The Whole Erk Catalogue Tales of a Geek Abroad

I'm working on writing up a report on my research from the last few months, and I'm getting tired of FTPing it to myself back and forth. Therefore, I'm going to save it here along with some commentary, as a little insight into what my life has been about for the last while. This is a work-in-progress.

Introduction
Planaria – free living flatworms of class Turbellaria – have been known for their incredible regenerative capacity since Abraham Trembley and later Peter Simon Pallas first considered them “immortal under the edge of the knife” nearly 250 years ago (Newmark and Sanchèz Alvarado, 2002). Their nearly limitless regenerative plasticity allows a full organism to regenerate from a fragment as small as 1/279 of the original organism. In addition to this fascinating ability, planaria are very interesting as a model organism due to their extreme simplicity yet resemblance to upper organisms: they are bilaterally symmetrical, cephalised, have cute eyespots which function almost identically to more advanced eyes, and possess a central nervous system consisting of paired ganglia and longitudinal nerve cords. However, their eyes are very nearly as simple as possible using the light-detection rhodopsin system standard to most visual organisms, and the planarian contains only three distinct tissue layers. Its circulatory, digestive, and respirtatory systems are virtually nonexistent: as a flatworm it accomplishes these functions via diffusion. The planarian represents a fascinating bridge between extremely complex and extremely simple organisms, making it ideal as a research topic. [This paragraph is quoted with minor modification from my research proposal "Exploring gene function and expression in Planaria using RNA interference knockouts."]

I've been thinking of some things to do before I leave Canada, to make my stay in Japan easier for me and to give me a leg-up when I get there.

I want to take some photos of my town. When I drive out to Calgary, I'll snap a few shots of the whole trip as well, so I can prepare a presentation about it, cross-referenced to a map of canada, to show my students just how gall-danged big this country is. I should also go camping with Jen: not only is it something I really want to do, I could get some cool wilderness photos.

On that theme, I want to get some professional photos of me and Jen. I am not going to get to look at her a lot for a while. Maybe I can afford to get one framed.

These are the players in my life right now. In some places names may be changed to protect the innocent.

My Family
My mom seems to be proud of me, but she's also a little upset. We've had our differences but we're pretty close, and I've never been more than a few towns away for more than a couple months at a time. She's doing a good job of not letting it show, but I do think this is pretty rough on her in some ways.

My little sister, Robin, doesn't seem too troubled. I think she's excited, as this is the kind of thing she'd be interested in as well. I'll be sure to send her a lot of cool Engrish shirts. I also have to frame the painting she gave me a few years ago and bring it along.

My dad lives in Calgary, and at the time of writing this I haven't had much time to hang out with him. I'm going out there as soon as I can to do some renovation work with him. He and his girlfriend will probably come visit me in Japan as their schedules are more flexible and they have more means than my mom, so I think he's taking it a lot easier. He lives with my stepmom, Zdenka, who is great. She's a graphic designer and my boss, I do mostly the computer end of things although I help with the graphics too. I still can't believe I was lucky enough to land a job like that, and that I can actually hold my own in that field.

The first thing I ought to mention about my departure is my relationship to Jen, my girlfriend. Obviously, she's not as keen as can be about me leaving the country for an indeterminate amount of time. We've not even been going out a year, but I am constantly amazed by how strongly I feel for her... I know it's mutual. I'm at least buffered by the fact that I'm so excited about going, and even so I lose sleep at night thinking about how much I am going to miss her. I don't like to think the kind of stress I'm putting her through.

We got into this relationship under no false pretenses; she knew I'd be leaving before we started going out. Now that I am looking at pictures of where I'll be living in three months' time, though, it's different. It's no longer an academic thing, it's an in-your-face knowledge... and much as I try to keep to less painful subjects there's no way to avoid the basic fact. I have to study my Japanese more, I have to read insurance papers about JET, I have to read the basic manual, I am starting a blog about my JET life... this is all really hard on her. Hell, it's really hard on ME.