The other day, I received a paper from my advisor. The paper was written by a professor whom I met in Japan. In order to make progress in research, I need to read the paper well because the methodology written in the draft was expected to improve our calculation. When I read the paper, I find my name on the acknowledgement.
When my professor was away from Eugene, I tried to use a seismic code in our system. The code provided by the seismologist was developed in Linux environment. However, our OS system is Mac OS X. I needed to change a few things for application of my code in our system. After I finished to modify the code in our system, I sent what I have done to the professor who lives in another country.
The seismologist often visits Japan. When I listened to the presentation about volcano in the seismologist's country, the professor started to talk in Japanese like "I am sorry not to speak in Japanese". That was the first time to listen to the introduction. I feel that is little too polite ,but I appreciate her attitude to us. The contents was about the seismologist's paper printed in Science. I was very interested in the presentation. After the presentation, I asked several questions without knowing the seismologist's past achievements. If I knew who the seismologist was, I would not ask such embarrassing questions.
In several months, I attended an academic meeting in San Francisco. When I was seeing a poster, she talked to me. She seemed to remember my face. That was one of the most fantastic occasion in my short research life. She seemed to be amused at meeting with me again in San Francisco.
After I arrived in USA, my advisor give me a paper. I noticed that the seismologists have been working on the research area because I often see her name on the lists of references. I noticed whom I met at the time.
It took an hour to go to the building of science department from engineering department when I was studying in Japan. If I was lazy for going to the department, I did not have any chance to meet her. If I did not go to the academic meeting, she may forget my name and face. However, some gravity seems to act between us.
When I was a high school student, I was not good at English. I once failed to pass an entrance examination of a university because of English. After I entered a university, I spend a lot of time for practicing English. I do not think I can do a lot of things in English, but it seems that my language works a little across ocean. I could not imagine a day when I communicate people live in other country in English. Acknowledgement is not counted as your publication. However, that is a strong proof of my communication with her. It really encourages me now.
