(As of August 23, 2001)
Hi, All!
It's been a while (4 months) since I updated this page last time. I hope that everyone is doing well. I am doing just fine. This summer is almost over, even though some people in San Francisco think that summer starts in September. I have been pretty busy traveling and having fun. I went to Vancouver for getting a new visa stamp on my passport and visiting a friend in early May, to Toronto for a conference and to Montreal for fun in early June. I went backpacking in southern Sierras/Sequoia National Park during the Memorial Day weekend in May. It was fun, even though we had the hardest time finding the trail, and we almost went back the way we came without having much extra food. Otherwise, I have been surfing and biking more, which I have been enjoying greatly.
On a little more boring subject (a.k.a. work), I am settling into this assistant professor position. I am now supervising a few people, and it has been a pleasure to work with very smart people. Supervising is something I have not done much in the past, and it is a challenge to bring out the best of them, but I am slowly but surely learning to be a good supervisor. We finally got the funding from the National Institute of Health for the proposal we wrote 1.5 years ago. We are setting up other collaboration with a company, which, I hope, will be productive for us. So, overall, my work is going pretty well.
One bad news I have is that my mother was diagnosed with lymphoma, a form of cancer that attacks the lymphatic system, recently. She has been receiving chemotherapy, and may receive radiation therapy later. She will be hospitalized for 3 months at least. Her prognosis sounds good, so it is good, but I feel helpless being so far away from where she is. (She is in Tokyo.) I will be visiting her from September 19 through 27. Please wish her good luck with her fight against the cancer.
Love! Koji
Praises, comments, suggestions to [email protected].