5 paperclips

For the past year, I've had an "equipment" research grant to pay for expenses. It's been really great: it paid for the conferences in Hawaii and Kyoto, and a computer. It's a fringe benefit that comes with being a researcher in most contries. (Now you know why we went to grad schoo.) But, like many things, in Japan it's strictly different.

The money expires at the end of August, so I had to spend it. ALL of it. To get to exactly a 0 Yen balance, I bought 5 paperclips for 1 Yen each.

Of course, the required beurocratic paperwork (in triplicate) came with a paperclip of it's own. (For free.)

In the US I never knew the details of my grant money, because wherever I was, the chemistry department always has a dedicated "buisness" office. They're experts at making the money slosh around. And I think that US funding agencies don't care if you don't spend all the money--in Japan, if there's surplus, they subtract that from your next grant. You didn't need that 1 Yen last time, so you won't need it next time... Pretty nutty.