All children go through a so-called “artist” phase. Families have their fair share of drawings on papers, cardboards, walls, refrigerators, and unfortunately, even blankets, sheets and clothes. Aya is also fond of drawing herself. Her scrawly drawings have steadily progressed from incomprehensible doodles to visibly recognizable characters.

Fortunately for us now, we can simply scan the drawings and preserve them in electronic form. I wish this had been available decades ago, when I was also going through my artist phase. Much to my dismay, my mom hated clutters in the house and promptly threw everything away. Wouldn’t it be fun to take a look at some of the stuff that I drew as a child? I bet anyone would be just as curious to see “artifacts” from their growing-up years. After all, we are children only once in our lives.

Enjoy some of Aya’s four-year old drawings below.

The sun is out (just like today), and the flowers are happily soaking in the warmth.

I asked Aya why there is a circle on the girl’s head. She told me that’s because she’s an angel. Huh? Angel? She picked that up from the daycare? I find this quite surprising.

Is it really just five days more to go before Christmas? Tsukuba Center is already awash with Christmas lights and decors. Lately we also noticed that the malls have begun playing Christmas songs, songs that seem to add to the Christmasy ambiance as one goes shopping. Most restaurants we’ve visited lately also have proud displays of Christmas trees of various sizes, as well as different thingamabobs hanging on the wall. But here’s a curious thing: you’ll always find Christmas trees, Santas, reindeers, and other symbols of the season, but never any mangers. It seems as if any reference to the birth of Christ is either insignificant, or just bluntly omitted for the sake of not making the event appear overly religious in any way (and thus not offend anybody). I don’t know. I’ve never really thought of asking around why this is so.

Tsukuba Center at night. Lovely, wet, and cold. Photo courtesy of blumunski.

Pick up any calendar here in Japan and you will find that the 25th is not in red. Yup, it’s not a holiday. When I first came here, this came as a shock. Until that time I’d always thought that Christmas is celebrated everywhere else. Instead, you’ll find that December 23, the Emperor’s birthday, IS a national holiday. So basically this means that if we want to spend Christmas Day as a holiday, we’ll have to take a leave from work. Bummer. That’s what we get for not going home this Christmas season! But well, there’s always next year. 😀

Do I sound so glum? Sorry. I just miss home. Christmas was one of the most memorable occasions in our family, back when my Dad was still alive. It’s just not the same anymore since he has been gone.

Anyway, I think Jose Mari Chan’s song aptly prescribes a solution for expats out there whose hearts are yearning to spend Christmas in the Philippines:

Let’s sing “Merry Christmas

Be always in our hearts

If the spirit of Christmas is always in our hearts, then we can celebrate Christmas wherever we are. Yeah, even here in Japan.

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet.”
–From Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare

I got inspired to quote from Shakespeare, after reading an article which appeared recently on Philippines Today. The article is about a recent mess at the 1st Philippine Festival held in Tokyo last month. Read all about it in the website.

I’m fascinated with Pinoy names. I often wonder what goes on in each parent’s mind as he or she decides on a name to give a baby. Some prefer the oldies but goodies – sticking with the usual baby names that are commonly used, like Paul, Peter, Elizabeth, etc. Some prefer (not often with success) to combine the names of the parents, resulting to usually ridiculous-sounding names. I had a classmate in elementary who was named “Pergelyn” – a combination of “Perla” and “Eugene.” She had an older sister who was named “Pergenette.” One of our teachers absolutely hated her name, and even told her about it in class. A friendly advice to would-be parents: if it sounds ridiculous, do your child a favor and don’t force it!

Some resort to naming their children with the same initials. For instance, my mom found it cute to name all three of her daughters with names starting with the letter “K.” The reason? So that we would be known as “The Three Ks.” Kapisanan ng mga Kikay sa Kangkungan. 😛 I also have cousins who were all named with “J” names.

When it was our turn to name our baby, we decided that we will stick with Filipino names only. It’s not because we want to be nationalistic or that we want others to get the impression that we are an eccentric couple who want to make a political statement. No, we’re not that ambitious, thank you very much. Combining our names was out of the question (Epiferine? Kathefanio?). So we took a cue from our surname, “Bagarinao,” which happens to be an original Filipino name, just like “Sacdalan” or “Dimagiba.” We therefore decided to give our baby an original Filipino name as well. We chose “Kalayaan.” A friend of mine, who is French (Hi there, D!), found the name really beautiful. He said it sounded like one of those names in the Lord of the Rings (LOTR) book. A name for an elf perhaps?

When my mom heard about it, she was downright furious. Are we out of our minds, naming our baby like that? One of our friends actually commented, “Ba’t di na lang LIBERTY?” Hmm. Does Liberty sound better than Kalayaan just because it’s in English? I beg to disagree. “Ok lang kasi nasa Japan kayo. Pero pag umuwi na kayo ng Pilipinas…” someone remarked as a last-ditch effort, as if to save us from making one of the biggest mistakes of our lives. I was both amused and outraged at how fellow Pinoys thought so little of Filipino names, thinking that it sounds so “baduy” or outdated, or whatever. Ladies and gentlemen, there’s only one reason why we named her with a Filipino name. Because she is one. When she goes into the world “out there,” people will take one look at her name and know that she is a Filipino. The Japanese name their children with Japanese names. So do the Chinese, the Indians, and Indonesians. Why can’t we do the same?

On a lighter side, I myself am guilty of making jokes about Baggy’s name. He happens to be named after his father, Epifanio Sr, as you can tell from his name, Epifanio Jr. But I bet you didn’t know that his mother is named “Epifania.” Perfect. Three Epiphanies, just like the three Magis.

I looked it up in the dictionary, and here’s what I found:

Epiphany
a. A Christian feast celebrating the manifestation of the divine nature of Jesus to the Gentiles as represented by the Magi.
b. January 6, on which this feast is traditionally observed.
2. A revelatory manifestation of a divine being.
3.
a. A sudden manifestation of the essence or meaning of something.
b. A comprehension or perception of reality by means of a sudden intuitive realization: “I experienced an epiphany, a spiritual flash that would change the way I viewed myself” Frank Maier.

Just now, I am experiencing an epiphany myself, it’s giving me goosebumps. January 6 happens to be our wedding anniversary. I married Epifanio on the day of Epiphany. What a perfect coincidence!

When I was a small girl, we lived next door to a neighbor whose daughter knew how to play the piano. While sitting outside our house, my Dad and I would often hear that girl practice on the piano day after day. Often, he would tell me how much he wanted me to learn how to play the piano, too. Personally I really wanted to learn how to play the piano, too, but we obviously couldn’t afford it. How in the world could we ever hope to pay for a teacher’s fee, much less rent or buy a piano of our own? I wondered how and when I would be able to play the piano. It was a dream unfulfilled.

The whole set came with mic, headphones, stand, and keyboard cover. Here’s Aya practicing her do-re-mi. Pero ang totoo, props lang yung headphone at mic sa pic na ito. 😉

Mukhang totoo na ba? Hehe! We would like to thank Yamada Denki for the keyboard, and Aya wishes to thank her Ninong Epong for the cute pink outfit (all the way from S’pore!). 🙂

Some years ago, I bought myself an electronic keyboard and engaged the services of a piano tutor. I had to start from zero. A few months into my lessons, I got pregnant and had to stop because I had a very “challenging” first trimester. I never practiced at home, and never got back to playing at all even after Aya was born. Worse, when my mom saw the keyboard that had been gathering dust at home, she convinced me to just donate it to a church in the Philippines. Para naman daw mapakinabangan. I thought for sure that that was the end of my attempts at playing music.

Well, fortunately, now that Aya is having piano lessons of her own, I am now motivated to go back to learning the piano once again. There’s a definite perk to being required to attend Aya’s lessons – because I have to sit with her all throughout her lessons, I am having a sort of “refresher” course myself. Well, no, actually it seems to be more like a “beginner” course for me, too. It’s been too long since I last played, I’ve actually forgotten everything I’ve learned back then. Since we started Aya’s lessons, I’ve relearned how to play “Mary had a little lamb”. Pathetic start, but a start nonetheless. 🙂

We also bought a new keyboard. I was amused to find out that the new keyboards nowadays come with different features, such as having ports for television and computer connections. The large LCD display on the keyboard also shows the notes and guides for finger placements. There is also a teacher’s recorded voice that says things like, “Gambatte!” and “Subarashii!” (Fortunately it doesn’t say things like, “You’re hopeless!” or “Find yourself another hobby!”) The keyboard has 500 built-in original songs that can be used for practice and karaoke. Since when did these things get so hitech?!!

For now, this is just a hobby. A nice diversion from just sitting on our butts all day long in front of the computer (for us, hehe) and the tv (for Aya). Who knows, maybe in the future Aya will turn out to be a musical prodigy? 🙂

“In Place of God”

Can secular science ever oust religious belief – and should it even try?

This is the title of the article I recently read at the New Scientist, 18 November 2006 issue, pp. 8-11. This article highlights the key points of a quaint symposium in La Jolla, California entitled, “Beyond belief: Science, religion, reason and survival” hosted by the Science Network, a science-promoting coalition of scientists and media professionals convening at the Salk Institute for Biological Sciences. Unfortunately the article is not available at the NS website. I tried searching for it on the internet, and voila! – someone has managed to put the entire article in his blog. You can find the link here . Those who wish to hear more of the debate can access the following url: www.newscientist.com/podcast.ns .

In the symposium, they were asked to address three questions:

1. Should science do away with religion?

2. What would science put in religion’s place?

3. Can we be good without God?

Some of the prominent answers are given below:

Should science do away with religion?

• “It is just as futile to get someone to give up using their ears, or love other children as much as their own… Religion fills very basic human needs.”
  Mel Konner, ecologist, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia
• “Religion is leading us to the edge of something terrible… Half of the American population is eagerly anticipating the end of the world. This kind of thinking provides people with no basis to make the hard decisions we have to make.”
  Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith
  
  
• “Religion allows billions of people to live a life that makes sense – they can put up with the difficulties of life, hunger and disease. I don’t want to take that away from them.”
  Francisco Ayala, biologist and philosopher, University of California, Irvine

• “No doubt there are many people who do need religion, and far be it from me to pull the rug from under their feet.”
  Richard Dawkins, biologist, University of Oxford
  
  
• “Science can’t provide a sense of magic about the world, or a community of fellow-believers. There’s a religious mentality that yearns for that.”
  Steven Weinberg, physicist, University of Texas, Austin

• “Science’s success does not mean it encompasses the entirety of human intellectual experience.”
  Lawrence Krauss, physicist and astronomer, Case Western Reserve University, Ohio

• My say: “Science and religion fulfill two distinct aspects of our humanity: science fulfills our intellectual aspect, such as our need to understand the whys of the universe; religion fulfills our emotional and spiritual aspects, such as our need for love and expression of that love. It’s analogous to the human body which consists of various systems that function independently. The thought of substituting say, the heart, for the function of the brain simply does not make any sense. We need science as much as we need religion.”

If not God then what?

• “It is the job of science to present a fully positive account of how we can be happy in this world and reconciled to our circumstances.”
  Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith

• “Let me offer the universe to people. We are in the universe and the universe is in us. I don’t know any deeper spiritual feeling than those thoughts.”
  Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist, Hayden Planetarium, New York
  
  
• “Let’s teach our children about the story of the universe and its incredible richness and beauty. It is so much more glorious and awesome and even comforting than anything offered by any scripture or God-concept that I know of.”
  Carolyn Porco, planetary scientist, Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colorado
  
  
• “I’m not one of those who would rhapsodically say all we need to do is understand the world, look at pictures of the Eagle nebula and it’ll fill us with such joy we won’t miss religion. We will miss religion.”
  Steven Weinberg, cosmologist, University of Texas, Austin

• My say: “The concept of worshipping the universe is just so downright funny! Imagine people at Quiapo making images of solar systems and genuflecting before pictures of the sun. Hello? Okay lang kayo?”

Can we be good without God?

• “The axiom that values come from reason or religion is wrong… There are better ways of ensuring moral motivation than scaring the crap out of people.”
  Patricia Churchland, philosopher, University of California, San Diego

• “What about the hundreds of millions of dollars raised just for Katrina by religions? Religions did way more than the government did, and there were no scientific groups rushing to help the victims of Katrina – that’s not what science does.”
  Michael Shermer, editor-in-chief, Skeptic magazine

• “It doesn’t take away from love that we understand the biochemical basis of love.”
  Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith

• My say: “People are not good just because they are scared that Someone out there is going to punish them otherwise. In the first place, what is good, anyway?”

What about you, what’s your take on this?

In this experiment, Aya learned how to make a “volcano” erupt right at our own kitchen! For this experiment, you will need the following:

1. two small plastic drinks bottles (PET bottles will do just fine)
2. large piece of cardboard
3. vinegar
4. bicarbonate of soda (for those in Japan, look for 重曹 (juusou), which is Nihonggo for baking soda)
5. tablespoon and teaspoon
6. food coloring
7. washing-up liquid
8. large plate or tray
9. funnel
10. pen or pencil
11. scissors, tape

Aya cut out the shape drawn onto the cardboard. This should be big enough to fit around the bottle.

The cardboard will then be bent into a cone, and secured with tape. In this pic, we tried fitting the cardboard onto the mouth of the bottle just to check if it fits.

Using a funnel, the bottle was filled with vinegar until it is about one-third full. Add the food coloring (we used powdered coloring).

Add one tablespoon of washing-up liquid, and set aside.

Pour in three teaspoons of bicarbonate of soda into the other bottle. This should then be placed on a tray because this experiment will surely make a mess!

Place the card cone over the bottle with bicarbonate of soda. Using a funnel, pour in the vinegar and washing-up liquid mixture.

Whoa! A volcano eruption! Our experiment was a success! 🙂

Aya watched with fascination the last of the mixture still managing to ooze down the cone.

Explanation: When the vinegar and bicarbonate of soda mix together, they produce carbon dioxide gas. This, in turn, creates the bubles in the vinegar and the washing-up liquid. This mixture then expands and forces its way out of the top of the bottle.

This morning, we went to see a mini-concert sponsored by the music school that Aya has been attending for the past month. We thought it would be a sort of “happyoukai” or presentation to be performed by older kids at the school. We were wrong. It turned out to be a one-woman performance by one of their staffs. But fortunately, she was very good – and for 60 minutes or so we listened to her perform on the electronic keyboard. She gave us quite a show.

At one point, she mentioned that when she was a little girl, she was made to practice at home for at least 15 minutes by her mother. Since her mother went to work every day, her practice was scheduled every 8-8:15 pm, just after dinner. She stressed the value of practice, and how it was essential to improving her skills.

This brings to mind Baggy’s post about what it takes to be great. As a prime example, Tiger Woods became one of the greatest icons of golfing because he started very early. His father trained him to play golf at 18 months of age! It is thus very important for parents to devote time and effort into developing their children’s abilities and skills while they are young. Discipline is a must. Practice is gold.

In a way, I feel kind of guilty because I haven’t really taken Aya’s lessons that seriously (not yet anyway). Do I just want her to learn how to play the piano just because it’s cool? Or do I want her to excel in piano, or music in general? Do I envision her as becoming one of the greatest musicians of all time? If so, how much of myself would I be willing to sacrifice to achieve that? Attending the school will never be enough. Practice spells the difference between mastery and mediocrity.

I look at my daughter and see so much potential in her. I feel responsible for what she will become someday. I am sure than when she is old enough, she will be able to carve out her own place in the world, in her own time, at her own will.

The path to greatness is a long, arduous journey. As parents, we are responsible for showing our children where to begin.

The mercury has plunged to drastically low levels lately. Winter is finally here! I can wear my trench coat again, haha. My sister is already having fun with her first winter and has been quite taken with her new “kinky boots.” (Peace, Lai!) Winter is definitely one of the best seasons to be fashionable. How I wish I could also wear kinky boots to work (yeah right).

Winter clothes have relatively high price tags, though. Not unless you buy them sometime in February, because that would be the time when the stores are desperately trying to get rid of their old stocks in time for the new spring collection. But oh, wouldn’t it be so cool to pull off a Trinity look-alike, inspired by the movie, The Matrix? How many times a year can you do that, anyway? 😛

At home, we are trying our best to keep warm. Lucky for us, we have a propane gas heater that’s really quite efficient in heating up a large room like ours. Unfortunately, we don’t have any heaters installed in the bathroom area, so every time we get out of the shower, it’s like entering the freakin’ frigid zone.

I call this the V-cut futon! Hehehe.

As for the bedroom, well, there’s the usual futon – quite efficient in keeping the warmth in, but is also quite bulky. And don’t you just hate it when the cold air manages to creep into those areas where it doesn’t quite bend around the contours of your neck? Some futons actually have extra flaps which are thin enough to bend and thus “close the gap.” And then there’s the V-shape futon, which has a cut in the middle, allowing you to expose your head in between. It really looks funny, but I bet it does a good job in keeping you warm in bed. Here’s the site which sells one of those. They even have a name for it, “Attaka-boa.” Attaka = short for atatakai, or warm. Boa = bore? boa (as in boa constrictor)? boar? I couldn’t figure it out. Somebody enlighten me please. Another word for synthetic wool, perhaps?

And if that still won’t do the trick, well, I’m afraid your only other strategy is to snuggle up to a heat source (read: another human being). Keep warm! 8)

Someone asked me recently, “So what do you do in your free time?”

I responded, “Well, we do the laundry, we go to the supermarket for groceries…”

“So it’s not free time after all,” the person replied.

“Well, it’s free in the sense that it’s not spent for work,” I hastily added. No sooner had the words left my mouth did I realize how funny it sounded. When we say free time, do we only mean that we’re not at work? But household work is still work, isn’t it?

After talking about this a bit, we both agreed that sometimes we really tend to be more tired during the weekends than during weekdays because of the tonloads of household chores that we have to do. In our case, for example, we never really get to do our laundry except for weekends, and even if there’s just three of us, that usually means a gigantic pile of stinking laundry by Friday. And that’s why you can find me cursing during the weekends when the weather is not cooperating. How else can I get the laundry to dry? That means more piles the following weekend. Ugh.

And it’s not just the laundry, mind you. Weekends also mean cleaning the house, cleaning up our toddler’s mess, sorting through the mails, going out for groceries, running for errands, and what-have-you. There is just so much to do; more often than not we wonder just where the heck our weekend goes. Unlike in the Philippines, we don’t have household help or relatives we can holler to for help. Sometimes I do envy my sister back home, who has a household helper and a nanny who looks after her own toddler. She also works full-time. Ah, the perks of living in the third world. Here, I join the ranks of women who epitomize the “working mother” – the work never ends even when I get home. There is no one else I can turn to for help, no one else to clean up after our mess (unless of course my Mom is visiting hehe). And like them, I have to make compromises, too. The house won’t always be clean, the dirty laundry basket won’t always be empty, and sometimes the mess will not be cleaned up for several days at a time. It just can’t be done, given the limited time. And admittedly, sometimes I would rather just blog here than bother with a few messy areas in the house. I can live with that; a little mess never hurt anybody. 🙂

Last weekend, the sun was out in full force, it really just seemed so cruel if we didn’t go out and at least enjoy it while it lasts (nowadays it gets pretty dark by 5 pm, what a bummer). So we just dropped everything that we were doing, packed the previous night’s leftover adobo into our lunch boxes, packed Aya’s bike into the car’s trunk, and headed off to the park. There, we brought out our hastily prepared picnic food, lounged lazily under the sun, enjoyed the cool afternoon breeze and watched the leaves from the trees fall. Aya rode her bike, and showed off how fast her little bike can go. Father and daughter frolicked on the grass like pups out in the sun for the first time. I stretched out my legs and closed my eyes, thought of how wonderful it is to just spend time without any hurries or any particular purpose in mind. When I opened my eyes, the sky was a little bluer, the sun a little bit brighter, and I swear that I felt a renewed vigor for everything that lies ahead (mga labada humanda kayo!).

Free time is not what’s left over after all our chores are done; it’s the time we simply have to make for ourselves, before anything else.

Baggy, that is. We’re not going with him. He actually didn’t think that he would be needed in this particular trip, not until late last month. One of those last-minute trips. Besides that, we had visited Singapore just last year, so this is a trip that we can pass off. Now why don’t they just organize meetings somewhere in Hawaii or Bali, for a change? Heck, why not even Boracay? We could use a free ticket home. 😛

Seriously, we’ll be missing the Christmas celebration in Pinas this year. We have decided to put off our homecoming until sometime early next year, just so we can avoid the travel season and the sky-high expenses that inevitably go with it. Sometimes it just seems too extravagant to go home in December, when the fares are more than twice their usual prices during off-season. I know, I wrote before that you can’t really put a price tag on spending vacation with your family and loved ones. But hey, I am not saying that we’re skipping on going home entirely. Hopefully we can go home sometime in March or April, right, Sister? 🙂