Elizabeth Tasker

...... DUDE. Not a thing to say to his wife 😅

I still think about this a lot.

Paper accepted!

Want to follow the science from humanity’s three asteroid sample return missions—but struggling because astrophysics 🔭 suddenly involves… rocks 🪨?

I got you! This review is for non-geochemists 🧪 on our audacious missions to bring back a bit of the start of the Earth. Coming soon! 🛰️

I shut my laptop with a snap.

I’m still in a meeting.

What is this in-person nonsense?

MMX - Martian Moons eXploration MMX - Martian Moons eXploration mission will travel to Mars and survey the red planet’s two moons; Phobos and Deimos.

This year, the JAXA Martian Moons eXploration (#MMX) mission will launch for Phobos 🛰️! The spacecraft is stuffed with instruments to study everything from composition to the radiation environment 🔭, and will return the first sample from the Mars region to Earth 🧪. Annnd our website was just updated!

The Tsukuba University canteen is highly superior to our one at ISAS! 🥘

Conference dinner is pizza and sushi and a large bottle of sake. And this is why international collaboration is epic.

I’m normally highly pro-tree, but what if we burned these pollinating mfs to the ground?

This drawer is just cats.
#NorahNeko #CasperCat

Months ago I confidently signed up for a two-day meeting in Tsukuba on site.

At 6:30am, crammed into a Tokyo train after trying to make my new apartment safe for unsupervised cats, I can confirm: Past Elizabeth is an optimist and not to be trusted.

😂

This is what it takes to box up my life! 📦 📦 📦

(I paid a fee for the moving company to return and take the boxes so I wouldn’t greet my neighbours by flooding the apartment recycling area.)

I’d like to say I was officially unpacked, but I will more conservatively note that all boxes are empty 😐

Absolutely amazing lunch at the “Swan and Lion”, British pub in Meguro (Tokyo): Pie (beef and stilton), mash, and baked beans!

I am normally able to resist dessert but the special was an apple and rubarb crumble (the dessert of champions) and I frankly had no choice 😐

And this week’s cute late night purchase is… a nightlight with cat ears 😸The tail is magnetically attached so you can hang it at different angles!

a man drinking a cup of coffee with the words " yeah there 's something wrong with that " above him Alt: a man drinking a cup of coffee with the words " yeah there's something wrong with that " above him

I tethered my phone for internet for a couple of days after I moved, and blazed through my entire data plan. It transpired to be waaay cheaper to use an eSIM for extra the extra data for a month rather than top up my regular plan 🧐

This was the special sakura bear which fulfilled its destiny to become a hot spring. With a garnish of beef, cabbage, and tofu…

What are little asteroid grains made of? 🪨🔬 Find out in two hours (03/05 at 5pm JST) where Tomo Usui and I will discuss the science of the Hayabusa2 mission to asteroid Ryugu! 🛰️🔭🧪 Registration is free: www.trybooking.com/events/landi...

At Kumachan Onsen, the bear’s dream is to BECOME the hot spring.

And you help him achieve this.

Set him afloat in boiling broth. As he lies down, pile on the cabbage, meat, and other… bath products… all while maintaining eye contact.

This is the most unhinged meal I have enjoyed in a while.

Also delightful 🌸

Highly pleasing 😂

Drills in the walls,
Cats under beds,
I fled to #Nokucheese
For toastie salvation instead.

After 48 hours, one deeply suspicious text I absolutely assumed was phishing, and the implication that in the last 40+ years of existence, no one in this building complex had ever received a parcel… Amazon has successfully located my new address.

Upon moving, it’s tradition in Japan to give gifts to your neighbours.

I experimentally knocked on my neighbour’s door to receive a flurry of Japanese via the intercom. I apologised, said something about “neighbour”, and she did appear, but perhaps haven’t been fully up yet.

So. That went well 😅

Noted!! Thanks 🙂

Today was the last day I felt I could wing it without a full shower, so that would have been perfect if the gas man didn’t appear! I was pondering options earlier, and forgot about the Miyamaedaira onsen.

With every surface (including the stove) buried under boxes, I didn’t bother connecting the gas.

Reader, the gas also does the hot water.

Three days of moving, cleaning and toilet seat engineering later… I’ve just had a shower.

My apologies to the entire neighbourhood.

There are two wolves inside you. One will only eat while in your arms, and the other will not move an inch until you have exited the premises for at least an hour.

That’s actually two cats. And they’re inside my apartment.

It’s the same—that’s a standard size for the toilet room in Japan 🙂

We’re apparently sharing a water 🧐

Cats have gone on hunger strike. (Neither takes change well.)

#CasperCat is refusing to move from the drawer under the bed. I crawled on my belly and put two plates of food in the drawer with him 🤦🏼‍♀️

#NorahNeko has been convinced to try food… if it’s served next to mine & she eats it with her paw 🧐