The last game I’ve ever played on PS2 was Final Fantasy X (FFX), about four years ago. That was about the time when Aya was born. Since we had to spend many a night wide awake tending to her, we were able to finish the game spending a lot of time up to the wee hours of the morning. As a newborn baby Aya would just sleep clutched in our arms (of course we had to take turns). It was as much fun to watch the game as playing it.

Here’s the cover of the just-released Final Fantasy XII.

After that, well, we just became too busy to play anymore. Baggy went back to Osaka to resume work, and he brought the PS2 with him. That was one of the reasons why I didn’t get to play anything else since then. When he finally joined us in Tsukuba, of course he brought the PS2 back with him. But since then the PS2 had been tucked inside the AV board, hidden from sight. It was only when we had our cable upgraded to digital did we finally take it out of its hiding place, and only because the digital tuner set top box was too big to place on top of our tv. The only place to put it is inside the AV board. So the PS2 had to be displaced outside.

Since Baggy joined us in Tsukuba, he had been quite busy with FAST affairs. Now that he has already passed on the responsibilities to somebody else, we can have our weekends back. Yay! 🙂

Anyway, to make a long story short, the temptation proved too much to resist. Pretty soon Baggy and I were twiddling the controllers again. At ang kunsintidor na tatay, tinuruan pa ang anak na si Aya. Kaya ayun, marunong nang maggalaw-galaw ng controller. 🙂 In fact for the past week Baggy has been playing FFX all over again. I’ve lost interest in FFX and really wanted to play something else. Coincidentally, Final Fantaxy XII was just released last March 16. We saw the full motion video being played at the electronics shop nearby, and oh boy, it was damn gorgeous. It was all we could do to keep from buying it. Suckers. Hehehe. But the graphics are really awesome. That’s about four years of improvement from the last FF we played. We skipped the online game FFXI, so I can’t tell if there was something extra we missed between FFX and FFXII.

I found a cool website made by a gamer already playing FFXII. You can find his review of the game here. We have completed as much as he (the gamer) had already, actually up to fighting the T-Rex. In my play, I got too cocky as well and tried to take on the T-Rex. Big mistake! Anyway, since everything is in Japanese, progress is a bit slow, because I had to take a lot of time trying to understand the dialogues and all. Playing the game is easy enough, but we’d really like to follow the story line because that’s part of enjoying the game, too.

Signout na ko para makapaglaro ulit…hahahaa.

While others are celebrating the beginning of spring already, we “kafunsho” or hay fever patients are suffering in every sense of the word. We were lucky in that we didn’t experience the symptoms as early as February, as in some years. But you can bet your bottom dollar that the hay fever season will surely come. Right smack at the beginning of this month, we started experiencing the sniffles. Red, itchy eyes and clogged nostrils. Hay buhay.

Eto ang may kasalanan ng lahat. Ang sugi…bow. Dito galing lahat ng pollen na nalalanghap namin.

Funny thing is, we only developed these allergies after having stayed here for a long time – during the first three years or so of our stay here, we breezed through spring and enjoyed the sakuras and all the other stuff you can enjoy in spring. I remember when my labmate asked me if I had “kafunsho,” I could only reply, huh? What the heck is that? I didn’t have a clue then. A few years later, I was wheezing like the rest of them.

Why in the world did the Japanese plant “sugi” or Japanese cedar (cryptomeria japonica) all over their mountains? I don’t know the reason. What I do know is that about 20 years ago the word “kafunsho” was inexistent. They made up the word when the number of allergy sufferers shot up. Apparently, they are now trying to develop species of the cedar which do not pollinate so much. Good luck to them. In the meantime, the pharmaceutical companies and drug stores are drawing for a kill. Everything from nose sprays, eye drops, anti-histamines, masks and even goggles are for sale. I’ve tried all except for the goggles. They simply look silly. Parang pang-Halloween costume. Anyway, good thing that at our clinic I could get all my drugs for free. The perks of health insurance. I have to buy the masks, though. 🙁

Since both Baggy and I are hay-fever sufferers, there is a very good chance that Aya would develop her own allergy, too. Good thing she is not experiencing it yet.

As for us, we’ll enjoy the cool spring air, but we’ll curse the pollen.

I’ve created a separate category for blogs about Aya’s experiments (see “Experiments” – what a no-brainer, eh?). Last week we performed a so-called “bottle tornado,” where we created a water vortex using two PET bottles.

For this experiment, we used the following: 2 PET bottles, one make-shift washer (just one of the caps for the PET bottle, with a hole bored through it), tape, and some food coloring.

Aya fills one of the PET bottles with water, about 2/3 full.

Aya then adds food coloring to the water. This is only optional, actually. Aya chose yellow, her favorite color!

The mouth of the second bottle is then balanced on top of the make-shift washer. The two bottles are fastened with tape.

The bottles are then turned over. With Tatay’s help, Aya then moves the top bottle in rapid circles.

After giving the bottle a good spin, a water vortex is formed – success! 🙂

Here’s a closeup of the water vortex formed at the top bottle. Can you see it?

The principle is simple – water is held in the top bottle by the air pressure in the lower bottle, and the surface tension of the water in the “washer.” Spinning the bottle creates a turning force in the water that breaks the surface tension, allowing the water to flow. The air in the lower bottle is then forced into the top.

Till next experiment! 🙂 🙂 🙂

A week ago we attended the annual “Happyoukai” or presentation at the daycare. This is an annual event attended by all classes (but beginning this year, the 0-year-old and 1-year-old classes have been exempted). The very first happyoukai Aya attended was when she was in the 0-year-old class (three years ago), and since the kids in that class were still practically infants and in fact still wearing their diapers at that time, what kind of presentation can one really expect them to do? Most of them were just drooling and crawling across the floor while their frantic teachers were singing and doing most of the “action.” I kind of felt sorry for the teachers, actually. Anyway, since the kids have grown a little we expected a little more participation from the kids this time around.

The kids were singing, “Gattang, gottong, gattang, gottong…gara-garadon!”

We were amused to find out that the kids were able to prepare something substantial this time, and somehow their practices indeed paid off. Aya was one of the “ooki yagi” = big goats in their play. I could barely understand what the play was all about, but it was something about small goats, medium goats, and big goats passing through a troll mountain and being eaten by the troll who guards it. But unfortunately, for the latter half of their presentation, Aya drifted from the group and played on the floor along with some kids. Oh well. Kids will be kids, you know.

I guess they really wanted us to bond with our kids by having to eat lunch with them…:P

We had only wanted to stay for Aya’s presentation and make a quick exit afterwards, but unfortunately, it seemed as if the teachers anticipated that parents were apt to make a quick getaway if they could. So what they did was they whisked off the kids to the classroom and asked the parents to pick them up there, and accompany them back to the presentation hall to watch the rest of the older kids’ presentations. And that was not the end of it. That day was also “Obento no hi” or lunchpack day, and after the presentations we were asked to come back to the room with our kids and have lunch with them there. Have lunch – for those who actually brought their share of lunch (some parents actually did). Since we didn’t bring our own lunch, we ended up feeding Aya and watching the rest of them gobble their food. Shikata nai ne. Hay, the things they make us do. Isn’t it enough that we had to pay? 😀 At any rate, it was touching to see both parents attending activities like these. I mean, contrary to the notion that Japanese dads are seldom there for their kids – there were actually quite a number of dads there. I guess they took time off from work like we did just so we can attend the activity.

Enough complaining for now. ‘La namang magagawa eh. Wait till she gets to elementary! I heard that the PTA activities here demand a lot of the parents’ time and participation. Argh…

Yes, it’s another birthday, and this time it’s Baggy’s turn! Happy birthday Baggy dudes!

I’m sure masaya yan dahil meron siyang bagong new toy. 🙂 It’s a Sony. Sony what? Secret!

Happy birthday, Dad.

—
Future, The
by Matthew Arnold

A wanderer is man from his birth.
He was born in a ship
On the breast of the river of Time;
Brimming with wonder and joy
He spreads out his arms to the light,
Rivets his gaze on the banks of the stream.

As what he sees is, so have his thoughts been.
Whether he wakes,
Where the snowy mountainous pass,
Echoing the screams of the eagles,
Hems in its gorges the bed
Of the new-born clear-flowing stream;
Whether he first sees light
Where the river in gleaming rings
Sluggishly winds through the plain;
Whether in sound of the swallowing sea–
As is the world on the banks,
So is the mind of the man.

Vainly does each, as he glides,
Fable and dream
Of the lands which the river of Time
Had left ere he woke on its breast,
Or shall reach when his eyes have been closed.
Only the tract where he sails
He wots of; only the thoughts,
Raised by the objects he passes, are his.

Who can see the green earth any more
As she was by the sources of Time?
Who imagines her fields as they lay
In the sunshine, unworn by the plough?
Who thinks as they thought,
The tribes who then roam’d on her breast,
Her vigorous, primitive sons?

What girl
Now reads in her bosom as clear
As Rebekah read, when she sate
At eve by the palm-shaded well?
Who guards in her breast
As deep, as pellucid a spring
Of feeling, as tranquil, as sure?

What bard,
At the height of his vision, can deem
Of God, of the world, of the soul,
With a plainness as near,
As flashing as Moses felt
When he lay in the night by his flock
On the starlit Arabian waste?
Can rise and obey
The beck of the Spirit like him?

This tract which the river of Time
Now flows through with us, is the plain.
Gone is the calm of its earlier shore.
Border’d by cities and hoarse
With a thousand cries is its stream.
And we on its breast, our minds
Are confused as the cries which we hear,
Changing and shot as the sights which we see.

And we say that repose has fled
For ever the course of the river of Time.
That cities will crowd to its edge
In a blacker, incessanter line;
That the din will be more on its banks,
Denser the trade on its stream,
Flatter the plain where it flows,
Fiercer the sun overhead.
That never will those on its breast
See an ennobling sight,
Drink of the feeling of quiet again.

But what was before us we know not,
And we know not what shall succeed.

Haply, the river of Time–
As it grows, as the towns on its marge
Fling their wavering lights
On a wider, statelier stream–
May acquire, if not the calm
Of its early mountainous shore,
Yet a solemn peace of its own.

And the width of the waters, the hush
Of the grey expanse where he floats,
Freshening its current and spotted with foam
As it draws to the Ocean, may strike
Peace to the soul of the man on its breast–
As the pale waste widens around him,
As the banks fade dimmer away,
As the stars come out, and the night-wind
Brings up the stream
Murmurs and scents of the infinite sea.

In Japan, it is customary for the women to give chocolates to men on Valentine’s Day. Yes, women. March 14, on the other hand, is designated as White Day, and this time it would be the men’s turn to give gifts to women. In the Philippines, on this day I could imagine flower vendors selling flowers like hot cakes to love-struck guys and gals. As for myself, I would prefer to be at the receiving end, like the old-fashioned Pinoys back home.

But hey, it would please me nonetheless to receive red roses any time of the year, occasion or no. 🙂

30 long-stemmed red roses delivered today! Maraming salamat Baggy!!!

Happy talaga sa Valentine’s! Ang sweet naman, hehehe. 🙂

Children are like clay that can be molded in their early years by their parents. For instance, since my dad was a painter, all three of us girls learned how to draw and sketch from him. We all learned to appreciate art from an early age. Teach them the basics, and they will remember these for as long as they live. It’s this very malleability that makes it so exciting to interact with a child. Of course, when Aya throws up tantrums quite similar to what I do in those unguarded moments, I realize all too well that every bad and good thing she sees me do will also be copied and imitated in the same way.

When we were in the Philippines, I managed to find a science book of simple experiments that can be performed at home. Aside from the very easy methods explained in simple terms in the book, there are also colorful pictures and illustrations which accompany each experiment. So far we have performed three experiments, but it was only until the third experiment that I realized how fun it would be to document each one and post them in our blogsite. The first experiment was one involving the mixing of two imiscible liquids, water and oil. Add salt, then watch how the weight of the salt initially brings down the oil, then how it produces a bubbling effect as it goes back to the surface. I made Aya stir the mixture, then to her surprise, she found out that the salt disappeared but the oil didn’t. The second experiment was done with Baggy, this time using a balloon tied to a straw, through which a string was inserted and its one end is tied to a chair. Release the balloon, and whoosh! A rocket balloon. Aya found that experiment very exciting and they did it over and over again, much to her delight.

The third experiment was about convection: hot liquids go up, cold liquids go down. We let Aya do as much as her little fingers could, although most of the time we end up doing mostly everything. But the amazing thing is this – we still share the enthusiasm and the appreciation for the simple concepts in science. I always feel that warm rush of delight whenever I try to explain to her the “whys” of things. In my opinion, it’s never too early to expose one’s child to science. Other parents would expose their children to music, arts, or sports. Well, we want to expose her to something that we are passionate about. So there you go.

Who knows, maybe in the future I can even bring her to the lab and show her how to operate the laser, hahah. 🙂 My mini lab assistant.

First, Aya fills up the PET bottle with hot water from the faucet.

Aya adds food coloring to the water so we can differentiate the cold water from the hot water.

Aya holds the bottom bottle while I hold the other bottle containing cold water over it.

The red-colored hot water goes up and mixes with the cold water (of course the cold water goes down, but you can only see it up close). Triumphant Aya poses for the camera. Hoy Aya, tumingin ka rito!

Father and daughter do the experiment one more time, this time with more emphatic explanations from Dr. Baggy. 🙂

I remember my late Auntie Betty, who used to scoff at other people who refer to this year and that year as the year of the cat, dog, rooster, whatever. What rubbish, she said, because every year is God’s year. Shame on those who call it otherwise, she would add. I was too young to understand then what she was fussing about. Well, I guess we all have the right to call any year whatever we want. But for myself, I would prefer to call this year as “Our Year.”

We have so many projects, so many travels and plans in store for this year. During our family gathering on New Year’s eve, we prayed together for all our plans this year. As they say, we’ll do our best, let God take care of the rest. 🙂

Ang sarap ng feeling ng kasama ang mga mahal sa buhay. Talagang sulit ang uwing Pilipinas. Tumaba kaming lahat sa kakakain.

So here’s a toast to the year ahead – to life, success, wealth, health, and more blessings.

Aya has learned to draw, and almost everyday when we pick her up at the daycare, she would hand us some drawings she did while waiting. Here is a drawing of our family. From the left: Aya, Tatay, and the one with the pig-nose is supposedly me, Nanay (sigh).

She has also learned to write her name! A-Y-A spells Aya! 🙂

We are really into the Christmas mood now.

The temperature has dropped drastically in the past few weeks, and many Christmas decors can be seen in every shopping mall, even the grocery store we frequent. Yet somehow the Christmas “spirit” has been turned into mere commercial hype, simply just another reason to spend money – at least that’s how it feels here in Japan. I really wonder if the people here really know what Christmas is all about. Heck, Christmas day isn’t even a holiday. At least the Emperor’s birthday on Dec. 23 is a national holiday.

All dressed up in black like “The Matrix” movie characters for our Christmas party. Cool ba?!! Note: Agent si Baggy rito. Ako raw yung conservative na Trinity, because I wore a skirt to cover my butt (lamig kasi hahah).

Just about a week more to go before we go home. I’m already very excited about going home, and seeing my family again. Christmas is a day to celebrate, a perfect opportunity to reunite with loved ones in our home country. Of course, this year’s Christmas for our family will also be marked by a tinge of sadness for not having our good ol’ Dad around anymore. I still miss him, and I miss him the most during Christmas. Dad was a magnificent cook, and every Christmas we looked forward to the delectable dishes he prepared for our Noche buena. He would always be the one to complain about Christmas being not really the birthday of our Saviour, but could be traced back to a quaint pagan celebration called Saturnalia (hey don’t ask me, better google it to know more about it). We called him old grouch for it. But come Christmas time he would be celebrating it with the rest of us with as much fun and fervor anyway. 🙂

I’m so busy with so many things nowadays, and I don’t know if I would be able to make future entries before leaving — so to all visitors to this site, I would like to wish you a very, merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year ahead! For some reason this site has been receiving a lot of visits lately – let me take this opportunity to say thank you all for dropping by!