When my youngest sister visited us last year, I asked her to bring me some family photo albums so I can start digitizing our photos before they succumb to inevitable decay and fading. Thanks to the efforts of our parents, most of our early photos were still intact, and so we all have a pretty good collection of photos taken during our growing up years. As far as I could remember, we didn’t own a camera until I entered high school – but somehow we managed to borrow from friends and relatives just so we can take pictures.

Tres marias v.1982

I found this picture of us three girls taken at our first “house” in Navotas, sometime in 1982. No, that house did not belong to us, we were merely squatting there. 🙂 That photo brought back a lot of good memories. Heck, seeing that green sofa makes me so nostalgic all of a sudden. I remember crying my heart out when my Dad passed out on that sofa after some drinking binge. When I tried to wake him up, he didn’t stir, so I thought he died. I was probably 5 or 6 then. He used to drink a lot when we were young, but finally called it quits on alcohol when he started getting heartburns and chest pains. He posted a message on our refrigerator: “As for me and my house, no more BEER.” And so it was for the years that followed.

But I digress. Anyway, when we were in Pinas last April, my sister Karen suggested that we have our photo taken at a studio and give it to our mother as a birthday present. This is probably the most recent photo of us now, with four more additions: husbands and daughters. Needless to say, my mom loved it.

Tres marias v. 2005

We missed going out last Monday (July 18 ), a national holiday here in Japan, called “Umi no Hi” or “Marine Day.” Last Sunday, we finally had the chance to visit the beach in Chiba, Hasunuma Kaigan, about 2 hours away by car from Tsukuba.

Seems like they were the only two persons having fun on the beach. Watch out for those nasty waves!

There are two reasons why I am not so keen about going to the beach: 1) I hate the sun, and I don’t like being baked under the sun; and 2) beaches in the Philippines are way much better than here in Japan. This side of the Pacific ocean is not tamed; and I would much rather stay on shore and build sand castles. And I just recently discovered, there is one another annoying thing – they ask everyone to stay away from the water from 12:00-12:30. For safety reasons, apparently. Hey, just look at those nasty waves, anyone would be crazy to jump in the water anyway. It was just like that time when we went to a public swimming pool in the park. We were in the middle of enjoying our swim, when they asked everyone to leave the pool for about 30 minutes. Duh.

Aya enjoyed the beach, anyway. She had fun just running away from the waves, screaming her heart out. She had fun stomping all over the sand structures we made. Mommy made her “singhot” of the “fresh air.”

I love this photo I took of her and Baggy. Father and daughter having a great time at the beach. I remember those times when as a kid Daddy would bring me to Antique. We would swim in the nearby lake (or something like a murky pond hehe) or go to the beach.

We went back home with sand sticking to our toes and with a bit of a sunburn. I have to make Baggy promise me that we will visit a damn beautiful beach when we go back to the Philippines. 8)

I was most certainly surprised to find out that this is the first entry for this month, and the last entry I made was almost a month earlier! Busy? You bet!

I had been gritting my teeth since the start of this month (not literally, of course), in anticipation of the conferences I will be participating in. I was not so worried about the conference in Singapore, because I had the data and analysis of my results pretty much wrapped up. Also, I was finally able to submit the paper dealing with those results so I need not worry so much. Still, two conferences in a month, that’s tough. The other conference in Kyoto, was a mere one week right after coming back from Singapore. However, it was not as big as the materials conference in Singapore. It was a workshop where most speakers were invited from different parts of the globe. Big names. Mostly men. Experts in the field. Even as I entered the conference hall I felt a little bit insecure – I had to ask myself over and over what exactly I was doing there. Adding to my anxieties was the fact that I was all alone, I would probably not feel as pressured if there was somebody in our group accompanying me.

Well, finally that was done and over with. Yesterday I presented our paper, and got some positive feedback as well. Well, okay, I didn’t quite get to answer properly the questions that were thrown by me, especially that one question from a professor who is most certainly one of the experts in the field of flux pinning. I have been dabbling in pinning mechanisms for less than a year, and admittedly there’s so much information that I do not know yet. I haven’t done much of a homework either, because I wasn’t able to write a paper on this yet, and most of my efforts were concentrated on the earlier conference in Singapore.

I don’t know if I like small gatherings like that workshop I attended, or bigger conferences like the one in Singapore. Smaller meetings provide more in-depth discussions of ideas and you can get to interact with the big names in the field — but if you haven’t had enough introduction to the subject, or if you were a relative unknown in the field, it’s so easy to feel out of place. And my presentation was in the last session. I would have preferred to be among the early speakers so I would have been “introduced” that way – people won’t talk to me obviously if they still haven’t heard about my work. It’s not like my name precedes my work like most of the guys there.

On the other hand, the presentation made a pretty good impression on one of the guys working at the International Superconductivity Technology Center – Superconductor Research Laboratory (ISTEC-SRL) that he immediately went over to me to invite me and give the same talk in their group. What a real surprise!

Well, for now I can rest awhile and get back to experimenting. 🙂 Just for now, anyway. The next conference is in Vienna, but that’s still a good month and a half away. Plenty of time to prepare my materials. After that, in October I attend one more international symposium, and that’s it for the year.

Hahh…I can’t wait until November! Too many conferences this year!