Truffles & Blood Clots

With too many truffles to handle even between the two of us, May and I decided to hand some out to a few of our friends at the hospital. This included our friends in Pharmacy and Radiology, Kimura-san, Kumiko-san, Oka-san and Nakashima-sensei. Everyone was really impressed, exclaiming "Oishii!" ("delicious"), and I think they they won us a few brownie points too. Now we're not just the GAP volunteers, we're the GAP volunteer who give them confectionery. Who couldn't love us?!

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Ide-san, the woman who met all of the Gappers in Tokyo back in September, came to visit Nagasaki last week to check on May and me. Since everything is fine, it was a short, concise visit, only lasting for more than an hour because we broke for lunch. She gave us a piece of advice though that has really stuck with me: be less shy and more active when it comes to asking for more things to do. She said this in the context of asking to watch a birth, but I have already applied it at work in a different context. Yesterday in the Test Department I asked if I could help take the clots out of centrifuged blood - something I see the other lab tech's doing scores of times a day. They didn't even hesitate and handed a blood-filled test tube and a tooth pick each to May and me. They were so impressed they gave us our tea break early and then let us leave for lunch early too. Ide-san's advice really worked! I wonder what else this could lead to? With less than three months to go now, I really have to try to make the most of this.

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I watched surgery again last week. I didn't mention it before because I took May in with me so we only stayed for an hour. She was very impressed but said that once was enough. Me? I'm going back in this afternoon. It will never be enough :-)