Oops, I Just Knew That I Have Religion...

I quite hesitated to put this here, because I think that the subject was too 'heavy' - I believe that the right to choose religion is one of the basic human rights, and no one has the right to influence other decision regarding of this. Anyway, I tried to make this as light as possible, and in the end, it is you yourself who have to choose the religion that you think is right (or not to choose at all...), because finally it is you who have to take all the responsibility that will ensue.

Yuri had to write a report about how Japanese think about religion, and since she thought that it would be interesting to include how non-Japanese think about it, she asked me to give some comments. For those of you who haven't known it yet, lots of Japanese have a quite strange perception about religion. For example, it's normal for somebody to celebrate Christmas on December 25th, while on new year eve 6 days later, he goes praying in a 神社 (jinja - Japanese shrine). Or it is also normal for someone to have his birth celebrate by a Shinto priest, pledge his wedding in front of Christian pastor, and have his funeral ceremony by a Buddhist monk. Quite a complicated religion... :-)

Well, anyway, when Yuri, me, and Yuka (who was also being kidnapped to help her :-) ), met in a family restaurant to talk about that, Yuri explained the outline of her report - while eating. She told us that she also wanted to put the background of major religions in the world (to make the report longer :-) ), and she was thinking about writing on Islam, Christianity, and Buddhism. She had already asked her other friend about Christianity, and she would write about Islam from my account. But when she wanted to add Buddhism, she knew no Buddhist to whom she could ask. If your social science textbook told you that most Japanese are either Shintoist or Buddhist, and you think that it should be easy to find a Buddhist here, well, you might need to add some correction in your book. I don't know the real fact either, but my Japanese friends told me (and so far I found so), that most Japanese believe no religion. And since both Yuri and Yuka also have no religion, they also have no clue about Buddhism.

Actually Buddhism can be checked quickly in internet, but we didn't have any internet connection at that time, so we couldn't do that. That's when Yuka got a bright idea: in Japan, there is a dictionary called 広辞苑 (kojien) which more or less can be used as an encyclopedia, due to it's detailed explanation on a word. And this dictionary is often available in an electronic dictionary - which three of us brought - and she wasted no time to find the explanation and started dictating it to Yuri. The explanation was quite detailed, she could even find about the praying ritual that a Buddhist has to do.

"The Buddhist had to do a praying ceremony twice a day in the morning and evening in front of the small altar... hey, wait a sec, I do this kind of ceremony everyday... that means that I'm a Buddhist!", Yuka looked quite perplexed.

Yuri and I looked at Yuka disbelievingly. "You do the ceremony everyday, and you don't know that it was a Buddhist ritual?"

"No", Yuka was thinking for a while. "My grandpa told me to do that everyday, and I just do that. Of course I know that I'm praying while doing that, but I didn't know that I was praying for Buddha."

It looked like Yuri was trying to scan her memory - trying to check whether she might also belong to one of the religions - unconsciously :-).

Yuka's 'revelation' :-) brought a new topic to our chat: whether they believe in God or not, despite the fact that they don't have religion - or for Yuka - despite the fact that she thought that she didn't have religion :-).

"I believe that God does exist", said Yuri. "I may have no religion, but I believe that there's a greater power that arrange our everyday life."

Yuka also said that she believe in God, and that she even believed in the concept of fate and sin. "If you believe in sin, it will prohibit you from doing something bad, isn't it?"

That seemed to be the answer to a question that often being asked to me, about why people with religion sometimes still act badly. In the past, I had a preconception that a person with no religion was bad. However, after came to Japan and met lots of people with no religion but they still are good persons - even better than some people I know who proudly said that they have religion - I started to think that it's not just a religion that makes a person better. It is whether they really believe in God or not. I still believe that my religion is right, but by only having a religion, it won't make you a good person compared to anybody else. If you don't truly believe in God, if you don't truly believe in the concept of sin - that when a person does something bad, he will get a punishment equal to what he'd done - I don't think that you'd be a better person.

Our discussion - which actually out of the topic :-) - left Yuri with lots of material (and lots of work :-) ) to put in her report. Anyway, she said that she would use our conclusion for her report: It is not by having religion that made us a better person - if you don't actually believe in God, it won't bring you any further.

By the way, I think Yuka's 'revelation' won't change her a lot from now on, given the fact that she had believe in God even when she still didn't know that she's a believer in any religion. It made her a good person - may be thousands times better than those who proclaim that they're a believer, but not practicing on what they believe.

The Last Days of My Twenties

Actually my birthday is in June, but since I didn't have time to write this at that time, I upload it now :-)

Yes, I turned 30 this year.

And like my any other previous birthday, this year's birthday was also special. One of it because some of my friends threw a surprise party for me - it really caught me by surprise (that's what a 'surprise' party suppose to mean, isn't it? :-) ). However, there's one problem...

"Happy birthday!", screamed everyone when I was entering Akki's place (I was invited to her place to have some small party, but I didn't know that it was for my birthday).
Surprised and astonished, and after made sure that my calendar not showing the wrong date, I replied, "Thanks! It's very nice of you all... but actually my birthday is still next week..."
And everybody quickly glared at Fujiko-san who provided the wrong date... :-).

Anyway, even though it was one week early, it was great. It also gave me time to realize that I'm going to leave my 20s, and that I should leave it with one memorable thing. But, with what?

After pondering for a while that 30 should mean that I'm not a kid anymore, and given the fact that I still spent lots of sleepless nights trying to complete an RPG recently :-), I finally decided that it's time for me 'to put my sword to rest' :-) and stop playing those games. That's why, when I got home, I started collecting those RPG games in my hard disk, and thinking about deleting them all on my birthday.

However, several turn of events swayed my decision.

First, Ishida - one of my juniors in lab - had problem with his computer and he asked my help. Thanks God that it was not a big problem, and within minutes it had already solved. While waiting for his computer to reboot, I pulled a nearby computer and started playing minesweeper :-).
Ishida noticed that, and said, "I like to play that too. But sometimes it's more than just logic, isn't it? Sometimes you also need luck to guess it right."
I agreed with him, but suddenly I remember that there is a cheat for minesweeper to know which block contains the mines (the 'xyzzy' stuff). Well, I thought it was a good chance for a little bit show up :-), so I stealthily activated the cheat, and turned to him, "you know, I can guess correctly which block contains the mines without opening them."
"Really?"
"Sure! Just see."
And in the next 3 minutes Ishida watched in awe as I cleared the mines one by one correctly. In the end I couldn't hold it anymore, I laughed and told him about the trick.

"This is awesome!", he was excited after tried it himself. And for the next 10 minutes, he was completely absorbed into the minesweeper... :-). I was going to tell him that it's just a basic trick, however, after thinking that he might ask me to show more advance tricks and spend the whole day trying them one by one if I told him so, I just let him toying with that :-). Anyway, I think Ari would protest if he find that I taught my junior to use cheat on games :-) (he's a 'pro' in games and often protested if he found me using 'unnecessary' cheat during games :-) ).

"I hope the trick doesn't make you play the game all the time and forget doing anything else", I told him after he finally could get out of his addiction :-).
"No problem. I usually do it only for a pastime. Everybody need a break sometimes, right?"

He made a point on that, and I was thinking about my RPGs, which are great companies during free times :-). May be I should not delete them all, I still can play them during holiday...
But after considering that RPGs take lots of time to finish (unlike minesweeper that can be solved even within seconds - I once saw Maul finished it in just 8 seconds), I shook off the idea, and decided to delete them all after all.

The second 'wind' that swayed my decision blew when I was analyzing my samples. You know, now that most of stuffs had been automatized, basically the process called 'analysis' had turn into 'hard work' consists of putting your sample inside the machine (0.5%), setting up the condition (0.5%), and waiting (99%) :-) . This left me with plenty of waiting time, and of course, my favorite way of killing time is playing minesweeper in the equipment's computer :-).

Horioka who happened to be doing her analysis in the room, laughed when she found me playing, but she soon followed suit. While playing I also showed her the trick, and her response was a carbon copy of Ishida :-).

"You know, sometimes we have a minesweeper competition in my lab... may be I can use this next time...", Horioka started to scheme up a nasty plan.
"Your lab has minesweeper tournament?", I startled. Well, in my lab we sometimes have a small sport tournament (like table tennis) - but computer games? I've never heard about it before! If my FPE gang were here, we could dominate and become kings here - well, at least in the game tournament... :-).
"It's informal tournament. Anyway, my professor also likes gaming. I heard that he sometimes plays Dragon Quest"
"Really? Actually I also play RPG, but I prefer Final Fantasy..."
"Me too! I also play Final Fantasy!"

And the talk expanding to all kind of FF stuff (like: which series is your favorite, which gold saucer date that you get when you play seven, and the like. You'll understand that if you're also into RPG :-) ). And without knowing it, the analysis of our samples was done... it should have been longer... :-)

"Actually, I will have an internship in the Philippines next month. I was thinking of bringing some RPG to complete there if I can found one", Horioka said while checking her data.
"Well, I still kept my copy of final fantasy 7... It's illegal, but if you don't mind about it, I can give you..."
"Really? Give me! Give me!"

I've seen others who also be full of energy when they talked about RPG :-), so I wasn't surprised to see her so enthusiastic (if I'm in her position, I'd act like her... or even worse.. oops, better... :-) ). When I got home, I quickly burned the FF7 into disc so I could give her the following day. While doing so, I took a look on the RPG files on my hard disk and gave a thought about it for a while. I finally set my mind not to delete them. I could really feel Horioka enthusiasm, and I know that I also always get that kind of energy anytime I play those RPGs. Well, for now I think I will really 'put my sword to rest', but I think there will come a time when I shall draw it again and go down adventuring in that fantasy land. Anyway, there will always be a kid inside of me, and I think he deserves to have some fun from time to time - and in return he'll fill me with spirit that will help me facing hardship in life. Growing up is not about quitting playing for the rest of your life, it is about to know when is the time to play, and when is the time to take something seriously.

Anyway, for the special memorable thing that I did for the last days of my 20s, finally I opted to do something else. Well, since it'll be more special if it's a secret, just let it be a secret , shall we? :-)

Question of The Decade, Part 2: Bride's Bouquet of Flower

(The words people said in this blog might be a little bit different from what they actually said, since besides they all spoke Japanese (and this blog is in English), I can't remember the exact words that they said. Anyway, the general story is okay, if my memory didn't fail me... :-) )

Yutaka and Miki got married this month, and they invited me to their wedding party. It was the first formal wedding party that I attended in Japan, and I worried that I would make mistakes (There are lots of trivial details in Japanese wedding such as the kind of envelope that you have to use when you present money to the couple, that even my Japanese friends have to consult their parents to get it right. Perhaps, even the parents need to consult their parents to get it right too :-) ). To avoid troubles, they told me to come with Akiko, their close friend. Akiko was actually the one who served as the cupid that introduced Yutaka to Miki :-), and for that reason they asked her to act as the MC for the party.
"If she's the MC, does it mean that she'll be busy most of the time?"
"We think so. But she doesn't have to come early, so you two can come together. I'll asked her about it."

It seemed that later Miki asked Akiko to contact me about the party. Akiko mailed me that her older sister would come with her boyfriend, so I could stay with the two while she is busy with her MC stuff. I was quite worried that I would disturb the couple's time together :-), but Akiko told me that she's sure that her sister wouldn't mind about it. So it was set. Now my only worry was that there would be loads of people who would asked me 'the question' at the party... :-) (Hey, it's a weeding party. What else do you think people would talk about there? :-) )

The day came, and the party started. Tomoko, Akiko's sister and her boyfriend were great companies. They even helped me by drinking my champagne during the cheers for the bride and the groom :-) (you know, I'm forbidden to drink liquor). The party went without problem, and I think it was a pleasant party indeed, since unlike what I've been afraid of, no one was asking 'the question' around. :-)

As we had thought, Akiko spent most of the time doing her role as MC. However, in between her job, she sometimes popped out in our place, stealing cakes from my plate :-).

Finally, it was the time for the bride to throw her bouquet. Akiko came to me, handed me her purse.
"Can you hold this for me? I wanna catch the bouquet, too."
I raised my eyebrows. "You're the MC right? Is it okay for you to go?"
"The bouquet catching is open for every single girl", she said, with a flash of nasty look in her eyes.
"Well, good luck! But the chance is one in a million, you know."
She laughed, and quickly darted beyond the balcony from where the bride would throw the bouquet. Not long that Miki showed up in the balcony. She turned her back to the audience, and threw the bouquet over her head.

And I don't know where the statistic went, but what I said to be one in a million really happened :-). The bouquet headed right to Akiko, and without much effort she caught it. (Well, it's not one in a million actually. There were around 30 girls beyond the balcony, so the odds was one in thirty :-) ).

Tomoko's boyfriend who stood beside me turned at me and said, "Congratulation! Akiko caught the bouquet!"
I was about to ask why he congratulated me, when I realized that lots of people there must have thought that Akiko was my girlfriend. Anyway, I couldn't blame anyone for that, given that we came to the party together, and the fact that she stole cakes from my plate should have added to their suspicion :-). I was wondering whether I should say that we're just friend, when Akiko came showing her bouquet.
"I got it! Smell it! It smells really good!"
Akiko poked the bouquet to my nose, and all that I could sniff was the smell of grass.
"It smells like grass", I said honestly.
She raised her eyebrows and smelled the bouquet.
"What did you mean? It smells good."
I smelled the bouquet again, and no matter how hard I tried, I still couldn't scent the smell that she meant. If not for the MC job that she had to do, perhaps we'd spend the whole afternoon quarreling over the bouquet's smell :-). Anyway, she returned to do the MC, and the next agenda was lunch. There was 1 hour allocated for that, but since Akiko had other things to do, basically she only had less than 10 minutes to eat. I thought that she wouldn't have the time to take the food herself and that she'd bug me again like what she did in the morning :-), so I anticipated by piling foods on my plate (anyway, if she's not coming, I could finish it all by myself... :-) ). Unfortunately, she did come to eat from my plate :-).

As we ate, the bouquet stuff came again to my mind. Some people believe that the person who catches bridal bouquet will soon follow the bride footstep, and I wonder whether Akiko wanted to get married soon. She's 23, and I don't know whether a girl of her age want to get married soon or not. So I asked her about that.
"I'm not planning to get married soon... why'd you ask?"
"You were running to the balcony as if Miki would throw 100 million yen there."
She laughed. "I don't believe in that superstition. I just think that it would be cool if I can catch the bouquet"
She then added while eating, "Of course, if there's a chance to marry, I will take it. But I don't want to put too much effort on it. Human relation is a thing to feel and enjoy, not to think and worry about. If I put too much effort to find that special someone, I think I won't be able to enjoy it."

A good reason indeed. I begin to wonder what's the reason that make people married, so when I had the chance to talk with Yutaka for a while, I asked his reason. Actually it was a simple reason:
"Well, we think that we can be happy together, so actually I and Miki planned to live together. However, Miki's parent didn't like about the idea. When I asked them whether they will allow me to marry her, they said it was okay, so I proposed her."

And he also offered me his groom's wisdom :-).
"Now that I got married, I won't tell you to follow me soon. It's your life, so it should be you who decide when you want to, and of course with who you want it to be done. But if you find someone that you really like and you think you can be happy spending your time with her, I think you should really consider the idea."

And I think I will take this wisdom of his. I won't wed just because I want 'the question' stopped from being asked to me. Even, for example, I finally get married and 'the question' be gone, other questions like "when will you have babies?" will come to replace. Those questions will naturally come one after another, and not a thing to worry about. I think the people who asked such questions are genuinely care about me, and all that they want is to wish happiness come upon me. Hearing lots of questions like that is actually the sign that people still care about me. The way to answer for their affection is to be happy, and do the thing that I think is best for me.

I and Akiko went home from the party together, and besides quarreling about the bouquet (yes, it's still on :-) ), we talked about all kind of things. She was funny and I really enjoyed her company. She was planning to rent a DVD, and she asked whether I could recommend one good horror movie. It's quite hard to pick one, since she'd seen most of the horror movies on my list. We stopped at DVD rental shop, and after a small venture to the part where the semi-x-rated movie was on display (It was unintentional. I mistakenly read the floor map of the shop, and we were wondering why DVD of horror movie would need to feature a cover with people dressed so provocatively :-) ), finally I picked "IT" for her (glad she'd not seen it yet). I was planning to rent Michael Keaton's Batman for myself when she saw me browsing batman DVD and asked whether I like Batman. I said yes, and then she asked: "Do you know that the new batman movie will be on screen on August? Wanna watch it together?"

Well, it's just a date. We might keep our relation as friend, or the relation might grow stronger. I don't know. Anyway, I wouldn't ponder to much on it. Like she said in the party, human relation is something to feel and enjoy, not to worry about. I won't stock pain upon myself by thinking a lot on what will happened next, I'll just let it goes naturally. She's a fine girl to have around, that's why I said I'd be glad to go with her. And for what's stored in the future for us, just let it be secret until it comes... :-)

("Question of The Decade" concludes here. I might find other interesting things to write related to the matrimony things, and at that time I think I'll use the title again)

Question of The Decade, Part 1: If The Prophecy Were Right...

I think everyone near my age know what is the question that I mean. If you still underage :-) and don't know what question is it, it's "When?" And for those of you who still act as if you don't know what's when, it's "when will you get married?" :-)

Believe it or not, I've heard the question asked again and again that little by little I've got used to it. I even had my lip automatically answer it: "Well, I still don't have the bride. Can you introduce one to me?"

Usually my friends just consider it as a joke, but some take it seriously. Some even try to advise me using fortune telling, like what happened when I went to Kuki (a city in Saitama prefecture) 2 weeks ago.
(I told you before that a lot of my friends here believe in fortune telling. Just read this blog if you haven't read it yet.)

I was invited to a BBQ party by Sekine family, and since it's been a while I didn't go there (and since party means lots of food :-) ), I went. Sekine family also invited many of their friends, and quite a lot people came, young and old. The party lasted until late at night, and because I already missed the last train to Tokyo, they told me to stay over that night. Some other guests had their home near by, so even though it's already late, more than 15 people still stayed and had a chat. Many of them were new faces to me, but still, we could hold a warm conversation (anyway, I was the only foreigner in the room and those people were eager to know more about foreign things :-) ). Topic of talk came one after another, and finally, came along the long expected theme: marriage (long expected? who's expecting it? :-) ). I was wondering who's among the people there who would (dare :-) ) to ask "the question", when Sumiko-san, the mother of Sekine family, look at me and asked it.
I felt every single eyes on the room focused on me and, instinctively, I answered with "the answer". :-)

Sumiko-san took a deep look at me for a while, then said mysteriously like professor Trelawney from Harry Potter :-), "I can help you found your girl of destiny if you told me your birthday"
She's rummaging a shelf behind her, and I was 100% sure that she's trying to get her crystal ball there :-). To much of my relief, it wasn't crystal ball or other medieval tools often found in a magical movie. Instead, she produced a book from there. I gave a peek on the cover and it said that it's about birthday fortune telling. :-)

Sumiko-san opened the book on my birthday and she mentioned a list of dates that, according to the book, should be the birthday of the girl of my destiny. There were around 7 dates (does it mean that I will have 7 girls of destiny? :-) ), and even though I don't believe in fortune telling, I tried to scanned my memory for those who born in those dates.
"Sorry, it seems that there's no one close to me now that was born on those days"
Tachihara-san, one of the guests, said, "I know one"
"Really?", I asked enthusiastically (over-enthusiastically for someone who said that he doesn't believe in fortune telling :-) )
"Yes, my daughter was born on that day... but as you know that she's still 9 years old now, you have to wait for 11 years if you want to marry her" :-) (For your information, here in Japan people come of age at the age of 20)

Of course she was joking. The topic of talk turned from marriage to fortune telling (at last... :-) ), however, one of the guests asked whether he might see my palm. I extended my palm to him, and after gave a glance on it for a while, he smiled and asked my age. I told him that I would turn 30 this year, and he smiled again (why do people have to be so mysterious when it come to fortune telling?).

I really had to to fight the temptation to say: "what did you see, master Yoda?" :-), when finally he said, "Don't worry, she'll come. Just do what you should do now, and when the time comes, you'll be ready"

I'm not trying to tell you that I believe in fortune telling now, but I try to use any good advice that people can offer me. It was a good advice of him (regardless what he saw on my palm was correct or not), that I should try to do what I can do today, enjoy everything that I only can do when I'm on my own, so that when the time for someone to step into my life finally comes, I can welcome her with no regret... (the question now is, will "that time" finally come? :-) )

Anyway, I think I don't need to hurry. If the prophecy were right, I still need to wait for 11 years until my girl of destiny coming of age, then I'll be ready to answer "the question" :-)

Why There's Not Much Sakura Tree in Tokyo University (Hongo Campus)

Well, I've never been to Hongo Campus of Tokyo University during spring, so I don't know whether the rumor is true or not. However, I often hear that Hongo campus very beautiful during autumn - which means that the trees there are dominated by Gingko or Maple - and not Sakura.

True or not, here's what I heard regarding the rumor. The first president of Tokyo University wanted to make the campus a conducing place for study, thus he tried to eliminate places that can be used for romantic rendezvous. And since the pink sakura is often closely related to romance, oops, the tree should also be 'banished' from the campus... :-)

I've tried to check in the internet about the fact, but I can't found any (either in Japanese nor English), so if you ever heard about it, please let me know... :-)

In contrary, TITech is very famous for its sakura - there's even a slope called ロマン坂 (romansaka - slope of romance) in TITech, where one side of the slope is adorned with sakura trees - so I think the president of TITech didn't bother at all about that romance stuff. Well, on the second thought, he didn't need to worry about it, since most of the TITech students are boys... :-) (But that's no problem at all. You can always invite girls to have hanami at TITech... ;-) )

Anyway, I'm glad that I went to TITech...

Monument in The City of Wind, And Why I Took Doctoral Course

Me try to mimic the liberty statue behind. taken by Eden in Odaiba. The picture has no relation with the story, but anyway, it's one of my picture with a monument in it... :-)

The shortest official reason for my taking this long gruesome course called Ph.D. is actually that Indy Jones has a Ph.D. degree :-) - you might think that's a joke, but trust me, it's half true... anyway, for you who didn't buy it, I have another story... hope you'll be convinced this time... :-)

February 2001, I was attending my BCR (Basic Consulting Readiness) training for "the Firm" (what I mean with "the Firm" is indeed "the Firm" :-), didn't help much, did it?). For team building exercise, the instructor assigned us to build a paper monument for a ruler company. The motto of the company was "inch by inch", which meant that the higher the monument, the better. They wanna build the monument in Chicago (because their headquarter was there), and if you can recall that Chicago is often dubbed as "City of Wind", it would imply an additional requirement: not only the monument should be high enough, it should also be strong enough to withstand the wind (in our exercise it's not a real wind actually, it's just the instructor blowing at our monument :-) ).

There are 19 of us, and we were divided into 4 teams, 3 teams would have 5 members and 1 with 4 members. It just happened that there were only 3 engineers there (of course, this is a management consulting company - we do fishy business here. No straight and honest engineer would be tricked to join us... :-) ). Basic arithmetic would show that should the engineers be divided evenly, one team would short of engineer - and the four-member team happened to be the team that missed the engineer.

And to give us a good motivation, the instructor offered champagne for the first prize and chocolate for the second prize, so we went to our team room with head full of champagne and chocolate... :-)

As I was the engineer in my team, by the time we got to our room, every single eyes quickly directed at me and the question that I was afraid to be asked was asked: " You're the engineer here, aren't you? What should we do?"
I tried my best to offer an honest answer without stirring a mass hysteria :-) : "Well, I am a (gas petro) chemical engineer, not civil engineer! I have no clue just like you are..."

I was wondering whether the other two engineers had the same problem as mine. Jin-il and Veronique were both mechanical engineers, and I was sure their knowledge of building a stable monument were just as much (or in this case: as less :-) ) as what I had, so I was save to think that it was a fair contest. My team started some trial and error, and finally we came out with a monument that high enough and strong enough to be presented.

Back to the training room, I could hardly hold my laughter as I saw Jinil's team and Veronique's team came up with more or less the same design as ours (you know, engineer's mindset :-) ). However, I was struck when I saw the fourth team design: it was completely out of common -sense, however, you didn't need to blow it to know whether it was the best: it was rock solid and twice higher than our team (and, for your information, our monument was the highest among the engineer-designed monument, so theirs was simply unbeatable in term of height :-) ).

To make it short, the instructor blew the monument one by one, and the non-engineer team won. Kim (the leader of the team) jokingly said that it was because his team had the less members that the quarrel was also less and they could focus more on creating the best monument. However, if you look closely to their team members, 3 out of 4 have a Doctoral degree, and if my memory didn't fail me, Vivian (one of their team members) got her Ph.D. in Physics (which means that she should be able to tackle the problem better than all of us engineers here... :-) ). Excuses excuses you might say, anyway, our teams got the second price (which was actually better for me since I cannot drink the champagne but any amount of chocolate are welcomed :-) )

In the night after the session, all of us went out for a drink. At that time I had the chance to talk with Dali (one of the Ph.D.), and he told me some about his doctoral course.
"It's not about the class or the research that you do during the course. It's about the experience that you can get. Being a student is one of the most privileged statuses that you can get, and with it you can go to a lot of place and enter a lot of society without much barrier. There you can get to know a lot of people and acquire a lot of thing. But if you close yourself and concentrate solely to your subject, there's not much that you will get."

The bottom line of what he said was: the more people you meet and the more things you try, it will bring you a lot of friends and perspectives, which will help you to win the champagne next time around... :-) well, I don't mind about the champagne at all, but it really gives me the reason to try the Ph.D. course...

Anyway, if you still didn't wanna believe that I want to take my doctor because of that story, just believe the Indy Jones's stuff, will you? It's much more simple... :-)

Out of Kotatsu and Through A Cold Winter Night

It is said that a lot of Japanese believe in superstitions. I don't know whether it is true or not, but a lot of my Japanese friends believe in fortune telling. If you wanna know how big the influence of this fortune telling, you can read below.

(By the way, I cannot mention any name here to protect 'the innocent'. The innocent that I mean here is me, not my friend. If she find that I write her name alongside this story, I think she's gonna kill me... :-) )

It was close to new year day, and one of my friends asked me whether I fancy to see the turn of year in a 神社 (jinja - Japanese shrine). I never been to a shrine in a new year eve and it should be interesting sight, so I accepted the offer. I came to her place around 8 pm, and while waiting until close to midnight, we sat in a 炬燵 (kotatsu - short legged table with heater), watched TV, drunk some hot tea... a really nice way to spend a cold night (it was winter, of course). The kotatsu was so cozy that the more the night grew, the less we wanted to crawl out of it, let alone to go to the shrine. The clock turned its hand to 11, and finally she said lazily, "It's cold outside. Why don't we just stay here and eat 年越し蕎麦?"(toshikoshi soba - soba (Japanese traditional noodle made from buckwheat) that usually eaten on the new year eve)

Of course I didn't mind at all. We continued watching TV, and the program happened to be a fortune telling program. It told you how your luck would be in the coming year, and it also mentioned the lucky item that you should have during the turn of year. I forgot what was the lucky item for my zodiac, however, I clearly remembered what the lucky item for 蠍座 (sasori-za - Scorpio (my friend's zodiac)): it was 甘酒 (amazake - sweet half sake).

And since it is well known that shrines usually offer free amazake on new year eve, you can easily guess what was my friend reaction: she jumped out of kotatsu, grabbed her coat, and said, "What are we waiting for? Let's go!"

Off we went, and in 30 minutes she got her lucky item for that night. I didn't know whether she got lucky after she drunk the amazake or not, but since the night was cold, it should be great to drink it. Unfortunately, I cannot drink it because it contain alcohol, but later we had our toshikoshi soba, enough to warm me up in that cold night... :-)

Well, I don't know whether faith can really move a mountain or not, but I know now that faith (in fortune telling) can get you out of kotatsu and through a cold winter night... :-)