How addicted are you to technogadgets? I ask because we are – Baggy and I. We ache and pine after the latest gadgets available, be it MP3 players, DVD players, HDTVs, whatever. How often do you go to the electronics store to check out what’s the latest, hitech, hip gadgets available in town? As for us, we regularly go to electronics stores, sometimes for a little shopping, most of the time just to browse around or “window shop,” or even just to have a free foot or body massage at one of the massage machines. Yeah, we’re slowly but surely getting to that age where massage machines are becoming more enticing than Xbox. But I digress. 🙂

Sharp has just unveiled the world’s largest LCD tv – 108 inches! *drool*

There are at least three must-check electronics stores here in Tsukuba, namely: Yamada Denki, Ishimaru Denki, and K’s Denki. And if those stores aren’t enough, then there’s always the “Denden Town” of Akihabara, the haven of all electronics goods,  which is now just 45 minutes away by Tsukuba Express (the one and only train line connecting Tsukuba directly to Tokyo area).
For our purposes, the electronics stores in Tsukuba are quite enough; the way we look at it, saving an extra 1,000 or 2,000 yen wouldn’t be worth the trip to Akihabara, considering that we have to pay 2,500 yen/roundtrip/person. So we’ve practically bought all our gadgets here in Tsukuba, everything from DVD players to home appliances like hair blowers (those with ionized air supply), shower toilet (the one with anti-bacterial seat and remote control, and even hot plates for barbecuing (the one with the special plate that catches the dripping oil from fatty grills).

But as anyone who has ever bought a computer knows, it’s quite hard to keep up to pace with the latest in gadget technology. No matter how your “toy” has been touted as the “top of the line,” when you bought it, its appeal can only last so long because there’s always an upgrade down the line. It’s just a matter of time. There’s always something better, faster, more convenient, and sometimes, even more affordable.

Take our LCD monitor, for example. When we bought it almost 7 years ago, LCD monitors were just coming into vogue. The largest one we could find then was only 15″, and it didn’t come cheap. But…we bought it anyway. 🙂 Nowadays, you can’t find CRT monitors being sold in stores anymore. For half the price of the 15″ LCD monitor we bought 7 years ago, one can now buy a cool 19″ instead. I know this because we couldn’t resist upgrading our monitor to a bigger one, and ended up buying again. The problem is, the old monitor is now just stashed away, unused. We would probably find some good use for someday; but for now, it is just gathering dust in a corner of our room. We’re thinking that maybe someday when Aya wants a PC of her own she can use that as a monitor.

Well, how do birthdays fit into all of these? Truth is, buying gadgets just to get upgrades while our old ones are still in perfect working conditions – it does make us feel guilty. So to resolve or ease the “guilt trip,” we’ve taken to buying gadgets as birthday presents. 😉

Black and sleek. Baggy’s latest toy. (And mine too har har har!)

Years ago, I bought the very first edition of Sony’s Playstation – PS1, as a birthday gift for Baggy. When PS2 came around, I again bought it for him as a birthday present. I did think about buying him PS3 the next time around, but thought better against it. For now, anyway. 🙂

About 7 years ago, for my birthday Baggy bought me my very first digital camera – it was the very first edition of the Canon IXY model (2.1 Megapixels). At that time, it claimed to be the world’s lightest and most compact digital camera. It fetched for about 75,000 yen. I proudly carried it with me like a prized trophy – as if to say, “Hey look, I’ve got the world’s smallest digicam!”

But after about a year or so, other models  were soon out in the market, and my IXY began looking like a bulky brontosaurus in comparison. While the sizes of the cameras and their prices diminished, the resolution and other specs went higher and better. I decided to upgrade, and for Baggy’s birthday I gave him another digital camera, this time a Canon Powershot S45 (4.0 Megapixels). You’re probably asking why I bought him a camera when I was the one who wanted to upgrade. Well, that’s the beauty of conjugal properties, my dear, haha!

Well, that was about 5 years ago. As expected, other more savvy digital cameras sprung like mushrooms, and our Powershot – I mean, Baggy’s Powershot – became a thing of the past. Time for another upgrade. So I bought Baggy another Canon Powershot A640 (10 Megapixels) – and wow, this looks like the most hitech digital camera I’ve ever bought (for him? or for myself?). How soon will it be until it becomes obsolete?

Cellphones? Ah, don’t get me started. We’ve changed our cellphones oh-so many times, I already lost count. Honestly, do you really think it’s important to have a camera, MP3 player, global roaming, and GPS function in your cellphone? Baggy sure thought those things were important when he recently upgraded his cellphone. He couldn’t resist. 😉

So how about you, what’s your techno addiction? Bought any new gadgets lately?

Finally! I was able to extract the video file of Aya’s song, Bayan Ko from my old cellphone. This song was recorded last November 25, 2004. Aya was only 2 years old at that time. As to how she was able to memorize and sing this rather difficult song at such an early age…well, your guess is as good as mine! But anyway, she was only able to sing the latter half of this song.

Watch the YouTube video here!
This is such a very beautiful, patriotic song. This song tells of our story as a nation, of how our people aspired for their freedom. It seems an appropriate song to teach Aya – her full name, Kalayaan, means “freedom” in Filipino. And when the appropriate time comes, we will teach her our nation’s history as well, and through this may she realize how precious the concept of “Kalayaan” is to our nation and our people.

Ehem, ehem…before I forget, this song is dedicated to Tita Verns and Tito Prab (even if he’s MIA), and of course to all the Titas and Titos out there. 🙂

Bayan Ko (My Country)
Ang bayan kong Pilipinas
Lupain ng ginto’t bulaklak
Pag-ibig ang sa kanyang palad
Nag-alay ng ganda’t dilag

Pilipinas kong minumutya
Pugad ng luha ko’t dalita
Aking adhika
Makita kang sakdal laya

MY COUNTRY (English translation)
My country the Philippines
Land of gold and flowers
With love in her palms
She offers beauty and virtue.
And of her modesty and beauty
The foreigner was attracted
O, my country, you were enslaved
Mired in hardship.

Even birds that are free to fly
Cage them and they cry,
Much more a beautiful country
Shall long to be free.
Philippines my beloved,
Cradle of my tears and poverty
I’ll aspire,
To see you truly free.

New-kid-in-my-blogroll Bill Mitsuru Shimizu tagged me with the 123 meme. For the sake of those who are not familiar with this meme, here are the instructions:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Turn to page 123.
3. Mark the fifth sentence. Pick up the next three sentences and post. (In other words, post sentence nos. 6-8 on page 123.)
4. Acknowledge the book and the author.
5. Tag 3 people in turn.

Well, you see we’ve got bookcases all over this house, it’s just a tad difficult to “grab” the nearest book. So like what Rhodora did with her 123 meme, I asked my four-year-old daughter Aya to get a book for me. Smart, eh? 🙂
She happily came back and handed me a maroon-colored bound book. My heart sank. It was the bound copy of my masteral thesis! Nyehh! I know Bill is expecting something geeky, but not this geeky! 😛 But that’s what she brought me, so what else can I do? Fortunately, my MS thesis is 132 pages long. Unfortunately for you, though, it would probably bore you to death. So here are sentences 6-8 on page 123 of my thesis:

“Comparing the volume fractions obtained for all three batches, the conclusion one will arrive at is this: the 2212 phase is more favorably formed at higher temperatures, while the 2201 phase is more favorably formed at lower temperatures, specifically, at temperatures below the liquidus curve of the 2212-KCl system.

7.6 Batch B samples: varied rotation rate
The analysis of this particular batch would entail a different undertaking, since variations in growth time were not conducted.
Continued to p. 124 (Uh, this thesis was typed double spaced.)
It has already been established in the preceding disucssions that the existing mode of growth in the LPE system is the transient mode.”

Title: Growth Kinetics of Bi-Sr-Ca-Cu-O Films Prepared by Liquid Phase Epitaxy”
Author: ME!!!

This was my MS thesis in UP, completed way back in 1996. I remember the days when we were making those films in the lab, losing sleep, pulling our hair in frustration, fretting about getting good results in order to graduate. In case you’re interested, the 2212 and 2201 phases mentioned above coexist in the Bi-Sr-Ca-Cu-O film, which is a superconducting material. What’s a superconductor? Liquid phase epitaxy, on the other hand, is just a method for, uhm, preparing the superconductor. 🙂

Not giving up so easily, I asked Aya to get another book again. She happily came back with another book; this one was a bit thinner and had a red cover. But when I saw exactly what she brought, it was all I could do from slapping my forehead. Oh no – it’s Baggy’s PhD dissertation! Sheez! LOL!

Ok na! Sige, just to make things balanced, here are sentences 6-8 of p. 123 of Baggy’s dissertation (good luck na lang sa inyo; ako rin di ko maintindihan eh):

“The initial search space was d= 3 and k = 6 and the obtained model is again given by Eq. (7.13). Figure 7.12 shows the eigenvalues. For κ = 0, there is only one significant eigenvalue consistent with the number of bifurcation parameters.”

Title: Reconstruction of the Bifurcation Structure of a Dynamical System from Time Series Data
Author: Mi esposo aka Baggy

Good thing I didn’t have to input equations! LOL! Ok, enough geekspeak. We should really keep these books out of reach of children. 🙂

Anyway, I’m done! Now I’m tagging Herb, Raquel, and Belle. 😀

We’re baaaaccckkkkkkkkkk!!! 😀

We had so much fun making the first episode of “The K Zone,” we just have to follow it up with another. I’m kinda amazed at how much we have loosened up in this second episode. Maybe it’s the topic. Or maybe we’re really getting the hang of it. You be the judge.

Show notes: We discuss some fun and crazy ways to do when stuck in traffic. Think of the loooooong hours on EDSA, or Quezon Avenue, or…wherever. Image shown above was taken from www.trekearth.com.[podcast: “uploads/Podcast/episode2.mp3”]

Oh by the way, we would like to thank everyone who posted comments and sent in their feedback via email. We appreciate it! 🙂

Music credits:
Greenday
Poprocks & Coke
Basket Case
Boulevard of Broken Dreams

Hot Hot Heat
Middle of Nowhere

Just in time for Valentine’s day, I was amused to find a special report published in Nature, entitled: Scientists in love: When two worlds collide. Inspite of the work I have to do, I found myself dropping everything else, and read this article twice. The reason? Because this article resonates with my own experience – or rather, our experience as a couple working in the scientific field. Like the scientist couples featured in that article, we too had to contend with certain problems at the start of our marriage, the two-body problem being at the forefront of it all. In physics, the two-body problem pertains to the calculation of paths of two objects in orbit with each other. For couples whose careers are in science, this refers to the problem of finding work not just for yourself but also for your spouse. This is a problem for most women scientists because a higher percentage of them are married to scientists like themselves.

Geeks can be romantic, too. Got roses for Valentine’s. Again. Hey, I’m not complaining!:)

When Baggy and I embarked on our studies here in Japan (courtesy of Monbusho), we got separated (again courtesy of Monbusho). He went to Osaka while I was flung to Sendai, then afterwards to a sleepy place called Yamagata (yeah, I know, where the heck is Yamagata?). If you don’t have an idea of how far Osaka is from Yamagata, think Manila-Davao. It’s that far. But we were not yet married then, and we had our studies and research to keep us preoccupied. We emailed each other every day. And we called each other every day – a luxury which inadvertenly amounted to huge telephone bills, and ate up a significant part of our stipend. But being apart has its perks, too. For one, it brought out the romantics in us. Consider this poem from Baggy, which he wrote for me when I was in Sendai:

I am in Osaka and you are in Sendai,

But my love for you will never die!

This, folks, is my Baggy, the physicist who NEVER writes poems. You can’t blame him for trying!:P

This wedding photo, taken in 2001, aptly describes the first years of our marriage: together, but apart. 🙂

After graduation, we finally got married. Oh, what joy! By then I had already relocated to Tsukuba for work while Baggy remained in Osaka for his postdoc. Tsukuba is now closer to Osaka than Yamagata, but it is still a good one hour away by local train, aside from the three hours of travel time by shinkansen (bullet train) from Tokyo to Osaka. But we thought, if we had endured the Osaka-Yamagata affair, Osaka-Tsukuba would be a cinch.

It was clear to us from the moment we said our vows that there was no easy solution to the long-distance affair. We decided to let things be, and embarked on our own commuter marriage. We dubbed it our “shinkansen love affair,” because Baggy had to take the shinkansen every other weekend just to be with me. Needless to say, it was an expensive love affair (roundtrip costs about 25,000 yen, or 250 dollars). We called each other everyday, aside from the usual morning emails and instant messaging. The important thing was to keep the communication alive – the virtual connection over the internet was instrumental in keeping us together.

Things got more complicated when I got pregnant. I cried rivers of tears when I found out that I was pregnant. Why? Because we still hadn’t solved the two-body problem yet, and here we were faced with a “three-body” problem! Well, now that’s just the perfect solution, isn’t it? Add another body to the equation! All throughout my pregnancy, except for the last month, I was on my own, alone, save for the precious weekends that Baggy was able to join me.

We had a brief respite, though. By the time Aya was about to be born, Baggy was able to get a temporary position in Tsukuba, albeit for only two short months. After that short appointment he went back to Osaka again for work. I wasn’t alone anymore, sure, because I had my baby with me. But to care for a baby on my own, on top of my work? It’s simply impossible. I don’t work on a 9-5 shift. Everyone knows that those who do bench work face long hours of experimenting and writing papers – and that’s the very reason why we operate on a “flex” schedule. So for those crucial months I relied on the help of my parents, sisters, and relatives. I couldn’t have possibly survived without their help!

I continued my work in Tsukuba, while Baggy finished up his postdoc in Osaka. Through a referral from his professor, he was able to get another postdoc work at the same institute I was employed in, although he was employed in the Osaka branch of our institute. Fortunately, thanks to referrals and connections, the opportunity to work in Tsukuba soon presented itself, and now he works in Tsukuba with me. Aya was already 2 1/2 years old by the time he joined us here in Tsukuba. This is nirvana! It took years, yes, but somehow we were able to achieve it. It was simply…sweet.

It’s not permanent, though. We are now at the threshold of yet another perturbation. The system isn’t stable, no matter how much we would want it to be. And I believe that this would only be one of the many. We are only a three-body affair now, but we are leaving room for “many bodies” in the future (*wink*). But know what? We’ve done it before, and I am certain that we can do it again. I’m content that we can have the best of both worlds – family and career – even if we have to make compromises along the way. It’s our life, after all, and damn if we wouldn’t try our darnedest to make it work.

For our sake and Aya’s sake, we will make it work.

Before I end, here are the tips I lifted from the Nature article, for newlyweds out there who are about to embark on the greatest adventure of their lives. Keep the faith, guys! 🙂

Tips for newlyweds

If you’re looking for a dual appointment

• Be willing to make some compromises. Make sure you agree on what’s acceptable and what’s not in your careers and your family life.
• Publish. Then publish again. The more brilliant the candidates, the easier it is to place them.
• Be active in professional societies to gain recognition in the wider research community.

If you’re going to have a ‘commuter marriage’

• Communicate. It’s important to talk every day, no matter what.
• Both partners should feel at home in both cities, with belongings in both locations.
• Make your time together count by clearing your respective schedules.

If you want to start a family

• Alternate your work or teaching schedules so that one partner is always available to stay home with a sick child. This saves on childcare costs.
• Set aside ‘family time’ so the children build healthy relationships with both parents.
• Look for a department with ‘family friendly’ policies and a supportive infrastructure.

If you’re putting it back together after years of commuting

• Make sure each of you has a private space in the home where you can retreat if necessary.
• Expect some friction at first, as you adjust to the compromises of communal living.
• Consider buying a new house, or embarking on a joint project in which you are building your future together.

Do you remember the song that goes:

Planting rice is never fun
Bent from morn till the end of sun
Cannot stand and cannot sit
Cannot rest for a little bit

This is the English version of the Filipino song, “Magtanim ay Di Biro.” Literally, in English it means, “Planting is no joke.” It tells about how hard it is for people to plant rice, because one has to bend the whole time while doing this. And in case you’re wondering, yes, planting rice is still done manually in the Philippines. Here in Japan, I don’t see anyone doing that anymore; the machines have replaced manual labor in the fields.

This song comes to mind because last week, my husband and I brought our daughter to her very first “Mochitsuki Taikai.” This was an event organized by the city’s public daycares. It was not required for the children to attend, but we thought it might be fun to have our daughter experience this unique opportunity. Mochi is a Japanese rice cake made of glutinous rice (what we call “malagkit” in Tagalog), pounded into a really gooey paste, and molded into shape. Flavoring is added to the mochi afterwards. It’s quite similar to our suman – a native Filipino delicacy – we usually dip it into some sugar to sweeten it. Mochitsuki refers to the ceremony of making mochi. Taikai – well, this is the Japanese word for tournament or mass meeting. I didn’t think that it referred to any tournament in any sense, so I took it to mean something close to the second definition. Anyway, my very first experience of mochitsuki was at my sensei’s place, where everyone from our lab participated. It was fun pounding away at the rice, but believe me, it was hard work! It’s quite interesting for me because hey, how often do you attend something where the main event is pounding rice? It would be akin to Filipinos organizing a group event just to make suman.

The event was held at Yukari no Mori, a nature center of sorts where people can go camping, barbecuing, or simply commune with nature.

When we arrived, the place was already abuzz with rowdy children and their parents. The senseis were busy with the reception, cooking, and preparations. Apparently the glutinous rice had already been prepared earlier, and so participants would only need to do the rice pounding using the traditional wooden mallet and mortar. While waiting, the children were gathered for some story-telling from the sensei.

Aya loves to listen to storytelling. And apparently, so did everyone in this photo! That’s her with the red head warmer.

Meet Mr. T, Aya’s sensei at the daycare. Yes, ladies and gents, he’s a man. He happens to be the only man in the entire daycare. Oh, I love people who defy convention! 🙂 He’s pretty good with children, by the way.

I just want to show you how Aya sat throughout the storytelling session. She sat the “Japanese” way – legs tucked under! I really wondered how she can sit this way for a long time. My legs always get numb when sitting this way.

The main event! Here is Aya and her Tatay holding the humongous wooden mallet to smash the brains, err, mochi. Another sensei (not in the picture) turns the mochi over while moistening it with water.

Finished product. One mochi was covered with “kinako” – yellow soybean flour, quite sweet; the black thingy, I believe, was invented to gross you out. No, seriously, it was covered with roasted sesame seeds (ahh, so that’s why it’s black, eh?), quite salty. Do you know that sesame seeds are called “goma” in Japanese? 🙂 Girls, don’t ever eat this when you go out on a date. Beware of black tingas!

Aside from the coated mochi, we were also treated to a nice hot soup with lots of vegetables, minute amounts of chicken, and of course, mochi. Perfect for the cold.

I was kind of worried that Aya would have trouble eating the mochi. But when we were not looking, she actually finished everything on her plate! My worry about mochi is that it is quite sticky, and if you’re not careful, you can actually choke on it. I heard that people (usually the elderly) actually choked on mochi and died. Apparently, a vacuum cleaner is more effective in dislodging the mochi from people’s throats because the Heimlich maneuver does not work. I hate to think of the possibility of sucking out sticky rice cake out of my daughter’s throat using a vacuum cleaner that has been to heaven knows where. Yikes. Anyway, I didn’t have to worry about it after all because I also noticed that the mochi wasn’t as sticky as I thought it would be. The organizers probably made it less sticky than usual in consideration of the children.

We were able to take home with us some goodies back home, because apparently some people who earlier signed up failed to attend the event. It was quite windy that day, and the supposed games later in the afternoon were cancelled. Because of the wind, in spite of the sunny weather, it got too cold for comfort.

When we got home, Aya gobbled everything up, and didn’t even leave any for us. Di naman siya masyadong mahilig sa mochi ano? 😛

Here is our initial offering for our new show entitled “The K Zone.” This show’s topic is: Ten Types of Relationships That Won’t Work. Oh yeah, we’re getting into the mood for some Valentine bashing. 🙂
[podcast: “uploads/Podcast/episode1.mp3”]
My sister and I sound so alike, our mom could NEVER tell who she’s talking to on the phone. Can you tell who is who? And oh, we’ll discuss TEN THINGS of anything under the sun! If you have any suggestions for possible topic in future shows, drop us a note, will ya? 🙂

Till next episode!

(And oh, we know that we can’t possibly please everyone with this kind of show, so if it gets too boring, just hit the cute little square button to stop. It’s not audio in demand for nothing. :P)

Music credits:
Scrubs Soundtrack
Shawn Mullin – All In My Head
Lazlo Bane – Superman

One Tree Hill OST
Nada Surf – Always Love
Fall Out Boy – I’ve Got a Dark Alley and a Bad Idea That Says You Should Shut Your Mouth

Oh no, another meme! Blog pal Rhodora has tagged me to unlock my closet. It took me a while to figure out what to include in my “Infamous 5 Secrets” because the truth is, I am a very secretive person. I don’t know which damning secret to choose, there’s just too many of them, haha. But I’ll let you in on a few of them – just five (fortunately for you):

1. When I was 12, I fell head over heels in love with…Robby Rosa of the boy band Menudo.
Yes, you read that right. I daydreamed about seeing that Puerto Rican boy and hear him sing to me, “If you’re not here, by my side…” complete with pawis (sweat) streaming down his forehead. And then I would hold out my panyo (hanky) and mop out his sweat like a true-blue Pinay fan. 😛 Sheez, what was I thinking? Does anybody else remember these guys? Among the members of the group which first visited Manila, only Ricky Martin is the only one of note, perhaps the only one who has made a visible splash in the music scene. But even his fame seems to be short-lived.

2. When I was a kid, I used to wear really short shorts, even when I go out of the house.
That doesn’t seem like a secret, does it? But wait. One time, as I was going outside our house to buy something from the local store nearby, somebody whistled at me and said, “Sexy!” I took one look at the guy, and I shuddered! He was so panget (ugly), and he was intimately looking at my legs – malagkit ang tingin ng damuho! I was so embarrassed, that from that day on I never wore shorts outside our house again. My mom wondered for a while why I would run to our room to wear a skirt over my shorts before I went out on errands. I don’t think I ever told her why. 🙂

3. My sisters and I rode the public utility jeepney (PUJ) without paying for our fare.
A little background: I was in college, and when I got my scholarship allowance, I decided to treat my sisters to the movies at the local cinema in Monumento Grand Central. A time for some sister-bonding. Well, when we got there, to our dismay we found out that the movie ticket prices increased! I didn’t have enough money with me because I brought an exact amount that covers just the movie tickets and our roundtrip fare. We had a dilemma: either we go home disappointed, or we just watch the movie…bahala na si Batman. 😀 While we were pondering this over and arguing with each other, the grouchy ticket lady at the counter was already giving us irritated stares, so I decided quickly: let’s just watch the darn movie and figure out what to do later.

Our crime: we took two rides on PUJs all the way from Monumento to Tondo, sat as close as possible to the driver, and passed on other people’s fares when they paid. As you can tell, we got away. We were pretty scared that the drivers would find out, fortunately, our trick worked. We even made “kandong” so that effectively only two of us were occupying seats. Once we got home, all we could do was laugh about it. Yep, we’re pretty evil sisters. But for what it’s worth, I did feel bad about the jeepney driver who got shortchanged. I would repay him a hundred times now, if only I knew how. 🙁

4. Once, I accidentally burned my finger while using the soldering iron, and I never told anyone about it except Baggy.
I absolutely hate soldering. But sometimes the machine breaks down, I flip over the circuit board, and find that there’s a loose connection somewhere. Should I call dah boyz to fix it, or should I just do it myself? Heck, I’m too much of a feminist and I wouldn’t be the one to give them reasons to think that I’m the weaker sex (hah!), so I would rather do it. But I simply suck at soldering (and that’s an additional weakness (gasp!), aside from computer programming). My hands would sweat and my grip would be very slippery. And yeah, I’m careless, too.

5. I went on forced hunger strikes when I was in high school.
This is a long story, but I’ll try to give you the short version. Due to circumstances, my family was forced to go back to Manila and left me in Baguio to finish high school. I was vying for honors, and my parents thought that my chances of graduating at the top of my class would diminish if I transferred to another school. I don’t know if that is still true, but back then it seemed to matter. Anyway, I was 13 going 14, and I had to live all alone in my aunt’s house. My parents would send money as sustenance, but since we were not rich, they could only send a very limited amount at a time (how does P100 pr P200 a month sound to you?). More often than not, the padala didn’t come on time, and I was forced to budget my money. There were many times when I had to eat only once a day. I never told anyone in school about it because I was too embarrassed to let them know of my predicament. I was even more embarrassed to try and borrow from anyone. Heck, no! In times when I didn’t have enough money to buy lunch, I would go to the canteen at the university not far away from our school and just stay there, hoping that no one from class would find me there. One time, I just felt so frustrated at having to deal with all those things (shouldn’t someone be taking care of me?!!), I burst out crying in front of my classmates. I told them a half-truth: that I was just lonesome, and that I just felt sad about being separated from my family. I didn’t tell them the other half: I was hungry, I didn’t have enough money, and I just couldn’t tell anyone!

There’s a silver lining to this story, though. I did graduate as the top of the class. Yay! 🙂 Maybe all those hunger strikes forced me to concentrate hard, huh? Mind over growling stomach. My, those were the days.

Who to tag now? How about my evil sister Lai, Hazel and Dimaks? Ok guys, the torch is yours! That is of course, unless you’ve already held it and passed it to others already.

Have you ever seen the movie “Lost in Translation”? Although the movie seems to exaggerate certain things about living in Japan, it does offer glimpses of how difficult life could be for someone who doesn’t know the language, not to mention the culture.

There was a time, in Akihabara, when I rode the elevator and was asked, “Dochira made desu ka?” – Where are you getting off? It would have been easier for me to respond had the person asked, “Nan-kai desu ka?” – What floor? “Kai” is the suffix used when counting floors. But in my haste, I answered, “Roku-sai desu.” “Sai” is the suffix used when counting age. Effectively, I told the person that “(I am) six years old.” Gaah. I should have said “Rokkai” instead, which would mean, “sixth floor.” When I realized my mistake I was so embarrassed that I wanted to get off the next floor and just take the stairs, hahaha. 😀

In fairness, there are many signs and instructions written in English, so a tourist in Japan won’t feel so lost as he/she weaves through the city. In train stations, all the station names are also written in “Romaji” or alphabet characters. Unfortunately, despite the best efforts, there are just too many English translations that are so bungled that they end up very confusing. And yes, most of the time, hilarious! That is why sites like Engrish.com never run out of supply.

For instance, consider this:

A position is the ground the first floor at present.

Ahm, which position are we talking about again?

Or how about this:

Teacher to student: Don’t mess with me now, I will and can use this against you!

Note, it’s not a pencil eraser; it’s a student eraser. 😀

Written in bold font is “WARNING: Stop using it for the cunning by writing rules on it.”

Actually, this is a warning for students to NOT write their kodigo on the eraser. Wow, that’s so cunning indeed.

Here’s another one:

For all your fleshy cravings. Absolutely not for vegetarians.

There is no “L” in Japanese language, so this is replaced with “R.” As a result, L’s and the R’s are usually confused and interchanged with each other. The day actually came when I myself began having difficulty saying “wonderful.” I tend to say “wandafuru” instead. Sigh. I’ve been in Japan for too long. 😛

Here’s a trivia quiz for you – can anyone figure out what is the equivalent English word of the following (those who are in Japan are exempted!):

1. Oraitto
2. Konpyuta
3. Bo-rupen
4. Panfuretto
5. Buranku

This is one of Aya’s most favorite experiments, maybe because it is really fun to mix liquids and watch them turn into different colors. Nowadays, when I ask her what an “acid” is, she immediately recalls the experiment and tells me, “It’s the one that makes the red cabbage juice turn red!” 🙂 (Break muna sa mga seryosong usapan, I’m lagging behind with the experiments! This one was done many months ago actually.)

For this experiment, you’ll need the following:
1. red cabbage
Side note: Aya argued that the “red” cabbage is actually “purple.” Are we color blind or something? Kids. Sigh.
2. 2 jugs
3. sieve
4. glasses
5. hot water
6. test substances: vinegar, lemon juice, bicarbonate of soda, etc.

First, Aya tears up the red cabbage and puts it into one of the jugs.

Hot water is poured into the jug to cover the cabbage. Let it stand for about 30 minutes. (Aya: “Hahh…tagal naman!”)

Strain the cabbage juice into the other jug. Side note: I had to help Aya with this because the water was still too hot!

Next, pour the cabbage juice into the glasses.

Add a test substance to each of the glasses. Here, Aya tests the bicarbonate of soda. Vinegar has already been added to one of the glasses, which turned the cabbage juice into bright red.

Experiment is done! Dami kulay, Nanay! Aya triumphantly poses for the camera to show off her results. 🙂

Explanation: Red cabbage contains a pigment molecule called flavin (an anthocyanin) which changes colors depending on the pH of the substance added to it. This makes it a good pH indicator, turning red when acid is added (e.g., vinegar, lemon juice, etc.) or dark blue when alkalis are added (e.g., bicarbonate of soda, antacid, etc.).

Kids and parents, try this at home! 🙂