin letters, but also changing the representation slightly so that someone more familiar with English will pronounce it "correctly"), the above is

Tori oh meetay,
dori oh meetay masen.
kabay, ehtonay...

Translated:

Watching the bird,
Not watching the street.
The wall, well....

So, remember those sagi (鷺) I told you about down by the river?  I was watching one fly overhead recently, and took my eyes off the bike path a little too long.  When my attention returned to where it was demanded, my collision with the flimsy-looking fence -- that was the only thing keeping me from tumbling into the mighty Sakai-gawa (境川) -- was imminent.  I think I escaped with only minor bruises, but my knee still is sore almost two weeks later.

One of my goals when I started learning Japanese was to reach a point where I could compose an authentic Japanese Haiku.  I think this can suffice, for now!

Opening Up

Alright, so I may have let this slide a bit recently.  However, I've recently met somebody with a "real" online presence and so I've been inspired to return to this adventure.

That said, a lot of what I write (assuming I manage to keep this up) over the next couple of weeks will be retrospective of past events that have transpired since August.  But, hey, they'll be new to you right, so what's the difference?

I'll start when I left off, which is the amazing "Open Campus" (オープン キャンパス) at JAXA.  For two days at the end of July, ISAS/JAXA opens their campus to all visitors.  Granted, it is open to all visitors always (provided they sign in an receive a badge at the entrance), but for this, over 10,000 people descended upon the facility.

Every project and employee -- and I do mean every -- at ISAS was represented with an informational booth describing what they were doing and why.  If you were fortunate, you might find yourself talking to the Project Manager of a mission, or the director of the lab!  I used my time off to explore the rest of the event and learn quite a lot about the many projects JAXA has underway, from planetary to astronomy to lab studies to aeronautics to ....  I say "time off" because I also contributed time to do this public outreach.  Although there was not much more for me to do other than repeat "あかつきの パンフレット ください" ("Please take an Akatsuki pamphlet"), I was grateful for the handful of foreigners who knew even less Japanese than I did.  I was very happy to explain the Akatsuki mission in English to those select few.  I'm also very grateful to my housemates who accepted my invitation to come to the event and learn all about JAXA.  Though, I'm sure some of them got a lot more out of it from my Japanese colleagues than they did from talking to me!

It was a lot of fun, and a great way both of letting the public know what we do here, but also letting the rest of the lab know what else goes on outside each of our little conclaves.  I hope I can convince my institution back in the USA to try something similar.

The Semi Evil Ones

I haven't slept in five days.  I think I may not sleep again for months.  The night walkers (and night flyers) are turning me into a zombie.

The semi (蝉) are fully evil.

In many parts of the United States, we are quite familiar with the summer sounds of the cicada.  Many species of locust thrive during the summer, including cicada, grasshoppers, katydids, etc.  Growing up, I would enjoy listening to the song of the katydids and the crickets night after night while camping in the woods of eastern Pennsylvania.  Upon arriving in late Spring in Japan, I expected to eventually hear these typical sounds of summer, and was assured that they were on the way.  Once they started about two weeks ago, it began to truly feel like summer, even though the rainy season (梅雨: tsuyu) had not yet run its course.  However, I was surprised to learn that the semi sleep at night in Japan, singing only in daylight (at least for the first two weeks).  The night silence was almost unnerving after hearing the daytime cacophony.  I was amused to find that I could close my eyes and know when I walked beneath street lights solely based on the volume of the semi (by the way, this is not a good idea, because the sound of the semi can sometimes overwhelm the sounds of approaching cars: 車).  Presumably the poor creatures nearest the lights were kept awake all night by these human conveniences.  Little did I know that they would soon have their revenge.

蝉(semi)  struggling (or plotting) after a heavy rainfall.

My first clue that semi are evil was revealed when I noted that one of their typical calls sounded eerily like laughter: "Waaa waaa waaa waaa waaaaaaaa."  Another sounds exactly like the sounds of the generic "we're all going to die" alarm from many movies and computer games: "Waaaa Ooooo Waaaa Ooooo Waaaa Ooooo."  But the final (at least I hope so) revelation was this past weekend, when every morning, at the crack of dawn (that would be about half an hour before sunrise, so nautical twilight), the semi outside my window broke into their song.  I've slept through several earthquakes already during my time in Japan; but there is no sleeping through this Devil's choir that could easily wake the dead.

At night now, instead of sleeping, they take turns attacking my window, seemingly probing it for weaknesses.  They seem to be smart enough (unfortunately) to avoid splattering all over the glass.  Instead, they seem to take joy in either ricocheting off of the screen, or making an unholy racket while attempting to alight (make that a-heavy) upon it.  Several times, I have been dive-bombed by semi while walking.  I'm beginning to wonder if I ought to invest in a motorcycle helmet in anticipation of my first cyclist-semi collision.  Though they may have faces that only a mother could love; given the right circumstances, they can be quite beautiful.  For example the fellow above, struggling amid a recent shower.

Falling Behind

I really need to find more time to spend on writing here.  Every time I carve out a few minutes to update this blog, I find there are too many things that have happened since the last entry, that it is almost certain that something will have to be omitted.  I suppose that is OK, but since I simultaneously worry that one of these days I will simply run out of things to write about, perhaps I should just stop worrying altogether and just write the darn thing.

Anyway, I wanted to write about my recent bicycle adventure (last weekend) -- and at some point, I will -- but this weekend (Friday and Saturday), I spent some time "helping" at the Akatsuki booth of the ISAS/JAXA Open House.  I finger-quote the helping because when you spend 99% of your time at a public event as the only gaikokujin (外国人: foreigner) in the room, one's concept of helping quickly becomes, "please do me the favor of taking this Akatsuki leaflet."  Fortunately, there were a few groups of non-native Japanese speakers who came by while I was working the floor, and they gave me the opportunity to do my part in explaining how cool the Akatsuki mission is to the public.  It also gave me a few minutes to work on my very rudimentary Japanese skills.  And also to put them in perspective.  Since the Grade-1 and Grade-2 Japanese are expected to be mastered by students in, well, 1st and 2nd grade, and since I am nowhere near being able to master said skills, it occurs to me that my Japanese ability is probably comparable to my two-year-old niece's English ability.  That is, to a typical native speaker of Japanese, I probably sound like a two-year-old: I can usually (but not always) speak enough words to make my meaning understood, but for the most part, all I am doing is making noises that vaguely resemble actual words.  As a Ph.D. scientist, that is rather humbling (in a good way, but humbling nonetheless).  On the other hand, maybe it means that if I ever end up with children of my own, I can now be better prepared to understand the "Terrible Twos."

I want to ride my bicycle....

So, the trains in Japan....

First of all, I'm glad that ISAS/JAXA is as far away from the center of Tokyo as it is.  I've only heard stories about the overcrowding on trains there, and I'd like to keep it that way!  I've been commuting to and from this little hamlet surrounded by city and ISAS/JAXA in Fuchinobe / Sagamihara.  This involves two trains on two separate lines.  They are short trips, but there are two problems.  First, each line charges for the use of their train, plus the distance you travel, so to take a train for one stop is just about the least economical way to travel; and my commute is a one-stop train followed by a two-stop train.  Second, the second of my two travel legs is frighteningly overcrowded during the morning rush.  As in, once everybody is on the train, more people keep pushing their way through the doors until either the mass of humanity reaches the incompressible point, or the doors start closing, preventing further incursions.  If the train were to have an incident, everybody would be perfectly safe because there would be nowhere to fall.  A crash pad on all sides, composed of human flesh and bone.

This is not my cup of tea.  I found that if I leave home between 6:00 and 6:30, I can ride on trains that are merely crowded (I've never been able to sit down on my morning commute), but then I arrive at work hours before anybody else, and all of the coffee shops are closed, so I have only the option of vending machine coffee (which, admittedly, isn't bad in comparison with some brick and mortar coffeeshops here).  Or, I can wait at home until between 8:00 and 8:30, and ride the ebb of the wave into work and arrive somewhat later than I'd like.  To rectify this, I recently bought a folding bicycle to ride into the office.  Not all the way from here in Higashitamagawagakuen (東玉川学園), which would be a very hilly and difficult ride amid the morning rush, but rather from Machida station (町田駅) along the Sakai River (境川).  I saw a majestic looking gray heron (鷺) on my ride home from the office this evening, already making me glad of my choice.  Looking forward to more day-ending relaxing rides on 私の自転車.  Hopefully, I'll figure out how to free the bicycle from the 駐輪場 (bicycle parking lot) on my way to the office tomorrow morning!

Potential Energy

Today, as I walked and rode to the office, the weather conditions were very ominous.  To most, it looked like any other morning, rather overcast, still air, and a slight mist.  But, to me, the air looked and felt like an atmospheric time bomb just waiting to go off.

The temperature was already in the mid 70's (F), nearly 25C.  The air was thick with humidity (I checked the dew point and saw that it was 23C (73F), and forecast to rise through the morning), and very still, with only a barely perceptible breeze (I could see the leaves moving, but I could not tell from which direction the wind had come).  As an atmospheric scientist, I knew that the amount of potential energy in the air around me was enormous, and it was only going to increase (it was only 6:30 AM, barely two hours after sunrise).  Soon, the low-lying clouds would evaporate, allowing the Sun to reach and warm the surface.  This would very quickly initiate convection, which would draw much more moisture high into the atmosphere.  The water in the air would condense in the cooler atmosphere above, but that would only add to the energy.  Consider that steam or water vapor is basically liquid water plus heat.  So, if you start with liquid water and add heat, you get water vapor.  But it works both ways: if you start with water vapor and change it to liquid water, you had to remove energy from the water vapor and put it into the atmosphere.  So, a sunny and humid day means there is a lot of energy ready to be put into the atmosphere: some from absorbing sunlight, some from the condensation of water vapor into clouds.  And energy in the atmosphere usually means thunderstorms.  So, the air feels about ready to explode with all of the fury of Zeus.  But, right now, the air is so thick and stifling, that I'm glad to have an air-conditioned room in which to work.

In my other home (well, one of my other home towns), there is another form of (formerly) potential energy on display.  For years, trees have grown in the forests of Colorado.  They are storing up the organic energy of the soil, water, air, and sunlight that they consume, in the form of wood and leaves.  In the Winter time, we are often very glad for this source of potential energy when we utilize it to warm our houses.  But, in the dry Colorado summer (which has considerably less water vapor: the dewpoint there recently was 25F, or -4C), this potential energy is far too easily converted into heat energy of a burning forest -- and sometimes only due to human negligence.  Right now, several of my neighbors are faced with the potential or actual loss of their home and/or lives as a result of a human caused forest fire.  Potential energy comes in many forms; but is useful only if managed properly.  If managed improperly, it is chaotic at best and destructive at worst.

Edit: It seems I neglected to actually post this after having finished writing it yesterday.  It turns out I was spot-on in my prediction, as a massive evening thunderstorm with very heavy rains caused flooding on the 小田急-小田原　線　(Odakyuu-Odawara line), which resulted in their service being suspended for some time.  I learned two new words in Japanese, though: 雷 (kaminari: thunder, or "God's voice"), and 夕立 (yuudachi: shower ...[edited]: actually, evening shower [/edit]).

Who am I? Why am I here?

Those of you who are old enough to remember may have gotten a little chuckle out of the post title.  Those of you who are not, just google "Admiral Stockdale."  And if you do a little digging around, you may learn a little bit about what happened the last time a businessman with zero political capability ran for president.

But, I digress.  Who am I?  Other than what you can read in my blogger profile, I am a NASA Participating Scientist in Residence with the Akatsuki mission of JAXA to explore the atmosphere of Venus.  The spacecraft carries five cameras, each with several filters.  Three of the cameras measure infrared radiation (or light) from the planet, at wavelengths near 10 micrometers, near 2 micrometers, and near 1 micrometer.  One camera measures light of visible wavelength near 0.7 micrometers (red) and near 0.5 micrometers (green).  The last camera measures ultraviolet radiation near 0.3 micrometers.  I'll discuss each of these in future posts.  The general idea -- indicated in the figure -- is that we can observe changes at different altitudes, or regarding different constituents of the atmosphere, by changing the wavelength at which we observe.  Finally, there is an ultrastable oscillator, which is a fancy way of saying a radio wavelength beam of a very specific and unchanging frequency, which is used to measure the vertical structure of the atmosphere by sending the radio beam through the atmosphere obliquely, and measuring the changes in the beam when it reaches Earth, much like watching how the Sun turns red and appears to change shape during a sunset.

Why am I here?  NASA has agreements with many of the other national and international space agencies around the globe.  It is very expensive to send a robot to another planet.  It is in the interests of all scientists around the world that the amount of information that is returned from a spacecraft mission is maximized.  It is also in the interests of the taxpayers around the world who have funded these missions through their respective national space agencies.  Although NASA's funding is less than 0.5% of the USA federal budget, it is the best funded of the world's space agencies by an order of magnitude.  So, NASA often offers to provide a small amount of support to science missions developed by other nations.  The host nation wins because they spend more time doing science and taking data; NASA wins because they are able to support a few of their own scientists in mission activities in addition to the existing spacecraft.  In this case (Akatsuki), NASA and JAXA have decided that, due to the large distance (+14 to +17 hours from the mainland USA, minus one hour during Daylight Saving Time, which Japan does not observe) and language barriers, it would facilitate cooperation by having at least one Participating Scientist in Japan throughout the mission lifetime.  For roughly 2/3 of the time for the next four years, I am that person.

Spin-up

So, as you can tell, I'm a scientist.  Which means, pretty much, that I am a computer jockey.  Everything I do requires use of a computer in some way.  I suppose in the modern day, that is actually pretty common; but it has been this way in science for decades.  I'm either writing simulations (often in arcane languages like Fortran 77), or analyzing spacecraft or telescope data (using IDL -- Interactive Data Language -- or more recently, Python), or writing papers (in LaTeX, of course), or finding papers or other information in the internet (Google is your friend).  So, having a working computer isn't just a good idea, it is something without which I cannot operate.

So, that is what I spent most of the first two weeks here doing.  Installing a Virtual Box so I can operate in Linux; installing all sorts of compilers and high level languages so I can use that box; getting printer drivers working -- not a simple task when many of the printers are, not surprisingly, Japanese, while my computer is American; and getting internet access working (I probably should have listed that one first, since the rest pretty much falls down without it).  Oh, and then I spend a lot of time drinking once I get home because it is so frustrating trying -- and not immediately succeeding -- to get these things working and wanting to get started on the work you've come here to do!

Doesn't sound all that exciting?  Well, that's the reality of science; and most professions, really.  There are always some really cool and exciting things you get to do; but much of the time you spend on the mundane; the things that have to get going so you can do the things that get you going.  I don't mind that I've written about a rather slow topic today; there's no way I was going to try to compete with Juno! :-)

However, I will mention that yesterday was the 4th of July -- Independence Day -- and though the local military bases have been keeping a low profile this holiday (long story), the weather chose to celebrate, as a textbook supercell rolled through the Tokyo area yesterday afternoon.  I'd never seen such a clear comma cloud signature from a supercell before.  I thought I'd see some hail, but it was "just" a ton of rain and lightning.  I was very glad to see my first Japanese thunderstorm, because it brought a temporary reprieve from this weekend's heat.

Japan is not homogeneous

One of the first things I experienced about Japan was how easy it is to get around here.

I was in my new apartment for maybe a week when I received an email from a very good friend and colleague telling me she'd be in Kyoto for a conference within a week, and whether I'd be able to head out there to do some sightseeing on the weekend.  After some research, I discovered that it would be possible to ride the shinkansen ("bullet" train) from Yokohama to Kyoto after work and still get to Kyoto at a reasonable time.  I just had to get myself to a ticket office to purchase the tickets.  So I headed down to Yokohama and tried my best to request -- in Japanese -- the ticket and return I wanted.  Surprisingly enough, it worked!  I had just completed my first transaction with both participants speaking entirely in Japanese without once having to resort to English!  Granted, I could tell the ticket agent was getting a little frustrated with how slowly I was speaking, but everything I thought I had said ended up on my tickets, so it must have worked.  My Suica card (local rail card, similar to many Metro areas in the US) from the Tokyo area worked just fine on both rail and bus in Kyoto, so it was a breeze getting to and from the shinkansen stations on both ends.

Anyway, after a two hour ride to Kyoto from Yokohama, I arrived in Kyoto.  In the ten minute walk from the train station that served as the terminus of my travels, I saw more people wearing kimonos than I had in the (to that point) four weeks I had spent in the Tokyo area!  And there were many more such sightings to follow.  Kyoto is very different culturally from Tokyo.  And from my limited reading of Japanese history from both fiction and non-fiction, I understand it has -- rather more than not -- always been that way.  We managed to spend a day exploring Kinkaku-ji and Ginkaku-ji (Gold Temple and Silver Temple), and the Fushimi Inari shrine.  I think at a later date, I'll post some of the photos from that excursion.  But, for now, I think I'll call it a night.  My next topic ought to be somewhat related to the work I am doing here!

A New Beginning

That's it, they're gone.  They've left me here.  That is the only reasonable conclusion.  And now I am on my own.

That was something similar to the train of thought running though my head just over two weeks ago, when the last of my American colleagues returned home following the Science Working Team Meeting.  I was feeling a little bit like Mark Watney / Matt Damon in The Martian.  That I had signed up for this, open-eyed, and knew -- sort of -- what I was getting into only tempered that feeling slightly.  As Mark did, I knew my team had no choice, they were working according to the existing plan.  I was to stay here to work with our Japanese colleagues, to help them in any way that I could, and to help facilitate the science that the NASA scientists hoped to pursue.  But, still, as my colleagues departed one by one to Narita Airport and thence home to the USA, I had to slowly come to grips with the fact that, from now for the next five months, I was on my own.

What that means practically, however, is that as of tomorrow, 6 June (remember: in medias res ;-) ), I can get to work.  I have my housing worked out, I've identified a number of places I can eat, as well as some good supermarkets.  So, food and shelter are taken care of.  Transportation to and from the office is still an unsolved problem (more on that in a few days).  So, that means I can start directing my mind to coming up with ways of making sure I can get out of here alive. :-D  Or, rather, ensuring that I can make the most of my time here, both professionally and personally.  And they way to do that, of course is to dive right in (but I always think too much, so I'll have to walk all the way round the pool, first).

Comings and Goings

Yesterday, I went with three of my housemates (the fourth was out of town until today) to the next stop on the local rail line, the Odakyuu-Odawara (小田急-小田原) line to Machida (田町).  We were celebrating both my arrival as a new resident, and the departure of a resident who had been here for the past year.  As the fellow who is departing Japan noted, we were eating in an Italian restaurant, with a French name, and which served its dishes in the Japanese style (what we might call "family style" in the USA).  It was a little too much cognitive dissonance for him, so he continued drinking his Belgian beer.

The stone stairway leading up from my front door.

During this trip, I have decided to stay at a somewhat traditional Japanese house that has been converted to a shared house with six individual sleeping rooms.  I selected it for the garden and the tranquility of being removed a bit from the urban-dominated landscape.  At night, I do not hear the trains, I do not hear the traffic.  I hear the rustling of the tree leaves in the steady sea breeze from the Pacific Ocean just 17 miles to the south.  I hear the sound of the rainfall splashing against the stone deck outside the sliding door.  I hear the sound of the neighbors cleaning their dishes.  And, yes, I hear the occasional sirens, reminding me that the city remains just beyond my horizon.

It'll be sad to see this housemate go, though I've known him only briefly.  He was the only resident with whom I could readily speak English without worrying that I was speaking too quickly for comprehension.  Speaking with my other housemates is an enjoyable exercise that allows me to practice my Japanese and they their English; but sometimes it is nice to just drop into your native tongue and speak freely without having to think so hard about what it is you are (or think you are) saying.

An American Scientist in Japan

It's been a while.

Mostly because I've been busy preparing for my stint in Japan as a NASA Participating Scientist in Residence with the Akatsuki mission.  I had a lot of loose ends to tie off on the home front before heading overseas for five months.  I didn't quite get everything done, but almost everything that is left can be finished now that I am here.

Anyway, I'll be keeping a running report of my time here at this blog site.  Maybe one day people will even start reading it.  Now, I've already been here two weeks, so we'll be running "in medias res."  The reason for the delay is the time it took me to get settled with housing, internet, phone, etc.  But, I'm settled now, and ready and able to dive in.

日本へようこそ!