Alexander's

Nothing I've ever witnessed in Japan shows the mentality better than the lab cleaning I could enjoy yesterday.

First of all -- days ahead of the actual event -- a plan is made. I guess the professor has a general idea of how the office should look like, then one of the assistents measures all the furniture in the office, sits down with very expensive 3D visualizing software and spends one or two days rendering several possible scenarios. Next the professor decides on one of the plans. Obviously different kinds of desks are irritating, so three very nice and extremely sturdy desks are thrown out, just to get new ones, that seem cheap and uncomfortable compared to the old ones, but I have to admit they fit the general scheme of the room at least as well as the old ones.

Next -- this is still about two weeks before the actual event -- the plan gets postet on the pin board and an e-mail sent to everyone reminding them to attend the cleaning party. Everyone looks at the plan and no one really cares. Yes the plan looks nice and a bit different, but basically everyone want's the closest possible equivalent to his former workplace.[^1]

And then the actual hour of the big cleaning and restructuring dawns and the fun is about to begin.

11:00 Only three of the eighteen expected students are here.
11:10 The assistant professor enters the room to inspect the progress or start the work -- seems unhappy about the few attending students and leaves again.
11:11 The secretary comes rushing into the room. Wielding a phone in one hand and a list with the private numbers of all the students in the other.
11:12 After establishing who is here all the missing students are called and ordered to come at once.
11:15 An assistant comes and takes over the supervision. Everyone now asks the highest ranking student what he should do, who in turn asks the assistant. The assistant looks at the plan, and then the order goes the same way back again.
11:25 The next batch of students arrives.
11:30 I'm finished with my place and start vacuuming the floor.
11:35 The French student in my lab is also finished with his desk and starts to help me.
12:10 I go for lunch. By now about half of the students have arrived, the professor came twice to inspect the progress of the work and it looks like we will be finished before I come back from lunch.
13:15 I come back from lunch. While I was gone they ripped open the floor and are thinking about rewiring the office. The assistents is standing in the middle of the room and giving orders.
13:30 I notice it takes longer for them to tell me what to do than when they do it alone.
14:45 I find a nice stick and start a few Jo swings at the assistent -- turns out that the assistant also trains Aikido -- "Bad idea I'm a black belt" -- in the half second it takes me to understand his Japanese I loose the Jo that is now rapidly approaching my poor belly.
20:00 I leave for home. The office still is a battle field, but everyone is working busily or reporting the progress to the next in hierarchy.

I guess this work could have been done by a pair of underpaid cleaning ladies in about 2-3 hours. Yet more than ten highly intelligent Todai students were busy from 11:00 to 20:00 and I wouldn't go so far as to call the room clean. Restructured -- surely; cleaner than before -- maybe; but definitely not clean. And even after this the computers are still not connected. I guess it will be days before the network is again up to speed and working flawlessly.

PS: Today my professor came in and described what kind of work I should do today.

Today we find you a new desk.

[^1]: I can now decide between a crappy new desk with considerably less space, or an old desk in a sub optimal position

We had a nice labparty the other day, but after I shared the pictures with the guys from the lab, one of the assistant professors told me to make them private, because no pictures of labmembers should be public.

True to Calvin & Hobbes I obey the letter of the law if not the spirit.

Here is my private Flickr link and I trust that only friends of mine will be using it.[^1] Pity that none of the people from the lab will now be able to see them.

[^1]: Please don't tell me how I should not be doing this. I hate these stupid rules more than anything else. Just tell me strait to the face if you don't want your picture on the Internet and I'll remove it at once. Make me and I'll find a way around for sure!

My professor is a gentle one. He makes funny jokes, never raises his voice, never seems genuinely angry and he does not have a wip.[^1] Still there are some people that call him slave driver or an equivalent thereof. Whenever I hear that I always wonder why. Really the only thing you can hold against him is his ambition and a slight caffein addiction that goes hand in hand with massive sleep depravation.

JJ: The conference was great! We are really onto something! I have so much new work!
A: ...
JJ: I think I'll have to cain you to the desk with a ten meter long chain, so you can still reach the fridge and water.
JJ: +dry laugh+
JJ: How is Aurelien?[^2]
A: I've seen him today. He said he got a lot of work done.
JJ: And you believe him?
A: I'm in no position to judge his work, but he told me so earlier.
JJ: You know the nice thing about physics is that everything can be given a number.

Yes he is a funny one and the cardinal rule is to never take him too serious.

JJ: Oh and please try to sum this up in a presentation until tomorrow.

It is 16:00, I have a Japanese presentation tomorrow morning -- that is not yet finished -- summarizing all the physics stuff he wants me to will take at least a day, maybe more, and although the wedding was great I didn't really sleep all that much on the weekend.

A: I'm not sure I can have a decent presentation by tomorrow.
JJ: If you don't want to be chained to your desk you better have.
JJ: +dry laugh+

I smiles a happy smile, because I know it's a joke, but the sudden darkness in his gaze sucks the joy right out of my bones. I gulp and start to work -- until 23:45 -- I don't want to miss my last subway. Not because we don't have beds here in the lab -- we do -- not because I don't have a change of cloth -- I do. right here in my desk, next to the shower gel and the toothbrush -- no it's because I got a feeling that tonight all the beds will be taken by some of the japanese guys and I don't want to sleep on the hard floor.

The next morning, after a refreshing three hours of sleep, I give my japanese presentation, finish some work for the professor and then try to find a way to justify why I probably did less work than he expected.

In the middle of my stumbling explanation, that feels more like an extra hard test than a presentation, for he has far more questions than I have answers, the door opens and one of the assistants comes in -- triumphantly waving a printout of a map around.

I've tried to call Uchino and he doesn't answer the phone, but his house is close, so I send someone[^3] to get him.

"Uchino didn't order the parts you asked him to" the professor explains with a soft voice and a gentle smile. I can feel a sudden chill in the room, that makes me shiver involuntarily. In the distance, through the window behind him, lit by the last rays of the vanishing sun, a slave-hunting expedition crosses the soft green grass before the famous Todai clock tower.

His melodious voice is like a gentle pat on my head "Thank you. Your work was very good" and all the gloomy thoughts vanish like clouds driven away by a warm summer breeze -- honestly I didn't do that much work. It just is a pleasure to work under a professor that nice. Other people have to stay in the lab late, come on the weekends, never see their professor and when they do he is just complaining and giving them new work. Not me! I see him almost daily -- even on Christmas Eve he comes to listen to our presentations -- and he always has some nice words for me. I stand up -- happily -- and start to float out of the room.

JJ: Please try to find out [that thing we have no clue about] and then maybe we can talk about this tomorrow morning?
A: But ...

The the slight clinking sound of the heavy chains, the quiet moaning of rowing slaves as the wip cracks over their heads and monoton beat of the rowing drum lets my words fade away before they can even reach my lips.

It might be hard, but I'll try my best.

I bow and leave the office -- for my professor is a gentle one.

PS: No pictures at the moment. My hard drive with all the pictures on it died.

[^1]: At least I have not seen it yet [^2]: Aurelien is the second foreigner in the lab [^3]: There are times when I wonder exactly how close some of the people here are connected to the Yakuza and I say this only partly joking