Tonight my lab has a bounenkai party – the end year party but I skip it. It is better for me to not join because it starts at 9p.m and maybe ends at 11.00p.m. It is too cold and tiring to walk back from station in this kind of weather.alone .Plus, each of us has to pay 4000yen for the party which I think it cost too much. The price is expensive because of the beers. And I am not drinking of course, so if I go I will waste such amount of money (that I can buy for four new shirts )just for paying their beers.

We had a long presentation day today from 1.00p.m to 8.00p.m and after that my lab mates rushing for the bus to go to the party place before 9.00p.m. The senseis also join the party.

It is very different between young professor and old professor. I think I am lucky because get the opportunity to do my PhD under two different professors. Late Prof Kitamura was very famous and respectable person. I was under his supervision until the early of this year and had met him for several times only. Each time I met him, I always felt want to cry and stupid. His question was hard to answer and almost every time I felt like had been scolded. He was 60 years old when he died because of cancer and I am his last PhD student. Yesterday before sleep I cried because suddenly I remembered his words while I was doing the presentation. It was like a sharp knife that made a really deep cut which I will remember those words maybe forever.

Those memory came suddenly because my 婚約者 had faced the hard situation for 彼のlast プレゼンテーションの準備. What we face here is something to be reminded when we become a supervisor for our students one day. Either the student will ‘success’ in his/her research is actually depends on the supervisor’s way of guidance. I don’t know in the places other than Japan but, what I and 婚約者have been experienced here is might be the bitter part of medicine. We hate it but we have to swallow it.

Picture of 2 years ago when I first came to the lab. Late Prof Kitamura asking Petr about his life showing his concern to his student.