00:11
Long time no see Masako. Right, it's been a while since we did the recording last time.
Yeah, I missed you. I've published a few episodes of just my talking alone and
I have to say that was super awkward doing it on my own. Like, I don't know what the listeners
felt like, but I felt stupid. No, no, it was interesting. Yeah, about your project.
Yeah, so by the way, you just got your PhD, right? Yes, this is the first time you're...
Thank you, thank you. This is the first time you're talking to a doctor. Yeah, it doesn't
really feel that much. Like, as you probably know, it's kind of an anticlimactic moment.
Like, it's not like you become, you know, extra smart before and after your defense,
but what is nice is that now I can book my flights with the title doctor or PhD,
which feels very nice. And also, I realized that whether I get married or not in future
or get widowed, like, there's no confusing, like, miss, miss, missus thing. It's just always going
to be a doctor. So that's nice. Yeah, that's what I realized. It's like the biggest thing that's
making me happy about getting a doctor, because it doesn't really feel like that different right
now. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And you came, you came to my defense. You, you zoomed into my defense.
Thank you so much for coming. It was great. Yeah. Yeah, it's been, it's been like a month at this
point. But yeah, like I, you know, since we talked about in our past episodes, my prison
and everything, I felt like I needed to live up to the standard.
Like, yeah, I gotta make it good. But it was such a rushed job, actually, in the end.
I hope the intro was interesting, at least for everybody. Yeah, I did try to spend like 10-ish
minutes on the intro in the background. But I had so much data to cover that I had to go straight
in to like super semantics stuff. So I think I lost everybody who are not in my field after like
that first 10-15 minutes. Well, but I think you did a great job on explaining, you know, each,
03:00
I remember, you were explaining the like complicated figures, but try to dissociate each,
each of the components with different temporal features. I'm not sure if I get it. Yeah. Right.
So you were trying, you were, yeah, I think it was really helpful, even
for me to understand what you wanted to say. I did break my presentation rules though.
One presentation rule that I broke was using animation.
Oh, okay. So you, you were not supposed to use animation? No, no, no. I think, I'm pretty sure
I said that I usually avoid using animation. Yeah. But, but for the explanation of pump probe
experiment, I did use the animation. I think it was an effective choice. It wasn't just like,
because it's fancy to use animation. But yeah, I was like, ah, this would be nicer with animation
than like, yeah, slide by slide. So I did end up using the animation.
Yeah. Yeah. But since then it's been crazy. So my parents flew out from Japan to tune into the,
to my dissertation. That was really nice because yeah, like it ended up, so it was towards the end
of May and the weather was super nice. It was sunny every day that they were here.
Yeah. Like it's not too hot, not too cold. I was able to take them to, you know, the usual places,
Newport, things like that. But really they just wanted to like live like how I was living
the past five years. And so, so I really didn't do anything super special with them. I just,
you know, took them to my usual restaurants and cooked at home and introduced my friends to them
and my lab mates. Yeah, that was, that was really a nice time. And my boss loved the
Japanese whiskey that they brought from Japan. I didn't know that Japanese whiskey,
cause I don't really drink, right. Like, but I didn't know that Japanese whiskey is like
such a thing in the whiskey lover world. I have no idea.
Right. Apparently it's a pretty coveted item because unlike wine and stuff, whiskey
is good. Even after you open it for like long, long time, basically they just become like
collectors, hoarders of whiskey. Right. So my boss has in his house, he has a little
06:02
shelf of whiskey. Yeah. He even has, you know, he has one of those cupboards that has a little
like mini, mini sink. Like he's that extra, you know, I don't know what that sink is useful for,
do you wash your glass? Do you like wash your hands? I'm not sure what you do with it,
but he has that. He's very, very like extra like that about whiskey, which I didn't know. I just
thought that, you know, if they're going to come flying from Japan, what do they like? Maybe
whiskey. Right. And what was interesting, this is a complete coincidence though, is that,
so my parents brought Suntory Hibiki whiskey. You've probably seen them around.
And it did not like connect with me until I saw the packaging box, which was written in English.
They said like Hibiki means resonance. And I'm like, oh, I mean, that's exactly what I do in
my lab, you know, resonant frequency, like, yeah, like a resonant frequency experiment stuff,
like to generate wavelengths that I want. So, yeah, resonant frequency ionization and stuff.
So, I mean, Hibiki in Japanese is more like musical resonance, right? Like more artistic.
I don't know how to say resonance frequency in Japanese, but I'm sure it's not like as
cool as Hibiki, right? Like they might use the same character, but yeah, I just like explained
that to him and he was like pretty pleased about that. Good. Yeah. I have never gotten,
we have each other's number, like my boss and I, for like emergency purposes, right?
But we never texted for like fun or like, you know, anything beyond like gyomurenraku.
And that night that we gave him the whiskey, I got a text with his picture and his little glass
saying like, the whiskey is very good. Thank you so much. And I was like, don dake hashaideru da yo?
So that was pretty funny. Yeah. And yeah, they, yeah, I think it was just really nice that they
got to see my friends and like who I work with and saw this city that I was in. Like my parents
loved it. I mean, obviously they came at the best season, but you know how cold and dark it can be
like October and November and stuff. But they were just like so smittened by how like bright
and glorious the spring in New England is. And they're like, how much does it cost to retire
here? Like a lot, you know, they even thought about, they even entertained the idea of retiring
09:03
in this place. So like, just, yeah, I thought it was really funny, but yeah. So they, they also
helped me, basically they each came with extra suitcase so that I can give them many of my stuff
that I didn't want to take it to Chicago, but I did want to keep it. So I basically send them
off with most of my winter clothes. And yeah, basically a lot of things like some, some,
I don't really have a lot of things here already, you know, because it's a furnished place that I
moved in. So I don't have any furniture, very minimal amount of shopkee and stuff that I
actually do want to keep. But I basically send them off with extra suitcases worth of clothes
and books. And I gave most of my Japanese books that I kept hoarding from Bukkofu every time I
went back to Ichijikoku, did that to my Japanese friends here. I just like gave them like, I don't
know if you'll like it, but just take it please. And English books, I also gave them to my friends
and those that I don't have people to give to, I'm probably just going to drop it off at the
library just as a donation. And yeah, so like I did a lot of those like house cleaning business,
you know, when my parents are here to sift away like things that I want, things that I don't want
or not. So yeah, like, you know, they not only came to support my thesis,
but they helped me hikkoshi as well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I remember I also found your sister
on Zoom, no? Oh, yeah, I know. It's so it's so sweet. Yeah, like my sister, she was like,
I'm probably not going to get anything of what you're saying. But I'm very proud of you. Like,
you sound really smart. Like, aww. Yeah, my sister does not. I don't know. I think she hasn't taken
science classes since high school. So yeah. Yeah, that's so sweet. Sweet of her to attend your
yeah. Yeah, actually, a lot of my a lot of the people that I didn't expect wanted to come to
my thesis. Some of my old friends, I like didn't really expect my non science friends or like
non doctorate friends to want to come because it's just another presentation to them. You know,
if you have gotten the doctorate in some other field, you know what a big deal this is. But
otherwise, it's kind of hard to convey what this means and like the weight it holds. But so many
of my non science non academic friends wanted to come in to like celebrate the moment. And even my
12:01
ballet teacher and my ballet friends, they come in person, they came in person. They were like,
I know. Yeah, like, you know, I've been her regular class person for, you know, the past five
ish years. And yeah, she's like, I'm like, you're basically the smarter daughter that I don't have.
Like, so that was really, really nice. Yeah, I didn't, you know, it's like, I'm used to moving
around hopping around cities. And I know that this, like, whenever you're moving to one from
one place to another, that's like, it's hard, but it's also not the end of the world. Like,
I've done this before. And we can keep friendships beyond that. And I know that. But it was just like,
very nice to realize, like, how much I meant to the people who are here and the friendships I made
here. Yeah, very. It was a very nice moment. Yeah. Yeah. Right. That's about it. It is a good time.
That's it for the show today. Thanks for listening and find us
at Agodescience on Twitter. That is E-I-G-O-D-E-S-C-I-E-N-C-E. See you next time.
