Weather: sunny · Sleep quality: a bit stressful, but otherwise I rested well · Meals: ebikatsu, onigiri · Music: Dalriada, Lazerpunk, Solar Fields, Carbon Based Lifeforms, mind.in.a.box
Compared to how turbulently my previous day ended, this one started relatively calmly. At 11 I shuffled into the lab, greeted Sakuma, carried on with a bit of administration, then the research.
Yesterday, in my panic, I even messaged poor Mitsuko to ask whether she could help. The poor lady wrote back right away, asking me to forgive her for not being able to help in the middle of the night (it would be a bit odd of me to expect that, mind you). Of course I reassured her that beyond my raised adrenaline level there’s no problem, and everything’s fine with me.
But before work I ate an ebikatsu. I love shrimp and seafood, and I really have no problem with breaded meat either. So this was an excellent dish: essentially a breaded shrimp cutlet with rice and broccoli. I had my favourite Craft Boss coffee with it. Then, kitted out with tea (I stocked up on tea yesterday), I went back to the lab to work. I hope that soon, alongside the admin, I’ll have time for science too. Surprisingly, I now order quite fluently, and I can smuggle ever-smaller nuances into my speech; day by day I’m more confident.
In the afternoon, at work
To be honest, I slept little. But you saw what a stupid situation I got into yesterday. So at one o’clock I told Sakuma I was going back to rest a bit. I rested for an hour, then back to the lab. On the way I visited Mitsuko and reported that, after yesterday’s mishap, everything’s OK. And I asked whether she was curious about the blog I write about my time here. To my delight she was enthusiastic about it, so as soon as I get back to the lab I’ll send it to her.
While I was sleeping a little, Professor Kato unfortunately finished his meeting in the meantime, and I happened not to be at my desk. It happens; though we’d said it would last about two hours, the meeting luckily ended sooner. I’m deep in science-policy myself, so I know this is more a lucky coincidence than an annoyance.
In any case I sat down at my desk, a little ashamed that I wasn’t there exactly when I should have been. I sent Mitsuko the blog, this time in Japanese, by way of exception. I admit I used ChatGPT for the translation: my vocabulary still isn’t sufficient, but my grammar is basically fine when I write.
Meanwhile new ideas keep pouring in. I’m working further on my hypergraph viewer-and-editor idea, and now the SysMLv2 module is in too. Although I stewed a little, because I’d described the HRI model wrong: nodes came out instead of edges, so I’ll have to fix that. I’m also patching up the hypergraph database: this won’t be a simple database. I’m planning for its foundation to be that LLMs operate in a structured way, instead of the current huge markdown-and-text chaos. Deep down, I think we humans also think in relations, associations, and models: written text is just one view of that.
A funnier moment in the lab
Honestly, I got a bit absorbed in my own things, and at times like that I can lose touch with reality. A student knocked at the lab, and I didn’t notice he’d come in. There were a lot of breaks, so I asked Sakuma whether the guy had come through the wrong door. Sakuma answered politely, visibly not understanding what I was talking about. And that’s when I noticed the poor student had been standing there for ages, waiting for me to finish my spiel. Of course I shrank to a tiny size, suddenly realising the student had been at the door for a good while, to report on his status and situation.
Needless to say, I laughed out of embarrassment when the poor guy left. I genuinely just didn’t notice, didn’t see he was there, waiting to report on his day.
Professor Kato’s appearance
It goes without saying that science is a hard thing. And all of us who are in it are constantly under pressure and workload. Sometimes the students, sometimes paper deadlines, sometimes reports for companies and other partners. And if there’s a chance, we get to do some science too, now and then.
Poor Professor Kato was busy today as well: random meetings and supervising the lab. Honestly, I didn’t want to disturb him — judging by myself, it really annoys me when someone bothers me with some trivial nonsense while I’m trying to work and have a hundred million admin tasks on my neck.
In the end, though, he came into the office and indicated that unfortunately we can’t talk today, he’s very busy, but if I’d like, we can talk tomorrow at 10:30. I accepted, because I’d like to show my research and I’m curious about his opinion. As we finished the exchange, I gave him the Tokaji aszú (I asked first, of course, whether now was a good time to hand it over). He was visibly happy: he immediately told Sakuma this is the best wine from Hungary, a “signature” product. So tomorrow I’ll try to prepare well on my topic.
By the way, the seminar time has been decided too: Wednesday at 5 p.m. Honestly, I’m looking forward to it, but I’m also a little nervous. That’s perhaps understandable.
Evening, dinner, nothing special
Of course things hit home. On one hand, good news came regarding one of my projects back home. At the same time, that was immediately spoiled by an education-organisation problem. I worked myself up a little, but I managed to yank myself back to reality quickly.
Sakuma would have left, and unfortunately waited a bit while I tried to sort out the teaching organisation. From now on I’ll try to always be ready by 19:30 so he can leave in peace. He lives an hour from Nagoya, and he needs to rest too if he comes in early every day. On top of that, it started to rain meanwhile. I hope he didn’t get too soaked.
After that I hurried back to the dorm to drop my things and keep rolling the benchmarks — if only something would come together for the seminar. Then the typical dinner time, to get food before 20:30: that’s when the restaurants take their last orders.
In the end I only made it as far as KFC, unfortunately. What I like about the local KFC is that they’ve really leaned into the Japanese karaage and chicken-bite line, so it’s a bit different from home. It’s also pleasantly piquant, not as chilli-paprika hot as at home. Of course I love the paprika-rich, strong flavour from home too, but this is a novelty for me. After that I bought a mango tea at Gongcha. Here, unfortunately, I wanted to register for a LINE account, but I couldn’t — something went wrong, which I was a bit sorry about.
On the way back, luckily, it wasn’t raining anymore. It wouldn’t be a problem, since I have an umbrella, but the wind was blowing quite strongly too. I’m glad I could spare myself the rain on the way home. In the end, only the laundry was left, and more research.
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