Coming to Tokyo (Narita) from/via Manila on Philippine Airlines?

Image from Wikipedia.

Don't. Here's the problem: they only have one flight per day and it arrives in Narita at around 8pm. Because of that schedule, I always miss the last (8:30pm) bus going straight home. So I take another bus instead and just take an extra train ride. No biggie. But here's the real problem: if the flight gets delayed. I have an aunt whose PAL flight just got delayed 2 hours and so she missed all buses going anywhere. If she were able to fast-track her way through immigration, baggage pick-up, and customs, and got on the last bus (10:30pm), she still wouldn't have made it to my apartment because there would be no more trains. So, her only option was to stay at a hotel near Narita airport for a night and just take the first bus the morning after.

Here's the other problem: going back home. The PAL flight leaves Narita at around 9:30am. This means, if you have to be there 2 hours earlier, you have to leave Tokyo by 6am. From our city, you have to take the 5am bus. From my apartment, you have to take a taxi at 4:30am to make sure you get the 5am bus, and make sure you're at the airport at least 2 hours before your departure time. If I miss that 5am bus, there's a big chance I might miss my flight altogether. What I do then is I just commute to Narita and stay at a hotel around the area the night before. Because I don't want to risk missing my flight going home (without having to pay extra extra). Of course, you can always hope that it's this flight that gets delayed...

When you come to Japan, it's good to know the language.

Check out this photo:

Note: I already used 6 and so I'm left now with just 2.

You know what it is -- it says "colored spoon." Above it is the description of the contents in Japanese, and it says カラフルスプーン / karafuru supuun. Did you read that out loud? It actually reads more like "colorful spoon." This is just a trivial thing but this is essentially representative of things you might have trouble with when coming here.

Crazy weather, Episode 2.

My app says 10 degrees.

My thermometer says 20.

This is an extreme though. My other thermometer, which was more under shade than this, was saying 15.

Later that night, my weather app said 0 degrees, one thermometer said 0, one thermometer said 2.

Crazy, crazy weather(s).

Being a beach-loving dude from tropical Philippines, I'm always concerned about the weather and, more specifically, the temperatures here in Japan. I'd like to call myself a summer person, because I realized that while we in the Philippines consider the temperatures there from December to February as cool, they're still actually summer temperatures in other countries, Japan, included, and even warmer than the summers in even more countries and places.

Anyways, so I always check the weather and temperature forecasts practically on a daily basis. In fact, maybe almost on a bi-hourly basis. I always felt Accuweather has the most accurate temperatures (at least for current conditions), but now I installed my own adhoc thermometer just outside my window, and now I'm using three other weather apps: Meteorologist on my desktop, the default Weather app on my phone (Yahoo!-based weather actually), and this "Celsius" app, also on my phone.

I took screenshots of the temperatures at one time, and here they are.

Zombie + "seminar"

Whoops, sorry I was a zombie on Nov. 1 and had no posts about food then. Zombie? I had a presentation to do at 9:30am on Nov. 1, and I had to work on it until around 5am -- or 4.5 hours before! I finally slept at 6am, thankfully I woke up at 9am so I got a good 3 hours sleep, and well I got to the venue just in time.

Whenever there are any kind of presentations here made to an audience of professors and students, they call them a "seminar" / seminaa / セミナー, by the way. But in no way are these things seminars in my understanding of the word, and it's more of us students and researchers presenting the work we've done in front of the professors and fellow students and researchers for their comments. While particularly in the academe or even in the medical field, many people understand English, obviously it's not the same kind of English that we might know from the places where we came from. I've told you before about their use of "campaign" instead of "promo," or deals. "Seminar" I guess is another one. And then there's "typhoon" -- they refer to all tropical cyclones as typhoons, whereas in the English-speaking world, a typhoon is only one type of tropical cyclone that is of a certain strength. That is because "typhoon" is some what directly coming from taifuu / 台風 / typhoon. Some non-Japanese I met here call certain sandwiches as "burger" only because those sandwiches use buns the same as those for hamburgers. They say "go back" instead of "go home" -- now that is because that would be the exact translation when they mean to say "go home" in Japanese. In the Philippines, the words "traffic" and "salvage" stand for something a little different from their original meanings. And there are many more examples here in Japan and in each and every country where English is spoken. You got some?

Nothing Jolli about this one! #Japan

Thanks to Okada-san for the photo!

On one hand, I love Atsugi because there's a lot of nature here. It's a "suburb of Tokyo," after all; i.e. it's far from being a mostly-concrete jungle. Lots of trees, not so much wide roads and consequently, not so much cars. And consequently, not so much pollution. Lots of fresh air. Plenty of stars are always visible and bright when it's a clear night sky. At Downtown Atsugi (Hon-Atsugi), there's enough variety of stores and restaurants and pubs/bars and entertainment if you're missing the city life. But even there, the buildings aren't even 10 floors high.

On the other hand, there really are plenty of bugs here. You know it's summer when they start to appear. Yes, mosquitoes, cockroaches, cicadas (which they call semi here), bees, flies, ants, spiders. Bats even. Well, spiders are probably around the whole year round. But anyways. Here's a bug that is really huge; its body is about 2 inches long. And it was hanging out just outside the restroom (toilet) doors on our floor. My friend took this photo about 2 meters away with a zoom lens. Meanwhile, I just use the restroom on the next floor. Around this time, people here are encouraged not to use air-conditioning, and so instead, we leave doors and windows open for natural ventilation. I only hope it doesn't fly to our office room!

There is nothing Jolli about this one.

Very bad, very hot, second day of summer

Here, men with fans is commonplace. Image from  House of Japan.

36 degrees Celsius (97 degrees Fahrenheit). That already says it all.

Human Rights Abuse by Robots in Japan

I am human and I have the right to know.

(...why a certain legal procedure is being carried out on me.)

We all know about Japan's stand on whaling. Have you guys seen that movie, The Cove? When you come to Japan, expect the same kind of "hospitality." Not from everyone, of course. There are really nice people here. And then there are the few incomprehensible. And then there is their great love of country, that is above all else. Justice is difficult for murder victims of foreign nationality. Koreans were blamed for fire and for other things after the "Great" 1923 Tokyo area (Kanto) earthquake. Many foreigners of various nationalities have been stopped in the street or visited in their homes, and "requested" for their Alien Registration ID and passport, without any due cause.

Anyway, I arrived from a trip to Amsterdam that was scheduled to arrive 11:40, but thankfully arrived an hour earlier. There's a bus ride from 11:40 that directly goes to the train station closest home, and so I thought I could catch that. No need to take the next bus at around 14:00, nor the 12:00 or 13:00 bus that goes to a train station a further 15 minutes away.

By 11:05 I was already at the customs - just one stop away before buying my bus ticket!

And then, the customs officer, a young man apparently still in his 20's, appeared to have looked at a list and then held my passport and told me that he needs to inspect my baggage.

Me, having nothing to hide, and having done nor brought nothing illegal, "cooperated." I've been inspected by customs officers before, like on a few of the times I visited the US, but those felt like random inspections and didn't last more than 5 minutes.

This time though, it took around 25 minutes. All my bags' every nook and cranny, as well as all my worn coats' pockets down to the insoles of my shoes were all thoroughly checked. After just a few minutes, I realized it wasn't gonna be just a regular, random, 5-minute inspection. I was suspected of something.

If there's one thing I hate so much, it's that being suspected of something that I didn't do nor have anything to do about. I was getting frustrated.

But at the same time, every time he was going to open a bag pocket, the customs officer asked me "politely," "Is it okay if I open this part?" Every time of course I said yes. "Yes, of course." I felt though that he was doing that so that later, if I formally complain, they would just say, "You agreed to the inspection." I felt though that if I said no, they would suspect me even more. What the hell was I supposed to do. Japanese politeness, eh? It is starting to feel superficial after this incident.

Before he started opening my bags, he pointed to some photos of drugs, first and asked, "Did you bring this?" DUH. I politely said "no." Why the hell would I???????????????????? See, yes or no, he would have inspected my bag anyway. Next he pointed to photos of what appears to be porn DVDs and the like and asked "How about this?" DUH. What the hell!!!!!!!

And then the last stage of the inspection, finally, was to inspect me. At that point I started to ask why I was being inspected. Did I do something wrong? Personally, all I wanted to know was how could I have avoided this from happening to me? Because I don't do these wrong or illegal things because I surely have a decent life and I surely would like to avoid these bothersome circumstances.

But surely this was no random inspection! I was being a victim here. And I felt like I really had no choice. I was a slave, and I had to "cooperate" with the master's wish. WTF.

The only answer he gave me was that "We only need your cooperation." It's the blackbox answer. If I try to pry some more, I think I will just expose how much they do not know or pretend to not know about communicating in English. In other words, they were saying "You are in our country, you follow our orders, bitch, or else." And, "it's difficult to explain." Now here I follow every rule, of course. I always do. I respect that this is not my country. But at the same time, I expect that, if I don't do anything wrong, I will be respected. Because I am a human being. And hey, I work hard. Just like they do. But I don't try to step on other people's toes. Most specially innocent toes.

To me, now almost 24 hours after, my questions are still unanswered? WTF?????

I have a few suspicions why - and I'm still not really sure which one is the answer:

1. A few Filipinos before me have been caught (maybe recently?) bringing either illegal drugs or pornography into Japan. Me being a Filipino, I was, to a robot, automatically a suspect. Talk about the fallacy of generalization. Talk about artificial intelligence. Or lack there of.
2. I came from Amsterdam where certain drugs (i.e. marijuana) and prostitution are legal, although it is not in almost all other places. So, the robot thinking was, because I'm not a goody-two-shoes, law-following (blindly) Japanese citizen, I must have went there to try marijuana and prostitution. And I was bringing the experience all back to Japan with me. Because I can't get that here. So I was thought of a junkie and a perv. This, after I explained that I was a student in Japan and that I was in Amsterdam for 8 days, to attend a conference and now I'm back. By the way, I was probably the only Filipino on this KLM flight from Amsterdam. They probably thought that KLM was not an airline a Filipino (or a student) can usually afford, and I must have gotten rich by selling drugs or porn. Oh and yeah, me being a Filipino, I was a suspect.
3. The customs officer probably needed some actual, hands-on training in inspection. The safest person to practice on was me. Because I am a Filipino? "We only need your cooperation." That's the reason why????
4. I forgot that I brought some "salaminis," small salami, and failed to declare it. So I was probably bringing drugs and porn and didn't declare it as well. Anyways, the robot saw my salaminis and didn't comment. I think he was really looking for drugs and porn. See #7.
5. They have a thriving porn and sex-related industry here. Prostitution is legal for as long as there is no intercourse. If I had brought porn, these high money industries might have been affected. DUH!
6. The robots need to meet some inspection quota. And I was the perfect one to do it on - it's just un-Japanese to suspect fellow Japanese of bad things. So they can do it only on me. Oh, and certainly, not the white people. There's a double standard here.
7. The robots are not robots after all. They've seen too many hero movies though, and knew how good it felt to be the hero of the day. Me being a Filipino male, travelling by myself, to the land of pot and prostitutes, was going to make him the hero of the day. It was going to be a big bust! NOT.
8. In a span of 15 months, I've been out of this country and back for four times already. Twice on business trip (to Korea once, and then this last one) and twice on a personal trip (to the Philippines). Maybe that was too much for them? For those who do not know, when you get a visa to work or study in Japan, it is only a single entry visa. If you want to be able to come back, you can either get a single or a multiple re-entry permit. The former costs 3000 yen and the latter only 6000 yen. So obviously I have the multiple re-entry permit. Could it be that they dislike people coming and re-entering Japan for more than two times? Because if I paid for every re-entry, I would have paid them 12000 yen already, not just 6000 yen! And now what, I need to go back home this October and then again in December. At the same time, I'm afraid now for my wife to travel by herself. She'll just get suspected as well. The first time she visited me here as a tourist at first, she was also suspected of maybe trying to find work and become an illegal alien here. It was a good thing she brought her company ID back then.

Smart people can tell when one person, a Filipino for example, is to be "suspected" or not. Robots would automatically assume if one Filipino can do it, everyone else is a suspect. FUCK YOU ROBOTS.

You know, at the very least, I wished I was given a reason why I was being inspected. I would have accepted any reason. "We only need your cooperation," is no reason. It's the same as "You slave, I master, you really have no choice." Or at least that I had been warned earlier (like at immigration check point?) that it would take long and at least given a seat. If this had happened in the US, I think I would've gotten a reason. "Sir, you are suspected of bringing drugs and porn." Or, "Sir, you brought meat products and didn't declare it. So now we suspect you might have brought other illegal things." I wouldn't mind. At least I know. And next time, I know better to be more careful. And in the US at least I could ask back, "Why would that be?" And I would be given another good answer. And then we could have a conversation. Because they have humans and not pre-programmed, protocol-friendly robots as customs officers there. They know that we, travellers, do-gooders or otherwise, are humans as well. Sometimes harsh, but sure, they are doing their job but usually harsh only for good reason. "We only need your cooperation." FUCK IT.

One thing is for sure now. I am afraid of this country and what the few people robots here could do. It was something I never expected of Japan. Of all the things I would like to avoid, it is abuse, particularly of authority. And particularly by robots I cannot ever reason with. I am very afraid.

Addenda:
I had a "stash" of 10 chocolate bars - from the Netherlands, of course. When the inspector saw it, you know I really felt that the first thing that came to his mind was that those chocolates might have marijuana in it. "So, you like chocolates?," he suspectingly asked. I told the truth, of course, "No, not really." But I was like, duh! I was like thinking, unlike him, I'm not a robot and I have friends! And that it's "Omiyage." Souvenirs/gifts from the place that I visited for friends and family. Ah the disappointment on his face. He was not going to be a hero that day.

I told the story to some Japanese friends here - no, I don't have robots as friends; these are real human beings with feelings - and they suggested it might be a combination of #2 and #8, and maybe they won't say it to me directly but I think they think it's #1, #2, and #8. Okay. But still, I still don't know the real reasons why. I have the right to know, robots! But, how to argue, much alone converse with robots, that is the question.

My friends did suggest also though that I might have looked suspicious. Yup, that's how Japanese think. I think the ordinary "salaryman," the office worker and breadwinner of families, do not wear blue shirts because blue is for blue-collared workers. When it's March 20th, the Spring solstice, plenty of robots start wearing spring attire and ditch their winter apparel. That is, even if the temperatures are still the same as winter temperatures. Because it's spring already! And so on. I knew all this beforehand, and so actually I made sure I was wearing a long-sleeved polo (i.e. with a collar) and I shaved. Oh yeah, because you are usually thought of as a criminal if you have a beard or mustache on. But at the end of it all, I think it was just because of my face and skin color. It's dead obvious I'm not a member of the yellow race. Racism? Human rights abuse? Whatever it is, it is very insulting.

Very Weekling

It has been 10 days since my last post.  I am calling Japan Blog 2.0 quits.  I am just too busy nowadays I think.  And I think it will be this way until the end of my 3-years here in Japan.  I've been here just 4.5 months so far.

But this don't mean I ain't posting nothing no more.  I'll still be here.  Just not regularly anymore.  Certainly not daily, but no, I can't promise weekly posts.  My intention also is to post more photos.  Or do a videoblog.  But I can't promise anything.

And, as you can see, I've been blogging on practically a daily basis for my 1st 4 months here.  That is a world record.  4 straight months of daily updates!

Unfortunately, like for most part-time bloggers, and now, the end is near, for daily blogging.  I do not have anything in mind yet for Japan Blog 3.0.  But I do know that I plan to gather together all my Japan posts into this one blog, which means my posts for my Japan Blog 1.0 (from 2005) will also be found here in the near future.

Anyways, just to let you know, I finished two papers the past week.  I had been delaying it because I thought it would be easy enough - supposedly I have the materials to write them.  But, no, it wasn't easy.  I was just too busy last Thursday and Friday, and then Saturday - Microsoft Word crashed on me!  Well I was doing structural analysis and other stuff in the background so that might have added to it.  What happened though was that I was already 90% finished on my first paper and boom, I went back down to probably 70% finished.  I just thought, 70% is better than 0%.  Thank you (or not) for those Auto-Recovery functions of Word.  Anyways, I was so on a roll those two days, but when that happened, I just went blank.  I just didn't wanna do it anymore.  I spent just two hours or less on it during the weekend.

But that is so also because we went to this eat-all-you-can/tabehodai place called "Carnival Buffet."  Western food?  Nope.  It's "Western."  (Emphasis on the quotation marks.)  It is actually Japanese-style Western food.  There's a salad bar, a drinks bar, your choice of ramen, udon, or soba noodles.  There are 4 kinds of pizza - two are more like Indian-style pizza.  There is curry.  Japanese love curry.  There was roast beef for a little while.  There are these small hamburgers that you heat on a teppanyaki grill yourself.  And hotcake mix for making hotcakes for yourself.  There was fried chicken and sausages, and pizza - did I already say there was pizza?  I ate mostly the fried chicken, the sausages, and the pizza.  I have been craving for real pizza.  Or the taste of cheese.  It was good enough.  The fried chicken tastes a lot better (more Western-tasting maybe?) than the fried chicken at the cafeterias here in school.  Then there was a salad bar where I had me a medley of fruits and an ice cream.  Then "ka-ching!"  I thought, I could have a float as well. So I made a Coke (Zero) Float.  Yum.  I was already "wa chun la" (200% full) just before eating dessert.  I was "wa chuns la" (so full, I'm almost like dead) after the float.  It was a good ending to a 1500 yen meal.

And then we rode our bikes back home.  It was quite a long ride, and then I checked using Google Maps how long our trip was.  It was 6.4 km each way!  By the time we got back to the apartment, we were back to "wa pao la" (100% full) again.

Anyways, it was probably that long bicycle ride, maybe 40 minutes each way, that got to me.  I was so dead tired on Sunday.  It was a no-day.  I was just at home.  But I did find the need to go the grocery store.  But I just can't ride the bike again.  No sir, not yet.  So I took the bus.  And then, lo and behold.  The supermarket was probably nearly half empty of groceries!  I saw two of my fellow students and they confirmed, we should just come back another day.  Anyways, I did go back the next day, and it was still probably close to half empty.  But there were a number of employees putting some stocks back on the racks.  It is so weird.  I noticed then that apparently the furniture outlet store right beside it is closed.  Is something going on?  I really don't know.  I wasn't able to find some of the stuff I needed so I went to the nearby grocery store #2, "Coop."  It was my first time ever to visit a Coop grocery store.  My friend told me about it already but I forgot - you have to pay a hefty amount for plastic bags.  Anyways, it was a good thing I had extra plastic bags.

On Wednesday night, I feasted on sweet, sweet Tacos.  12 of them. :-D  And then just today, I finalized probably 3 dishes: tokwa't baboy, postek, and sinuglaw.  It was my first time ever to prepare tokwa't baboy - not a problem actually.  But it was my first time ever to prepare kinilaw na tuna.  I wondered how come my kinilaw at first didn't look at all like the ones I order from most restaurants.  I think, based on what I read, that kinilaw actually has coconut milk or something.  Anyways, I bought so much pork, I converted the kinilaw into sinuglaw, a mix of sinugba and kinilaw.  Sinugba of course is Bisaya for inihaw.  For the tokwa, I used Japanese tofu, of course. :-)

Wait, Ronjie, you bought so much pork??????  Yes, I bought them last Sunday but because I felt so tired that day, I was able to cook them all only now.  It's not that I eat pork only.  The last couple of days, I've been eating beef.  I had tapsilog the last two days, and Tacos (ground beef) last night.  My tapsilog looked better than ever.  It is because this time I was able to buy a cut of beef that was more appropriate for tapa.  It tasted great as well.  Recipe was from my mom.  I didn't use patis though.

Last Sunday, my engineering mentor, Doc Benny, arrived here in Tokyo for a 3-day conference and so we met up Tuesday night, together with my former thesis adviser, Prof Fer.  We went to the Imperial Palace and the Asakusa area.  I didn't realize that the walk to the Imperial Palace was that long.  Actually, we did a lot of walking, even just for getting to/from the train stations and transferring between stations.  Anyway, the Palace grounds was just so huge a place.  Sunset actually caught us there.

When we got to Asakusa, most shops were closed.  The good thing was, there were very few people.  I didn't think the Sensoji Temple would look so much better in the evening.  And then, we had dinner at this ramen and gyoza resto wherein they serve...  just one kind of ramen, and gyoza!  Their specialty, apparently.  Not the greatest, but pretty good.  Not so salty ramen.  They had beer and Japanese sake (or rice wine; beer is also sake, actually because sake literally translates to alcoholic beverage.) as well; we had a cup each of sake.  Pretty strong.  And overall, a pretty good dinner: the ambience, the company, the food.  It was a fun evening and it was nice to meet up with fellow Filipinos and chat in Tagalog.  Doc Benny, who probably spent 6 or more years here in Japan for his PhD and associate professorship back in the 80s, still had very good Nihongo.  But he wisely chose when to use it and when not.

So, well, that's it.  Back to the books.  Stay tuned for updates here and there.  God bless, everyone!

Friday the 13th!

So what?  I don't believe in superstitions, because I believe only in God.  I hadn't actually realized it was Friday the 13th until I wrote this blog post (which is actually two days later).

Anyways, last night before going to sleep, I watched another movie online and...  5am came and I still can't sleep.  I fell asleep at 7am already!  Yikes!  And then I woke up (because I had to) by 11am to prepare.  But actually, I got up at 12pm already.  Oh by the way, yesterday, I packed everything already for today's trip.  So, a cold shower first.  Then, my supposedly spaghetti-and-gratin lunch turned into a salty chow mein dish and not as yummy doria.  It wasn't a very pleasant eating experience.  Nonetheless, it was still carbohydrates - my source of energy - and so I had to finish it all up.  Thankfully I had banana which was the best dish of my 3-dish lunch.  Then, final preps, and 2pm came and I was ready to go.  Save for the lack of sleep.

Gratin, by the way, is like baked ziti but it doesn't resemble the baked-mac-looking baked ziti I have tried at some "Italian" places in the Philippines.

2pm came and my two trip buddies slash next-door neighbours were not yet so ready-to-go just yet, and so I double checked the bus schedule at the bus stop.  Per my "research" online, we could take the 2:15pm bus, so that we could be at the train station by ~2:35pm to meet up with our two other trip buddies, and then we could take the 3:03pm train to get to Shinjuku by 4pm.  Guess what.  The next bus was not until 2:37pm.  Uh-oh, we're going to be late!  And we didn't have oxygen cans yet - we still had to buy them in Shinjuku!

Anyways, so we can't do anything about it except inform our two trip buddies who might be early to arrive at Hon-Atsugi.  It was so hot today by the way.  And I was already wearing one thermal.  My mountain climbing bag was already 12kg, with 4L of fluids (2L of water, 2L of sports drink) and 7 additional layers of clothes.  I haven't ever been in less than 10 degree weather for more than 30 minutes before - usually if I'm in 10 degree weather or worse, I would go indoors already after no more than 30 minutes.  So anyways, I took all necessary precautions.  Like the fluids.  The cost of these 4L of fluids is just under 200 yen.  If I buy them at Mt Fuji it might cost me 4000 yen!  I also brought knee and ankle braces.  A walking stick.  Some Biogesic (paracetamol) medicine.  A low stool (because it's difficult for me to stand up from a squat or sit-on-the-floor position).  An umbrella in case it rains on the way between home and the starting point of the Mt Fuji climb.  A scarf, a pair of gloves, two knit headgear (bonnets/beanies), and a cap.  Two hankies for covering my ears and sunglasses for my eyes in case it becomes sunny.  A face towel to wipe away sweat.  6 packs of granola bars.  12 chocolate-covered macadamia nuts.  9 macadamia nut choco cookies.  An extra pair of shoes - because my Nike running shoes was "smiling" already.  I glued it up but who knows, what if it gives in!  Better to carry an extra half kilo of insurance than walk up and/or down a 1.4km climb without any shoes at all!  I also brought my wallet, of course.  And my two cellphones (Japan and Philippine numbers).  And my Palm TX - which functions as my English-Japanese dictionary, and my movie player.  And maybe a couple other things.

Anyways, better to be safe than sorry.  Better to carry all that weight and make it to the top, than having to go down because I am not prepared to complete the whole trip.

So, we got to Hon-Atsugi at around 3:05pm already, two minutes too late for the 3:03pm train.  Surprisingly, the train was late and so we were still able to get on the train.  We got to Shinjuku just around 4pm.  We met up with Kim-san, the trip organizer, and we met his girlfriend and also his cousin, both for the first time.  Then a little later Dr. Kim arrived.  Then there we were, 9 of us, trip buddies for this Fuji climb.  We hurried first to find oxygen cans for bringing up to Fuji.  But we didn't have enough time anymore and we weren't able to buy our dinner!  So we had to buy dinner at the 5th station of Mt Fuji, where our climb starts.  Off to the bus station we went and then somebody shouted "Ronj!"

It was Coy, my friend from the Philippine, who is about to graduate from her masteral degree this August/September.  This is only the 2nd time I've seen her during my Japan trip, and whoah, this was a big coincidence.  I found out she was going to Mt Fuji as well.  I told her we were late for our bus already and that we should just catch each other at Mt Fuji.

On the bus, I planned to either sleep the whole time, or watch a movie.  I attempted both but didn't really get to finish either one of them.  Oh well, I hope my staggered sleep last night (6pm to 10pm and 7am to 11am) was enough.  On the bus we checked the hour-by-hour weather forecast, and it said sunny!  Great!

Our bus left at 4:50pm.  We arrived at the 5th station at around 7pm.  And so we split up to look for, buy, and eat dinner.  We ended up eating at the restaurant where they have hot meals.  Two guys got kare-raisu (curry rice) which was 950 yen but was probably just 1/3 of that, 2.3km below.  I had tempura-udon which was only around 650 yen.  It was yummy.  But actually, it wasn't enough.  But, ah, we were in a hurry.  We must be at the summit by 4 or 4:30am to catch the sunrise, and back here before 11am to catch our bus trip back to Shinjuku.

After some group photos, minus one (the person taking the photos), we started our climb at 7:45pm.  After about two hours we were already past the 7th station.  I thought that was fast. After the 7th station, there's the 8th and 9th station.  So supposedly we were 1/4 of our way up.  Then, the climb became harder and harder as we got closer and closer.  Ah, one of life's many lessons.

The Calm Before The Storm

Last night, I stayed up really late - until around 5:30am - to prepare my body clock for the Fuji climb.  Woke up really late today.  2pm.  I have practically nothing to do today.  Of course I had my brunch first, which was the last of my frankfurters, together with the last of my leftover fried chicken from last week, and the last of my pechay (steamed) for the week.  Then, bam!  My knee and leg muscles hurt, after all that running (and running during basketball) last Tuesday and cycling to downtown Atsugi yesterday.  Uh-oh, I hope I'll be fine for our climb tomorrow!

Anyways, indeed it was quite a wet day today and it was well and good that we did not push through with the Fuji climb today.

And with bed weather comes...  More sleep.  Because I have nothing much to do, I watched something online and fell asleep for about four hours from 6pm to 10pm.  And then I was hungry and so I bought food from the convenience store.  I had that salad with a yummy sesame-tasting dressing and half an egg, and a pack of burgers, chicken nuggets, fried chicken bits, and potato poppers that I ate with ketchup.  I also bought my carbohydrate-laden lunch for tomorrow, just before our Mt Fuji trip starts.  Unfortunately, I was really hoping to buy red/meat sauce spaghetti and creamy gratin (pronounced gruh-tun) like I did a few weeks back, but they didn't have it.  So I settled for this chow mein looking dish and this doria, which is like rice/risotto with some creamy topping.  Not exactly my ideal meal before a climb up a 3776m high mountain.

Anyways, I intended to sleep really late again today, to prepare my body clock for the Fuji climb.

Early!

Woke up relatively early today, and went to school relatively early.  As usual I was busy, considering that I wanted to finish a lot of stuff before TPU closes on Thursday, the 12th of August.

I went home for lunch and stove-grilled/fried the frankfurters and made a couple of perfect-looking sunny-side-up eggs.  I really wanted to eat frankfurters because I regretted not having to eat some during the Hanabi festival last Saturday.  I have forgotten what frankfurters taste exactly but these to me tasted like Japanese-style frankfurters.  Nonetheless, they are just what I needed.  Or rather, wanted. :-D

And last night I heard that Mara enjoyed Rodic's tapsilog, and wow, I want some too!  I had to have some silog of my own.

Anyways, the secret to my perfect-looking sunny-side-up eggs was an egg shaper.  But, actually I wasn't able to find one for use when frying eggs.  Instead I got me a microwave egg shaper.  Pretty convenient.  Two minutes in the microwave and voila, I have me two perfect sunny-side-ups.  Wasn't uniformly cooked though.  The outer part resembled more like soft-boiled egg while the inside was cooked egg just right.  Anyways, the one thing I like about this is - no cooking oil! :-)

And then a busy afternoon yet again.  Tuesday is usually basketball day but I thought, no more basketball - I have to be well rested for our Mt Fuji trip on Thursday.  But, the boys wanted to play.  So, I thought, what the heck.  I <3 basketball.

When we got to the gym, Kim-san, the Korean basketball superstar, wasn't there yet.  And when he arrived he said that he can't play anymore because his girlfriend was at his apartment and he had to attend to her.  So, Okada-san joined us instead.  A little bit thankfully though that because there was no Kim-san, there was no "betting," and so it was a relatively light and easy casual game of basketball.  It was China vs the World (i.e. Japan and the Philippines).  And then suddenly, the women's basketball club using the gym approached us and said "We are closing the gym now."  Yikes!  So off we went to the 4th floor to do some running instead.  The whole time running, we were all thinking of how we can go down by rope from the 4th floor to the gym floor (2nd floor) just to be able to play basketball.  I probably ran already about 500+ meters when one of the guys checked the gym door if it was "accidentally" left open by the women's basketball club members.  It was.  So back to basketball it was.  Yahoo!  It was a really fun, relaxing game of basketball.  For some reason, I just did so much running though even during the basketball game supposedly to "confuse" the opponents.  But, that was too much running for a day.  But actually it was good endurance training for our Mt Fuji climb.

For dinner I ate the BBQ ribs again.  I also prepared a Ceasar salad again, with lettuce, tomatoes, and bacon bits as usual.  The ribs tasted a little better than yesterday.  I think some were just better marinated than others.  Or maybe better cooked than others.  Maybe the basting had something to do with the taste.  I don't know if I just over- or under-basted some which didn't taste as good as the others.  Anyways, it was my first time to "baste."  It was probably also my first time to marinate and "grill" BBQ ribs.  Nonetheless, I loved it.  Like yesterday, I went back to do some more work at the office right after dinner.

Closed!

I went home early last night but unfortunately I wasn't able to sleep early...  And I woke up too late again to attend class.  My alarm clock didn't work yet again.  Actually my alarm clock this time was this computer program that runs the official online stream of the Manila-based radio station Magic 89.9 (magic899.fm/ListenLive.aspx).  But argh, that guy who has the router (and with whom we'll share the internet expenses with) has probably moved it around again and so there's no signal in my room.  Last Saturday night, I had this same problem.  I called him up and asked him about it, and he said, "Oh there is something covering the router."  What???  And he expects me to pay the same amount as himself for the internet connection???  Sigh.  There are 3 of us sharing the connection, but I am not willing to pay 1/3 or not even 1/4 of the internet fee.

Now don't worry, the class I missed is not a very important class for me.  It is about something that is totally different from the field I'm studying.  And to tell you the truth, I find it so difficult and so distracting from the real work that I need to do here, so if I can I would really like to not attend that class anymore.  After today, there's two more classes and well, I hope to attend those if only to keep a good relationship with the class professor.

Lunch was nilagang baboy again.  Yummy, but it could've used a little more salt and spice.

We wanted to play basketball today, but the gym was closed.  So we just did some running.  I exercised for maybe 35 minutes straight.  Then shower.  Then home - because I had a delivery coming.

For dinner, I was thinking of having nilagang manok.  Oh, I forgot to mention, the nilagang manok was too salty and too spicy.  Hmmm.  Anyways, I am so not into having this nilagang manok again.  This wasn't appetizing.  This would make me feel less energized.  And so I decided to fry the chicken instead.  Wow, it tasted great!  Ate them with tomatoes.  Yummy dinner.

I realized I have to eat good food as much as possible.  When I was eating cafeteria food almost everyday, I felt the difference when I started to eat my own cooked Pinoy food.  This time around, I'm on an almost all-Pinoy food diet (or at least maybe 60% of the time), but of course not all Pinoy dishes are yummy.  Or some are yummy, but when you cook it differently, it could taste different and not so appetizing.  And so unenergizing, if there is such a word.  Actually what happened for this week was, I got tired of thinking of and deciding on what food I really wanted to eat and therefore needed to cook.  I just selected the dishes which I did not have the week before.  And so I ended up with this line up.

But actually one other motivation I have when choosing dishes I am going to prepare for the week is: avoid using cooking oil (even if it was canola or other vegetable)!  And so that's why I like cooking nilaga, and even the giniling.  And so this is what I ended up doing.  Fried (previously boiled) chicken.  But it was really yummy.

By the way, I forgot to mention that yesterday I received the results of my health check-up.  It is all in Japanese though, except the numbers of course.  So my BP is 130/80 (or "132/78" to be "exact").  My height is 183.5 cm and my weight is 85 kg.  And they calculated my BMI: 25.2.  I'm (still) overweight!!?!?!??  I told my colleagues here and they were all like, "No, you're still fine.  I'm shorter than you but I'm not that much lighter."  Another noticed that I have a "B" mark, exactly on that box/area where my height, weight, and BMI is listed.  He said that he got all "A" marks.  Actually, I really think I'm 185 cm, and if so my BMI is 24.8, still within normal.  I might just be slouching a bit when my height was taken.  It was, after all, mid-day already.  Anyways, this is all good news as it is only more reason to do more exercise!  :-)

I don't like to share this with you just yet, but what the heck.  I like to do more exercise so that I can eat more!  Ehehehe :-D

Fuji-san!

Today I had to wake up really early because we had to be at the meeting point near Hon-Atsugi by 8:45am, for our TPU-organized field trip to the Fuji-Hakone area.  So that meant we (PhD students) had to leave from our apartment at 8:00am.

But alas, I had a hard time sleeping yet again (maybe 4am?) and so I woke up only around 7:50am - if not for a phone call from one of my fellow PhD students.  My alarm clock which I set for 7am did not work for me at all. :(

Anyways, so obviously no more shower or breakfast or the "2nd thing" you should do after waking up, and then off by bicycle we went to Hon-Atsugi.  We probably left around 8:10am already, and we arrived at the meeting point at just before 8:45am.  Right on time.

And so the 2 hour bus trip, first to this place called "Fuji Harness," which is a guide dog training facility.  http://www.fuji-harness.net/  The dogs of course are very cute and very adorable.  Unfortunately no baby dogs, which are even cuter.  The purpose of this trip is actually to admire the beautiful architecture, which has no less than Mt Fuji in the backdrop.  The complex is a very nice piece of architecture indeed.  There was a demo show to show us what the guide dogs are trained for.  It is funny that the show's host was speaking to all of us in Japanese but he spoke in English to the dog!  But other than that, it wasn't really an entertaining show.  No acrobatic acts like running through rings of fire or somersaults.  The host was just showing that the dogs would guide blind people:
1. given a choice between two doors/paths, the dog will choose the wider one so that he (or she) can guide the blind person continuously through the door/path;
2. away from obstacles that the blind person could bump his/her head into;
3. away from obstacles that the blind person might trip on; and
4. safely up and down stairs, protecting the blind person from falling over from the stairs if there are no rails.

We had lunch at the cafeteria, a pre-packed bento and a small aluminum bottle of green tea.  There were so many stuff in the lunch: two kinds of fried chicken (one is a katsu or cutlet), fish, fish balls, rice of course, a tofu roll with veggies inside, other veggies and mushrooms, a pork cutlet ("tonkatsu"), siomai (dimsum with pork), and I forgot what else.  Our non-pork and non-beef eating fellow students of course didn't have the pork stuff.

After lunch and some "snaps," as one Indian PhD student would call "taking photos," we went again on the bus for maybe a 30 minute or so ride to the Hakone area to go to the POLA Museum of Art.  http://www.polamuseum.or.jp/english/  It was very interesting architecture, yet again, and this time this one has a special engineering feature: base isolation.  Base isolation protects the building from earthquake forces by "isolating" it from the ground which shakes violently during an earthquake.  By the way, architects here are engineers as well - but only of buildings.  Civil engineers are engineers of bridges, usually, and other "civil" structures.  In the Philippines, architects are building designers, and civil engineers perform the engineering design for buildings, bridges, and other civil structures.

Anyways, first stop was a short lecture given by one of the museum staff to give a brief introduction to the feature exhibits currently on display, which is collectively called "Nihon-ga" which means Japanese paintings, as well as to other exhibits around the whole facility.  Very interesting.  There were also Claude Monet and Pablo Picasso paintings there.  I wonder if they were the real thing!  There were also boring displays of old perfume bottles and something else that was too boring to remember.  We also spent a little bit of time at the museum shop where there were more interesting items than in those two boring exhibits.

And then another 2 hour bus trip back to Hon-Atsugi.  We estimated that we probably spent half this trip (5 hours) on the bus!

When we got to Hon-Atsugi, I wasn't feeling like coming home to Nilagang Baboy and Nilagang Chicken just yet, and so I joined two of my colleagues for a gyudon dinner at Matsuya, a competitor of Yoshinoya and Sukiya.  Filipinos in the Philippines might be more familiar with Yoshinoya.  Anyways, gyudon as you know is just (apparently boiled) beef rice topping with egg.  Apparently, the egg is raw and you put it directly in the rice and beef.  Maybe it is supposed to cook in there but apparently not really.  I guess this is the Japanese version of Tapsilog.  The set meal was not bad; 490 yen for that big gyudon bowl, with miso soup and a side salad.  And, all-you-can-drink iced water.  :-)

And then after that, a 30-minute bike ride back home in this still very hot summer early evening.  I got home with all my clothes drenched in sweat.  I changed first and then went back to the office to do some work and upload photos as well.

Need for Medicine

Laughter is indeed the best medicine.  When I watch anything offline or online, I always choose comedy.  Or funny old action films (i.e. they're action supposedly but you laugh at how they make movies back in the day).  I can feel how other kinds of movie genres have an effect on my overall well-being the next day.

Anyways, today I woke up relatively early, after that long rest (a.k.a. Sunday, the 1st of August).  So I went to the office early.  Last Saturday when I did my grocery shopping, I didn't buy yet all the milk and juices I need for the week because I bought so much already, my bicycle can't carry all that weight anymore.  And so I left relatively early for lunch but also to continue my grocery shopping.

So, me not feeling well, I had to go for "medicine," things that would make me feel good and comfortable at least for a little while.  This in my dictionary is also known as "McDonald's."  :-D  I had me a quarter pounder with cheese meal.  Just once a week (or every two weeks) is fine, right?  I exercise twice a week anyways, not counting my walking to and from school, and bicycle rides to and from the grocery or Hon-Atsugi. :-)

Then off to the grocery I went, and got what I came for.  And then I felt it again - not having enough energy.  And so I bought even more "medicine."  Nilagang Baboy and Nilagang Manok was waiting for me at home, and I thought those won't help me feel a little more energetic.  And so I bought me 1 pack (4 slabs) of some kind of steak (tenderloin?  I wasn't sure).  Actually since this morning, I was craving for Tapsilog.  Now, the Tapa requires marinating overnight and so on, and so that's why I bought steaks instead.  So of course I also bought eggs.  And then back home I went.  Have I mentioned it is summer?  And it is so much hotter here now than in Manila.

Back home, so I "grilled" up the steaks for dinner and fried a couple of eggs as well.  I really have a hard time making perfectly good-looking sunny-side up eggs (hmmm, maybe the sunny side up look helps make you feel better and more energized - and that's why it's good for breakfast).  And so, while it didn't look great, it was enough to meet my "medicinal" requirements.  After frying grilling the steaks, I cut them up so they feel like Tapa.  And Voila, Tapsilog.  Made me feel really good.  :-)  I didn't finish all the steak and eggs, of course, so I have some left for another meal.

Other than all that and the usual summer weather, it is a normal busy day today.

No sun

This day did not happen.  Serious!  I woke up very late, maybe around 2pm.  The sleeping problems are still there.  I only had one meal - my ginisang giniling with pechay.  Maybe I was up for just 10 hours today.  And didn't do anything at all.  Did not feel well at all.  Yikes, it's the first day of August.  Is it the heat?

Success!

I was able to sleep relatively early last night (before 1am), and woke up quite early today, maybe around 7am!  And so I was able to go to school early.  I did feel hungry early though, like it was only 11:30am.  So I went home for lunch at 12am.  Actually I passed by the convenience store first to buy salad.  I finished the last of my chicken adobo.  Then...  I fell asleep, this was probably around 1:30pm.

At this point, there was no word yet from my friend as to what time and where is the meet-up for watching the fireworks in Tokyo and so I didn't try so hard to fight the urge to sleep.  I woke up maybe around 5:30pm and I have a ~2pm message from my friend saying we should meet up around 5:15pm.  Oh no!  I missed it.  I mean if I still went on, I would have made it to the meet-up place at 7:30pm.  My friend called and said it'll probably be all over when I get there.  So...  I have to wait another week before the next one.  So there's going to be one here in Atsugi next week, but apparently there's another one in Tokyo as well!

Anyways, after waking up, I went to the grocery, and bought quite a lot of stuff today.  I'm out of cash already!  I'll have to donate another 105 yen to the bank ("overtime fee" for withdrawing from the ATM on a Sunday).

I also bought me a "chi-zu piza" (cheese pizza) which is actually a Japanese style pizza with nori (seaweed, similar to the one used for sushi rolls), teriyaki chicken, tuna, corn, and mayo.  I had it for dinner while I was boiling chicken for... boiled chicken!  (Because I don't have all the ingredients to make tinola.)  I also boiled pork to make... nilagang baboy. :-D  And then ginisang giniling with gulay; pechay to be exact.  I finished everything at around 12pm.

Ah, August and Everything After. :-)

And it goes on and on and on

This has been happening since Sunday; I can't sleep not until past 4am already.  But last night was worse; I slept not at all, not until 9:30am this morning.  And so I woke up already at around 2pm.  And yep, I missed my class.  Maybe subconsciously I really did not want to attend that class; it is a very difficult class.  Anyways, I didn't really intend on missing class though.

I did have breakfast at around 7am when I already gave up trying to sleep already.  But because I slept past lunch, I first bought lunch at the convenience store and ate them at my desk.  I bought a rice bento meal with burger, chicken, sausage, potatoes, and egg, and a red sauce spaghetti with sausage and eggs.  People were surprised that I got me two orders.  I always get that.  I ate lunch already around 3pm.

5pm came and it was basketball time.  I played it a little easy the whole time.  The first game was a 3-on-3 and I forgot who won.  I think no one did because one of our players got injured.  On the 2nd game it was just 2-on-2 but my teammate, with the intention to stop our opponent from scoring, unintentionally hit him on the face and sent his glasses flying down.  Our opponent didn't like it and so he ended the match.  We were one point away from victory though, and well, so because our opponent ended the match, we did not get the opportunity to win.  Oh well.

And then as usual after basketball and a shower, I went home, hung up my wet clothes and towel, and drank a lot of water and sports drink (Aquarius, Coke's Japan version of Gatorade).  Because I ate lunch very late plus the lots of fluid intake, I felt full and decided not to eat dinner just yet.  Instead I brought my dinner to school, so that in case I feel hungry I could eat.

Today was warmer than yesterday, and it was so hot and humid inside the gym and even in the locker room.  My sports clothes were drenched, and even after showering, I still sweat a bit.

I'm being invited tomorrow to watch some fireworks in an annual festival held at the Sumida River in Tokyo.  Next week, the annual festival held at the Sagami River which bisects Atsugi will also feature fireworks.  There will be lots of street food, people dancing and singing, and lots of people!  There are many big and small festivals all around Japan, all featuring fireworks usually during the summer.  Can't wait to see one!

Trouble

The trouble continues.  Trouble sleeping that is.  What were you thinking?  Those deadma faggies?

Anyways, I was really intending to sleep early last night but no.  Ended up the same time...  But this time I woke up sooo late, almost 2pm already.  Why?

Because it's rainy and a little cooler today!  Hooray!

It is a big, welcome break from all those days of sunshine and humidity and highs above 35 degrees.  Daytime high today was 28 degrees.  Hooray indeed!

I do have a problem though with my umbrella.  So the one I brought here from the Philippines which I actually bought for around 5 USD in SG last December already has gout.  It can still work but it is bound to totally break soon.  So I bought me a new one, but only a cheap one, only 1 USD equivalent.  It is so weak.  Today I think was the first time I used it, and it is already showing signs of weakness.

The rain wasn't like long, continuous, heavy, torrential rain.  It was just a little shower for probably half the day.  But that and all the cloud cover was enough to turn today into more like May weather.  Love it.

But with the sudden change in temperatures comes a headache.  Can't hit two birds with one stone this time.  It is annoying.  Then again, maybe it's because of the sleeping in so late?

Or, maybe it's because...  So I woke up say around 1:45pm, took a shower, then went straight to school to do some pre-Nihongo-class studying, then Nihongo class, then back to my desk for a little work, then went home and had Pork Steak and Steamed Pechay dinner at around 7pm and...  Notice anything?  Yup, I had dinner relatively earlier than usual today.  But actually, it is my breakfast and lunch as well, relatively later than usual.  Maybe that's another factor.  In any case, the headache of course is annoying; it is difficult to concentrate and stuff.  Oh well, this too shall pass.  Can't wait to sleep!  And I really hope to be able to sleep really early today!  Can't be late for my 11am class tomorrow.

Ho-hum... Do spices make you gay/bitchy?

I was so tired yesterday but still I had trouble sleeping.  So today I woke up a little late, had grilled salmon and steamed pechay for lunch first and then off to school. Work, work, work, then I went home only after 9pm, for my adobong manok and steamed pechay dinner, again. I didn't return to school again for the day. Did I say the adobo was just perfect? It was a jackpot. I hope to sleep earlier today and be early to school tomorrow. :-)

So, did that sound very much like yesterday except for no basketball yesterday.

So instead, let's add some SPICE by way of a spicy story.

So I'm new here in school starting this school year's Spring term in April, which actually starts officially around the 1st of April.  There are three of us newbies, the other 2 guys being from southern India.  They arrived maybe 2nd of April.  I arrived 16th of April.  So I'm like the newest of the new students.

Now, there is a total of 5 students here from southern India, 2 of which are actually a married couple.  There is 1 student from Bangladesh.  I think all 6 can speak the Hindi language.  There are also 5 students from China, 2 of which are actually a boyfriend-girlfriend couple.  There is 1 researcher also from China, 1 researcher from Taiwan and 1 researcher from Hong Kong, and all of them (8) people can speak Mandarin.  There is 1 Korean student, and 3 Korean researchers, all who can speak Korean of course, but also Japanese quite fluently.  Lastly, there is one Vietnamese and one Italian researcher.

Anyways, my 2 Indian "batchmates" and I will be here together for 3 years.  So at the beginning I consider them as my buddies around here as we all on the same footing.  The older, married batchmate, probably cannot take new-to-the-taste food, and so he goes home for lunch and dinner and eats by himself everyday.  So there is the younger batchmate, who is probably 10 years my junior.  At first, we would invite each other to eat lunch together, together with another relatively young Indian guy.  There was an Italian short-term researcher here when I first came here, and together with the Italian researcher, we all ate lunch together with some Japanese students and another gaijin (foreigner).

The Italians and the Japanese and the other foreigner had future lunch dates of their own, because what would happen is we would already go to lunch but they would have lunch a little later.  As for me, I was warned about some locals befriending you so as to practice their English, but once their English or your Japanese is much improved, they will ditch you just like that.  And so we were left to just me and the two Indian guys.  At one point, the more senior (by school years) Indian guy had a business trip and so it was just the two of us, the younger batchmate and I.

To tell you the truth it was quite difficult to get a conversation going.  He would usually be quiet, and even more so when those other nationalities are there.  One time, we had lunch with the Japanese and the Italian, and well I was making conversation with the two of them.  This young batchmate was dead silent the whole time.  Uninterested.  Sure, what we were talking about is something new to him, but it also was to us.

Anyways, things happened here and there and one day, at around 12:00 noon, I came up to the two Indian guys and asked them if we can go for lunch already (because on previous days we go to lunch at 12 noon, to avoid the "traffic" and rush of people at 12:30).  They said, "a little later."  So "okay," I said, and waited back at my desk.  We're in the same room, by the way, where all 13 PhD students and 1 researcher have our desks.  It's not so big.  1:10pm came and I was wondering, aren't these guys hungry yet?  So I come back to them and said, "Shall we go now for lunch?  We should go now, because the cafeteria closes at 1:30pm."  They're like, "We already ate lunch.  We thought you already ate lunch!"

Yup, I didn't hear the word "Sorry."  As for me, wanting to keep the peace, I just said, "Oh okay, it's okay."  And so I ate lunch by myself, an hour later!  If only I knew.  I thought, it might have just been a misunderstanding, although I thought if I were in their shoes, I would have passed by my desk to ask me if I already ate lunch or not.

On succeeding days, my batchmate and I have class until 12:30pm on Thursdays and Fridays, and so usually I would still invite them to have lunch together.  Hey, we're all foreigner students here, right?  We could learn about each other's culture and stuff and talk about our situations as foreigner students.  But no.  And then I noticed that they're not inviting me to lunch anymore.  At one point, they were like totally avoiding me already!  As in my batchmate-classmate in the 'til-12:30 class was avoiding eye contact with me right after class, and then go straight to meet up with his boyfriend Indian guy and have lunch together.  I was like, what's going on?  What did I do?  Lots of things happened since that first time they did not invite me to lunch, and well, I don't really know what caused all this to happen.  Do they feel insecure?  Or, fine, there's not so much "chemistry" (because mostly I start the conversation and they don't probably have any interest in other people or are ready with questions to ask or tools to interact), but to me I would at least exert some effort.  But no.

Well now, my attitude is, I have offered them my friendship and they have rejected it.  This is how they want it, and so this is how it will be.  We are but professionally related.  I don't need them and certainly I won't willingly offer them help unless asked to by our professors. They are not my friends.  But, of course they are not my enemies.

If you were wondering, I did not confront them about it anymore, (with the intention of confronting them diplomatically, of course) because well I think their culture is not like that.  These people have issues and instead of opening up to the challenge, they group together and wallow in their sadness.

So why am I even talking about them?  Like I said, we're just adding a little spice to this otherwise one-paragraph of a blog post. :-D  There is one other spicy story I have reserved for you in a future "boring" blog post. :-)