Mid-Day Report...

Back from meeting, and having breakfast/lunch.  Ideally would've eaten before the meeting, but making up for it with a nutritious meal: rice (ancient grain blend with beans) and natto with green onions.  No, not for everybody, but it's got the protein from the rice and beans, the tryptophan and vitamin B6 from the soybeans, and magnesium from the green onions.  Washing it all down with soymilk.  Not sure how much niacin is in this collection, but I randomly had some peanuts before bed last night which happens to be a good source so at least I got that.

Now, as for work: an update.

Yesterday was productive up until the last posting here or so.  Then one of my new roommates who I just befriended a few days ago came home.  As I was going out for my daily waterfall visit and we had discussed it previously, I invited her.  We went around 7:00, and ended up chit-chatting for the next four hours (not all at the waterfall).  Part of it was because she struggles with English somewhat (she's a researcher and a recent arrival from Poland), but it was nice connecting with someone from such a different world than mine, not just physically but mentally and culturally too (I think it helps me get out of my head more by letting me see myself and others more objectively).  After we parted, I managed some amount of work before getting to that point of sleepy where it's best to hold off on sending important emails and just call it the night.  Maybe it was around 2:00.

The cool thing though is that I heard back from the Japanese bibliographer I had emailed yesterday.  He returned to me an exhaustive list of references that I don't even know how he knew would each be perfect for my project that has yet to take shape.  And he tells me that's only a portion of what's available.  I still need to run article searches, but he gave me so much in terms of prints that I can put it toward one of the two assignments for tomorrow (literature research) that I was supposed to work on last night and instead went to socialize with a new friend for the first time in months.  Worked out sorta nicely~.  At my meeting earlier today, my researcher told me that I should really concentrate on developing the themes (the second part of the assignment due tomorrow, the part I was going to work on today) because my advisor is really good with discussing them and that I should take advantage of that while we still have in-person meetings.  I'm glad she told me this, as I was thinking about abandoning that a bit to keep working on the literature search.  Hence, this will be my focus for the rest of today.

Alright, back to it.  Gotta clean the kitchen, then figure out whether to work at home or get a move on and hit the coffee shop.  Today is likely the last day that I can work at the kitchen table (where the landlady usually works but she is out of town til tonight) - it's under a sky light and comfortable and there's a pleasant energy about it (generally speaking, just a lot better lit than my bedroom), and I found it to work out yesterday when I tried - so I might stay in today, at least until the waterfall.