Behind the Scenes

Katherine Bagarinao

A long, long time ago, in a place called UP:

I looked over my solution to the problem set our professor in electromagnetics gave us. The equation has an unwanted factor of three. It shouldn’t be there. There was something wrong. I asked my classmate about it, and she couldn’t find the glitch in the derivation either. “Go ask Baggy,” she said. “He’s at the 3rd floor”. The 3rd floor of the library consisted of journals and other special books. “Baggy?” I asked. As in baggy pants? I stifled a laugh. Who would name their kids Baggy? Weird name notwithstanding I should seek him out. Hmm. I haven’t personally talked to the guy, never even properly introduced myself. But whatever. Desperate situations call for desperate measures. We went to the 3rd floor in search of “Baggy”. I’d seen him around. It wouldn’t be that hard to find him. We found him in one of the carrels. Bent over his book. Looked studious to me. Cautiously I approached first. I asked timidly, “Err…Baggy?” “Yes?” he asked/said. Now, girl. No need being shy here. Humirit ako. “Baggy puwede bang paturo? Ito kasing solution eh merong extra factor…ewan ko kung pano nagkaroon non,” I said without fluttering an eyelid. I showed him my solution, a hodgepodge of equations and such which I couldn’t remember anymore now. He went over the equations one by one while we stood there beside him. I did the same. And then, in a sudden dawn of enlightenment, I found the glitch! There you are! I almost slapped my forehead in surprise at my discovery. “Gee, thanks anyway. I found it,” I said. I pointed out my mistake in the derivation. And I thought you were the genius? Then he just smiled at me. Nice going, girl, I thought. I looked back at Baggy with a stupid smile on my face.

That wasn’t the last of it. We started a commensalistic type of relationship soon afterwards. I asked the favors, he supplied them. Aside from being overwhelmingly accommodating, I soon found out that Baggy didn’t charge for his services either. I’m a girl, I couldn’t help it. I took advantage of the opportunity to benefit from his gray matter. I asked him to help me out in solving physics problem sets, debug the programs I wrote (and make them work), anything! He was always there to help me out. Later on he would kid me that it was my way to get closer to him. Style bulok daw ako.

Pretty soon we forged an unacknowledged gastronomic bond at the dining table. We started eating together. Lunch and merienda at CASAA, dinner at Rodic’s. We explored different hideouts - Pizza Hut, KFC, Jollibee … you name it. We liked eating together. Pretty soon everybody was asking about us. Why are you guys always together? Is there something going on? Deny, deny, deny. He’s just my eating partner!!! No big deal about that. But it wasn’t until that time at Rodic’s, with my thesis adviser tapping on the glass window and snickering at us, was I forced to take a hard look at what was developing between us. Fortunately for both of us, it was more than just an eating relationship. But hey I will not go into the mushy stuff. It destroys the appetite.

The rest is history. We decided to extend our eating endeavors to sushi and sashimi as well … and Japan notwithstanding; the bond has remained true and strong. Looking at the way things have turned out, I’m more than glad for that glitch in my EM solution.

top

"In man's search for knowledge,
he discovers his weaknesses
and rediscovers his strength
in HIM."