Akemashite Omedetou Gozaimasu...

... and a good continuation of the New Year!

Plenty of stuff has happened since last time I wrote. I went to Osaka over Christmas to be with Natsuko and we celebrated just the two of us; eating good, singing karaoke and watching movies. She got me a Nintendo DS v(^_^) and I got her a piano, with help from my family. Since coming back to Tokyo I've been listening to her playing through the phone.

I went back to school for a couple of days after that, cleaning the lab and finishing some stuff, and then it was winter holidays for more than a week. Yes! We went to Natsuko's parents over New Year (Oshou gatsu) and her sister and brother with families came during the first days of 2008. We were mostly just taking it easy, eating traditional Japanese food and playing games together. Oshou gatsu is the (only?) time of the year when Japanese mothers take a break from cooking. They make a lot of different dishes in advance, and all of the food is made so that you can keep it for a long time without it going bad. This is called Osechi and we had it from the 31st to the 3rd, but even though we had the same style of food for almost 4 days I didn't get bored with it, because there were so many different kinds to try. Small (pickled?) fishes and shrimps, smashed chestnuts, beans and so on. Some of the dishes have meanings, like, they will give you happiness or good fortune for the coming year.

After that we went to Nagoya with Natsuko's sister and her husband. The highlight of that trip was the aquarium, where I saw a killer whale for the first time in my life. The dolphin show was also very cool. I didn't know that you can train a dolphin to catch a frisbee! Just imagine how hard it is to judge the position of a flying object when you are swimming at ~20km/h and look up at it from under the water surface!

I've been back at the lab for about 2 weeks now and things are moving forward. I've managed to make two different molecules to bring home and I've thought of my own design for a third one. This week I was trying to invent a strategy to synthesize it and looking up chemicals for that. It seems I have it under control now and I will start with the synthesis next week. I am pretty sure that something unexpected will happen that will force me to rethink most of my plans, but you know... that's how it goes. As Prof Peter Stilbs keeps reminding me in his emails:
"If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be research!"

Until next time!