I met my friend to have dinner on this Monday. Unexpectedly, I talked a lot about myself. She was generous and listened to my story very patiently. I want to say thank her. I did not realize but, it seemed I had been frustrated for waiting visa. Yes, my visa application has been delaying. I was frustrated because I need only one document to apply visa in Australia. Since my motivation and preparation are ready to go, I am tired of waiting for nothing. Finally, I called them. They said I am going to get the document around mid-September and then I will be able to apply to Australia for visa. Maybe I can start working for October 1st, hopefully.
While I wait the document, I have been staying in Aoyama-Gakuin University. One thing I have to do is finishing up several papers before the real work starts in Australia. I am working on it. And also, I am using this time to research for future. I finished two things.
One is for research about the instrument which I will work for. I will work for the instrument at reactor in Sydney. There is a duplicable instrument in the U.S. That machine is very productive. I had surveyed all scientific publications from the instrument. Since this machine is going to our rival, I would love to know as much as I could. I would love to know what the machine is capable of. I spent for 1 month to finish reading all.
The other is to read the publication list from Dr. Shirane, he is one of just 8 physicists appeared in both “The 1000 contemporary scientists most cited 1965-1978” and “1000 most cited physicists 1981-1997”. He died 2005 when I start working as a scientist. He had worked for the neutron scattering experiment techniques which I decide to do for my entire scientific career. As I mentioned, his publications are very strong. He has 35 papers which were referred more than 100 times. That is actually incredible number. As you know, 2005 is ten years ago, people did not find the paper to refer so easily, that number should be unaccountable if he were alive now.
And I have many lists I would love to complete. Also I am making my reading list. I am thinking of selecting 100 papers which I need to read as a physicist, almost for fun. Since the scientific publications have been increasing, even the fastest reader in the world can’t read everything, he doesn’t have to. I am trying to read important papers as many as I could before the real work starts.
Also I am reading a lot for fun from literature, business, or whatever. I just finished reading “On writing” by Steven King and am listening to “How to read a book” by Mortimer J. Adler. I am neither a native English speaker nor writer though, Steven King gives me a lot of ideas for writing and convinces me how we have to be serious about writing. And, Mr. Alder gives me the ideas for reading a lot how I should be a demanding reader. I would love to review these books here in near future.