Tohoku University part 2

Well then...



Time is rather sneaky isn't it...It seems that quite a bit of its snuck by.

For all of you viewers at home - my apologies - work has been pretty intense as of late. I'm actually sitting at my desk waiting to finish monitoring a test system (its 10:30 pm here right now) and so I decided to write a bit.

I left in the middle of a story about Tohoku Univ. I'm afraid that I don't have enough time to catch up with that and everything else that's happened over here. I'll do my best to hit some highlights and then fill you in when I get home.

So the second day, we got up around 8 and met up in the lobby downstairs. We walked to the subway and caught the line over to the University. We got a chance to see a longterm study with a goat named Eva Hatoko. She's doing really well and the doctor that serves as her caretaker taught her how to "shake" with either front leg and also to stand at attention with verbal commands. Its always interesting to me to see the bond that tends to form between animal research subjects and their respective human researchers.

After a quick lunch (that's the other thing - people wolf their food over here. I'm a slow eater in the US so I have to actually concentrate if I want to try to keep up with the pace. As for stuffing your mouth - I don't know if that's possible over here. For all of the polite niceties of Japanese culture, slurping and shoveling food are strikingly absent.) getting back on track... After a very quick lunch, we headed up into the hot and stuffy, 'uglier than Benedum' (and no that reference isn't to exclude those unfamiliar with Univ. Pitt - its just the best description I could come up with...) to prepare for and conduct the study.

I don't think I'll go into much detail, but it was really amazing watching the LVAD being implanted into the goat. I got to hold an open faced side biting clamp that was attached to the ascending aorta, while the doctor made an incision and sutured the pump's outflow graft into place...it was really cool. It was a great opportunity to ask a lot of questions - I learned a lot that day...

The next day we reviewed the results of the testing, visited Eva again then left for Tokyo to visit the branch office there. While the important people had meetings, Usgawad-san and I went to Shinjuku (famous for its stores/malls) and checked around for a bit. Then we grabbed a train back into Suwa arriving long after sundown... I was pretty tired when I crawled into bed that night.

Since then I've been mostly working a ton. Last week my supervisor, Jon, from EMUSA (where I work in Pittsburgh) made a trip out here to Suwa. It was really nice to see a Western face and have the chance to talk in some full out English. In addition the weekend of his arrival, I went to Tokyo (via train) and met up with a friend that used to work at EMUSA. She and her family live in Tokyo about 30 minutes from Shinjuku Station. We met up with Jon when he arrived. I got to explore Tokyo including Asakusa and the Imperial gardens next to the Emperor's palace. It was really amazing stuff - check the pictures. : D

I have to go now - its time to check up on my test system. Hopfully I can go home then (I came in at 7 this morning and I'm leaving at 11 pm - hopefully) so I guess that's a 16 hour day. Whoopie! haha, oh man - at least I'm taking a break now - and I had a 20 minute lunchbreak outside too - so...yeah. I'll be happy to go back to my 9 - 6 in the US.

Take care all - I'll see you in 17 days or so!

God bless,

Jonathan

Since then, I've been mostly working