Backbone and Revolution

I don't know if this is going to bite me in the ass one day, but I'd rather put myself on the block for something that means something to me instead of just dealing with it.

I made a stand for what I believed in a while back at lab. There are things peculiarly wrong about it-- like the way students are learning, poor guidance, no real motivation or indepth understanding. Even I do not understand the full extent of this problem, I don't grasp it all but I can feel it.

The first years masters students are preparing for a department wide seminar occuring this Thursday and Friday. All students are expected to make a presentation and attend atleast ten (10) other seminars which are 20 minutes long. Students have been preparing 7~8 hours+ writing a 3~4 page handout. I talked to a Korean student about how things were going for him... I told him how I felt about this presentation-- ie. that it was rather stupid that we spend so long for a short presentation. He agreed with me and then we got into a conversation about how he is very bored with his reserach. The reason being that he doesn't understand much of it.

Electrical Engineer by training and working on a mechanical system (thermally actuated mirror using a laser). It seems to me that he's expected to produce something when he doesn't understand the basic principles behind what he is doing. Studying something in depth takes time, possibly like a few weeks or more but everyone is afraid of looking like they're not producing... "they've got to be doing something."

He wants to change reserach themes, I think this is do able because he has another year left at the lab. Masters students do their thesis in 1 year in Canada and America, during their second year, yet he is afraid of switching themes (I know of one other student that did here). He's afraid of telling the professor that he isn't happy with this theme, he's also worried if he will have enough time to finish a new theme if he does get one. He's also worried about switching advisors from within the lab (we have 4 advisors) feeling like he'd be backstabbing the guy he's working under. Working like this can be very freightening for a person in this situation. I've been there before in parts of my undergrad life and the inital part of my life here in Japan.

If there is one thing I have learned from living in Japan, it's that life isn't solely about keeping other people happy while giving up on your own. It takes backbone to disappoint or take criticism but I'd rather disappoint (or take criticism) rather than suffer. The only person that is responsible for your happieness is you and if you can't take responsibility for it, well, you'll get whatever that's comming to you.

I spent a good part of my evening last night talking to my labmate after midnight. I spent atleast an hour telling him to switch. He kept worrying that the professor would not be happy about it. Can you imagine people thinking like that (even his advisor is pretty nice too)? But I can... but even so, to hell with it.

I joined another conversation happening in another part of the lab about problems that students weren't learning here (like at 2 am). The guy I was taking to is Japanese and he's been in this lab since 4th year Undergrad and is moving into his 2nd year in his Phd. 5 years he's been here. This is the first time I heard him talk about this, but from what I learned, there are many others that are unhappy about how things going on here. The PhD students have been working on and giving seminars on some of the fundamentals of MEMs processing (only say 3 so far) which I feel do not meet all the needs of the new students that come into the lab... but it is somewhat of a good start.

This is the first time we've talked like this since the day I made my presentation to try and change things at the lab... and I only so happened to stumble into this conversation. If anyone believed in what I was saying, why didn't anyone step up to me sooner? Communication problems anyone? I hardly got any responses from the students from when I did make my presentation over a month ago.

What transpired from my conversation from the PhD student is that there are others in the lab that don't feel well supported in knowledge or guidance. He don't know what do to about it. But one thing we've both agreed on, is that asking the professors to change things isn't going to work. So what do we do?

He's asked me what would I do if I was the head of the Saturday meetings (because he doing that job now). I told him the first thing I'd do is cancel it because it's useless. He asks me what I would do to encourage knowledge sharing? Hold formal discussion groups and schedule them in? I don't know about you, but you just can't mandate information sharing or an open discussion forum. If it's one thing that I feel these people don't understand, it's how to inspire real motivation. Because there is a difference between just going through the motions vs really doing something because it means something to you. But most fundamentally, we need to find ways of learning because right now, the proffs are sure as hell not doing a good job of teaching.

I talked to another friend of mine, a masters student from China. She's lost interest in her project and the only thing that she's focusing on right now is trying to get a job in Japan. Right now, I have mixed feelings about getting a job in Japan because of this. I told her that "what's the point of finding a job if the working culture is similar to lab culture" (and by working culture, many people want to go corporate I'm not sure if it is different or not). All she told me afterwards was "that's probably true, wonder what'd I do." In English this sounds absurd, but I've heard it in Japanese on several occasions, like it was something natural (you might even be fooled into start thinking it's natural). I think it's absurd.

Honestly, I do want to change this lab. This lab is one of the best equpped labs in Japan and had a history of great work. I have heard that the old students of 5~6 years ago were really keen but they are now gone and no one knows how to foster the right atmosphere to bring out the best out of people. It is kind of sad that things are in this state right now.

So what am I going to do? For now, I'm going to sit down and talk to the other lab people and see how they feel and if they have any desire to try and change things from the bottom up. I've heard so far from my Chinese friend that she's given up on it and is going to live with it, I've heard a few more responses like that too. If that is what people feel like here, then I'm fully willing to pack up and leave (well not yet, everyone has full access to all equipment here, the problem is learning how to use them... and that does seem kind of fun to me). Atleast, I feel I'm lucky that I do keep a life out of lab and that I'm satisfied with many other things that I've learned out here... it's unfortunate that I can't say the same for the rest of them.

Anyways, excuse the babble. Even I don't see clearly about this, this whole thing is still jumbled in my mind, it probably shows in the writing.

A Ten Minute Presntation

A presentation occurs this Friday. It's a general presentation to students and faculty. I've got 10 minutes to present my material and 10 minutes of question period. All students are to provide handouts of their materials of approximately 2~4 pages. Ok fine, I'm working on the handouts now. But why oh why must preparing handouts take over 5~6 hours!? That I cannot figure out.

I have so far spent time wirting out a point form outline of what I wanted to write, jumped around through the other research papers I've read to reference information I've gathered. I've spent 2~3 hours writing material, inserted images from my own research and from other papers. Cross-referenced figures in my document.

Have the document reviewed by my professor, whom decides that I should remove some of my background work reserach and focus on what I have produced so far (the problem is that I haven't done enough analysis to talk about what data I have). I need to add simple sketches of my system which is taking me 2 hours to do in Adobe illustrator. I need to make another figure which might take me another hour so. Rewrite sections, add new information have it reviwed again.

Why does making a 10 minute presentation have to be so painful?

I've lectured calculus, physics, chemistry, computer science and English. I can lecture for easily an hour with little preparation with just pen and paper (a chalkboard would be even more fun). But why must writing handouts, making diagrams on the computer and blah blah blah take 6 hours+ to prepare for a 10 minute presentation? Ineffectiveness of publishing technology? Incompetence? I haven't a clue but if I can spend 30 mins to an hour preparing what I want to scribble down on a chalk board in advance (even that is being generous with time) to prepare for a 10 minute presentation, I'd take that in a heart-beat.

I've been in lab since 10:30 am and it's mid-night right about now. I'm not amused... the sick thing is that I'm getting used to it too (never thought that was even possible for me).

And I still have to prepare a powerpoint presentation. Grr!

Don't Trivialize the Math!

I was surfing the net today and came across an article about Willard Boyle, the man that co-developed the CCD or Charged Coupled Device (ie the imaging sensor used in almost all digital cameras) with George Smith. Nice stuff, he's Canadian (Boyle). My only disappointment is that the authors dumbed down the aritlce a little too much for my liking. When it came to describing how they developed the invention, the article describes it as:

They fiddled with some math and drew some sketches on the blackboard showing how this new device could be made. After not more than an hour and a half Boyle said, "OK, this looks pretty good."

If I could fiddle math like other people could fiddle the violin I'd be a (very) happy camper. I could care less about the CCD ray right about now.

I poked around the site where the Boyle article some more to find this, an article about a Canadian scientist that came up with a "Triple axis neutron spectroscope," for which he wond the Nobel Prize. What was www.science.ca's explanation of the development?

He fiddled with some math on his notepad for a while and then went to the coffee room. As he passed the lab that housed the radioactive nuclear pile, a controlled nuclear reaction that emitted one of the most powerful sources of neutrons in the world at the time, he wondered whether he could put it to use. In the coffee room he met Hurst. Brockhouse went up to the blackboard and said, “Don, there’s something I’d like to show you.” He sketched out some equations on the blackboard. The math described a device they could build that would use a neutron beam as a better type of spectrometer, a kind of flashlight that could probe into the mysteries of crystal structures and other solids such as metals, minerals, gems, and rocks.

Makes me wonder if I should've gone into the arts where I could learn a little more about "fiddling" and "sketching" mathematical equations. Really, I'm being sarcastic.

How did these guys get the math like this? and how do I get it? That's the million dollar question, literally. If you didn't get it: the Nobel Prize is 1 million dollars! Get it? See? [Har har]

Appartment Search!

I have 1 month to find a new place to stay. Currently searching with a Japanese guy and a gal from Calgary to find a new place to stay. Room mates might be fun, that is, if we can find a place to stay.

Doable, dunno. But we'll see how it goes. I'll post what I have learned with regards to appartment searching later on. But prices look somewhat comparable to what we pay back in Vancouver... for Sendai atleast and Sendai is very much like Vancouver population wise... also with beaches and mountains...???) Yeah, I really picked right, I'm living in the Japanese version of Vancouver sans the really pretty buildings we have in downtown.

Prices and my adventures talking with agents later on. First, I need a place to stay.

Wish me luck.

Need HP?

On sale, March 7th. Need I say more?

Breaking Molds

So I've been at my lab for almost a year now (well sort of), officially accepted in October but been dropping in since April. I'll tell you a story about my life in lab and I want to let you guys know, as peachy and as much fun as I look like I'm having, there are some rough parts to life too. Who said that life was easy, right? And remember hindsight is 20/20 and that you can make things look like anything you like in hindsight...

When I first came to lab, I shared a set of desks with 2 professors and a research assistant. These people come in at 9:00 am and leave at midnight usually. I kid you not. Before I was officially accepted into lab, I came in in the afternoon hung out until the evening and then left. What I did was kind of crazy (more like scary for a normal person in the lab to do). I'm talking about this lab culture (not to be mistaken for other labs!) where people don't take their backpacks home in the evenings, the reason is because if they walk out with their backpacks everyone worries that the professors will know that they are going home. Heaven forbid that someone is going home EARLY, you know, like *before midnight.* No, it's just because it just feels a little embarassing to them.

I will have you know that not all labs are like this. There are other labs where the people are very cool, very friendly and easy going. Hell I played a little game with another lab where people played paper-scissors-rock with 12 people and the loser buys ice cream for everyone. It's silly but lots of fun (like many things in life).

For 4 months I stayed at my seat. Hell, I know that I didn't get along with one of the professors. The best part what that I sat in front for several months and I almost always came in later than him and left earlier.

I always said "good morning" or "hello" when I came into lab and I said "good night" or "bye" when I left. No one in lab ever says "good bye" to their professors when leaving. Honestly, I was always freaked when I said "bye" for the first while. Later on when other students graduated from the lab or moved up to other seats leaving vacancies in other parts of the lab, I was invited to move to another seat. Why? Because my seat was always the most "stressful seat" to sit in. I declined and decided to stick it out.

Part of me wanted to move to get out of that seat and another part of me wanted to stay to challange this culture. I learned this much, to anyone that is good at making choices, you have my respect. Making choices is real tough stuff, especially when it has implications for later on. Would it be something I regret later on? I wouldn't know. But I don't now, so things worked out (the entire lab got reorganized and the professors got their own desks away from me :P).

People feel like that they have to be working hard here. Fun? What is this fun you speak of? Work does not necessarly have to be serious, nor do you have to be serious while you work. Comming to these decisions (conclusions?) is not easy, life is exceptionally subtle, I will finally come to realize (I used to believe when I was younger that life was inherently obvious). There are many things that we take for granted, why things that the way they are... sometimes you just walk into a place and accept it for the what it is and sometimes because you're pulled into a spiralling trap without noticing it. I couldn't accept that lab life should be so serious. Don't get me wrong that everyone in lab is really serious, there are always exceptions and there are times when a few people are goofy. But do I need to explain everything with precision detail? Use your own reasonable judgement here...

But anyways, I am on a little bit of a tangent. Too many ideas in my head, screaming to get out. My only regret about the written medium is that it's linear and that one idea flows from one to the next. In reality, ideas are like nodes that inspire many other ideas. Remember that... anyways, back from tangent x2.

I am stating to become known for being the most "light hearted" person in lab. I leave early come in late sometimes and I do my best to disregard this entire "stress" thing. So far the professors have been happy about my presentations (though, presenting vs doing lots of real work are different things) so I've got a little bit of an image that I'm riding on. Realizing this, it becomes more so evident that if you can do the work efficiently put out some results that people are happy with then the amount of time you're spending at the lab shouldn't be an issue. But wait, it takes confidence to do that... and sometimes these people are a little lacking in that department (as for me, I think I'm gambling a little :P).

From now on my main working objectives is to work effectively as possible so I can make time to go out have fun or learn things that I'm interested in. Enough of this "pretending to work hard" bull crap, because if you're spending long hours at the lab, getting no reults (note, it is common for people to fall asleep at their desks here) and then get rapped on if you're a little behind then of course you're going to feel terrible! If you don't realize why things are happening the way they are then it'll eat you up pretty quick. I already know a few of the newly arrived students feeling the pressure, but for the most part, the other students are doing just fine.

Yeah, I have to say that the first part of my life here was a little rough and pretty stressful. It's easy to forget about the stress when things start to get better but there are times that I haven't slept well because of worrying too much. My 1 year anniversary of being in Japan is comming up and it's going to be interesting to look back at some old posts.

Moving to another country has been quite the educational experience.

Return from a Road Trip! (Picture Previews)

I spent this weekend on a road trip with Mike, myself and Mona. The 3 of us decided to rent a car for this weekend and headed out into the country side. After much discussion we randomly decided to head west into Yamagata prefecture for the weekend. The red lines lines on the left map wsa the route we took.

None of us knew what to expect for this trip, but suffice to say, I have pictures to show and stories to tell. I won't be able to post the whole spiel today as I'm at the lab at the moment, but I'll post up a short preview of our adventures.

So I lied, there was a particular reason why we wanted to head West this time around. For the past few months, I've been hearing on the news of the immense amount of snow fall in the western region of Japan.

Our first stop, I made a return to Yamadera, the mountain temple which I went to back in November of last year. For comparison's sake, I took a picture in November beside a post box the first time I went to Yamadera which looked like this:

I came back to the same post box this month to find this.
See the difference?

It's really funny, all Japanese people I talk make the suggestion that I'm really used to the cold, that it snows like crazy where I come from. Sometimes, I'd tell them that all Canadians live in Igloos and we go by dog sled everywhere. Well, no I don't, but the thoughts have crossed my mind.

We climbed to the top of Yamadera to be greeted with scenery in white.

To the right, that's Mona. In the background, that's the view from the top of the mountain. It was breath taking to be there again in the winter. The next picture below is a shot of the icicles we caught on the way up the mountain.


After climbing down the mountain. We caught lunch at the local restaurant that specializes in hand-made soba. I had duck soba that evening.

After about a 2~3 hour drive further North-West through a mountain pass, we were greeted with snow banks that were...taller than me! Incredible.

I will a more indepth review of our trip later on (so I hope). I took about 100 pictures during trip. I'll need to sort them get them together and post them as an album when I get some spare time. Enjoy the previews... and also people that live in the country side rock.

Happy Valentine's day everyone.

On Writing

Note to audience: I am currently tipsy --> finished off about 400ml of a bottle of wine after writing a material science report.

For the past 4 days, I have been working on preparing a report for one of my classes which is a study of fracture mechanics from the perspective of grain boundary engineering of bulk materials. What this means is that all sorts of materials are made of little itty-bitty crystals mashed together to form a big chunk of material. Metals and ceramics fall in to this category. Stuff like wood, might not and that knowing how these crystals mesh together can determing how strong a material is.

I have been attending classes for the last 3 months in Japanese and I did not grasp much of the course unless I was drawing from a pool of previously learned knowledge from my material science course back at UBC. It was not until I started pouring over a review paper provided by my professor, which I had to write a report on as my final exam, that I would finally understand the fragments and the bits and pieces of information that I would learn over the year would crystallize in my mind (excuse the pun).

It took 2 days of pouring over a 9 page document (while falling asleep several times) then dashing over vast knowledge-scape of the internet over another day that I would finally understand the paper. After that I would spend 2 days putting my thoughts together in order to produce a 1,500 word essay on how manipulating how crystals meshed together would improve the strength of bulk material (ie a chunk of material made up of itty-bitty crystals). I asked the professor for some slack to allow me to write this report in English as I do not have the grasp of the Japanese language to write a Japanese technical document.

What I did learn over the week of preparing for this report was that it becomes infinitely easier to write about a topic that you grasp and have a point to make of it. Without understanding and a point to write about, making a report or writing an essay of any sort is *impossible.* It took days to finally understand what was going on and it took atleast a day of some random writing to realize what points I wanted to make (I did a very bad thing, in that I didn't write an outline of the points of what I wanted to say at first to save me the trouble... as I usually do, for formal situations).

There is a reason I am writing about this. I remember a time when I was in middle school (when those existed in BC before turning into a grade 8~12 high school system) that I hated writing, like most other students out there. Writing was a chore-- it took a considerable amount of time to write a short essay on something trivial (ie. something I didn't think important) and then get a sucky grade on it. There were some years where my essays would be hits and I'd get a good mark in history and/or English, but there where other times where they would be misses. I even had an English teacher come up to me and ask me why my marks in Grade 12 dropped compared to grade 11... I had to write the damn English proficiency exam at the end of the year (I forgot the name) to get into an English course for my first year at university. As an aside, I got my butt whooped on the grammatical section but scored the mark in the essay section to have all other sections of the exam waived and have me eligible for the first year English course (Engl 112, as I remember exactly).

Back then in High School and some parts of university life, I hated writing (much like everyone else at the time). Writing, is immensely hard and different compared to speaking, because when it comes to writing, you as the author become vulnerable to your readers. Unlike speaking, your words do not transiently disappear into the abyss, nor can you support your arguments to understanding people with statements like "well... you know," or "you get the idea." It is different because what you say persists and you say is open to close scrutiny to other people. No more are semi-vague statements acceptable, nor are fallous or frivolous statements welcomed. Everything that you need to say, needs to be thought out and organized in ordered for you to make a point. Writing is a very naked and revealing act.

I have a profound respect for good writers. Most ideas begin with a feeling, a sort of hunch or a twitch of the mind. But for many people, these sensations remain as feelings that something clear yet fuzzy and thoughts are often left in that state. Many people become afraid of writing because they are afraid of "looking silly" or some sort of argument like that. At first is kind of embarrassing, but like a baby learning to speak, mistakes are necessary and it takes practice to get better.

There are more profound benefits than to just being a good writer, in that I mean a person that is able to put thoughts into words in an understandable manner. It is also the ability to be articulate or detailed about one's own discussions, for we all know that the devils are always in the details. To be able to write well, it take s a good understanding of what one wants to say, then to find the right words to say it. It doesn't end there, but it also requires good organization to present ideas in understandable ways-- not only must you understand how you might understand something, you must also understand how others think to present things in an understandable manner.

To have some sense of writing, it becomes important to know what you want to say. To know what you want to say, you must understand it and the basis of knowledge that you draw from. Without this start, it becomes a perilous journey to produce any sort of coherent writing. From the students I have taught, some of them believed that if they randomly started putting ideas together that an essay would appear in front of them. I used to be one of those people, I paid for it dearly from time to time when I wrote essays that were a hodge-podge of roaming points (my high school writing philosophy was to write some random body first, then make an introduction and conclusion to fit whatever I patched together :P). Sometimes it would be a hit and others would be a miss, but I always wrote best when I was pissed-- because when I was pissed, I always knew exactly why.

All of my meandering tangents aside, being able to explain things clearly, especially in writing, is telling of how well a person is able to think and understand information. Being able to explain something with ease is in reality, much harder than it looks (and most often, underestimated). For that, people that can explain complicated topics with depth and simplicity are well respected... and that person could be you.

Resolution

Random note: This is my 103rd blog post since coming to Japan.

It's been a weeks since my last presentation to the lab about trying to make improvements and getting shot down by the German guy. His name is Jan and actually he isn't such a bad guy., he just needs work on finding less aggressive ways of giving constructive criticism instead of bringing down the hammer on someone that he doesn't think is on the ball (he sort of has a habit of this when questioning others in our lab meetings during their presentations).

Since that last week, we still have been going for lunch and dinner as part of our group, still talking and he invited me out with a Japanese friend from a company for dinner. There is no animosity because in general, I do believe him to be a fairly nice guy. I was just incredibly pissed after getting hammered by him.

On a Thursday night while working in the electronics building of the lab I decided to ask him what was up with him with those questions of his. Apparently, some lines of communication were crossed and we weren't interpreting each other quite properly. I was giving the presentation in Japanese that day (not exactly that good at making detailed discussion but I was trying) and it seems that Jan didn't entirely understand me (this is my second language, for him it's his third). After a few questions, he thought I was dodging his questions... he was asking me about one thing (which I didn't think was relevant.. and hence trying to steer the questions in another direction to show things in a different perspective) while I was trying to move the conversation in another. As a result, he thought I was dodging and has an instinctual reflex to hold someone's feet to the fire and kept hammering on one point resulting in gridlock. I used to be something like that, but have changed since.

To give an illustration it works like this (some of the Japanese presenters are horrible for this):

1. Presenter gets asked question from Jan: "have you considered what happens when you do blah-blah to your sample?"
2. Presenter says: "no, it isn't an issue."
3. Jan asks a leading question: "So tell me what happens to (property) blah-blah to your sample when you do something-or-other?"
4. Loooong pause --> the presenter has been caught and embarrassed and is looking for a way out or for the question to blow over.

Sadly this is very typical at our lab with Japanese presenters. It is my opinion that they are very shy of admitting mistakes (they have a tendency of being embarrassed) so instead they try to pretend there isn't one and keep moving on. It's been happening since I've started attending these meetings. I don't believe that people should be embarrassed when admitting mistakes or limitations in knowledge, it's a fact that we don't know everything... just wish that people are more comfortable with understanding the limitations of their own knowledge.

Now that we've got some dialogue going, we have both come to an understanding that this lab does need improving. Communication wise, better understanding of why we hold some of these meetings... I have a great example when one very annoyed undergrad student complained about why we had to attend weekend meetings.

I was told the same story he explained, that these meetings are to help improve people's presentation abilities for conference proceedings and questioned why is it necessary for us to attend. The prof immediately quipped back that attendance is optional and that these presentation meetings aren't for conference practice, it's to present your research in more detail to the professors so they can keep track of the students.

It's communication problems like these that are major problems. If people don't get what is going on and why things are being done then how does one know that objectives are being achieved? It's incredible sometimes that things aren't explained properly. Is this a problem of a big lab? I'm not sure but it's a problem.

It's problem like these that sort of bother me; it's like people aren't communicating or thinking. Jan told me that when he was here close to 5 years ago, that the students at the lab were much smarter, people were much more involved. He was telling me about all the fundamental knowledge that these people don't know, that and they assume that it isn't a problem. Knowledge isn't passed around and it seems that people are inherently ignorant.

This is a little bigger problem than I initially thought (ie more problems) and after thinking about all of this, I don't see the "big picture" of what is affecting what. Jan and I have agreed to find time to sit down with some of the students to figure out more on how this lab works and what are the problems and how to solve them.

Of an interesting note, some of these problems are cultural (if I can go as far as to call them that). Poor communication with superiors is often a result of students sometimes being afraid of questioning their professors (ie respect of authority). If the problems we are trying to solve end up requiring cultural changes, things might get even more... "interesting".

A Short Blurb on Ideas

I was just reading on Slashdot today and found this article about some people at UC-Berkley doing research on the connetions between language and thought. Whcih is something I wrote about 5~6 months earlier. It seems that this idea was thought of over 70 years ago 1930, otherwise known as the Saphir-Wharf Hypothesis (SHF).

It's just kind of amazing to realize that random people in different parts of the world and eras comming up with similar ideas.