Would you like to link to
this website? Please use
one of the buttons below. Thank you!
Webdesign & contents
by ClaireWorks.
Copyright 2000-2001
Beverly Claire L. Fangonon.
All rights reserved.
All graphics & photographs
by ClaireWorks,
unless otherwise indicated.
Hardee Har
Trees to the Rescue by Adrian Escandor
Prologue
Now I've a story for you. And it's about this sem's last exam. The exam is about Sendai City. After all that I've been through, that is, after all the exams and reports, I decided not to study for this particular exam and then see what happens.
Trees Are Meant To Be
Now exam day. There were three questions and the second one goes something like "Discuss the causes of development of Sendai after the Second World War." Wow, I thought. I can answer this with my hands tied up. And how did I answer that question, you may ask.
First, I explained that Sendai used to have a lot of trees, yes the city of trees. During the war, Sendai was heavily bombed. Ergo, the trees were annihilated. After the war, efforts have been made to reconstruct the pre-war preeminence of the city and lots of trees, imported types even, were planted. Then, I began to explain the the different types of trees on the face of the earth, including species that are to be found in Sendai as well as species common in Tonga. You bet, I managed to write several tomes about tree nomenclature alone, enough to make Diderot (of the French Encyclopedie fame) blush. Thereafter, I started my written harangue about the parts of the tree, trunk, root, roothair, everything. Then, I differentiated about the different differentiation of the still undifferentiated stem cells and blah, blah, blah. Then, I developed on the various theories about, in layman's term, the circulation of fluid in the tree, which naturally, led to a detailed exposition on the chemistry of plant growth, biochemistry, x-chemistry, you name it.
After that, I had a five-minute break, and during the break, it occured to me that it would be fulfilling to get a baton and lead the class to sing "Va pensiero" but since they are all ignorant about music, I decided to do the singing myself. I had difficulty choosing between "Nessun dorma" and "Casta diva", although it caught my fancy that the latter is best suited as regard the room's acoustics. To my consternation, the break was over before I could even open my lungs. So with reserve, I continued the exam.
It took me a few sighs to wrap up the exam, the last part consuming about a score of volumes on the effects of darkness on the photosynthetic cycle. I ended up with the conclusion that scientists, real and pretender, including me of course, me being the voice of all the scientists, should be rewarded Nobel prizes in all fields, with me getting two, one in chemistry and one in marketing. The rationale for the last one being the fact that Dilbert advised those with itchy elbows to show him their butts and after careful examination, would be advised to take a career in marketing.
Prologue
I'm planning to visit Tonga, and then invite myself to a Lucullan feast afterwards, to reward myself for being able to convince one of my teachers that my Japanese is so bad I can't even write my name in katakana, italics or what. The teacher managed a harangue in astentorian voice telling me of my right as per article so and so of the Tohoku Magna Carta, to write whatever tickles my imagination or non-imagination, apparently in order for others to to know that living like a bon vivant like yours truly instead of burning the midnight gas (because of the cold!) wouldn't do them any good. That left my poor classmates with no choice but eat their pencils in despair, wishing they should've boiled their notebooks and drank the puree; but even then, that would've not been enough to subjugate the worms in their stomach which are causing their university-entrance-proof but now muddled gray matters to squirm as if bedeviled by scores of unwavering gadflies.
I've been planning, since the day a horrendous torrent of reports caught me unawares (I assure you I still don't know what hit me), to buy me a laptop. But here's a check to Claire's adrenaline surge: I'm not thinking of surfing cyberspace (yet) using my "own" money. It's anathema to my new, self-imposed feed-your-little-piggy program, though it's rather of immense pleasure indulging oneself with pork one didn't work for.
I'll be off to the Philippines for a couple of weeks or so to rejuvenate myself. I've yet to set the date of my departure because of some still unfinished reports! Damn the day students were first required to write those stupid things.
I think I hear somebody shouting "darn".
About the Author
Adrian "Bon Vivant" Escandor, from the Philippines, is currently a student of Biology at Tohoku University up in Sendai City, northern Japan. The above article is actually an email I got from him, which he allowed me to publish as an essay. He's a good friend of mine, and the main culprit in my interest with opera. When friends visit my apartment, they are usually surprised to see a shelf of fat opera CDs. "Blame Adrian", I would say as an answer to their curious stare. Adrian can name most classical music tunes in three notes or less, and grandly conducts the phantom symphony orchestras in his head. He speaks passable French, but is better at singing Italian in his role as the Fourth Tenor.
About the Author
