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!

We are finally back to Tsukuba. Glad to be finally home. Crossing 13 time zones back and forth in just a week is no joke, and in fact, the two quitters who took the trip me are still sleeping right now, still on Toronto time. I decided to blog first before I join them. 🙂

The day before our departure, we decided to spend exploring the “underground” path (appropriately called “PATH”) in the city, starting from Eaton Center at Yonge St., finding our way to the CN tower. It’s no mean feat, I tell you, especially if you’re just a tourist. We were wondering where all the people went, because the streets were relatively devoid of pedestrians…guess what, most of them could be found traversing the underground pathway. We learned from the tour guide (in an earlier trip) that the pathway is an excellent way for people to move around during winter, and the path stretches for a few kilometers or so. There are shops everywhere, and the food courts can be found at every “block” or so.

We got lost, of course, and we decided to surface and find our way outside. The CN tower (they claim to be the tallest building in the world, although I’m not really sure it really is) was relatively easy to find once we were on the streets again. At the viewing deck of the CN tower, we were treated to a wonderful sight of the entire city, the harbourfront, and the Toronto islands.

Back to the hotel at last. When we got on the elevator, two other persons rode with us. One of them looked Asian – could even be Pinoy, for all we knew. The elevator stopped on the 12th floor, but when the doors opened, nobody got on. The next stop was our floor. On the way to the 13th floor, we heard a loud trickle of water, and when I looked down, there was a growing puddle of water at the floor, around the feet of the Asian guy. Luckily, the elevator had gotten to our floor by then and it was time for us to go. As soon as we were outside, it then hit me that it was not water that I saw, but pee! The man was peeing inside the elevator! Whadduh! We were laughing all the way to our room. It was gross, but it was kinda funny, too.

The bad thing was that Aya saw it all, and I think that was the event that precipitated her behavior from there on. When we got to the room, she happily announced, “Umihi ako.” You know, she is already toilet-trained, and in all our travels ever since she was toilet-trained, she never had this episode. Ok, fine, at least we were already in our room and there was no need to panic. The second time happened when we were on the plane. She peed right there on her seat! I tell you, this was the very first thing that it happened, ever! Of course I gave her more than the usual scolding. I gave her the cold shoulder. Fortunately, she got the idea and she never did it again during the entire trip. But I think that if she hadn’t seen that man pee on the elevator, she would never have gotten the idea that it was OK to pee anywhere.

Oh, I hate that man, whoever he is.

We’ve only been here in Toronto for less than 48 hours — but it is an understatement to say that we are immensely enjoying this trip. So far, no glitches of any kind, no sorry tales to tell, and in spite of the jet lag and exhaustion, we are in such high spirits. Even Aya is enjoying herself, surprise surprise. I’ve been to the States quite a few times already, but compared to the States, I don’t feel as if somebody is lurking in the corner to snatch my wallet, or as if I have to bitch my way to anyone. Canadians seem friendly and polite, and so far we haven’t met any disagreeable persons yet. Not that we’re expecting to, anyway.
.A funny anecdote here: when we arrived at the airport, a Pinay walked up to us, took a good look at Baggy, and after deciding that he definitely looked Pinoy enough, summoned her courage and asked us for 50 cents. She needed it to call on the public phone. Sorry na lang siya, because we just got there and all we had were bills. When we got to Hilton hotel, a guy named Vicente took care of our baggage. When he heard Baggy talk to Aya in Tagalog, he brightened up and of course introduced himself as a kababayan. Aba’y naglipana pala ang mga Pinoy dito sa Toronto. Feels like home!

An experience to remember

We went to Niagara falls yesterday. No trip to Toronto would be complete without visiting the famous waterfalls. I’ve seen the falls on pictures, but nothing would have prepared me for the enormous sight. We took the tour offered by a tourist company here, and we were definitely treated to a great experience of this natural wonder. I told Baggy, after seeing the waterfalls, that I would never, ever, look at any waterfall in the same way again. Maria Cristina falls in Iligan was the biggest one I’ve ever seen before this, so you could just imagine my surprise at seeing a waterfall of such gigantic proportions. Maybe Niagara falls is about 50 times the size of Maria Cristina falls.

We took the “Maid of the Mist” boat ride, which took us near the Canadian falls (there are two, American and Canadian falls), right smack in the middle of the rapids. As you can see in the picture, we all wore ponchos so as to keep us from getting wet. Well, I still got wet, and our camera got wet. It was all worth it!

More on the Canadian adventures (that is, if we could manage to get connected on the Internet again) in next entries

Two weeks ago I was finally able to finish Sagan’s ‘Cosmos’ book. I had immensely enjoyed myself reading that book, in spite of the obviously political propaganda (all for a good cause, of course) painted by the author towards the last chapters. I am all for space exploration – by all means let’s bring all our resources together to launch space vehicles to ‘widen our horizon.’ But I do not agree at all that the plight of human beings on this earth are any better, neither are the children of the world today living any better than their ancestors. I think of the 9-11 tragedy, the continuing war in Iraq, the recent Asian tsunami, and I shudder. The book was written in 1981, a few years after the successful launching of Voyagers 1 & 2 – and way before all these global disasters ever happened.

Anyway, I’ve picked up another book gathering dust in our book shelf (Baggy has a collection of geek books I’ve never read before, because most of them were with him in Osaka all those years). The one I’m reading now is “The Large, the Small, and the Human Mind” by Roger Penrose. I was intrigued by the title. I only know Penrose through my EM classes in college, and of course through Stephen Hawking’s book, “A Brief History of Time.” But this is the first time that I actually get to read a book he wrote.

Angels and demons scattered all over the ‘world’ (Escher’s Circle Limit 4)

The first chapter is on space-time cosmology. More like a time-warp for me, because suddenly I am again reading about all those lessons we first learned in undergraduate Physics. Lobachevskian space, Minkowski space-time – I could almost hear Jerrold Garcia and Dr. Chan! When I was a 16-year-old learning about those concepts for the first time, I felt overwhelmed and scared. Sixteen years later, and I read about these things all over again, I feel a sort of odd connection, and simultaneously an unexpected, sudden clear understanding of those concepts. Perhaps because this time some concepts are being relearned, and perhaps because this time is unencumbered by unnecessary burdens such as passing or failing grades. I was scared to fail my course, and so I studied like crazy, but I doubt it if I had any understanding of what I was studying. Maybe I just didn’t appreciate it that time.

Back to the book – I was fascinated by the illustration of Lobachevskian space using Escher’s artwork. I thought he was just an artist? I saw some of his sketches on t-shirts sold in one of the shops in Huis Ten Bosch in Nagasaki (Escher’s Dutch, by the way). Circle Limit 4 is more than just a collection of angels and demons, but a perfect way to illustrate how distorted Lobachevskian space would be when illustrated on 2D. Do you see angels first, or demons? 😛

More on this book in upcoming entries!

I vowed not to let this day pass without writing anything here. Today happens to be the first death anniversary of Daddy. When Aya was born, my life was changed forever. When Daddy died, my perspective about life was changed forever. There is a reason why our lifetimes are finite.

I am posting here an essay which I wrote a few months after Daddy died.

To live again
By Katherine Develos Bagarinao

He gave me my name. He called me “Katherine,” after Catherine Marshall. When I was about to be born, he was reading a book by Catherine Marshall, “To live again,” who wrote it after her husband Peter Marshall died. Family members have always called me “Lilet,” the nickname my cousin gave me. But as far as I could remember, my dad had always called me “Katherine” or simply, “Anak,” depending on the mood or circumstances. “Anak” was reserved for affectionate moments; “Katherine” seemed to be more favored in occasional bursts of exasperation.

Daddy and his beloved dog, Cush. They will always be loved and remembered.

He was no ordinary person. One can easily notice how we, his daughters, towered over him. Standing at only around 5 ft tall, people often wondered how someone like him would have daughters much taller than him, kanino ba raw kami talaga nagmana? He was afflicted with kyphosis (curvature of the spine) at a very young age, and way back in the 1940s, right smack in the middle of the World War II, medical treatment for such a kind of disease was virtually unheard of in the obscure rural town of Hamtic, Antique. Not that such a treatment could even be afforded by their family at all. Dad could only recount the pain he felt, how he heard his bones “cracked” when the “manghihilot” tried to push and press the growing lump at his back. Then his mother died of throat cancer, leaving all three of them without maternal love for the rest of their lives. His father, however, was a tough, hard-hearted man who did not spare any pities or compassion for his only son. He made it clear that he wanted no freak child. Sayang na bata raw siya. Dad received both verbal and even further physical abuse from one of his uncles who could not accept his being different. It was as if someone like him would be immune to whips and bad language. One time, amidst the protests by his eldest sister who tried in vain to protect him, Lolo in his anger tied Dad’s feet together, hung him upside down and whipped him. Daddy never recounted to us what spurred Lolo to do such a thing, but whatever the reason was probably did not deserve such a cruel treatment, especially for a child. He ran away from home, and went to stay alone in a mountain hut in a remote place called Badiangan all by himself. He felt lonely, unwanted, and most of all, unloved. He vowed to prove them wrong. The freak child they all considered “only be a waste of food” would someday prove them all wrong.

Daddy survived that ordeal in his life. The truth is, I have never met anyone more self-made than him. He left the province and went with his elder sister to Manila to try his luck. He worked his way through college, taking fine arts at FEATI University while working in the literature department of The Salvation Army in Leon Guinto. Though he was not educated in journalism, he managed to become the editor-in-chief of The War Cry, the official publication of the organization. Daddy became a painter and illustrator, gardener, businessman, writer and journalist, poet, Bible teacher, and even boxing trainer – all in one! The one thing he detested most of all was for people to look at his deformity as some sort of disability. Whatever “normal” people could do, he wanted to surpass. “Always do your best,” was the oft-repeated phrase as he admonished us to excel and strive beyond what we thought we were capable of doing. He challenged us. “If I had normal bodies like you do, I’d be doing more than you’re doing now.” The day when I first received my medal for academic excellence in elementary school, he was probably the happiest parent there among the crowd. Each time I won a competition in school I would proudly show off each medal or certificate to my dad, who would then challenge me to “show them what stuff the Develos is made of.” But each time he refused to go up the stage with me during recognition ceremonies. He always wore his best clothes and combed his hair in that pompadour style. He carried himself with the air and pride of someone who had received the same honor and recognition. But not even once was he ever seen with me on stage. Not even with my sisters, during their turns. He hung all our medals and displayed our trophies at home. It didn’t matter that he was not honored at the stage. It’s enough that we were proud bearers of his name.

He showered on all of us the love and affection that he was deprived of when he was growing up. He would pamper us and not let us do any household chores, especially if we were studying or doing homework for school. Our mother would always scold him for letting us get away from such responsibilities, but he would always chide her – what is so important about washing the dishes or cleaning the house compared to gaining knowledge? “Wala akong ibang maipapamana sa inyo kundi edukasyon,” my Daddy would always remind us.

There never was an idle moment for Daddy. To our young eyes it seemed as if he were always rushing to accomplish so many things at the same time. He did everything from raising chickens in our backyard to organizing a boxing event in Antique. For Daddy, time must not be wasted; every day he would be found reading a book in his study, writing something using his rusty old typewriter, or discussing Biblical concepts with his students (disciples, we would call them). During his brief stay in Japan, he delivered sermons in the Sunday fellowships and led the discussions in weekly bible studies. He wrote a short story, Sad-to Anay, begrudgingly using my computer at home, and promptly submitted it for publication in Hiligaynon when he returned to Manila. The gist of the story? It’s about a little boy who grew up alone, and against all odds, became a self-made man and had a family. His children grew up happy, finished their studies, and are on their road to eventual success in life. This was his revenge, his struggle that has borne fruition, his ultimate achievement in life. He told me more than once, puede na akong mamatay anytime, seeing that you’re all on the right tracks. To which I always retorted, “No, Daddy, you’ll grow up to be an old man and see all your apos.” “No, he always replied, “I don’t want to expect more than a few years.”

The last time I ever saw him alive was during my sister Karen’s wedding in September of last year. Our last family picture was that of us in the garden, Karen in her wedding garb, us in our finest gowns and Daddy in his finest barong. He used the same barong that he wore during my wedding, two years earlier. The next time I saw him, he was lying peacefully inside a coffin at Samson funeral homes at Imus, Cavite. He had been struggling with pains due to his kidney since February (2004), only to finally succumb to pulmonary infection in early May. He was cremated two days after we got home. This was his final wish, that his remains be reduced to nothing but dust and ashes. It is as if he wanted to punish the very bones of his affliction to signify his final escape to freedom. In heaven I will have a glorified body, I remember him telling us during our Bible devotions.

When I finally had to chance to talk to his attending physician, he told us that Daddy was lucky to have reached such an age (he was 65), and very fortunate to see all his daughters grown-up already. It was bad enough for old people to get lung infections with their immune systems down; kyphotic patients don’t even stand a chance at recovering. “It was meant to happen,” was all he could tell us.

Where does one find the courage to live again after the death of a beloved parent? My father, to whom I’ve dedicated my life’s achievements, is now gone. Where does one find the heart to go on? Going through my dad’s things afterwards, I found something that I’ve totally forgotten about all these years – every single one of my certificates received in elementary and high school, were carefully collected and kept in a folder. No parent was ever prouder.

In his last letter to me, he wrote the lyrics of a song he had often sang to us when we were children:

The things of earth will dim and lose their value
If we recall, they’re borrowed for a while
And things of earth, that cause the heart to tremble
Remembered there will only bring a smile

But until then, my heart will go on singing
Until then, with joy I’ll carry on
Until the day, my eyes behold the city
Until the day, God calls me home

As a child, I could not understand why Daddy would sing this song with so much passion. As a child, I thought that parents live forever.

As an adult and a parent myself, now I fully understand.

As I stood at the podium to talk about God’s faithfulness in our lives, I looked over where my Daddy was lying and I understood what he had been telling me all these years.

There is only one way to live again – and that is to know, to affirm, and to live with the assurance that in spite of the temporal things here on earth, there exists the ultimate hope of the life beyond. While death necessarily punctuates our existence here on earth, there is something that death cannot conquer. That is something that I learned from Daddy as well. It is the same hope that I will give to my daughter when my time comes.

Indeed, we can only begin to live if we are prepared to die.

– June 2, 2004

Golden Week, at least for those who love going out of town, is a rare opportunity in Japan to travel, either within the country or abroad, with a full week’s long vacation at disposal. When we were “young and full of hope,” (as Dr. Manlapaz used to say), we used to travel during GW, reaching farflung places such as Amanohashidate and Miyajima in Hiroshima. But that was before, when we could just pack our things into one tote bag and just go at the spur of the moment. Since Aya was born, our GW holidays are spent mostly at home, or going to nearby places. Children change everything, don’t they? 🙂

A simple way to celebrate Kodomo no Hi

This year we didn’t go anywhere at all, except to Mt. Tsukuba, which is practically within the neighborhood. But to our surprise, even the trip to Mt. Tsukuba took all of two hours going to the top, as there were actually many cars going up the mountain, all moving at a snail’s pace! We took the cable car (of course), and waiting for the next car to arrive took only five minutes or so. We were surprised, though, when we got to the top – there was a long queue of people waiting to get on the cable car going down. It was probably the crowdest time on Mt. Tsukuba that I ever saw, among the times that I went up there. It took us 30 minutes of waiting on that line before we got on the next “kudari” car!

Years ago, GW was a perfect opportunity to catch up on some reading, to do some extra work on research and the like. But that was before, when time was something we can dispose of at our own leisure. I brought home some materials I had hoped to work on during the holidays – but no dice. I have two papers, a patent proposal, and a book chapter to write, on top of that two conferences in July (one in Singapore and one in Kyoto). If I had my way, I would be working full time on those holidays so I could get some tasks finished. Well, as it turned out, I was delusional to think that I would ever get some work done during GW.

We bought Aya a Pooh Bear cake on Kodomo no hi (Children’s Day, May 5), and just to perk up things also poked three candles into it for Aya to blow. Her birthday isn’t until next month, but what does it matter. She was all smiles. She would probably remember it for all the GWs to come.

It’s frozen week at work, but GW resonates true to its name when spent with the family. That’s time well spent. 🙂

Four months ago we were in Manila to attend a friend’s wedding. A few days ago we just got back from Pinas where we attended yet another wedding, this time involving one of the family. I wrote in my personal journal that I’ve attended enough weddings to last me a lifetime and the next time I attend another wedding would be too soon – and yet seeing the smiles on the bride and groom as they exchanged their vows is simply priceless. Probably worth another trip home. But on the other side of the coin, weddings in the Philippines are yet another occasion where disgusting Filipino manners (or lack of it) are displayed at their ugliest.

Topping my list of disagreeable Filipino habits at weddings: dashing for the exit once they’ve had their full. Weddings are a far cry from fiestas or birthday parties, and yet some people could not even manage to show the social courtesy of lingering until the end of the program. In our own wedding, for instance, half the attendees disappeared even before we started the wine-toasting. It took us more than a year of preparation just to make sure that that one special moment in our lives will be enjoyable – and people couldn’t even sit still for more than two hours. Next on my list: skipping the ceremony and just showing up at the reception. Unless there is a very good, damning reason why you can’t attend the ceremony, shame on you if you think that the wedding is just a place to eat! In most weddings that I’ve attended, the number of people at the ceremony was only a handful, mostly involving the direct relatives and the wedding entourage. Other nasty habits, albeit minor ones: social faux pas of not wearing the appropriate attire (one guy at my wedding showed up in a hawaiian shirt!), not making the social courtesy of responding to an RSVP invitation, and not coming on time (typical of Filipinos to make a pa-bongga grand entrance).

I’m not saying that all Filipinos show these kinds of habits at every wedding, but I sure wish that every attendee will remember the reason for the occasion – for the couple to have the most memorable day of their lives, the day that they become known as husband and wife. Would it hurt to show some social etiquette? How often does one get married, anyway (of course it’s a different matter if you’re Elizabeth Taylor)?

Everyday we read about other people’s deaths in the newspapers – but most of the time the news concerns nameless persons we never really care about. We shrug our shoulders and think, well, that’s life. But once in a while, though, perhaps due to the overexposure by the media, the deaths of celebrities make us pause and take more than a moment to reflect on our own mortality. At least in the case of celebrities, the outpouring of grief gets to be seen by millions of viewers – by highlighting their deaths they become larger than life and effectively seal their own immortality, or something close to it.

More than the death that necessarily punctuates our existence on this planet, it does make one wonder what in life would be worth remembering by others. Surely we all have our own tastes of immortality, albeit at different scales. Sometimes I wished I had taken a different career – something in line with social service, perhaps, or something in line with the arts. Artists, like my Dad, can leave their works and legacies behind. Who cares about scientists? Unless you were someone like Sir Isaac Newton, inventing calculus while yet a teenager – it seems pretty difficult to leave a lasting imprint that would be remembered by many. Heck, I wonder if somebody who doesn’t have an interest in science would even “know” who Newton was. At least Einstein and Galileo were popularized somewhat.

I remember how often Daddy would tell us about the books that he was writing. At one time he boasted that he was writing three books simultaneously. The books never saw print, but one thing was impressed on me – leave something behind, no matter how big or small it is. I wonder if I will ever be able to write a book in my lifetime – although right now I am planning to write a chapter in a scientific volume. It is a start.

Not everybody can write a book, nor produce a painting or any work of art – but there is a far more enjoyable and thrilling way to leave your legacy behind. Can you guess it?

Children, of course. Passing on your genes to the next generation will be your best bet to sealing your immortality.