Coming to an understanding

So can you tell who the odd one out is? That's right it’s me, I’m the only one without glasses right. Ok this wonderful picture of my lab group aside I do stick out like a sore thumb in this country. This has been hardest thing to adjust to for me being from such a cultural melting pot as Britain I really don’t like sticking out so much, being in the minority when I travel about, the staring took a little getting used to.

I don’t want to make it sound negative, it’s not malicious or anything but I do feel my neck burning often. It’s something many people talk about, the ‘gaijin’ bubble. You never truly accepted out here no matter what your current status, language skill level, or who your friends are and after talking to a few it’s something that just doesn’t change.

It’s a little bit sad in a way, it makes it very difficult to meet locals as most don’t want to know or are afraid of looking foolish, as they can’t speak English so well. Most of the people I do meet are exceptional for wanting to associate with foreigners. It doesn't make them bad people, far from it, but it does give a rather skewed impression of the Japanese people as a whole. I’m sure this would change once I grasp the language a little better but after 8 months of being here I still feel like I’m watching Japan from inside a glass box.

This post is mainly stemming from the fact I’ve had little time to travel of late and therefore plenty of time for reflection. Sadly work has taken the forefront again, lots to do. Josie is still out of action and as yet I don’t know how to fix her. Also after a hectic week we have now started another slot of beamtime, 9 days our longest yet. It’s scary and tiring but exciting. My new samples are looking good and I really think we can take some good images.

 

So back to being an outsider, it’s not that bleak I guess, though sometimes the gawping from the school kids (particularly teenage boys) gets to me. It’s not a nice feeling for anyone and I don’t like being looked at like I'm an alien. Still I’m making some sort of headway. Sam and myself were actually approached by some of the staff at our local climbing gym the other day whilst struggling with a problem. So our conversation was pretty rudimentary but it was something. Slowly getting there I guess, just need to work harder, grow some balls and speak more.

Also I really do feel as though I’m starting to bond with my colleagues. I’m not sure if Koreans are just a bit more open, if it’s because my  boss spent some time in the states, or if it’s my continued hard work that's impressed them, but I definitely feel more included. I’ve also recently started learning the Korean language (the alphabet is awesome its like lego) so that may factor into it a bit more also. I think showing appreciation and interest in anyone's home culture will always endear you to people.

I’m not sure if these feelings will last, maybe I’m just on a low ebb right now. Over tired, over stressed and over worked. I’m not in bad shape or anything just fed up of being in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps things would be different if I lived near a city? I don’t really know and I guess I won’t anytime soon. At any rate for every bad experience I’ve had there are plenty of good ones to outweigh them. For the time being I’m still fairly happy with where I am. I mean look how pretty it is.

Right tant over I’ll talk a bit more bout what I’ve been up to recently. So as some of you may already know I’ve been trying to take my writing to new levels, particularily in the field close to my heart, trashy sci-fi. At the moment I’m working on a story for a writing contest put forward by a synchrotron in the UK called Diamond. As well as this I’ve submitted a story to nature, I’m pretty excited that the editor actually accepted it. Whilst that's by no means a publication at least it will get read.

I also tried my hand at a bit of scientific writing for the Medical Research Centre in London. They plan to put out a picture of scientific importance everyday of the year and they needed writers to pen the caption. Suffice to say I didn’t make the cut but I was thrilled at the opportunity to try and even got some helpful feedback.

Hopefully I’ll get to put some of this practice to good use soon as if this beamtime goes well I should have some data of my own to analyze and potentially publish. This time I’m hoping to look at one of my own samples, rather than one supplied by a collaborator.

My sample of choice is a preparation of microtubules, one of the three filamentous structures that contribute to the internal structure of our cells known as the cytoskeleton. Microtubules are large biological structures consisting of two proteins, alpha and beta tubulin, arranged head to tail in a cylindrical fashion. They are involved in all aspects of cellular activity, movement, replication, transport of materials and overall shape.

What is particularly interesting about them is a property known as dynamic instability. These complexes structures can rapidly assemble and disassemble within our cells in a very organized fashion. This is particularly important in events such as cellular migration, replication and differentiation which rely on the rapid movement of components within a cell at a much faster rate than can be achieved by diffusion alone..

The forces involved in these complex processes, from the linking of individual tubulins, organisation into single fibres and then the packing of fibres into bundles, are of great interest to many scientists, however there are a few problems. Firstly the process is call Dynamic INSTABILITY for a reason. The structures formed are very transient and so to image them you have to be either really fast or fix them in some way. Of course once fixed you lose a lot of important information about the process. Still the process of fixation itself isn't so well understood so there could be something interesting to investigate there also

The second is that whilst fairly long these things are also very thin. This makes it difficult to see any of the minor details of their arrangement particularly tricky. We are hoping that we can use the technologies we’ve been developing over the past few years to get a closer look at these stupendous strands. I’m not sure what the data will look like but I think we might be able to find something interesting out. Right back to work, all aboard the chirpy bus of wonder.

がんばるやん。

Ja mata Minna-san.