My TV Interview

I had been interviewed for a TV program on the local cable TV...

Interviewer: So you have mentioned before that you were the valedictorian during your first year to third year high school, isn't it? But can I ask you what happened when you were in fourth year high school?

Eric : Oh well, I graduated salutatorian by that time.

Interviewer: Salutatorian? That's strange. You were the consistent valedictorian for three years and then you suddenly graduated as salutatorian? How did that happened?

Eric : How can I say this? Uh-oh, I was just informed by our class adviser a few days before the graduation that I didn't make it to the valedictory position. That's it.

Interviewer: How did that happened? Was it with the grades?

Eric : Yes, actually our class adviser told me that all of them (ed.: the teachers) really regretted that I didn't make it. She told me that it had just been a matter of a very small difference in the general averages.

Interviewer: How did that happen?

Eric : Simply that when they computed the general averages, mine was a few decimals lower than that of the class valedictorian.

Interviewer: And who was the class valedictorian? Was he or she a real contender for the valedictory position?

Eric : I opt not to mention the name. Yes, he was a contender for the post. He always ranked next to me in the last two years prior to graduation.

Interviewer: Two years only? What about during the first year?

Eric : Oh, he was a transferee. He just came to the school during our second year.

Interviewer: That was really strange. You were ousted by a transferee.

Eric : Strange as it was but it was true. It happened.

Interviewer: So you mean it was just because of the grades. You mean that you didn't do well during the last year?

Eric : Of course I did well all the time. The problem at that time was I think the teachers themselves.

Interviewer: What do you mean by that?

Eric : I knew that they were playing with the grades ever since.

Interviewer: Playing with the grades? You mean altering the records, like that?

Eric : Not really altering the records. By they already did the magic even before entering the grades in the records.

Interviewer: How were you sure about that?

Eric : During that time that our class adviser informed me about it, she showed to me my grades and the grades of the class valedictorian.

Interviewer: And what did you find out?

Eric : That the class valedictorian really had the advantage over me. There was a great difference in the grades. His grades were higher than mine in almost all of the subjects.

Interviewer: But you mentioned earlier that the difference was just small...

Eric : What they did was that they combined the grades during our third year and fourth year high school, and divided the sum by two.

Interviewer: Eh? Is that so? Is that really how it was computed?

Eric : I was also surprised upon knowing that. All I know was that all that would matter would be those only during the fourth year.

(I haven't finished transcribing the interview from the video tape.)

At last, Touhoku University!

Graduate School of Information Sciences, Touhoku University
Sendai City, Japan

*Blog for January 24-25, 2005

I was not able to sleep well last Sunday night because of my excitement in going to Touhoku University. I was to attend a 2-day seminar on number theory and combinatorics. I was excited not only to the fact that I would be going to a top university in Japan, not only because I will be meeting Prof. Munemasa (according to my academic supervisor, he will transition me to Prof. Munemasa for my Ph. D. program) but also because I would be going there on my own. My supervisor just gave me a map and told me what bus to ride to go there. Feeling that I still do not have enough information to reach the place, I search in the web how to go there. Luckily, I found a very detailed one. It was saying that I should take either of the four bus routes going to the university campus and get off at the "Graduate School of Information Science" stop. The bus will be picking up the passengers from bus stop No. 9 which is located in front of the Metropolitan Hotel Sendai which is at the west exit of the station.

I forced myself to sleep even just for two hours. I fell asleep at about 4:30 am, two hours later; I got up and prepared to leave. I got to take the 7:56 am bus from Yamagata. The bus was scheduled to reach Sendai in an hour so I was still able to sleep, I thought. Yes, I slept while on the bus but the bus came a bit late. It was already 9:10 when it reached the Sendai station. I quickly headed to the Sendai station and looked for the west exit. I saw a sign pointing to the west exit and I followed it. I was able to see some bus stops but those were Nos. 39-41. I just walked following the direction of the arrow. After walking for about 5 minutes still not finding the bus stop No. 9, I turned back and walked back the station. I thought I was already lost so I asked a Japanese woman who was sweeping the street. She was not sure where it was but told me to wake further and turn right. I followed her instructions but apparently, it was still not the bus stop I was looking for. I was already worried as it was already 10 minutes before the seminar starts and I was still looking for the bus stop. All of a sudden, I saw the big building to the left of the station with the sign "Metropolitan Hotel Sendai". I was a bit stupid as I forgot to look for it. I found the station and it was good that the bus arrived the moment I reached the bus stop.

Inside the bus I found no seats available except for two orange seats. Most of the seats were green. I was a bit wondering why the two seats were orange but I still took my seat there. Then I noticed a sign over the seat where I was seated and it was saying "for the elderly and the disabled" (of course, written in Japanese). I though of standing up and to move to another seat but as there were no empty seats anymore, I just kept on sitting there. I am a foreigner so they might think that I could not read Japanese. Anyway, I gave up my seat when an old man got on the bus.

The Touhoku University campus reminded me again of my former university, the University of the Philippines (UP). Buildings are located distantly from one another so students are taking buses to come in. We seldom had buses in UP but we always relied on the jeepneys for transport. The campus itself is in a mountain area so there are many trees.

I came in the seminar 10 minutes late. It was of course; quite embarrassing but it was a good thing that my supervisor was not yet there. He arrived ten minutes later. The lecturers were all Japanese except for a Korean professor. Their talks were in Japanese but their transparencies are in English so it had been quite convenient for me.

At about 12:40 pm, we had the lunch break. They gave away maps of the campus with information as to where we can find cafeterias. In the building where we were having the seminar, there was no cafeteria and the next cafeteria could be reached by taking a bus. I didn't want to bother myself in getting on a bus again. Besides, I am bad with maps so I did not dare using it to look for food. All I could remember in the map was there was a booth where I could buy boxed lunch ("bentou").I thought that I had put a bread in my bag before going that morning so I think that would be enough. But as I was walking outside looking for a place where I could eat my bread, I noticed that I forgot to bring it. Ouch! My stomach feels very hungry. I just walked to the nearby Faculty of Science hoping that they have a cafeteria. I checked the building directory looking for a canteen or cafeteria ("shokudo") but I was not able to find one. I thought I would just give up the idea of eating lunch and that I would just endure my hunger until the seminar ends. I just walked to the next building, Department of Earth Sciences to kill the time. As I entered the building, I immediately saw a sign, "Place for selling bentou". Bingo! That was the place where I could buy boxed lunch. A few minutes then I was found walking along the road looking for a place where I could eat my lunch. I could not find a place so I just decided to eat in the waiting shed in the bus stop. Some students saw me eating in the waiting shed but I didn't give them a damn. I was hungry and they could nothing to help. Instead, I am a foreigner so that I could just pretend that would think that I didn't know that I was not supposed to eat there.

The seminar ended for the day and I went back to Yamagata. I was very busy that night as I was to submit my speech script the following day, and a Korean friend was also asking me to translate a Physics article in English to Japanese. I barely had 3 hours of sleep then. To cut the long story short, I came late again at the seminar, 15 minutes late to be exact. My supervisor was already there.

My supervisor was the last one to present and the seminar ended at about 5:10 pm. My supervisor left without asking if I would like to go with him back to Yamagata so I assumed we had to go home separately. But before going back I thought of walking around the Sendai station to look for electronic shops. I would like to buy a memory stick for my camera. I entered a building and climbed up to the seventh floor. I didn't find any electronic store but instead, I saw a bookstore. I decided that I would just check out the books there.

Incidentally, I met my supervisor there. He asked me how I knew the place. I just told him that I was just walking around. Then he just told me that it was the biggest bookstore in Sendai.

I was very exhausted and very sleepy these past two days because of the seminar. But for the following day, I still needed to prepare for my seminar with my supervisor.

January 30, 2005
Yamagata, Japan

Whatta Sunday!

I was to attend the 9:30 am Japanese mass but I woke up at exactly 9:48 am. Father will also have the afternoon mass but in another place one-and-a-half hour from our place. So I just felt weak missing the Sunday mass.

Over lunch, the idea of buying a dig cam popped into my mind. Incidentally, I will be attending a math seminar in another university tomorrow so I wouldn't want to miss the opportunity of documenting my presence there through pictures. And besides, I want to take some snow pictures also outside while the roads and fields are still white with snow.

Good thing that I was really to withdraw money from my bank account as I was already running out of cash for tomorrow's trip so I also put out some for the cam. I went to Super Denkodo and checked out their cameras there. I liked two models... one from Sony and another one from Fujifilm. I took note of the model numbers and the corresponding prices and headed to another electrical appliance shop, Yamada Denki.

I didn't think that going to Yamada Denki was one bit of a hell. Using the bicycle, I can go there from Super Denkodo in about 15 minutes. But as it is winter, I was not able to bring my bicycle. So I had no choice but to walk. And dangers of all dangers, the road was very slippery. These past few days the temperature had gone up a bit so that some of the snow melted. But today the temperature dropped to negative again so the melted snow turned to ice… yeah, hard slippery ice on the road. Can you imagine doing ice skating using your own shoes? I almost slipped a number of times so I just stepped over the snow for a good grip. It took me about 20 minutes to reach my destination.

Luckily, I saw lower prices in Yamada Denki-not only lower prices but more models in their line up. I was just expecting to buy the one like model I saw in Super Denkodo but I ended up bringing home a more expensive one. Just a bit... about 3,000 yen more. But the features are almost the same though the shape and feel is better, except for a few more enhancements. The main reason that drove me to finally give in to buying was the price. They lowered the price by about 11,000 yen! What a nice bargain. Then I used up all of my points (like the one in the Reward Plus program) so I got another 6,000 yen price down. So in the end, the register displayed 35,000 yen and some amount. Not bad, as compared to the original price of 52,000 yen.

I hurried back to Super Denkodo's area so I could catch the last bus at 5:15 pm. It seemed that I wouldn't make it to the bus but I just walked that fast so I was still able to manage to buy some pastries before getting into the bus. But I was really exhausted. Anyway, I am happy as I already have a cam and I did exercise for about 40 minutes.

I will just call it a day by refreshing myself in the bathtub. See you!

January 24, 2005
Yamagata City, Japan

Getting Cyber geeky... once again!

I almost did nothing for today. My day started by going to my volunteer work. I biked all my way amidst the strong snowfall. I forgot to bring my bonnet; neither could I use my umbrella while riding the bike as it would be very dangerous to drive it with only one hand as the road was very slippery. But thanks heavens that I was able to come to the place safely. I taught Japanese today to a Filipina child. We had a simple lesson for today, but it seemed that she was ahving a hard time answering the exercises. The child looks smart. But according to her, as there are lots of lessons being pushed into her head, she can barely remember everything. While we were discussing the lesson, a group of media people came and interviewed me and the child for their documentary program. We were both shy and nervous as the interview was in Japanese.

By 12 o'clock, we finished our lesson and I just had lunch in an affordable fast food stop. After going back to my place, I checked my mails and chatted with some friends. By 3:30 pm, I hurried to catch the free shuttle bus to the supermarket and I did my grocery for the week.

Going back to my room, I immediately tried my new webcam and microphone. To my surprise, the microphone was working but the camera was not. It seemed like it was not compatible to Yahoo! Messenger. But I could use it with MSN Messenger.

Late at night I remembered my Obando website. I created a website about my hometown a long time ago and I thought of putting English, Spanish and Japanese versions on the web. At least those are the languages that I pretty understand aside from my mother tongue. While I was searching for my webpage (I already forgot the URL.), I saw another webpage containing the exact material as mine. I want to mention it here that a person copied my web pages and claimed that he redesigned it. Poor boy, by just changing the background picture, he was taking part of the credit. He mentioned that the original design was mine but he never informed me that he would be using my webpages for his own homepage. Oh well, here is the URL of the perpetrator: http://www.geocities.com/albinoski/obando.html.

Mine is http://www.geocities.com/obando81.

Now launching my English to Japanese/Japanese to English translator software, and AltaVista’s Babel fish translator as my aids, I am painstakingly translating the Tagalog material about Obando to English, then to Spanish and lastly to Japanese. Let us see if the cyber thief will still rob my work.

I am getting serious into making my Obando web pages a nice one. I am also thinking of going back to the Philippines to take more pictures of the Obando church. I also want to make more research about the Obando fertility dance. I am also hoping that I can find video clips featuring the dance. Aside from this, I am also planning to include church information regarding our church here in Yamagata. I hope to upload the developments soon. My a-few-years old HTML genes are now getting in action again. I first learned HTML in the UP Math Department when we were supposed to build the department's website but due to unexpected circumstances, the project did not pushed through. Anyway, the little training I had led to the creation of my own webpage.

January 23, 2005
Yamagata City, Japan

Welcome to the Wonderful World of Erikku

Hello everyone!

This is my very first The Wonderful World of Erikku entry. Erikku is the Japanese pronunciation of my name, Eric. When I was born, my grandma Precy, found my name in a book and Eric means ever king. Yes, if you may want to ask... I am a king. Actually, everyone is a king or a queen in his own or her own right. So, what a nice way to have my welcome remarks as I open this new web log!

Well, as I have entered in this blog's description, I will try to chronicle every event in my everyday life. Today (I mean, yesterday, January 21), is just another ordinary day for me. It is a Friday so I was excited for the coming weekend. Ever since I got to work, I fell in love with Saturday and Sunday as they are the least stressful days for me. But I should admit that I fear Sunday nights as they signify that the following day is the beginning of another week.

Maybe this is just an idea of a stressed person. Yes, I should admit that I am stressed. I had been stressed since I started to feel awkward against my work. But I will put it aside for another article. I will not overload the minds of people reading this article who do not know me. (Who am I to assume that there are people reading my article except me?) Oh, well. It must have been one of my expectations in signing up for a web log account, right?

So going back to what happened to my day today... I set my alarm last night to wake me up by 7:30 am. Then when it woke me up, I begged for another half an hour and adjusted it to 8:00 am. Ever since this winter had started, I am having a hard time getting myself up. I always crave for longer sleeping hours. Anyway, I deserve it since I always sleep late. My earliest bedtime is about 2:00 am. Whether it is still an aftermath of my stressful office life way back in the Philippines, or if it is an occurring personal imbalance while I am here in Japan, it is inevitably giving me problems. Most especially in making it to class on time. Japanese are known to be punctual. And Filipinos are known to be the opposite. As expected, I came late to my Japanese language class. As I got up merely ten minutes before my class starts, even though I used my bike on my way to school (knowing that it is dangerous to bike over snow), it is a known fact that I will still not make it on time. Shameful as it may be, but I am always coming to my Japanese class late. And it is mainly attributable to my uncomfortable sleeping habit.

After the Japanese language class, I proceeded to attend my Topology sit-in class (sit-in class: a class that I attend without getting credits, merely for listening only). The professor mentioned that he will continue from where he finished last week. Oh no, they had class last week? Last week, the clerk in the International Student Section told us that there would be no classes on Friday (of last week) as there would be preparations for the upcoming Center Examination on the weekend (of last week). Instead of going to class, she asked me and my fellow international students to join a Kouryuukai (Exchange Assembly) with Japanese junior high school students. So it appeared to me that she only made lie to us. I will set aside my comments about her on a separate article.

After about thirty minutes (1/3 of the class period), I started to feel sleepy. The topic was interesting. The only thing was it was in Japanese. I have been taking Japanese lessons for about 7 months already but those 7 months of study are still not yet enough to make me understand everything inside a lecture. It is a good thing that Topology has many illustrations incorporated in it so those illustrations helped me a lot not to fall asleep while in class.

After my Topology class, I proceeded to the canteen where I had another share of their daily buffet. Daily as in they serve the same dishes everyday. It can be considered luck already that they occasionally change some of the dishes, but the main courses are always the same over and over again. After having my lunch, I felt satiated and I went to the International Students' Exchange Room to surf the internet. My Thai friend told me that the clerk of the International Student Section informed him that starting next fiscal year, our monthly stipend will be given to us via a post office account so we need to open a new one. Hearing this, I thought of it as another messy thing. We already have our bank accounts in the leading city bank here and already made auto-debit arrangements for our electricity, phone, gas and other bills. Now here comes the clerk informing us to have another bank account-this time, the one in the post office. Oh well, another procedure to be undertaken. Another thing that we have no choice but to follow.

After that I went to see the coordinator of the Japanese language class to ask her permission to absent myself from the Japanese class during Monday and Tuesday of next week. I will be attending a math seminar in a nearby university so that I will not be able to attend my Japanese language classes for two days.

I was about to go back home when I remembered to borrow books on Complex Analysis in preparation for my weekly seminar on Wednesday.

That ended my day outside my room. Now I am spending about five hours in front of the computer. And I finished my first article for my new blog. I hope you enjoyed it.

I am planning to incorporate bits of information about myself in my future articles, for the sake of readers who still don't know me. I am looking forward to that.

January 22, 2005
Yamagata City, Japan