On May 23rd, I had my last internship.
I went to my internship, and my mentor and I talked about this year and also next year.
She told me that she would like me to keep continuing researching with her next year!
I wish I can do that next year.
It was great  internship this year even though I struggled with researching by myself.

On May 18th, I did not go because my mentor was away.

On May 11th, I did not go because my mentor was away.

On May 2nd, I did presentation at school and also my internship.
At the school, I made poster and explained to other people.

At the internship, I presented my research at Undergrads student's presentation.
I was the 2nd the last.
The group before me did very well in their presentation and their powerpoint was great quality so I was very scared of presenting mine in front of all undergrads students and mentor.

The powerpoint that I put with this blog is the one I presented on the day.
It was a great opportunity to present with undergraduate student and I am thankful that my mentor gave me such rare opportunity.

On April 27th, my mentor came back so I went there.
At the internship, the middle school students including mentor's daughter were practicing their presentation which they made with their undergrads mentors.
I was very impressed by their high quality presentation and started worried about my presentation.
The way students talk and present was extremely good.
I talked to my mentor about my presentation little bit and left my internship.

On April 20th, as last time, my mentor was not there so I worked for my presentation in order to show her next week.

I'm so sorry that I did not do last four blogs...
On April 13th, since my mentor was away, I went there and researched by myself.
I was working on my presentation coming up.

April 4th

Because April 6th was the first day of the long weekend, I went to my internship on Wednesday on April 4th.

Since my professor and other grads student had conference at the other building, I was working in my professor's office by myself.

I kept researching about the relationship between asthma and earthquake, but it is hard to find credible source to actually present in front of many people. What I found was all from some regular housewives or other not academically incredible people.

March 30th

I went to the internship and there were three other grads students again with my professor!

We shared some questions that we were working on and also came up some other questions that we will consider in the future.

Recently, since there are always some grads student, I do not work over there; we mostly share our new informations and questions and I listen many interesting facts that grads student found.

By sharing our thoughts and new information for each projects, I realize that Japan is not as polluted as other part of the world so that it doesn't have any big problem that I can find easily.

For example, in Terrain, the air environment is so bad that we cannot see 10m away from us, which lead heavy, awful asthma symptoms; this fact makes the terrain interesting to research and allows us to find many information.

In actuality, I often struggle finding interesting fact about asthma in Japan.

Hopefully, by May, I can have decent amount of interesting facts to present for symposium.

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Currently, I took the question that Peggie pointed out before about the relationship between asthma and earthquake in Japan and research on it.

It seems that there is a connection between asthma and earthquake because shaking the building causes spreading the dust from the houses.

POSTER FOR FINANCIAL AID OF ASTHMA IN TOKYO

This is the poster for financial aid that Tokyo prefecture made to help people who suffer financially to see doctor and to pay hospital charges for asthma.

People who are eligible have to …

1) continuously live in Tokyo for at least one year (for under three years old, at least six month)

2) have bronchial asthma or some related illness (under 18years old, this aid apply to those who have bronchial asthma, asthmatic bronchitis, chronic bronchitis pulmonary emphysema or some related illness)

3) join the health insurance

4) do not smoke

This description was used until 2008. From August 1^st, 2008 Tokyo prefecture changed the recruitment and expanded age range of the bronchial asthma from under 18 to all age.

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Title: The number of people who are authorized to get this financial aid past ten years from 2010

From 2001, even though the number of people who get this financial aid decreased in 2007, it is keep increasing and in 2010, 85,575people get this aids. In 2008, as I mentioned above, the number of people suddenly increased because of the expansion of age range.

In order to spread this aid, Bureau of Social Welfare and Public Health put advertizing in homepage, giving posters, put ads in the local magazine, put ads in TV and radio, established counseling agency (from April 2008), put poster at the subway station.

I don't know how to upload the pictures...

3/23/2012 Skype with professor in California

Today, two grads student, who research about the air environment and asthma in Terran and California, and my professor had skype meeting with the professors in UCI!

My professor invited me to join and observe/listen the meeting. Two grads students made their research powerpoint and presented what they learned and what they thought about the connection between the California and Terran.

Since I did not have the background knowledge of neither Terran and California, it was hard to follow but there were many things to learn from their thoughtful conversation and the powerpoint that grads students made.

Also, before the meeting, my professor's assistant looked though first summary of what I learned and checked my work. I'm going to post that on next blog!

3/2 Missed Internship

Because MArch 2nd was the last day before spring break, and also because my flight was on that day, I could not go to internship.

I am excited to go to internship tomorrow after school!!

February 24: Debate workshop

On February 24th, my mentor held workshop for junior high school students including her daughter. It was whole day program. In the morning, students went to many department and learned different subject that can improve the environment. By using the knowledge that they gained from morning workshop, they prepared for debate.

The debate topic was whether the country should keep continuing to dig the whole and make tunnel for getting oil.

SInce I had school on that day, I joined this workshop when the kids alreadt prepare for the debate and ready to start debate. Mostly, the debate was controlled by the grads student from many departments.

Before I went there and listened their debate, I thought since it is the debate by the junior high kids, it would be somehow childish? discussion. However, thier debate was super/extremely well done and I was amazed by how they had their own strong perspective and use their knowledge to convince other side of people.

They talked confidently and calm. I learned many things from them that day. I was impressed by the abilities of junior high school students and felt kind of shame of me because my debate in high school was much worse than me...:( But it was good to be there and hear many relevant opinions from them!

2/17/12 Exchanging each new knowledge

On February 17th, I met other grads students again with my mentor and discussed our development in research.

Each of us learned many things about our topics, but we needed to start considering what we will to talk about in symposium.

Even though I cannot go, these grads students and my mentor will go to California sometime this year and they will interview workers who work at the factory, company, and organization that help to crean the environment or produce pollution. Just only listening to them is exciting enough to learn many connection between each companies and environment which eventually effect on the cause of asthma.

I gradually get to know these grads students, so we can exchange our idea and thoughts more smoothly than before, which is nice to work at college where no one was my friend.

The grads student who Iran always brings the news that I have never heard and the pictures that I haven't seen before. Since Iran country itself neglects controlling the air pollution, she told me that country hardly allow citizens to claim about pollution and bad environment.

When I research about Asthma and environment in Japan, I try to look for interesting, eye-catching news that no one ever heard; however, I am struggling to find those news...

I hope I can find some news that I can show in the symposium in May.

2/17/2012 Start Discussing

I'm so sorry that I haven't written this for long time.

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On February 17th, my mentor talked to me and three other grads students who also do the same researching style as me for different part of the world and organized what we should research on.

As I mentioned before, one of the student research about Iran. The new two people are researching about Terran and California.

What I was surprised was since these countries that grads students are researching on are very polluted places so that many of the question that my mentor gave us are useful to research; however, since Japan is not that famous for polluted air, most questions are not applied to Japan (such as the organization that take care of air pollution- there is no such organization specific to air pollution).

For our symposium in May, my mentor introduced the blog/website that Asthma depeartment manages. She told us to submit what we learn and share each other. I am planning to submit some pictures with analysis and also some data for Asthma in Japan.

Feb 3 Missed internship

Because of Junior retreat, I missed my internship.

But I'm working on my mini paragraph for posting on the department website!

This coming Friday, I hope I can show her my paragraph and keep researching about medicine in Japan! I think I might be interesting to compare medicine in Japan and medicine in USA. I'm going to talk about this with my mentor!

I also want to know how new grads student that I talked about in my last post start researching and decide the aspect that he's going to learn deeply.

Jan.27 Knowing more about asthma

On January 27, I had my second internship and researched more about asthma.

My mentor introduced me about the website that student in their department post their new information about asthma in many country. She recommend me to write small paragraph for the information that I gain from research. Therefore, I'm going to write paragraph (ideally with pictures) to post on that website and also this blog. I asked about symposium that is coming this May and learned how other student present their knowledge. I'm going to narrow down my topic to few aspect of asthma in Japan, and what I am interested in the most is the medicine in Japan. I will research more on this aspect and at the same time, learn more about the bronchial asthma because many Japanese have this particular kind of asthma. One more interesting topic is the different opinion that different organization provide to the world about the population of asthma in Japan. One organization says the asthma population is decreasing but the other says it is increasing. Therefore, through researching, I wish I can figure out this mysterious contradiction.

One event that happend my last meeting was my mentor introduced me new grads student who just started involving in my mentor's class. He will do similar research as mine but on Iran (I guess), not Japan. Since he is new and I am new, I wish I can get to know him more and can exchange our research and idea about asthma in the world!!

Start researching!!!

1/20/11

Since I forgot to ask for my transportation, I took taxi..!

But, I start to research for about my project with my mentor!

So what I'm doing now is, research about asthma in Japan from many different perspective like, how many people die because of asthma, what is the particular cause in Japan, how the environmental affect on asthma, is there any organization working to help people who have asthma.

What I found during last research, I found out that many Japanese have bronchial asthma, and about 6000people die per year because of it. Mostly boys have asthma more than girls and the age between 15-29years old are the largest population. It was interesting that before I researched, I had heard that the population of people who have asthma is increasing; however, I found the article that says that it is decreasing by sixfold in the past 30years.

Also, particularly in Tokyo, there is a insurance to relief the cost for the hospital for those who often need to go to see a doctor.

I also found it interesting that the medicines that are used in USA is difference from those in Japan. Since I have asthma, I used to use the sticker type of medicine that you put on your skin directly. The name of this medicine is Hokunalin Tape. This medicine is used in Japan a lot, but in USA, people still use inhaler which has more side-effect than this sticker type.

For this coming Friday, I would like to keep on this research and know more about the environmental effect on asthma!