Part 5
Getting Results
October 24- Results!
I attended another incomprehensible journal club and then continued working on my article. I made some headway, but took a break for lunch after a couple of hours. When I returned to my desk, I had an email from Kiyoe containing our latest ultracentrifuge results; soon after that she stopped by in person to discuss them. Exactly what we had hoped would happen had occurred! The samples with the largest amounts of H1 had condensed the chromosome, shifting it farther down the tube, rather than opening it up and shifting it in the opposite direction, as had occurred previously. This confirmed Kiyoe’s theory that the histone worked in a concentration dependent fashion and that it worked differently from B4, which had not affected the chromosome in the same way.
Now, the main thing left for me to do was to repeat the experiment a number of times to make certain that our results were not a fluke. This also meant that our gamble had paid off of submitting an abstract to the Japanese Molecular Biology Society that we weren’t sure was 100% correct at the time. With these latest results, the topic of the talk I had been chosen to give was fairly secure. Since we would have a lot more ultracentrifugation ahead of us, Kiyoe suggested that I make another large batch of chromosomes using the Hela histones, as I had done before this latest round of tests. She also expressed interest in seeing another gel of the H1 binding, since I had mis-loaded one of the samples on Monday, and we were therefore unable to detect the level of binding for that sample. I worked on getting both of these experiments running before I left for the day, as well as working on my article as much as possible. I left at 5:30, with both of my experimental goals accomplished, as well as 700 words of my article written.
I took the usual trains to meet Justin at Mikuni at 6:30. When I got to Juso, however, I ran to catch the next train- glancing at the kanji on it quickly to make sure it didn’t say Takarasuka express. As soon as the doors closed behind me, I knew I had made a terrible mistake. The train was not, indeed, an express, but neither was it the local, either. It was a special limited express which would next stop at Ishibashi, my home station. I had not choice but to ride the train to Ishibashi and then turn around and take the local train back to Mikuni. In the five and a half months that I had lived in Japan, I had never taken the wrong train- I guess there was a first time for everything!
I finally arrived in Mikuni 20 minutes late- Justin hadn’t been worried, but he was tired of waiting. We decided to have dinner at an Indian place we had heard about from Shohei. We talked ourselves out of feeling like we were betraying the staff at Cha Cha’s by going to a different Indian restaurant, since we didn’t have a choice but to eat in Mikuni that evening. We were waited on by a Japanese man- already not a good sign- but we did notice that the kitchen was full of Indians. The food was not as spicy as we were used to, but they did have a choice of three curries with your meal, instead of the usual two. The food was good, but we decided that it wasn’t quite as good as Cha Cha’s. It was definitely more expensive- we spent the same for the two of us that we usually did for the entire family!
Justin was very excited about a new family that had just moved to campus and whose kids were starting school the following week. They were from Austria, and had two boys, one that was 15 and one that was 10. Justin had met them at his school and had gone to their apartment in the International House after school to show them around the neighborhood. They had come by our house and met Trudy and Brennan, and then our family showed them the store where they needed to buy a uniform. The family, with the exception of their youngest, spoke English well. Justin was thrilled to finally have someone joining his class that he could talk to in English. Brennan was not quite as excited, however, since the boy who was coming to his school was two grades below him and could only speak German.
I had prepared a short message to share at church. I discussed Ecclesiastes, which I had been reading, and talked about how things seemed meaningless without God. The lesson was well received, especially since many of my Japanese listeners could relate to seeing their acquaintances working so hard, seemingly without purpose. Tadashi gave us a ride home afterwards, where we rejoined the others around 10:15.
October 25- Fifth Progress Report
I woke up early and got Brennan up so he could leave for school by 7:15. He had an all-school sports meet that met in the middle of Toyonaka, where he was participating in two events. After getting him out the door, I finished getting ready and headed out on the 8:10 bus. I changed my dialysis buffer when I got in, and also developed the gel. It looked a lot better; we were able to tell what we wanted to about the linker histone binding this time. I continued working on my article as I changed the dialysis buffer throughout the day; I was still absorbed in writing when Kiyoe stopped by my desk, at 3 pm. “Time for group meeting”, she said.
I had totally forgotten that we had scheduled our progress report for this date! Kiyoe said that it was fine that I hadn’t written up anything- she just wanted me to show my latest results to Kaneda-sensei when my time came around. Luckily, I had kept my notebook up to date during breaks between writing, so that my latest results were nicely organized. Everything worked out fine in the end- Kiyoe had written most of what I had been up to in her report, and I went over my data on cue. When I returned to my desk, I made sure that I wrote the date of the next meeting on Anna’s calendar, which usually sat between our desks. I went back to work on the article, finally reaching 1500 words before leaving for home at 6:55.
Trudy had Chinese noodles with vegetables waiting for me when I got home. While I ate, Brennan told me about his day. He had participated in a ball throw, as well as the 50 meter dash. He had not done particularly well in either of his events, but had an “ok” time nonetheless. Justin had gone to see Thomas (the new Austrian boy) after school. Even though Thomas wasn’t starting school until Monday, Justin stopped by to pick up money so he could go to USJ, Universal Studios Japan, the following Friday with their class trip. Justin was planning on giving Thomas an orientation to the school on Monday, since the other kids were once again taking tests that Justin wasn’t expected to partake in.
The English movie for the night was “Blood Work”, a crime “thriller” directed by and staring Clint Eastwood. Trudy soon lost interest and went to bed, but the kids and I wanted to know how it turned out. It was a terrible movie- we guessed all the plot twists before they happened and the acting, even Clint’s, left a lot to be desired. It was definitely not some of his best work. We went to bed after watching to the bitter end.
October 26- Free Ride
I woke up late, at 7:10, and hurried to get the kids up too. After seeing them off, I headed to catch the 8:40 bus. Traffic on the expressway was terrible, however, and it took almost twice as long to get in to work. I put my latest reconstitution in a tube, and then went to work on my article. I worked on it for most of the day. Whenever I walked past the windows, I noticed that it was pouring rain- just like it had the previous Friday.
At 4 pm, I started to walk to IPR to pick up the samples that I had submitted earlier in the week when I ran into Kiyoe near the parking lot. She was heading home, since her kids were let out of school early on account of the storms, so she offered to drive me to IPR. After retrieving my samples and walking back to lab, I decided to leave for the day and continue writing my article at home. After all, I had just reached the halfway point on my paper: 2225 words. I went out to catch the 4:35 bus, but it was just as full as the previous Friday, and I was not that far up in line. For the second time ever, the doors of the bus closed without everyone getting on, and for the first time, I was on the wrong side of the doors!
I didn’t feel like heading back to the lab and unpacking all my stuff.
I considered sitting on a step and working on my writing while I waited for the next bus, but it was too wet. Then I remembered that Justin had given me a fare ticket that he found on the ground. It had 360 yen on it, just enough for one ride home on the monorail. I decided that, if there was a good time to use the ticket for one free ride home, this was it. I got home a little after 5, about the same time I would have if I had made it onto the bus.
Although I had planned to write more at home, it turned out to be very slow going- with the boys running around the house as well as the general noise from the T.V. I did manage, however, to bring the article up to almost 2500 words before quitting for the day. Trudy and I walked to Server to get more drinks, which we were out of; then she made donburi for dinner, a bowl of rice with a beef mixture over the top that resembled chop suey. We watched some of the World Series, but once again Trudy had seen it earlier in the day and we were able to guess who won from her expressions and comments. Before going to bed around 10:30, I emailed Kiyoe the latest version of my article so she could read it during her trip to Denmark the following day.
October 27- USJ
We got up early and left the house by 8 am, since we were meeting my friend Paul at his hotel and going to Universal Studios Japan. I had met Paul, whose real name was Cheol-Sik, at Western Illinois University when I was an undergraduate and he was in the biology Master’s program. We took a Mycology (study of fungi) class together that had three students in it and was team-taught by two professors. We hit it off right away- we would study together, and Trudy and I used to go to his house to eat Korean food. He and his wife had first introduced us to bulgogi, kimchi, and gimbap. Paul and I had both gone on to Ph.D. programs at U of Illinois, but then Trudy and I moved to Evanston, IL in 1991 so I could finish out my graduate work at Northwestern, and I hadn’t seen Paul since. He had moved back to Korea after getting his degree and had started a small company in Seoul that made pharmaceutical products from fungi. Paul had now brought his family to Japan for a three day trip in order to see us. The tour group he was with had sightseeing scheduled for only two of these days, with the middle one being a free day. I had asked what he wanted to do with us on his free day and he had chosen USJ, hands down.
We switched to the subway in Umeda and took it for one stop to find Paul’s hotel. He was waiting for us in the lobby with his family: his wife, Seon-Hee, aka Sunny, his 9 year old daughter, Su-Yeon, and his 7 year old son, Hee-Man. Trudy and I couldn’t help but think of a cartoon character which was popular when we were kids called He Man that consisted of a manly bare-chested superhero. We talked for a while in the lobby; they had brought us all presents from Korea, which we opened. Soon, we were ready to head to USJ. As we walked to the subway, we ran into two other groups of Koreans who were in the same tour group and wanted to go to USJ, but did not know which way to go. I therefore offered to show the entire group how to get there.
There ended up being 14 of us that navigated our way back to Umeda and through the underground passages to the Osaka JR station, where we took the outer loop train to Nishikujo and changed to another train that would take us right to USJ. We split up with the other groups at the entrance, since we figured that, once everyone had seen how to get there, they should be able to find their way back. As we walked into the park, we saw Popeye posing with people, so all the kids (with me included) had to get our picture taken with him. My family wanted to ride the big roller coaster right off the bat, but it looked a little intense for Paul’s family, so we decided to split up and meet back together when we were done.
The sign said that there was an 80 minute wait for the “Hollywood Dream”, but it ended up being less than an hour. We then returned to where we had last seen Paul and his family and waited for him to call us on our cell phone. While we waited, we met all the Sesame Street characters: I got my picture taken with Burt and Brennan posed with the Count. Paul called after a while, he and his family had gone to the E.T. ride, which ended up being a longer wait than the brand new roller coaster we had gone on! As far as I could tell, USJ was an exact replica of the Universal theme parks in FL and CA, everything seemed very American, which is probably why it appealed so much to the Japanese. Two exceptions were the plentiful stands which sold things like mochi balls and stuffed dumplings to eat, and that all the attractions, although they usually featured short films starring American actors, had been dubbed into Japanese.
By this time, after going on just one ride a piece, we were all ready for lunch. We went to a build-your-own hamburger restaurant in “San Francisco”, where we watched American rock videos while we ate. After lunch, we went to the Back Draft, Back to the Future, and Jurassic Park rides, which had progressively longer waits each time. The adults enjoyed talking and catching up on things in line, while the kids played around with each other. They had lots of fun, despite the fact that Paul’s kids spoke very little English. We stopped in “Amity, MA” to get the kids a snack and then went to see the Jaws attraction.
After another hour long wait, when our boat had finally been attacked by the mechanical shark, it was time to catch the last show of the “Waterworld” stunt show. Justin and Brennan sat in the second row, in the “splash zone”, while the rest of us sat safely in the back of the amphitheater. The show did not let us down, it was filled with lots of water vehicles racing around, splashing water, and explosions. The kids got a little wet, but they were disappointed that they were not soaked. It was probably for the best- since it had gotten quite cool out once the sun had gone down. The wind had also picked up, so much so that they had cancelled the nightly Peter Pan finale, which involved people flying around suspended on cables.