Furuzawa's Firework

Fujiko-san invited me to see firework in her house. Actually the firework was held in Tokyo bay, while her house is in Magome (if you never been to Tokyo, the two places quite far from each other), so, in order to be able to see the firework, we went to the top of the building (Fujiko-san lives in 5-story mansion) and stand among the antenna and water tank :-).

Here is one of the pictures...

Body Fat Percentage

When my lab wants to throw solid waste from experimental room, we need to report its weight beforehand. And since our lab doesn't have balance big enough to measure in the order of few kilograms, it usually becomes a problem when the disposal season comes.

Lucky that Makii has body balance, so we use hers to measure the weight. Anyway, the body balance is quite sophisticated, and it can also measure the body fat percentage. Makii offered to measure mine, and I 'boldly' accepted the offer. And the result is... 5%.
"I think I need to add some more weight", was the first comment that came from my mouth.
"I wish I have the luxury of saying something like you have just said", commented Makii.

Birthday Pudding

UNESCO fellows threw a birthday party for me (well, not only for me actually :-) ) and because there was no birthday cake, Carmela used pudding as birthday cake...
Overall it was a great party. As far that I can remember, that was my first birthday party involving lots of karaoke :-)

Playboy in Cinema

I went to watch movie with Yoshirin and Aki at Shibuya, and that was the first time out of my hometown that I went to a cinema with free seat - the earliest you come, the best seat you can get.
And after looking around, I notice that Playboy magazine is one of the spensor of the cinema - the name of the magazine written close to the screen.
Well, at least we not went to see 'that kind' of movie... :-)

Day of the thieves

Our lab had to be the umpire for baseball tournament of chemical engineering department, and the job including bringing the equipment to the field. Since there was noone else in the lab and the time for the game was drawing near, Makii asked me to help her taking the equipment (it supposed to be the job of B4).

Quite interesting task: first we had to enter the factory building of Aida lab, and we need to enter combination key to unlock the door (it was so early that nobody's there...). Passing the 'first test', we need to search where the equipment was. Cannot find it, Makii opened the emergency door, thinking that the equipment was behind the door... and the sirens started to wail :-) (we didn't know that it will trigger the sirens...). Since the security personnel would soon be arrived, we hurried searching - and finally found it on the top floor. We quickly go out with the equipment, passing the incoming security personnel without drawing any suspicion... and completed the task :-)

Later Makii told me that it reminded her to Da Vinci Code... Well, it was indeed one cool adventure in TITech :-)

Furuzawa Scholarship

My friend 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 guest 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 thing that made me decided to stay for my Ph.D. It always great to be surrounded by those kind of friends...

City Hunter

I went to Tokyo Animation Fair and found this announcement board - the one that comes out in City Hunter. Hmm, come to think of it, I should have strike a cooler pose there... :-)