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英語でサイエンスしナイト。 Today's topic is 英語でサイエンスしナイト。
英語でサイエンスしナイト。 Today's topic is 英語でサイエンスしナイト。
That really does feel like
That's a lot of weight, huh?
Anywho. How has your 2024 been, Len?
Anywho. How has your 2024 been, Len?
My 2024 has been
Well just the other day
I was reminded
that it was gonna be 2025
because that's a thing you can forget
and I looked at the person
and I just said
I guess
I don't think I'd actually become
accustomed to writing
that it was 2024 yet. And so that probably says something. I don't know what it says.
Maybe like your 2022 to three to four has kind of all blended in together.
Yeah, that's a that's a possibility. Especially because my 2022 was yeah, was was all in Japan,
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right? So is that the first full year that you spent in Japan? Yep, that's it. 2021 was only
a couple months in 21. Yep, just a couple months. So okay. But I didn't realize how long you've
been in Japan for. Yeah. So yeah, yeah, I get to tell people now it's you know, three years ago.
Yeah. Other than this kind of blending in years, which I think tends to happen as we age,
and there's like less things punctuating our lives, unlike midterms and semesters.
Sure. Yeah. You do still live in that kind of world. Yeah, I mean, I've been
in a teaching role. Yeah. But I only you started a new job this year. I did. Yeah,
that was gonna be the thing that I would say. Yep. I just, I started that up, you know, switched
during the semesters that are here. So that was a big deal. It's been a good move. I am still saying
that it was a good move. So that is a good sign. You know, that's good. Yeah, it's been it's been
about eight months and you still think it was a pretty good idea. Yeah, yeah, it was worthwhile,
worthwhile direction, good motion forward. You know, I mean, I'm not quite as nomadic as you,
but I mean, I certainly have now done some. I think you should not use me as a reference point.
I think it's rather unusual to be in my situation. Yeah. Well, okay, I won't go comparing then. I
guess it was, yeah, it was it was nice. It's been nice to have change of pace, different location,
different country, different culture. And, you know, year three, which is, you know, 2024 here.
Yeah, yeah. Do you feel like you're settled more in Japan now that it's been a few years?
Yeah, yes and no, which is a common question to a common answer to something like that.
That's true. Yeah, the yes would be elaborate. Yeah, the yes would be
a yes in terms of navigating some of the day to day sort of experiences, the
looking to get around, go places or, you know, talk to people, go out to dinners, you know,
do all of these sort of life related things. Pretty comfortable. I can figure out how to do
those things in some way. Same with same with career stuff. I already hinted that, you know,
they're going pretty well. Yeah. And no, in terms of maybe just the way that I function,
not necessarily always jiving with what might be the cultural norms here, which I think is going to
be the case everywhere in the world now. But that's just because, you know, I sort of sit outside of
I guess the normal bubble. Also get used to like you'll have a reverse cultural shock when you go
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back eventually at some point. Yeah, yeah. It's a strange thing to be a foreigner in your own
country. It's. I don't know, I've gotten used to like I've made peace at that concept at this
point, so it doesn't bother me. Sure. But I think sometimes it can be like a little baffling, like,
wow, did I really spend like, you know, 18 plus years in this country growing up, you know?
Yeah. Something I have never experienced in my life to like live in one place for 18 years.
Yeah. Honestly, I don't really recommend it. But yeah, it's that that would be a good point. I've
had some some good discussions. I mean, I also, you know, last year, I think there's been a lot
of good opportunities, you know, with with friends and with, you know, sort of building those
connections. Yeah. But here and mostly in international spaces. But anyway, those those
connections and some of those chats sort of, you know, float around these topics every once in a
while. There's a there's a bit of in between this and I, oh man, I'm talking about liminal spaces
again. Yeah. We'll do an episode on that or something when I feel there's something.
I think I think we should. We should. And it's like, if anything, my entire life has been in
liminal space, it sounds like. Yeah. So this yeah, this is why I'm like, there's some there's
some curiosity to play with here. Yeah. But these discussions on things like, you know,
moving between cultures or even just being in different places for different amounts of time.
And you can tell that the people who do it and are not necessarily like paying more or less
attention, but those that come in and take time to sort of sit with whatever that space is like.
A few friends I'm thinking of, you know, have come to Japan and they spend like upwards of,
you know, two, three months at a time. And they've done this in other places as well,
like, you know, across the globe in Europe. And and just the doing of that has left them with
this mixed experience, I guess it's this, you know, you go back and I was just talking with
some of them today and it's like, oh, this is this is nice to be home or in this space.
And then a little while passes and you're like, man, I really wish I was like back, you know,
in one of these other locations. Right. This sort of. And it doesn't matter which direction that
happens in because it happens both ways. Right. Like, you know, we might go this happened to me,
you know, going back to like the States. I had they did this briefly last year. There was a flash
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of, oh, wow, like, it's really nice to be in some of this space. And then there was a lot of like,
oh, wait, no, it's actually I really wish I was just back in Japan right now. Right. Like there
are things I would like to be doing there. And this could be for a number of reasons. But yeah,
I think it's become even more clear that that's going to be kind of part of my, you know, you
know, life experience going forward. Right. This year is kind of summarize that for me. So yeah.
Yeah. It's it's there's no really like nice sort of global minimum on how to settle this question.
But I think, yeah, you're right at the cusp of feeling like Japan that you made a home in Japan
in some way, but not in some other ways. Right. And I do feel like Japan in particular is a
different living abroad experience than perhaps a lot of other countries. I mean, you can say that
about every country, but because like for the international presence that this country has,
it's a very, very domestic country. And like you thought you knew that coming in and you know that
the language barrier is high. Yeah. But like it's more than that when you actually come here. And I
think especially if you live in a place like Tokyo, like Tokyo is a foreign country to most Japanese
people. You know, it's it's a different it's a different category of Japan. Yeah. Much like
how like maybe, you know, most of Americans don't really understand New Yorkers, you know, vibe.
Yeah. It's it's like that for Tokyo. And and so it's you need to treat it like a different country.
And and it's it's it's not. Yeah, it's not. It's a weird mix, like coming from Tokyo, like,
you know, born and raised partially, at least in Tokyo. I do. I like I don't have that sense of
being a foreigner in Tokyo all that much. Now that I've interacted with people, Japanese people who
are not from Tokyo, like enough of them, because growing up, like almost 100 percent of people I
interacted with were from Tokyo. Right. So now that I've like my word has gone a little bigger and
met Japanese people from like Osaka, Shizuoka, other places, I like realize how
they think they how they see Tokyo and how unusual of a place it seems to them, I guess.
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Yeah. And the common common descriptor is just, yeah, like people are unfriendly. The city is scary.
They are like, you know, they don't want to interact with you. They just mind their own business. And
you know, for me, that's the standard. So I don't really have anywhere else to compare to.
Yeah. But yeah, maybe maybe you feel that way, like how you feel like there's a lot of people
around you, but like very few friends that you feel like you can make. Yeah. Yeah. We this this
might have been hinted at here before. Yeah, it's it's a little difficult. Right. You really got to
be in the spaces that you want to be in. I mean, I've heard this from, you know, most of the the
advice, right. People are given when they come to like Japan for the first time if they're going
to be working here. There's a bit of smattering of advice of like, you know, you got to go to places
and you got to consistently go to those places. And it's sort of a slow like build up of getting
to know people. I wonder if that is, you know, as true and helpful. And I certainly think it is
helpful because you create a presence in places. I wonder if some of this is an even greater
challenge in Tokyo because of just, yeah, just the abundance of people and the things going on.
And everybody can go to certain places regularly. But also, if they are doing that, they're probably
already part of these other sort of groups and stuff. And it can be difficult to maybe enter
those spaces. There's a whole lot of things. And it's not, Tokyo is not unique in this, I think,
where you mentioned like New York. There are places that have similar challenges with kind of
entering some of the spaces, even if a lot of them exist. But maybe the ways that people
treat that or the way that they connect with each other can differ. And yeah, so just it's
it's interesting. It's different. It's a city in its own, you know, way, of course,
but it's also its own little bubble in Tokyo, on top of being within a country that is its own
very, like, unique, diverse space, culturally, socially. So it's a lot of that kind of tacked
together, I think. Yeah, yeah. And I have such mixed feelings because, sure, do I feel, do I wish
that some parts of Japan would just catch up to the global standard? Like, of course, sure, I would,
especially maybe pay rate. But like, I also do find that what makes Japan unique and so precious
is precisely because they have been resistant to these westernization changes. And I love that for
right? I love that for you. Go get it. No, I want Japan to stay weird. And I want it to stay
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unique and not this, like, whitewashed version or, like, fetishized version of what white people
think of Japan is. And, you know, and I don't want that to happen to Japan. But it's a fine balance
to strike, right? There are, like, things that I feel like we're behind in terms of being,
catching up to the global standard, but also things that I do want, you know, I understand
that that kind of resistance is what makes them, what has also protected them all these
thousands of years from being, you know, kind of homogenized with other cultures.
Yeah, yeah, they've... So, so hard, hard balance to strike. I mean, especially, I think, in that
resilience to the merging, right? Which create another homogeneous state. We were literally
surrounded by oceans, so that kind of helped. Well, I was gonna say there's also what you then
see as a result, though, where there's, like, there's, like, internal homogeneity, right? Where
there's, like, a resilience to, like, the types of changes, even sort of within, like, local spaces.
That's true. Not, not to say that that's good or bad, right? But, like, it's interesting to see
that resilience exists, right? Within sort of more than one facet. So, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I don't think I really gave a takeaway from my year, did I? I didn't really. No, but I led you
to digression. But please, please bring it back to your own course. Yeah, let's, let's digress and
come back to... Let's digress from this topic and regress back to the... No, no, no, it's fine. You're good.
This, this type of flow is very nice. I, I, let's see, what, what do I think I took away from this year?
A lesson that I would say I took away from this year would be
the next step after you've arrived at just do it and don't think about the consequences when you're
trying to get yourself into motion over things like careers and whatnot. And, you know, just,
just give it a shot, you know, and whirl. Another reframing of this would be if you're in a position
that you, you know, can, very privileged wise, make these decisions, you can, you can sort of try
new things, you can put yourself out and make some of the stuff you're interested in. Consider what
that means, but then also kind of do it. Just, you know, add in sort of a thinking step there.
I think people get hung up on the thinking about what they want to do a lot of the time and end up
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locked in place. And I think that's, it's something that thankfully in a lot of my time here I have,
I have not had, but that is because I learned this lesson early, not early enough,
grad school early. And I have applied it since, but I think, I think it's this year where it's
starting to settle a bit more into, into that mindscape because of various things at, you know,
sort of work level and, and career level and even generally like connecting with other people level.
So I think it's, it's a good, good year to currently round out with this sense of, you know,
trust yourself to think some things through, but don't sit there and linger on it. Give yourself
time to do so. And just, just remember to actually do the thing. May as well find out and get some
more information on it. Seems like a good approach to me. So. So be more experimentalist.
Be more experimentalist. I was never a theoretical person. I just happened to end up there and. Yeah,
why did you? I regretted every moment of it, Asami. Well, not every moment. I might have regretted the
choice to go in that direction though. So, but I got, I got stuff out of it. But your true nature
is experimentalist. You want to get your hands dirty. You want to be out there in the world doing
stuff. So, so is. Yeah. So yeah, no, I mean, I think it's good to arrive to that kind of
takeaways. I guess it's not just this year's events, but like accumulation of, you know,
your 2022, three, four, that you hear basically. Yep. And accumulation up into this year to the
big change in career, to the big changes around other things. It's I think that would be a good
takeaway, if not the only one. And certainly to carry into 2025 when I continue to write 2024
on anything I need to write dates on. So. I see. Yeah. I think, I feel like I would continue doing
that as well. I also lost track of like which year of Reiwa it is. Like what is Reiwa? I, man,
I had that for like six months and then it changed or something and I got confused again. So.
Oh yeah, that's true. You came right at the, no, no, no. I don't know. I feel like
it's like Reiwa 5 or 6 or 7 years right now, I think. I'm, I'm gonna guess
5 years. I feel like 6 years feels a little, I remember it being 4. I'm not sure if I remember
it being 5. Anyway, whatever the year of Reiwa and we'll just keep with the Gregorian calendar.
Yeah. 2025. Yeah. AC. And then we'll celebrate like Lunar New Year when we get there. So,
you know, we can do all of these. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Cool. Sounds good. Enjoy everyone.
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New Year. Oh yeah.
That's it for the show today. Thanks for listening and find us on X at Eigo de Science.
That is E-I-G-O-D-E-S-C-I-E-N-C-E. See you next time.
