This picture dispels any further arguments as to whom Aya took after.
Of course, now we have to deal with the argument regarding who is trying to “outcute” whom.
Every year, every first week of February, I make it a point to send home a birthday card. I had been sending birthday cards to Daddy ever since I came to Japan. At first, having only enough to sustain my day-to-day living as a student , I only sent bare cards (no inserts). When I finally got myself a stable job, I started inserting what my sister calls “goodies.” Just something to perk the day.
This year, no card was sent. There will be no more cards to send from now on.
A year ago, I sent my last and final birthday card to Daddy. He had just been discharged from the hospital after a stenting operation on his kidney. His body was battered and weak, but the fighter in him somehow rose to give him strength. They threw a party for him at my Aunt’s house. They sent me pictures taken during the party, and while Daddy was all smiles, his eyes hinted of deepening shadows ahead. He told everybody that it would be his last birthday.
Nobody believed him.
My mom told me that one time, during the dark weeks that followed after his birthday, and in-between bouts with delirious pain and physical weakness, Daddy managed to go upstairs by himself and took out two things that he had kept all these years. One was a birthday card, dated February 18, 1983. The other was an exultant letter from my kindergarten teacher, telling them of how adept I was at school (that letter was dated “1978”). Those were his only treasures.
My mom told me how he sat there in our living room, reading the card and letter over and over again, crying his heart out. He longed for those days when we were yet children, and how he longed to hold us in his arms again. That birthday card was the first ever that we bought for him, the money culled out of our daily allowance. Without his knowledge, my sister and I skipped riding the “tricycle” home, and walked all the way home. More than the card, I suppose, was the thought of how we sacrificed just to be able to give him something on his special day. I forgot all about the card, and was surprised that he kept it all these years. The scrawly handwriting on the card was mine, then barely 10 years old.
Three months later, he was gone, just like he told us.
While sorting through his office table at home, my sister found neatly stacked in one drawer, all the birthday cards that I ever sent him since I left home. He kept each one of them. Seeing those cards sent another avalanche of tears for my sister.
Yes, indeed our dear ol’ Dad was a sentimental fool. And we, his daughters, grew up exactly like him.
Sounds like cliche, but all day long I’ve been thinking about how science and technology changed the way we think and regard things. Everyday I work with lasers and x-rays and all that “hi-tech” stuff, subjecting each hypothesis to rigorous experimentation and careful measurements. This is my world, my own sphere where observations can be made by controlling and varying parameters. But for me science is more than a subject; it is a way of life. Thus it is inevitable for me to “think” science in virtually every aspect of my existence. Perhaps the very reason why I am such a skeptic.
Imagine my surprise, for example, when somebody told me that the reason why she kept a glass of water near her bed was because she believes that this was a charm against “Sudden Unexpected Death Syndrome” or what we Filipinos call “bangungot.” Sometimes bangungot is also used to refer to incidents where one becomes gripped by bad dreams or nightmares and could not seem to wake up. What powers the water held, I could only guess. Perhaps it may come in handy when the person in question undergoes bangungot and could not wake up – just splash the water on his or her face. Politely I suggested that we put this to test by removing the glass of water and see if she gets any bangungot or bad dreams. Or the one time when my mother told me not to go back to the house when we were already packed into the car and ready to leave for the airport. “Masama raw.” As to why, or how, it could be bad for me to go back and retrieve that which I forgot to bring with me, I could only wonder. Maybe I’ll trip along the way or maybe I’ll forget to re-lock the door on the way out. That would be the real disasters. But I believe that most superstitions can be easily resolved by simple tests. Science works that way. The problem with superstitions and the propagation of such beliefs or any kind of faith is that the hits are noted, not the misses. In the provinces, such beliefs still hold strong and most people could not be dissuaded otherwise. “Sabi raw ng matatanda…” and so on and so forth.
Granted, science alone cannot explain everything, as with so many matters in this world. Maybe some superstitions have grains of wisdom in them, maybe not. But therein lies the challenge – that of breaking free from long-held bonds of thought through careful rational analysis.
Am I right? Only one way to find out. Prove me wrong.
When I was a kid I would often go to our backyard to play with soil. Using an old tin can, I would pour soil inside it and turn it upside down – a make-believe soil “cake.” Since we didn’t have enough money to buy toys, we usually improvise with whatever we could find around the house and area.
When I saw the “nendo” or modeling clay for kids sold at the department store a few weeks ago – I thought of how fun it would be to play with it, both for myself and for Aya. I can’t say that I missed a lot during my childhood by not being able to afford expensive items – my Daddy made up for it by giving us things to do with our hands, may it be sketching, drawing or playing with soil (however unhygienic it turned out to be). Anyway, Aya and I were both excited with this new playtoy (I was a firsttimer, like her!), and pretty soon our working table was filled up with vegetable and fruit-look-alikes and various shapes of animals and other things. More than the activity itself is that wonderful time where both parent and child discover the simple wonders of creating something.
How lovely it is to be a child again – with no other concerns in the world, molding things just because you want to, not because you have to.
Roughly five years ago, I started working for a research institute called “Electrotechnical Laboratory,” or “ETL.” ETL was founded sometime during the end of the 19th century in Tokyo (I have to verify my information regarding this one), but towards the end of the year 2000 we were informed that ETL, along with the other research institutes in the area, would be merged into one national institute, AIST (National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology). We got a souvenir glass paperweight in commemoration of the “100th anniversary” of ETL since its founding. The next fiscal year ETL was history. And no, I didn’t see anyone doing demonstrations outside the building protesting this change of name, nor did I see anyone raising a ruckus about the impending change in administration.
Since then everything changed so fast I could not keep my business card up to date with the reorganizational changes – at one time, our group was part of the “Energy Electronics Institute.” I got a “saggyou fuku” or working jacket with the initials “EEI” embroidered on it. A few months later the energy-related institutes were merged into “Energy Technology Research Institute.” Wadduh? I don’t see any announcements or any open fora for people to discuss these organizational changes. It seems to me that these changes were handed down from the top. I don’t suppose that there is absolutely no kind of protest coming from the constituents, but I do admire their seemingly docile submission to all of these. It seems to me that a very significant factor in the Japanese progress is their ability to propel themselves forward through changes with the least amount of hassles. The head makes all the decisions, the rest of the body obey. No questions asked.
I can’t help but compare how it would be in the Philippines. People would take to the streets to express their anger and protests. Clearly it is ingrained in our culture, our mentality. We don’t take these things sitting down. But freedom of expression has its dangers: we end up just discussing and arguing in cycles and in the end accomplish zero progress. Is it really worth it? What AIST had accomplished in 5 years would probably take 5 decades in a Philippine setting. For progress to happen, people must learn how to subject themselves to the authority imposed by those on the top. And yet another problem that must be addressed is when the authorities themselves are questionable in the first place. It’s ironic that a country which claims to be the only Christian nation in Asia is among the toplisters for graft and corruption in the government. The cancer that Jose Rizal described still pervades our country, more than a hundred years after his sacrifice.
I love the days when all I do is sit in front of my apparatus while growing thin films–the extra time affords me the opportunity to catch up on my reading. This week I found myself re-reading “Cosmos” by Carl Sagan. I think I was halfway through this book sometime or the other.
In Chapter II, entitled “One voice in the cosmic fugue,” Carl Sagan described the events from the Big Bang which gave birth to the universe as we know now, then to the possible events which sparked the existence of the first living things on earth, the Cambrian explosion which led to the eventual proliferation of life on this planet. “Evolution is a fact, not just a theory,” he wrote.
I encountered the theory of evolution way back in high school, in our Biology class. I remember asking my Daddy one day about his thoughts on evolution, and of course I got the usual discourse on why no other theory is acceptable other than the creationist view propagated by the Bible. I think it was from him that I got this book which discusses the major flaws in the theory of evolution, and why the creationist view IS the true interpretation of how life on earth began. I cannot remember all the details in that book (I can’t even remember the title), but there are a few salient points that I do remember–among these is the odd animal which exists until now: the platypus. What’s an egg-laying mammal which still retains some reptile attributes doing here on Earth? And who has ever found the remains of the missing link, anyway?
Sagan, however, does bring up some challenging questions as well. If there was a great “Designer,” so to speak, then why are thousands of flora and fauna extinct? If the grand design was carried out such that each creature was “created” at the start, it seems like a big waste because natural selection is an irrefutable fact of nature. Everything follows a simple law: survival of the fittest. It seems like a very inefficient way of doing things, so to speak.
Still, it bothers me to think that the whole of mankind “evolved” out of accidental mutations along the way. In the creationist viewpoint, each creature was created special–and it sure does make me feel better to think that my whole existence was planned. Religion tells me that I have a purpose for being; science tells me that I was just a statistical probability.
Sagan asked questions an intellectual being like him is expected to ask. Questions that he probably didn’t get the answers to within his lifetime (he died in 1996). Questions that we will be asking for the next hundred of generations, and probably questions that will never be answered. We are indeed like butterflies that flutter for a day and think that it is an eternity.
Yesssss! Buhay na po ang aming blogsite. I’ve been thinking about having this in our site for quite a while now, although we never really got around to doing it until now. I’ve had my reservations about blogging online, because I also keep a private “electronic” diary which is of course where I pour all my thoughts and ideas and what-have-you. My sister tells me it’s sort of therapeutic (at least for her)–in this wired world, it’s the closest thing to having a 24-h online friend who will listen to all your woes and joys.
Let me explain the name for this site (for the sake of any non-Filipinos who happen to drop by). “Salamin” is a Filipino word that means both “mirror” and “glass.” Blogs are like that, mirror reflections of what we are, what we think.
I’ve just submitted my abstract online to the ICMAT-IUMRS-ICAM 2005 conference which will be held in July in Singapore. I was thinking about not going anymore, but then I finally got some noteworthy results some two weeks back. I consulted our group leader, and he gave me the go-ahead to write the abstract. Here’s the url of the conference: http://www.mrs.org.sg/icmat2005/
Notification of acceptance of abstract will be within this month. Here’s crossing my fingers!