Japan - Days 88-90

Almost a third of the way through the Japan experience, and nearly 100 days :-O
Monday started badly, obviously. I went to the lab early to prepare for my presentation by printing out my script and my handouts. Naturally, the printer ran out of paper, but luckily I found someone in the lab to ask where the spare paper was. Then, I found the stapler but there were no staples in it, but again, luckily, I found some in a drawer by my spot in the lab. I stapled everything together and went down to the classroom to practice and wait.
Crunch time finally arrived, and I tried my best with the preparation I'd done. My supervisor asked me a few questions while I was doing the presentation, and I got asked a few afterwards. I knew questions were going to come, but I still wanted to sink into the floor when they asked questions I couldn't answer. This presentation was never going to go well, but hey, it's over now.
In Japanese class we did some practice for the Wednesday/Thursday interview orals, which went okay, even if me and Mike did just spend most of the time talking ^^' Lab work was alright, I can't remember off the top of my head what I did, but I know that near the end, the woman in my lab who shows me most of what to do showed me the PCR protocol for the samples I took from the embryos the week before last. Not thinking about kanji class on Wednesday, I said I'd have the results for her by then. Realising my mistake, I realised that I'd have to go in on Tuesday - a public holiday for Labour Day - to complete the experiments in time. Oh well, thought I, everyone will be busy with writing reports for classes or practicing for finals, so I'll spend the time waiting for the PCRs to run practicing for my kanji and oral tests.
For kaiwa club, we decided to go to an American-style restaurant with the innuendous (if that's even a word XD) name of Big Boy. I had something called the triple cheese steak, which, albeit tasty, looked deceptively larger on the menu -_- Still, it was tasty, and I'd not had cheese in a while. Also, while talking to my friends during dinner, I was told about something veeery interesting; apparently horse shampoo is useable by humans, and the variety called Mane and Tail makes human hair grow thicker, longer and shinier. Molly said it apparently makes hair grow a couple of inches in a couple of months, so I really want to find some to try it out :-D A bunch of people went to Mo's apartment afterwards, but I didn't know if I was invited and I felt a bit awkward going if I wasn't. Turns out I probably would've been able to, but anyways. I came back to my room and spent a couple of hours trying to write a poem, but I couldn't think up anything good :-( At about 1am, me and Derek went to the combini for a snack run; I got a back of pizza-flavoured potato chips and a green tea-flavoured Chuppa Chups lolly, which gave me flashbacks to when I was in 6th form, taking in a tonne of lollipops for me and my friends XD After I got back to my room, I stayed up studying/procrastinating a few more hours before I decided to call it a night.
Tuesday, the 'public holiday'. I woke up early and got to the lab for about 9am, because I'd worked out that if I did, I'd be done by around 4pm. I wasn't the only person in the lab, however; there were 2-3 others. The experiments proceeded pretty well, but only about 50% of the lanes of my gel came up with bands, so I decided I needed to repeat it on Wednesday. As there were two breaks of around 3 hours each, I used those breaks in either completing another experiment (for which I got results at last, AND I'm starting to get my head around what the data means, thanks in part to the presentation I butchered), checking out the used book shops, or grabbing a salad for lunch at the convenience store, where I happened to bump into one of my friends XD
After my experiments were complete, I went for a cycle up to WongerGoo and Iias, looking for Pokémon Special (as always), horse shampoo and the McDonald's wi-fi hotspot. The Pokémon Dream World was down for maintenance, but the GTS was up, so I managed to get a Dageki and a Hiyappu at last. Then I got a message from Jordan about going for sushi, so I headed back, and hung out with Derek for a while before meeting the others. As it turned out, only 5 of us turned up - me, Jordan, Zivile, Mo and Steven (Kat and Molly had had a girls' day out shopping and had eaten while they were out v.v). It was Jordan's last sushi meal before leaving too; he goes back to the States next Tuesday :-( It was a good meal though. After this, we went home, and again, me and Derek went for a snack run in the late/early hours - I got a grape flavoured lolly this time. When I got back, I set to work memorising my half of the presentation for Japanese class, and the kanji for the final kanji exam. When I couldn't fit any more in my head, I went to sleep.
Wednesday. As people seem to be getting to the lab a little later nowadays, I decided not to rush myself, and only left my room at about 9.10am, as I'm supposed to be there sometime between 9 and 10. I got in and set up my experiment (which has almost a 3 hour run time) and spent the rest of the morning practicing kanji and looking over the presentation script. When 11.15am rolled around, I met Jen for lunch at the bakery (the inside seats were all taken so we sat outside) and then headed over to the ISC for last-minute kanji practice - her K200 class had their final today too.
All in all, the kanji test went pretty well. It started amazingly, and got kinda hard towards the end when they started throwing in words with readings that I'd not quite memorised and such, but with a mixture of intuition and my frantic last-minute studying, I finished with quite a bit of time to spare. The teacher was marking the tests as they were completed, so the early finishers got their marks before class ended - everyone else is getting theirs e-mailed to them. Overall I got 92.8% (130/140), with the breakdown as follows:

• Reading - 73/80 - 91%
• Writing - 30/30 - 100%
• Comprehension - 14/15 - 93%
• Usage - 13/15 - 87%

I think that means I passed :-p
Next up was Japanese class, and the first of our two interview roleplays. Me and Mike decided that today, we'd run the Harry Potter interview, so just before class started I went to the toilet and, checking my reflection in the mirror, drew a lightning bolt on my forehead with a biro XD The interview itself went pretty well. I made the class laugh by performing 'Expecto patronum', so I think the gambit of acting out a fictional character paid off. Now I need to practice the interview part for Mike's Keith Richards interview tomorrow.
Back at the lab, I realised I had a voicemail from Derek, so I called him back and he invited me to eat with him in the cafeteria later on, to which I said okay. I spent somewhere in the region of 2 hours in the mouse room, recaging them, cleaning them out and the like - both the USP2 and the ICR (imprinting control region) ones - during which time I got a message for Jordan inviting everyone for Korean food. I called up Derek after I finished up in the lab to ask him if we could meet afterwards for studying, so I could go for Korean, as that fills me whereas I doubt the cafeteria food would.
After dumping my bag in my room, I headed out to the Hirasuna cafeteria, where I found Derek just sitting down. I hung out with him for about 15 minutes before going to meet up with the people going for Korean. There were 6 of us this time - I guess people are very busy with finals and such given the lack of people today and yesterday ^^' I decided on bibimbap today, and as always, left feeling like I'd doubled my body weight XD [Edit: During the meal, we had a smallish earthquake which went on for about half a minute, it was pretty cool ^^]. Back at my room, I called up Derek to tell him I was back, so we headed down to the combini, where I bought a lemonade lollipop (which I haven't opened yet) and a bottle of Dr Pepper (I was craving something sweet after all the savoury Korean food), and now we're back at my room - he's studying kanji, and I'm procrastinating by updating my blog XD Anyways, I'd best get back to studying this presentation, so until next time, good night ^^
[Edit: I've been e-mailing back and forth with my Japanese exchange's mum all evening. She's sending me a parcel tomorrow morning, but it'll come between 9 and 12, so I'm going to run to the lab in the morning, early, set up the PCR and then come back here to wait for it, and hope that it comes early so I can get back to the lab before too long. I also received ANOTHER birthday card today XD It's been over a week since my birthday now, but it just keeps on giving :-p]