7:58 A.M.
Given that it's a Saturday morning, normally this would be a time I'd dread waking up around. But today is different - I feel anxious, like a child who can't wait for the day to change to December 25th so they can wake their parents up at 12:01, thinking it'll work.
Maybe I'm not that excited, but I'm still itching to get to the destination. It doesn't help that the past few days have sped by so quickly, with nothing to speak of ever since I met Akira again.
The itch could very well be the new suit I've decided to wear for the occasion as well. I'm thinking I should have at least gotten it dry cleaned before I hopped in this morning.
A sea of green and brown scrolls by the window as Mutou and I drive to a city about ninety minutes away from Yamaku, the sound of an early-morning news station blending with purr of the small hybrid engine.
"Looking forward to it?" the man in the driver seat asks.
Whereas I've thrown on what might be the most professional outfit I've ever work; Mutou has decided to attend in his usual attire. That iconic brown duster, paired with a pair of black slacks and a dress shirt of the same color. Not much coordination there, but he never appeared to be the type to worry about such things - especially since it seems like he never combs his hair. Or shaves more than once a week.
"Yeah." I reply, eyeballing the program in my hands once more.
It's a two-day event, but we've only made time to go for a few hours today. Most of the events, however, seem like they'd be above the level of even a hardened college student.
A trip to the 11th dimension? Supergravity? Those sound like concepts that could be the title of a sci-fi book, and yet at 11:00 A.M there's going to be a published theoretical physicist giving an hour-long lecture over the topics.
I recognize a few of these subjects, but even then I only have a vague knowledge of them. Global Warming is something I think I know enough about to have an opinion on, but I'm sure the lecture about it is just going to turn my brain and everything I know inside out.
But for every subject I think I understand; there's at least three that elude my understanding altogether.
"What's a 'Higgs Boson?'" I ask aloud, tilting my head in confusion.
For some strange reason; my vision transitions from the sight of a beautiful morning countryside to a slideshow of terror as the sound of screeching brakes fills my ears.
Wait, no, whyAREWESTOPPINGTHECAR?!
"The Higgs Boson is a theoretical particle that..." Mutou calls out, having to yell over the sound of his tires dragging across the asphalt, right there in the middle of the highway. The wheel jerks back and forth in his hands as the car's steering tries to fight against his absurd commands. At one point he has to yank it off center to keep from slamming into an oncoming truck, not the least bit fazed as a slew of scientific jargon billows from his mouth.
We slow to a sudden halt, almost throwing me into the dashboard before my science teacher turns to me and begins to gesture with his hands. His mouth opens and closes as he tries to find the right words to complete his explanation, most of which has been droned out by the sound of my heart on the verge of exploding.
"...Never mind." he concludes, shaking his head as a sigh escapes his throat.
WHATDOYOUMEANNEVERMIND?!
"We might be here all day if I try to explain that. Let's get to the symposium so you can learn about it from someone with a little more exp-"
For the first time he looks over and sees me clutching my chest, eyes widened in fright.
"Hey, are you okay?" he asks.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Just not very good with surprises." I answer.
He reverts to his calm demeanor, gradually accelerating back to highway speeds before someone can ram into us, meanwhile I'm still left clutching my chest in pain, wincing as my heart throbs against my sternum. I'm not sure if Mutou knows it, but surprises don't really work too well with my condition.
******************
"We're late." Mutou grumbles.
Of course we're late. We just spent half an hour trying to find a parking spot. I knew there was going to be at least a thousand people here, but couldn't a few of them carpooled or something? Maybe some of the more accomplished scientists decided to drive both of their expensive cars here just to show off.
Speaking of which; every other car here is a Prius. I've lost count of them, in fact - there's got to be at least twenty in this single lot alone, not counting the one we drove in with.
I wonder if all of the people here dress like Mutou. He's about as close to a genuine 'scientist' as I can see, discounting all the faces I've seen in the news over the years. Imagine that, a mob of young to middle-aged men all with unkempt hair and tan longcoats.
He checks his watch and grimaces. "We're going to miss the lecture on genome mapping I wanted to attend, but if we hurry we can still get to the one on global warming."
I nod and follow him as he steps off to a building around the corner.
"Do you know anything about global warming?" he asks from over his shoulder.
"Only a little. I've never really worried about it." I reply.
"I hope you're not the worrying type. The first time I heard this program I went out and bought a new car." Mutou responds with a chuckle.
"It's a shame he hasn't changed his content in five years, though. Maybe there'll be something different this time." he muses, thinking back to past events.
It's apparent that he comes here every year, so he's gotta know where to go; but could he at least mention some directions? It doesn't help that he walks so fast. I've never really seen him outside of class, so I can't tell if this is his normal walking speed, or if he's just ecstatic to get inside. Considering how 'at home' he feels in the classroom, this must be some kind of heaven for him.
Once inside, I'm reminded of just how much of a crowd a thousand people is. There's at least a hundred standing around here in the lobby, their conversations blending together and creating a cacophonous roar. A very calm and enlightening roar, but it's a lot of noise regardless.
Also worth noting is that the only other man in a brown duster the one standing beside me.
It's at this point that Mutou hands me my nametag -- a white slip of paper with a safety pin on back. The previous name, 'Isaac C.', has been scratched out with black sharpie marker and replaced with 'Hisao N.'
I attach it to the lapel of my suit jacket and continue onward, stepping in and out of the crowd of scientists or other such science-affiliated persons. It takes us a few minutes to make it to the other end of the lobby, in front of a sign that reads 'Global Warming - A Simple Explanation.'
A simple explanation? I suppose that's a good thing for people like me - especially since I appear to be the only person here under the age of 25. It's also worth noting that I'm the only male without facial hair of some sort; be it anything from Mutou's stubble to a waist-length white beard.
"Alright, we made it with a few minutes to spare."
We peer into the small lecture hall, almost silent except for the sound of shuffling papers on the stage. Every seat is vacant despite there only being a few minutes until it begins.
"He takes volunteers for something every year, so we'd better sit near the back." Mutou whispers in my ear.
I nod my head and follow, choosing to sit in the mid-back row. Other attendees file in behind us, making the room a little more lively but still leaving half of the seats unfilled.
Despite the underwhelming attendance, the man on stage still stands up and begins his program right on the mark, requesting that the doors be left open before speaking.
****************
And I thought I knew something about global warming. My mind isn't quite so split open as I expected, but I can see information like this getting to people who don't know a lot about the topic. His method of explaining it really helped as well. Present speculation, and then use facts to back it up or, at the very least, make his speculation plausible.
Specific numbers and graphs didn't do much for me, though I'm sure they were only there for the more experienced attendees, those with an actual degree in something.
Mutou doesn't seem to hold the same fascination as me, however. In fact, going by his and a lot of other comments, it would seem that I just heard a lecture that everyone else has already gone through multiple times.
"It was a repeat of last year." he mentions, a look of boredom in his eye.
"Really? I enjoyed it."
"You did? Well, I'm glad to hear that." Mutou replies, suddenly feeling more upbeat. "What do you want to hear about next? I think they're doing string theory at noon."
A consultation of the program indicates that, yes, there's going to be a seminar on string theory at 12:15 P.M -- specifically the heterotic superstring theory.
String theory is one of those things I know next to nothing about. I've heard the bare minimum, something like 'all matter is composed of tiny subatomic strings', but I never understood what it meant or how it worked. I suppose today I'll find out, since I am here to figure out what I want to do with my life.
It's already right around noon, so we decide to head straight to the next event. It only takes ten minutes to walk around the civic center to find it, an auditorium with a seating capacity of... eight hundred people?
Unlike the last event, this one is already near capacity, with many more patrons flooding in to try and find a seat. The wide room buzzes with conversation and speculation, all anticipating the performance of a man on stage.
It takes a bit of struggling, but Mutou and I finally secure two seats near the front row, just in time for the event to start.
************************************
...What.
Three dimensions? Four dimensions? Screw that, there's TEN DIMENSIONS. NO, ELEVEN.
GENERAL RELATIVITY AND QUANTUM MECHANICS.
TACHYONS.
COMPACTIFICATION.
THE UNIVERSE IS A SYMPHONY OF VIBRATING STRINGS.
TWANGIN' THE STRING TURNS ELECTRONS INTO NEUTRINOS. NEUTRINOS INTO PROTONS. PROTONS INTO HAM.
QUARKS, GLUONS, LEPTONS, YANG-MILLS PARTICLES AND THAT HIGGS BOSON THING HE THREW THAT AROUND A LOT TOO.
ONE IDEA THAT EXPLAINS EVERYTHING. EVERYTHING IN THE UNIVERSE.
My brain hurts. I'm going to save that one for later.
I like that he tried to dumb it down for the less educated listeners like me, but "a unified theory that explains everything" doesn't help me much. I'm not even sure if I'm wise and experienced enough to want to hunt down an explanation for, literally, everything of physical nature in the universe.
"Could you make sense of any of that?" I ask, desperate to know if that hour-and-a-half-long speech went over someone else's head besides mine.
"Don't feel bad, even the guys up there on stage don't understand it completely." Mutou responds, waving his hand as if to dismiss the thought altogether.
"They don't? How can they have all this information on it then?"
"Well, it's all theoretical. The way they present it makes it seem plausible, but it takes time for something to be accepted as fact. We won't be getting solid, physical proof in favor of superstring theory for at least another decade or so."
"Why not? They sounded like they had it all worked out."
"That's the problem, they have it all worked out. Now what if everything they've worked out isn't concrete?" Mutou responds, hands gesturing back and forth as he goes into teacher-mode.
"I remember reading an article a few months ago where a couple of guys over at CERN proved the existence of a particle that travels faster than the speed of light." he continues.
"Yeah, neutrinos, I saw that all over the news." I answer.
"Good. Now, Einstein hypothesized that it takes an infinite amount of energy to go faster than the speed of light. Does this new particle prove him wrong, and have we found an infinite source of energy?" He asks; arms spread out to emphasize his question.
"No?"
"Of course not, that's why it's called a hypothesis. One half of science is guessing, and the other half is proving it right or wrong. Einstein; Albert Einstein, was merely inaccurate."
"...Or was he?" Mutou suggests, scratching his chin.
My brain already hurts. Was it right or wrong? Why do we have to jump through all these flaming 'what if' hoops to get anything done?
"Another test suggests that neutrinos are, in fact, slower than the speed of light. Now, do we trust the first test, or the second one?"
"I have no idea. Why doesn't someone do the math to prove which one is more accurate? Run more trials, even." I answer, scratching my head to try and look through all the muddled and conflicting thoughts.
"And there you go! That mindset is what makes theoretical physicists." Mutou answers with excitement. "Well, maybe with a bit more purpose and devotion, but you've got the idea."
"That's all it takes? To want to know?" I ask.
Last I checked; it takes years and years of study just to find out one thing. And that's not counting the 6+ years it took to get a respectable degree in that field of study to begin with. Then there's the people like me who can't even wrap their heads around stuff like this. You can't honestly say anyone can get up, grab some scratch paper, and start proving Einstein right or wrong.
"For the most part, yeah. You just need to have the mindset. Some government funding goes a long way, as well." he replies with a chuckle.
It's gonna take a while to make a believer out of me. Solving my personal problems comes before tackling the validity of reality-altering concepts.
"So, Hisao, where do you want to go eat?"
But isn't the idea the same? The scientific method is there for figuring out why and how things happen. Observe, hypothesize, predict, test, and analyze. Does that really work for all things? Can I just take a step back, observe my situation, and theorize as to why I'm such a dunce around people? Does that even make for a testable hypothesis?
"Hisao?"
Psychology is the science of the human mind. Do they use the scientific method for figuring out why people are happy, sad, crazy, depressed, or angry? If I want to find out about my problem, would I have to become a psychologist? Or maybe see a psychologist?
"Hisao, are you in there?"
What if it has to do with the people around me? Sociology or something. Do they use the scientific method to figure out what makes people flock to one demographic or another? What makes groups of people collapse to one individual section of society, or one type of person?
"Hey, come on." Mutou says with a hint of worry, nudging my shoulder.
"Oh, sorry, I got caught up."
"Don't think too hard about things. You're still young. Wait until you're my age to start getting lost in thought." he comments with a smile.
I check the program once again. It's around one in the afternoon, so there's a 45-minute break for the stages to be set for the next batch of speakers, philosophers, and other such men and women.
"So, one more time, anywhere you want to eat?"
Oh, right, it's also for the lunch break.
"I'm not too picky, really." I answer.
"Good. I'm in the mood for some sheep intestine, myself." Mutou muses.
"Some what?!"
"I'm just kidding. There's a steakhouse down the road; you don't mind walking a bit, do you?"
**********
The waitress scrawls our orders onto a small notepad and leaves us with a 'be right back', disappearing into a pair of kitchen doors.
"So, are you enjoying yourself so far? Learn anything?" Mutou asks.
"I wouldn't really say it's so much fun as it is educational." I reply.
"Are the two mutually exclusive?" he retorts, eyebrow raised.
"Ah, well, no. It's just..."
"I'm just messing with you, some of these guys are too old to remember the meaning of fun." he replies. " Although you have to admit, Kaku did a really good job with his explanation on string theory."
"I got all the musical metaphors, but everything else went entirely over my head."
"But you understood the basic concept, right?"
"Something like tiny sub-atomic strings being the basis of all things in the universe?"
Mutou claps his hands. "It took multiple nobel-prize winning scientists dozens of years just to get that far, and yet you know that much after a 90 minute lecture."
"But I don't know why, or how, or-"
"Sometimes, knowing is enough."
"But I don't want to just know, I want to understand." I reply.
At this point the waitress comes back with a plate in each hand, setting them down on the table before stepping off to another booth.
"With knowledge comes wisdom, and with wisdom comes understanding. Slow down and take it easy, you're still young."
With knowledge comes wisdom and understanding? How can I just accept it as fact? This is why I'm here! I want to know WHY things happen, HOW they happen. Mutou himself is a scientist, shouldn't that be his mindset first and foremost?
"How did you become a teacher?" I ask.
Mutou stops between bites of a medium-rare steak, fork suspended in mid-air as he swallows the food presently in his mouth.
"I went to college, got a degree in teaching, and applied to Yamaku. I like the way things are handled here, it's better than any other public school I've been to."
"I mean... Why did you become a teacher?"
At this, he places his utensils down and tents his hands together, staring me in the eye.
"Well, my original plans were to be a research chemist. Nothing big or luxurious, I just wanted to work in a lab. And I did that for a while; I graduated from my university with honors with my Bachelor's in Chemistry." he starts.
"I eventually landed a job as a technical chemist - the testing part of the equation. Science and engineering firms would design new chemicals or products, and we'd run tests on them. Efficiency, safety, and whatever else was on the list."
"This went on for a few years before I realized that I wasn't going anywhere. The guy in charge had been there for twenty years, and showed no signs of leaving and letting someone else move up any time soon; and at the same time, all of my co-workers were either leaving or going back to college to do something else."
"Why? Because the work was terrible. 'Here, we need you to find out if this additive makes cereal more crunchy,' 'oh, we developed this chemical that makes paint dry slower, get a man on that.'"
"It was nice when we got to evaluate something cool like explosives, but even that got boring after the first three or four years."
"I took a step back and I looked at my life. The pay was decent, but that didn't change the fact that I was working what amounted to a dead-end job doing nothing but boring and tedious work. It didn't help that I was stuck with a team of 7 to 12 other guys who felt the same way and were about as sociable as an old textbook. I had no wife, no kids, my family had all moved up north, and there was never anything good on TV."
"So you left?" I ask.
"So I left. I wanted to do something with people, but I didn't want to go back to the that stagnant, sterile hellhole. End of the story: I went back to school, became a teacher, and here I am today." he finishes, explaining everything as though it had simply happened overnight.
"Do you like teaching better?"
"I hate to phrase it like this, but I think I was born to be a teacher." he replies, scratching his cheek in embarrassment.
"So you gave up your dream of being a scientist to become a teacher?"
"Technically speaking; yes, I did. However, I don't think I gave up my dream, I believe it was more of an alteration of my plans. My dream changed, so to speak."
His dream just... changed? Was it an overnight thing? Did he just wake up one morning and decide 'enough is enough'?
"But that's enough about me, really. What is your dream, Hisao? Have you figured out what you want to do?"
Not quite. I know two things; I don't want to be held back by this condition, and I don't want to be useless anymore. But WHOOPS that brings right back to the 'what am I supposed to do' problem.
"Well, I think graduating high school is a good start."
"That is a great start, believe it or not. Anything after that?"
"That's what I'm still trying to figure out." I answer, exhaling a long sigh.
"You know what you want to do?"
"I don't want to be useless anymore?"
Mutou gives me a frown for my trouble, going silent for a few seconds as he tries to figure out the 'proper' way to respond.
It must be nice knowing what your dreams are; what you want to do, what you have to do to get there, and how to deal with anything along the way. For just one day, I want to know what it's like to be in his shoes; to have my dreams all sorted out. To be able to lay around, calm and collected, waiting for the chance to move forward.
Maybe that's all I want: to move forward. Mutou, Yuuko, Akira, all of them can keep pressing on, maybe I just need to try to be more like them.
"Personally, the only advice I can give you is to stick with what you love. If you love reading; then be an author. Math? Be an engineer. There's thousands of possibilities out there, and the toughest choice is picking one of them."
"Alright, I'll do that." I answer.
He doesn't seem convinced in the slightest, but he still elects to drop the subject and get back to his meal, which has started to go cold. To say nothing of my food, which I haven't even touched yet.
****************
Well, I'd have preferred if it was a bit cheaper, but at least it filled me up better than anything I've ever had at the cafeteria.
"So, the second part of the day is about to start up. Anything you're interested in?" Mutou asks.
If I remember correctly, there should be a program about extraterrestrial life back in the auditorium.
"There's a lecture on aliens in 15 minutes." I comment.
"Aliens? You don't believe in aliens, do you, Hisao?" Mutou answers with a raised eyebrow.
"Well, I mean, I can't say for a fact they exist. But this whole 'the universe is infinite' business has me thinking that if everything goes on forever; isn't there a slight possibility that there could be someone else out there?"
"Now you're thinking like a scientist! You could be an astronomer with that mindset. Maybe even a xenoarchaeologist, depending on how you look at it." he stops and answers, his hands motioning about in excitement.
So just from my random musings, I could be a theoretical physicist, astronomer, or archaeologist. I don't want to believe that scientists are all just normal people with their heads screwed on a little differently, but I'm getting a lot of signs that point to that.
Maybe I should become a psychologist and find out. Heh.
"Well, really, it's because there's nothing else scheduled for the next few hours."
I'm right about that, at least. The only events going on within the hour are this lecture about aliens and a private investors' meeting trying to dredge up funds for an 'underground research super-facility' in the New Mexico desert. There's also a robotics demonstration by an 'H. Emerich' here in about 30 minutes, but it'll more than likely be packed.
Regardless of what the rest of the day may hold; it's really given me some insight, at least to the point that I can narrow down some choices. The idea of becoming a research scientist is rather appealing, since I'd rather spend my time finding the answers to things that I accept as fact, but don't understand why they're factual.
In spite of that, I'm not quite sure as to what I'm going to do with my life just yet -- at least I understand that I should decide quickly, since I've only got another semester before I'm flung into the 'real world.' At this point I don't think it's even a matter of choosing where to go; I should be worried about how I'm going to get there in the first place.
At any rate; it's not like I have other commitments. The only girl I've really found myself interested in over the past few weeks is of an unknown age, and probably too busy for anything like that in the first place.
I'll focus on my future for now. Anything to get me away from this feeling like my life has stagnated.