Furuzawa Scholarship

I first published this entry in my other blog, but since my friend told me that I should have put this in wierdo's spiel, I put it here also...

My friends often asked me how would I pay for my doctor course when they heard I planned to apply for Ph.D course, and usually I answered in jest, "I heard that you offer scholarship. May I apply?"
Most of the times my friend also reply jokingly, like Yoshizawa-san that said I already failed the test for Yoshizawa scholarship, or Yanagita that said that the Yanagita scholarship is worth 100 yen per month - barely enough to buy soft drink :-). That's why when Fujiko-san asked me the same question, I replied, "I heard that Furuzawa Scholarship (Furuzawa is Fujiko-san's family name) seeks for new scholars. May I apply?". And as always, Fujiko-san just laughed.

One day Fujiko-san had two Mexicans home-staying at her home, and she invited me to come over and have dinner with them. The dinner was fun - as usual - and since one of her guest like Uno a lot, we ended up playing Uno after the dinner finished. At that time Fujiko-san handed me five 10-yen coins. Seeing me having no clues on what I should do with the coins, Fujiko-san said, "You need it for the game. We bet."
"I can use my money then..."
"That's Furuzawa scholarship. You use it on the game, and let's see how much you can win. May be you can pay your school fee with that."
(Of course she was kidding. There's no way I can get more than 260 000 yen out of 50 yen in just one night :-). And that's why I also didn't explain to her that my religion forbid me to use money from gambling.)

The game went quite fast, and when it was close to 11 o'clock I've already multiplied my money three times :-). Actually the guests still wanted to play, but they had plan from early in the morning the next day, and I also have to go to my lab, so we stopped.

"You played well. I'll invite you again next time we play", Fujiko-san told me when I left. We think that if I can play like that every time, I might really able to pay my tuition fee with that :-).

Anyway, the guests returned to Mexico several days later, and we didn't have sparring partner anymore :-). I finally got scholarship from Itoen, however, Fujiko-san sometimes still invited me to have dinner with her friends and family - that may be part of Furuzawa scholarship :-).

Come to think of it, not only Fujiko-san, my other friends are also supportive during my stay here. May be that's one of the things that made me decided to stay for my Ph.D here. It's always great to be surrounded by those kind of friends...