新年のご挨拶
Hello everyone, it's Asami and long time no hear. Yeah.
新年のご挨拶申し上げます。
今年も英語でサイエンスしナイト、略してエイサイナイトがみなさんのフリー英語教材になったらいいなぁ。
あるいは海外の留学で頑張ってもしかしたら年末年始日本帰れてないぐらい研究頑張ってる
陰性・ポス族・教授様々なみなさんに研究者の方々にちょっとねあの
寄り添えるような番組だったらいいなぁということで
えっとこれからもねちょっと更新頻度の方はね徐々にあの定期的に直していくので
I don't know how long it's gonna take maybe like a month or two to get back to the regular programming but
I have something exciting planned for you guys in February and March
というお知らせを今更ながらね、わかってるよって感じですけど、今更ながらさせていただきます。
で、今日このエピソードはあの年末にねあのレンとキャッチアップして
How was 2025? っていうエピソードなので、ちょっと今更感が出てしまうんだけどね、レンがこのエピソードの中でもあの
大事なお知らせがあるので、あの最後まで聞いていただけると嬉しいです。
2025年の振り返り
All right, without further ado, let's go!
Hey, Len!
Hey, Asami!
All right, so this is the time of the year to do some rap, I guess, if we are going with the Spotify lingo.
Wait, are we? Is this? Okay, yeah, sure, we're going Spotify lingo. This is 2025 rap.
I don't know, I feel like Spotify started the like rap as a word, as a noun to refer to sort of the
end of the year reflection. I guess, yeah, you're right, they did sort of trigger it. I mean, I don't
want to associate it entirely with Spotify, but like they're definitely the one people would think
about now, even though YouTube is trying to do this. YouTube is also trying to do that this year.
It was lackluster. I think like different content platform decided like, hey, we have all of this
data on you that we took that you didn't know that were given to us.
And like, what do you love hearing more about you? Right. You love about you. Aren't you a good little
narcissist? Oh, yes, you are. So, yeah. So, yeah, yeah. Oh, goody, goody, goody, goody. Yes. All right.
So we are here to do our little reflection upon the last year, 2025, as we head off into 2026.
I think, you know, big changes for, I think, the both of us. So there's a lot that we can cover
here. Is there anything else we should say before we enter in? And I sort of am delaying the thinking
because I have to then sort of prepare myself to switch from writing 2025 to writing 2026.
So my brain is like, OK, yes. You know, start the preparations now. Yeah. Yeah. I see. I usually
decide that the first two months of any new year is just like a time where I'm allowed to make a
mistake on that. So. OK. All right. So you've got two month buffer is what you go for there. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Two months seems it seems nice. Nice to yourself. You know, then after
that, as long as I don't make a mistake in a visa document and stuff like that, it's fine. Yeah. It's
probably those ones that matter the most. Right. So. But yeah. Well, shall I start? Please do.
All right. I'll go with mine. I'll start. I'll start in reverse. How's that? Let's let's start
right from the most immediate thing. I got engaged. So. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm I'm very, very happy,
very thrilled. You know, the last little while I'll be a little vague, everyone. I know. I'm sorry.
Right. But like it's exciting. You know, I'm very happy about it. You know, there's been a lot of
cool changes and a lot of good stuff looking forward to the future, you know, creating a life
here within Japan. And, you know, we'll we'll see how those things continue to unfold.
ロボット掃除機の導入
Yeah. Yeah. So that's that's the biggest change. Yeah. Life changing events.
You know, and it was it was a surprise for I think, you know, the me of early 2025. Right.
Might have. Yeah. The early 2024 me had no idea something like this would be on the horizon.
Early 2025 me, which was when, you know, I started to be with my my current partner,
was there was a chance. Right. Something like this was coming down the road.
But it didn't really, I think, start to sink in and then become very intentional on my part and
my partner's part until maybe midway through 2025. So, yeah. Yeah. It's been it's been quite.
That kind of about lines up with like what I was hearing from you in terms of like,
where is this going? There's a new person. And then like the whole thing just like
didn't hear from you for a couple of months and then like, boom, engagement.
Yes. Yeah. There was a whole lot of like lead up and sort of like this is it was exciting. It was
merged with all these things we were doing. We were like going places. We were trying to figure
stuff out in here, like living and working and being. Yeah. And so like and then I was like,
all right, now it's time to share. Right. Like what has been what has been happening. And that
was part of a bundle of messages going out at that point. Right. So, you know, and yeah. Yeah.
So that's that's my biggest. Right. That's my biggest life oriented 2025.
And as a funny bit, I think is maybe, you know, one of these quirks of of, you know, merging,
merging lives. Right. Is that you have to find all these ways to like,
you know, balance things and take care of like a space together. Right. Which is sort of
challenging. But as a funny thing that some people out there might be able to relate to
is trying to like clean and mop the floors. This sounds boring. Right. But like, bear with me.
This is a perfect time to try getting a robot vacuum. Okay. So and I say we're not sponsored.
No, we're not sponsored. I won't I won't mention the name. But this sort of experience, this is
just happens to be on my mind because I had to do something with this robot vacuum the other day
related to returning things to zero, which is why this is on my mind, because I had to reset the
robot. It needs a it needs a home to go back to. Right. You need to tell them where to go back to.
Yes. So there's some connectivity here. But also between my partner and I,
we have enjoyed sort of naming this robot vacuum and it has gained a personality. There is,
you know, personification. It's an anthropomorphized robot vacuum. And,
you know, for a person like me who can't have animals because I'm allergic to animals,
this is, you know, a bit of a special joy. I think we've been able to have. It's minor. Right. I'm
talking about like the household errands thing. Right. But like or, you know, chores. But it's
been really fun. We get to joke about, you know, Carl. I have I have named this robot vacuum.
Carl. Of all the things you could have named a robot, you went with Carl. I didn't give myself
any further time on this. So like my partner was just as surprised. So like but it's stuck.
It's it's actually been really fun and funny to sort of, you know, like play with that sort
ロボット掃除機の家庭内での役割
of anthropomorphization. And, you know, I don't know, it's been a nice homey sort of feeling.
Right. As we as we've cleaned up the spaces, you know, made major space our own. But also like
when you're playing with a robot vacuum and you've personified the robot vacuum,
it means that a lot of the time you have exchanges like Carl is trying to go home now or
Carl is lost and might need some help. Or Carl, what are you up to in the other room? I hear you
breaking something. And so there's some sort of like is it there's a there's a fun Carl shenanigans
added to the lens household. Right. Exactly. There's a wonder to that. And I think it I think
it's sort of, you know, it's not a perfect representation, but it's sort of like a sampling
of the, you know, you've merged, you've tried to like add something to the space that helps
everybody, you know, keep things organized and clean, but it becomes a little bit of a game
right at the same time. I feel like now that you say it and I mean, this is completely not factual,
not backed up by data. But I wonder if robot vacuum is something that only
coupled people or family unit will buy. Because of all the places I've lived on my own, I never
for a single time, even at my most loneliest wanted to have a robot vacuum, even though
yeah, that's you seem to like derive considerable companionship out of Carl and
well, don't go too far there, but it's definitely a joy, right?
Yeah, like, I mean, this sounds and it's functional. It's a single person,
a single household still needs a floor vacuumed. Yeah. Yeah, some way she performed.
And it doesn't mean that because we have like one less person,
we produce less dust, you know, right? That's just comes out of everywhere.
Um, yeah, yeah, I don't know why, but I for some reason, I never I don't know of my single friends
who are living by themselves. Who have a robot vacuum, but all of the households that I've
been to of my friends places, the ones that have a robot vacuum, our family, like they're either
like, okay, there's a kid there. And like, it feels like maybe this is like a like a weird
indicator of like, you know, you have moved on from your like solo living situation to
a coupled plus living situation. Yeah, it's like a it's like a marker of that transition,
perhaps, right? Because yeah, I don't know anybody that is like, in the single situation and being
like, I need a robot vacuum to take care of the space, perhaps because the spaces are smaller
as well with a single person. I mean, there's there's there's that, too. But like,
even if I lived in like a massive house, I wouldn't feel like I need to have a robot vacuum
just for my like, own living space. Yeah, yeah, I guess if you owned a massive house,
though, you would probably just hire somebody to clean. Yeah, we're talking different monetary
bracket. But yeah, not that big. Okay, okay. All right. So yeah, it's like, I think your investment
level to household items suddenly, like have increased priority over when you're living by
yourself. And perhaps a larger part of your life also happens outside of your house. And whereas,
like, I think once you sort of settle into a partner or a family, maybe something like maybe
ロボット掃除機と巣作りの楽しみ
this is like a nesting instinct that triggers in you. And part of it is buying a robot vacuum and
naming it. Hold on, wait, I love this. So the idea of so so my heart and I enjoying our nesting
together have decided to add to the nest a robot vacuum, which Yeah, which I'm totally with you on.
But it is kind of a wild thing to be like, the like, yes, the next addition to the family is a
robot device that sucks up the dirt in our home. I mean, a human kid takes minimum 10 months to
arrive. So true. vacuum, you can just have it ready from the day one. That's true. That's true.
We're allowed to personify and sort of care for this thing from day one. And when the child arrives,
it will be a wonderful and beautiful moment of adding a third person to deliver dust everywhere
in the place. You know, Carl will then have more work to do. But anyway, it was a that was sort of
a deviation. I actually wasn't sure where that was going to go. But I had found it a rather
fun experience to personify that little robot vacuum. I've enjoyed it. And like, you know,
things like that have been been really great. And it's allowed us to, you know, play with the space
that we have, right. So so I've been very much enjoying that. But with these big changes also,
right. So if you know, we're continuing here in Japan and stuff, it means that all of my sort of
last several months have been trying to organize around the you know, work stuff and the sort of
career things and stabilizing in Japan, which is not right, because I think this, like engagement
has like solidified, I think you always had a chance of like, you know, this could be my last
year in Japan. And like, this could be just like, you know, like, as in like, you might be on your
way out of Japan was like, sort of, at the back of your head. Yeah, for for a while, this was sort
of in mind. It was up through 2024. I was definitely on that on that line, I stopped
fully thinking that I might want to go back when I saw the sort of political climate changing.
Okay, so that was that was a little bit of delay. Then there was the thought of maybe going elsewhere.
Then when I, you know, met and started being with my partner more officially at the beginning of
last year, it became a question of, you know, do we stay here? Or do we go back right towards
right some other countries, right? Is it you know, Canada, UK or something, you know,
being vague again, right. But like, this was a possibility, except sort of, you know, if we were
to go back versus staying here, you know, we weren't sure of certain opportunities, we were
playing with sort of the ideas of what it would look like. And then, you know, things just didn't
seem ideal, right to make that switch in the future, right? No idea, right? We don't know.
But the the current and the sort of near future bit over this year, especially became
Japan seems like a good place to begin. You know, it's generally supportive of people creating
families here, which we have, you know, off script talked about a little bit. And this position that
both of us are in, as well as the opportunities that we have, seem fairly promising. And so
コミュニケーションの重要性
it's sort of, you both enjoy. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, you know, maybe maybe those things
change. But that is the forward looking piece, which means, you know, trying to make sure we
also develop, right, our our sort of career positioning and stuff here in Japan. And then
we become more comfortable communicating in Japan, which, as we mentioned last episode,
which I think the Zero podcast will come out first. Please go listen to us talk about, you
know, me speaking Japanese a little bit in our collaboration. Yeah, yeah. I mean, like sometimes
that's the sort of trigger you need to like, all right, I'm gonna like, hunker down, you know,
and and do do do the do the sort of boring and perhaps painful bits in order to get to the
comfortable part. Yeah, I think I was already heading in this direction before the collaboration
episode where I need to hunker down, right and spend some more time on these studies,
spend some more time on research and and people out there who have listened to to our podcast for
this time know that my research is all around kind of AI education and trying to treat it with,
you know, an open discussion forum, right, instead of running away or treating it like the devil,
even though, you know, certain companies are maybe closer to something like the devil. Anyway,
non-tangent hunkering down so that that I can sort of do this studying and, you know, actually our
collaboration, which I, you know, I thank them again for for having with us for us all kind of
organizing together, was a sort of great example to me to be like, I know where my sort of level is
at being able to follow things and kind of figure stuff out from context and but but, you know,
if I want to really express myself or the ideas I'm having, if I want to be able to do what I do
here in English, which is just allow the sort of thoughts to flow out and to organize them later,
then I need to do I need to do more. Right. So yeah. Yeah. So that's where so this is all leading
right to to me saying that, you know, I will be leaving Asami to continue the podcast that she
has abandoned. Everyone, I've been abandoned. I've tossed it to the wind. I'm running. I've got all
this other things. I, you know, I've really, really enjoyed all the podcasts we've had. Right. And,
you know, I love the sort of discourse and communication we've had about a lot of these
topics. I think I've just made a podcaster's mistake from early on, though, and clapped at
my microphone. So apologies. But, you know, and, you know, that's that's something that I've really
found exciting. And so right now, just with the stuff that I want to do and get out there,
these these hints at trying to be more communicative about the work that I'm doing,
trying to stabilize stuff so that, you know, my partner and I can also exist and live and have
a wonderful and exciting sort of life here or wherever we sort of end up. I am reorienting
right sort of my priorities and focus. So that is my twenty twenty five and and I guess my twenty
twenty six resolution is working towards these things, you know, so maybe I I can build more of
this, you know, confidence and stability and sort of a wonderful life around. Yeah, I guess you're
ロボット掃除機とネスティングの影響
just like overall in a nesting phase. I mean, I'm in a nesting phase. It's a nesting phase that is
trying to work to be a comfortable nest that like, you know, lets us kind of, you know, us as in,
you know, my partner and I settle, hold ground, you know, and and become whatever that looks like,
you know, for the both of us there. So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, very nice. And, you know,
thank you so much for sticking around, honestly, because when Masako, the previous whole co-host
had to sort of leave the podcast as well, it was like it didn't take me that much
long of a time to think of you as an alternative, like as an ex-co-host, because
you're very easy to talk to. And in terms of like sort of the topic of interest that we have,
we're like similarly niche enough that like like this conversation that we're having,
I can imagine having it with maybe a handful of other people, but not too, too many.
So and we're in the same time zone now. So that's great. But like, you know, that's helped. Yeah,
that's certainly made that easier. But it's it's it's it's nice because these are sometimes like
quite involved philosophical thoughts that you don't always feel ready to share with your new
friends immediately or you feel comfortable talking to maybe your like mom and dad about it,
because then you're going to have to do like a whole ass explanation. Right. You know, like we
know what we're talking about when we say a bell curve. We know what we're talking about,
you know, that sort of thing. So you don't have to explain that. And so so that's been nice. And
yeah. And honestly, it was like a no brainer. I was like, well, let's see if Len's interested. And
so it was a fun what? I think you've done it for a year and a half, almost two years.
I was gonna say I didn't do the math, but the sense was that it felt like, you know, two-ish years,
right? Was was roughly what I was doing. Yeah, I think it's two-ish years, actually closer to two
than 1.5. Yeah. So that's a considerable amount of time. And there's no way I could have continued
doing this podcasting without you. So thank you so much. And as of now, I have no idea what I'm
gonna do for this podcast. Yeah, to be completely honest. I have a sort of few prior commitment
that I made on the podcast front that I like want to be able to be there for. Namely, it's something
that's happening in February and March. Something loosely in a theme of women and girls and STEM Day.
That's exciting. Yeah. March. And we are already cooking me and a few other podcasters that
maybe the listeners already know about. So stay tuned for that. But like, we're already like,
thinking about doing something together. So I want to keep this alive until now. But like,
I really also hate talking to myself. Yeah, I do understand how it feels like you're putting
things out on a void because podcast as a platform is not a very two way street. Right? Yeah, it's
very one way. Very, very one way. It's like, like 10 folds worse. When you're like doing
solo podcasts. And like, occasionally, I have done this sort of like a like a self narrating
dialogue or like like that type of dairy type entry. Yeah. But I don't know if I want to do
リスナーの意見と今後の展望
that. It's like a regular format. And yeah, I think I also don't know if people want to hear
that. Honestly. Hey, we have there is an inbox, right? Like, there is an inbox. Do people enjoy
my stream of consciousness? Because I don't? Well, I don't know. Right. So I wouldn't try to,
wouldn't try to, you know, answer that in the void right now. Right. But yeah, I think,
from what I have gathered by being here, and, and, you know, appreciating that you had thought of me
and that we have had some really great, really deep, you know, sort of unexpected directions,
I think, in the way that we've talked about some subjects, and the, I don't want to call them
reviews, right? But like the comments, right? The, the listeners who have gone out of their way to
say hello to, to check in, you know, really like and appreciate what you have created, right? Because
I mean, like you said, you created this beforehand, right? Masako was here first, right? You had a
whole sort of series of things. Then I came in and sort of I was doing a bunch with you in a
totally different way, right? From what I understood was going on before. Yeah. And now,
right, like, it's changing again. But the consistent part being you for the podcast is
still there. So I don't know, I guess part of it is, what do you want to do it? I don't know,
maybe we can have this as part of your 2025 recap for future field. I don't know, or give me ideas,
people like, yeah, like I said, I've said it a few times, there is an inbox, I don't think I've seen
any of you, you know, sending stuff in, like, this is, this is my last call. But this would be a good
time. Send stuff in, you know, like do the message thing. Tell, tell what this podcast could be,
right? Like, what are some thoughts? What are things you really liked about it? Right? Like,
give some ideas. Asami doesn't want to just stream of consciousness into the void.
Right? Like, unless I can make money off of it, you know, if there's a promised amount of audience
where like, I get paid, right to blab on about what's going on in my head, then like, sure,
I'll submit that every day. That's different. That's different. Money changes things, right?
But unless somebody is reaching out to sponsor you, maybe that's not the,
that's not the direction. I don't know what kind of like niche,
yeah, like, yeah, interest you have to have to like, listen to me blab on on my own. But
just a desire, a desire for discussion, English thinking, right? All of this is valid, right? So
yeah, I do. I don't know. I don't I don't necessarily want to completely
abandon this little space on the platform that we've created. And also, like, I would imagine
that maybe at some point, you like randomly want to say hi, and like, you know, use this as an
excuse, like, maybe that's not a bad place to like, just keep it alive. But like, like, not in like a
regular fashion, just like a one off way, maybe. But I have, yeah, just kind of, like, no clue at
this at this very minute that we're recording. So we'll see. We'll see how things go. Yeah,
yeah, that is, it's the un sort of unknown, right, sitting in front of us in some way. And
ロボット掃除機とnestingの重要性
that is, I certainly know what that feels like. Although, you know, I'm not, maybe it's not the
unknown of the podcast at the moment for me, but they're the unknowns that we have to figure out,
right. So please send things in people. Yes, you know, helpful, and then it's off to bigger and
better things. So hopefully, I can send him a farewell message too. Sure. Yeah, send me farewell
messages. I'd be I'd be happy to see them. And, you know, I, this was this is a great experience,
right? The reorientation and prioritization, the nesting, right, are all things that I want to
cherish and spend time with, hence the change. But like, you know, it's, it's not a never,
right? It's not a removal of all, all podcasts in the future, right. But I certainly, you know,
will focus in for a while. Well, that's, that's the 2025. For me, at least in the recap,
a little bit on maybe what yours looks like. Shall we switch gears? And yeah, we can we can
end this episode for now and start a new one. All right. Yeah, sounds good. All right.
That's it for the show today. Thanks for listening and find us on x at
Ego de Science. That is E I G O T E S C I E N C. See you next time.
