At last, I came to Santa Barbara, California, again. I am sitting at a desk in a room with a great oscean view. Yes, this is Santa Barbara.
This place is very special for me. This is the third visit to SB: The first one was 10 years ago, as a post-doc here of KITP (Kavli Institute for theoretical Physics. At that time it was called just ITP, and I have a cap with a printed logo “itp.ucsb” which is now a rare item…). The second one was 4 years ago, I stayed here for two months, participating in a long-term program “mathematical aspects of string theory” in KITP. Now, the thrid time has come, but only for three weeks. In view of that the first one was for 1 year, the second one was for two months, it seems my visiting period is getting shorted, unfortunately. But I really love this place.
10 years ago, when I came here for the first time, I decided to write a blog for myself and for my previous supervisor at Kyoto university to tell him that I was surviving in a foreign country, the US. And my blog continued almot for ten years, that is now surprising at least to me. I have never thought about how long I can continue the blog.
All of the materials in my Japanese blog are written in Japanese. I know that I, myself, change my personality when I change my language. That should be true for anyone, I guess, except for native bilinguals. When I speak in English, the Japanese part of my nature disappears slightly. The Japanese part means for example a recognition of a slight difference in age when I speak to my collegues, and a difference in a way to ask someone something, and so on. This , summing up, in total provides a drastic change in communication, that is completely different from english way of communication. So I wonder my blog, now written in English, my have very different taste compared with the Japanese one which I got used to since 10 years.
Anyway, I am now at Santa Barbara. I have too many stories to tell about Santa Barbara, partly because 10 years ago it was my first experience to live outside Japan, I had experienced a lot of “culture shocks.” When I came here last time, it was 4 years ago, the very feeling which I felt 10 years ago actually came up to me again really vividly. When I saw a tree, a shop, the oscean, a road, a flower, a park, anything — literaly anything reminded me of every feeling which occured to me 10 years ago. So, 4 years ago, the visit was truely exciting. I was too excited and in fact was so exhausted.
But this time, something is different. Why? Probably I expected the same feeling as that I felt 4 years ago. But the truth is, I haven’t felt that excitement this time. The talks here are very good, I enjoyed them very much, as before. Then what is different this time? I suddenly understood that I myself hass changed a lot. Probably in the years. My way of thinking should have changed, that should be the reason why I felt very different this time for visiting Santa Barbara.
I will tell the difference more in coming blogs. But, in any case, anyway, I love Santa Barbara.
