All About Matsubara

"As your days, so shall your strength be. "

A few months ago I had taken on the biggest challenge in my life so far. I could only ask for strength and wisdom from God and live on his grace. Through despair, doubts and hurt till this day, I now feel a renewed joy and peace in my heart. I know all alone I was not working this journey by myself. A lot of people have been praying for me and I owe to them the full story. So here it is, the whole story up to this point as best as I can remember it. I pray for sufficient grace to finish this journey and if you are reading this, please pray for me as well. I need it.

Kenji Matsubara, or Matsun some call him was a student in Yamazaki lab for his master degree. During his years in Yamazaki lab there were many conflicts between him and the rest of the lab. Because of his insubordinate attitude, Professor Yamazaki was said to have grabbed his face and shook it really hard with angry in view of the whole lab. The oldest researcher in Yamazaki lab, Wang-san was said to have lost it with him because of his bad attitude and poor habbits. Despite the problems, he graduated in the year of 2005.

For some strange reason he did not go on in the same lab in Yamazaki lab for his phD. The tradition in Japan is that you should go to the same school for both of your master if you wish go on to the phD degree, otherwise this could be considered betrayal (for reasons beyond my comprehension). Instead he went to Kobe University for phD. From what I heard, when he had graduated from Tokyo Tech master program and went to Kobe University. He faced some hardships in the new lab Kobe University. He came back to Tokyo Tech Yamazaki lab during weekends secretly to do his experiments without telling anybody. When Yamazaki lab had found this stunning problem, they decided to change the locks and the access codes into the building to prevent him from entering. This was already a criminal offense, but really constituted nothing because he was already a student at Kobe and Tokyo Tech had no authority over him.

For problems unknown to me in the Kobe University lab he was forced to leave that school after just one year into the program and entered Daido University as a researcher for the next year. According to what I know he was given very clear instruction on every procedures and acted as a mere operator to do experiments. After the researcher contract expired he was sent to Waki lab.

At the time, Waki-sensei was at Tokyo University as an assistant. It was a time of transition for her to switch from the assistant job in Tokyo University to Tokyo Tech as an associate professor. Her teacher at Tokyo University knew that she did not have any students to start a lab or do any experiments so he looked around and asked his old student in Tokyo Tech-Yamazaki-sensei to "give" her one student. Knowing the problem, Matsubara was sent to Waki-lab. How Matsubara was able to secure this seat from Yamazaki-sensei is still unknown to me, but therre are clues and traces of evidence from what we are going through. For 1/2 a year in this transitional period Waki-sensei corresponded with him only through emails. She said it was a very straight forward relationship. He did the experiments required in Yamazaki-lab's facilities and reported directly to her. Little did she know she got more than she could handle when face-to-face contact was initiated.

Waki-sensei started Waki lab roughly in the latter half of 2005. One year after Matsubara's initial entrance, he suddenly disappeared from the lab. For one week nobody heard anything from him. He didn't respond to calls, emails, or text messages. Luckily the members of Waki lab knew his address. Waki-sensei, the researcher Ke Ke-san and Makino-san, the department secretary paid a visit to his house, yet nobody answered the door. Makino-san determined that this student was too strange and gave the authorization to fire him. Yet Waki-sensei being as nice as she is, rejected the offer and decided to work with him. The 2nd time they visited his house, he finally opened the door and answered, "Oh I just needed time to think." Matsubara was let back into the lab and continue his student life as usual the very next day.

(The above are my understanding of what was described to me. Accuracy remains to be determined)

I entered Tokyo Tech in October of 2007. He didn't stand out at all to me. To me he worked really hard, spending at least 10-12 hours in the lab minimum everyday. He was a bit off, but that's almost the case for all phD students in Engineering in Japan. During the first 1 month of interaction, I told Mari, my senior that I am concerned about Matsubara, that a person like him cannot and will not survive in the real world. Mari told me, "Everybody thinks that..."

November 19, 2007 - I came into the lab early in the morning, probably the first one there. Kim-san came shortly after me and went into the experiment room right away. 5 minutes later he came back up stairs with a pale face. He said that one of the expensive glass apparatus was broken. I followed him downstairs to the experiment room and indeed there was one broken apparatus, dried and cleaned, placed on a paper towel that says Matsubara. Kim-san was pale because he was worried that Waki-sensei will once again release her fury on the students. Last time she did when something like this happened. We started to say to ourselves, "Oh it's okay, it's just one glasswear, we can always buy a new one. We'll just wait for Matsubara-san to explain what happened on that day when he comes." We had our weekly safety meeting on that day, Matsubara did not attend. He didn't come the next day, and the day after. On the third day, Mari wanted to show me her experiment so I can get some hand-on about my experiments. She opened the fridge and paused. She said she had initially placed her chemicals at the front of the fridge, but it was now moved to the back. Someone had touched her chemicals. It was Matsubara's chemical at the front of the fridge instead. In the afternoon, Kim-san said that someone had been touched the gas cylinder valve because it wasn't like that when he closed the lab yesterday.

I believe that day, Kim-san, Waki-sensei, and one of the students visited Matsubara's place to check on him. Waki-sensei lost it, she kicked the door out of frustration, but nobody could find him. Kim-san was asked to "find" him, but he didn't know where to find him, so he went to all the possible places to look for him, near densha, near where people gather. It was like finding a needle in the sea.

Kim-san placed a clear tape across the door before he closed the lab. The next day, the tape was broken before Kim-san was there to open the lab. It was our fear, that Matsubara might have been coming to the lab around midnight to do.. something. Out of fear, we swiched the lock on the experiment room knowing that he would come upstairs for the replacement keys. I was asked to setup a camera from my desk to capture his moves. We caught him in the morning on camera. Kim-san and one of the 2nd year master student, Nishitani-san stayed behind the next night. They waited in the experiment room until Kim-san had to go home at midnight. Nishitani-san turned off all the lights and hid in the experiment room. Matsubara came into the lab at 1-2am. Nishitani-san caught him and asked for an explanation. Matsubara laughed and ignored him. On a Sunday, Mari said she saw him in the crowd somewhere, but as soon as he saw Mari, he went into the crowd to get away.

November 27, 2007 - Waki-sensei was finally more alerted with the situation. She called Matsubara senior to report the situation. Matsubara senior came into the lab. He cried and asked for forgiveness, asking that she does not fire Matsubara junior. She agreed. Followed by the meeting with the father, the son came in. He demanded 12 hours of lab access everyday as a condition for his return. He never onced apologized for his missing and denied that he ever broke the glasswear.

December 02, 2007 - Because Waki-sensei worried about the safety of Matsubara. The students were asked to create a shift to watch the lab from 9am to 9pm, the 12 hours Matsubara had demanded. This wasn't a problem because the 2nd year students are working very hard to rush their presentation / thesis before February.

January 18, 2008 - Todday I saw the professor snap for the first time. Every week the reserach group would have discussion with the professor, to discuss about progress and ask questions. In the morning the professor was not feeling well. After the discussion with Yazu-san, Waki-sensei told him to inform all the students that she was too sick to continue the scheduled discussion. Yazu-san came into the classroom and told everybody about it. Right away, Matsubara grabbed ins notebook and went straight to her office to force a discussion. Waki-sensei told me, during that one hour, he only wanted to argue with her. She kicked him out of her office after 1 hour. When she came back to the student room, saw Matsubara and the rage surged back up to her head. She shouted in a very angry voice (I didn't understand much Japanese at the time) and grabbed whatever she could find and flinged it at Matsubara, twice. One of the object hit my speaker and knocked it off my desk. At the instance everyboody froze. This was the first time I heard Matsubara said "Sumimasen, I am sorry."

Feb-March, 2008 - Waki-sensei became more withdrawn about the situation and did not wish to interact with Matsubara by herself. Instead the discussion would take place inside the student room where all 12 of us sat in that tiny room. We could hear the rude attitude and the irritated Waki-sensei for hours and hours. Gradually students became so distracted and went into the next room. There was one day, when Matsubara and Waki-sensei got into another heated argument. All the students went into room 415 and only Waki-sensei and Matsubara were left in the student room, quite the irony.

April, 2008 - The new local students Sasaki-kun, Fujita-kun and Gotoh-kun entered the lab. At the time I was still a 1st year student, so I felt closer to them than I was to the 2nd year students. I was then responsible for the cats because I've always been an animal lover. With the M2 students gone, and M1 promoting to M2, it certainly became my duty to train the new students about the cats. I spent at least 2 hours with them everyday teaching them about each cats. During this time I was asked to catch 2 cats so we can send them for neutering/spaying. I spent over 20 hours, setting up over 8 traps and finally caught them on the 8th try with a rope. During the many tries, one of the most hopeful one was a drop box. Because the cat, Sabi knew I was trying to catch her, she wouldn't show up until I left. I told the M1 student that they will have to trigger the trap because I have to walk away in order for her to come. That night Gotoh-kun triggered the trap pre-maturely and the box hit Sabi's butt and she ran away. Waki-sensei was pregnant at the time, and was very emotionally unstable. She scolded the first year student threatening to "deduct points." All the students felt it was such a non-sense and just try to calm her down. I took the M1 students out and explain to them that Waki-sensei was not feeling well and couldn't think straight.

April, 2008 The original M1 students, Ochi-san, Yazu-san and Ohgai-san were intrusted with the duties of operating the lab after the graduation of the old M2 students, and of course, the duty of managing the 12 hour shift. They started to fight amongst themselves about the responsibilities, struggling to find the balance between their personal life and school. This was the first time I saw the 3 students losing their cool. There was desk slapping, chair kicking, yelling. I know they reconciled eventually, but once you hammer a nail to a piece of wood, the hole will remain there whether you pull the nail out or not.

May 28, 2008 - As usual, another discussion took place inside the student room admist the 11 of us. Matsubara was rude as usual during the discussion. The professor still gave too much of a damn about what he said and wanted to argue with her. She got so upset during the discussion and decided that she had to stop coming to school all together and take a vacation. This was a major problem because she was scheduled to go on maternity leave in late July, before that time the student relied on her for final instruction for the months. With her sudden departure all the students were lost. All the students were enraged, especially Urano-san, a phD student on leave of illness. As Matsubara's senpai he was furious at Matsubara's attitude towards Waki-sensei. Yet this only worsen his condition. Urano-san suffered nerve damage from lack of sleep a year before. His hand started to shake, preventing him from doing any experiments. He later on contracted depression because he couldn't finish his doctor degree at his final year. When Urano-san was angry, his hand shook uncontrollably.

(My memory was very fuzzy during this period because so much happened in such a short timespan)

May 30, 2008 - After the professor left to protect her health, so did Matsubara. He disappeared once again. Urano-san, Yazu-san annd Ohgai-san were asked to find him at his apartment, bearing words from the professor. Matsubara was home. As soon as he saw the students, Matsubara tried to shut the door on them. Urano-san stuck his foot to jam the door pleading, "Please wait, I just want to talk." Matsubara said, "I changed my professor to Yamazaki-sensei already, Waki-sensei is no longer my professor." Then he kicked Urano-san's foot really hard then shut and locked the door. When all the students heard about the incident, everybody was furious. We were determined to fire him. Enough was enough.

June 3, 2008 - The Safety meeting was turned into an inquisition for Matsubara. Surprisingly he attended the meeting. The meeting was conducted by an irritated Urano-san. He asked everybody to vote and give an opinion on Matsubara. Unanimously everybody voted him out. Kim-san and Ohgai-san said some very harsh words. Kim-san every said it with a bit of glee. We voted to kick him out of the lab.

June 5, 2008 - It was said that shortly after the incident, the professor finally contacted him herself and reconciled. Our decision to fire him was overturned by the professor. He was instead asked to offer apology. He sent us an email asking us to go early to listen to his apology. The M1 students were excluded from the meetings because we were still trying to protect them from this mess, hoping to resolve the matter.

June 9, 2008 - The Safety meeting was held once again on a Monday, but instead we all gathered 20 minutes earlier to listen to his apology. Matsubara apologized to the whole lab member in general about something, but he was being very ambiguous. The students asked him to state what specifically what he was apologizing for. He couldn't say. In his mind, he had done nothing wrong to anybody. He was just apologizing so he could avoid getting in trouble with the other students. Matsubara was asked to sign a statement saying that he agrees not to break the lab rules and especially in the following week, or he will leave Wakiken by himself. He wrote it in a very sloppy way. This caused one of the students, Ochi-san to get very angry. He ripped out the page and asked him to write it again, twice.

That very same night, he broke 9am to 9pm lab access hour. He said he had to rush some sample and demanded to be in the lab until 12:30 midnight. Yazu-san ended up having to come at 1am to close the lab because no other student could stay that late. This was unbelievable in my eyes that he turned back on his words this fast.

That week, I contacted Horioka-sensei, my 2nd advisor from the international graduate school side, who happened to be in the same department and the same building as I am. I told him everything. I experienced fear for the first time in my short stay in Japan. I knew that this could mean my termination as a student. This is usually considered the ultimate betrayal in the Asian school system. Horioka-sensei was extremely concerned because he knew about Urano-san, who had to take a leave of abscence a year before. Horioka-sensei asked to speak to Urano-san. Urano-san was so relieved to hear it because it seemed like he had no one to turn to. There was Waki-sensei who did not support our decision and the students who are unwilling to do anything. Urano-san was dying to speak to Horioka-sensei.

July 14, 2008 - Matsubara had been entrusted by the professor to purchase new equipments. Why this was is still out of my reasoning. We all know that he was the most irresponsible person when it comes to equipments. A week prior the desk for the new equipment had arrived, but no students really cared about the new equipment. He was fiddling in the experiment room not knowing what to do. I went into room 415 and saw-off the existing empty pipe pertruding out and fitted the desk together for the new equipment. I did everything. On July 14th, the equipment guy came in with the new equipment, he had the whole afternoon to set it up. When I came back to room 415 my jaw dropped. The room was in such a mess. The technician pulled spaghetti wires from all over the place, and disconnecting power cables that was on the other equipments. The wires actually wrap around the desk post. CDs and manuals were laid down on the floor. I was furious with this kinda of shaddy workmanship but I couldn't find Matsubara. I reported this situation to the professor. I ended up spending a few hours re-wiring everything and putting the room back to its original condition. This is my experiment room after all.

July Latter, 2008 - More and more orders came in. The professor asked us not to get in conflicts with him and he can have WHATVER he wanted, that includes equipments, chemicals, ad expensive stuff that he doesnt' really need or use. Matsubara took advantage of that and ordered a whole bunch of stuff. The M2 student managing the bills were just in disbelief. We are not a rich lab, people have to make do with below-average condition equipments, and yet this guy is wrecking everything and spending all our money.

July, 2008 - Horioka-sensei and Kohno-sensei, this year's head of departmennt came to observe our interaction in the meeting. We basically ran the same inquisition meeting like a few weeks ago. During that meeting, Matsubara completely changed his responses and denied any wrong doings and tried to explain his way out of everything. The odd thing is, for 3 hours, he closed his eyes for 2 hours. He spoke and cried, refusing to open his eyes. It would definitely seem like all of Waki lab was harassing him in based on that meeting. The students were enraged beyond belief. Some words would be heard in the lab that, "Maybe its better that he dies."

August, 2008 - The observation was inconclusive. Matsubara defended himself very well during the meeting. There was no action from the department. We were told to wait. During the waiting time, my patience was turning into frustration. In our mind this problem was imminent, and every second they wait would only do more damage to Waki lab. During this period, the students tried to do all we can to help each other out. During one of the instance, Ohgai-san had a presentation next week and he had asked everybody to attend and help him with his presentation. Matsubara refused. Ohgai-san emailed him back to ask him why. That's when he replied, "You people are discriminating against me, don't you know that sometimes I want to find a peaceful way to die?" The students laughed about it. I knew this only around the afternoon. I urged them to send the email to the doctor right away. I was really worried that he might suicide and also surprised that the students dismissed it as a joke.

August1st half , 2008 - I recieved a call from Waki-sensei. It was the first call from her since she had taken the vacation back in so long ago. I heard that she was admitted into the hospital and stopped receiving all email communication because Matsubara tends to flood her mailbox with emails and it was really a mental stress for her. The doctor recommended her to go into the hospital to wait it out for safety. I don't remember whether she had finished giving birth at the time or not, but I remember the conversation. She said that Matsubara was accusing the lab members of intentionally cutting off his internet and printer access and possibly hacking into his computer. I have always been the computer person in the lab, so she called me to ask if all this was possible. I felt a bit disappointed that she believed the students would resort to such activity to get back at him. I reassured her that there was no such thing and I would communicate with matsubara and sort it out.

The next day I emailed him in length explaining the issues and offered to help him with his computer. A few days later he asked me to help him format his computer. It took a a good 2 hours. Obviously he didn't trust me so he was there to monitor me at all time. We couldn't really communicate with each other because he spoke so little English and I spoke so little Japanese. His computer had a few virus and a some of the windows components were damaged causing the computer to hang before shutting down. Nothing more. His claims were dismissed.

August End, 2008 - Urano-san had been a great member of this lab. Although he could no longer perform any experiments in the lab, he still came to the lab every week to assist the new students getting on track with their research. He was ill at the time, but he tried his best to act like a leader and held the lab together while the professor away. I didn't believe it was for his health. Today, Urano-san's doctor had ordered him to immediately stop coming to this unhealthy environment. His illness is spreading to his body and he could not last longer. Urano-san had to give up school completely and go back to Saitama to rest. All the students felt regret for him, that someone who tried so hard to help us ended up having to give up and Matsubara was still on the loose getting and moe so, getting whatever he wants.

September 1, 2008 - The M2 students are busy preparing for their interm report. I had just completed my international presentation not too long ago. Even though I was in the middle of my move from the dormitry, I still had enough time to to help the students with their presentation slides. This year for some strange reasons the energy science department decided that all interm report would be conducted in English. So I offered help to all of the M2 students, including Matsubara to edit their manuscripts for the presentation. He did not reply me.

September 3, 2008 - I flew back to Vancouver for a break from this crazy world. I didn't realize how crazy it was until I jumped out of it. It's so hard to see things clearly when you are right in the middle of it. Even though I was in Vancouver I still asked the M2 students to send me emails so I could make sure there was no English grammar or logic mistakes in their presentations. Matsubara didn't contact me at all in the 3 weeks I was in Canada. Their interm report took place on September 19th.

September 19, 2008 - It was later communicated to me that Matsubara forgot his manuscript on the day of the presentation, but did not tell anybody. He had a horriblle presentation and received the lowest score out of all phD candidates. He and Waki-sensei had a major fight again right after the interm report. He threatened to bring in a lawyer to sue Waki-sensei for damaging his mental health and for not letting him graduate. He felt embarrased about the presentation. I knew about this after I came back from Canada on the 23th, amazed at how worse things could get when things was already seemingly at its worst. Almost all communication with him stopped. How do you interact with a person who had just threatened to sue your professor?

October 1st, 2008 - Tao-san, the old reserach student from China, who knew bits and pieces of the situation had just became a regular student. The Indonesian student Haryo also arrived. I had been keeping him out of the loop all this time, but I had suggested Tao-san to look for a different lab when he had a chance. In addition I had turned away one other Taiwanese student who showed interests in joining Waki lab. I don't know how much longer could I do this.

October 16th, 2008 - Matsubara sent stalking emails to Waki-sensei, stating that Waki-sensei could not be trusted, because she said she could only stay for half a day because she was on gradual return and had her baby in a nursery. He accused the professor of lying because on some days she left later than noon and sometimes as late as 4pm.

Turned out that on that day, the professor had a reserach discussion with the new student Gotoh-kun and Yazu-san, the etc reserach group, Matsubara thought Gotoh-kun was in his group so he immediately came to the conclusion that Waki-sensei was trying to exclude him from the discussion. Accusation flared.

On that day he also showed his cards. In an email he questioned the source of funds Waki-sensei used to buy the solar simulator multimeter. He assumed that it was bought with NEDO (catalyst only) funds. He asked Waki-sensei to "better be careful from now on." Matsubara assumed that he had evidence on the professor that he caught her mis-using the funds from the government project. In another words, he just blackmailed my professor.

In less than a day he flooded the professor's email with 6 or 7 emails. One of them got her. He threatened to reveal the mis-use of funds for RA and TA that the other students have been receiving. This got a lot of the students worried because they all took the money and faked the hours. I am not saying this was right but definitely a common occurance in Japan as far as I know.

October 17th, 2008 - Waki-sensei called me on a Saturday to tell me to be careful, because Matsubara is again accusing "someone" of fiddling with his computer. He sent everybody an email saying that his computer was improperly shut down. He suspects that "someone" touched his computer and stole his research data. He indicated that he will inform the campus security and told Waki-sensei that he wants to call the police over to investigate. He used to greet me when I greet him. I could feel the tension now after the email, that when I greet him, he pretends I don't even exist.

October 20, 2008 - Waki-sensei had an emergency meeting with the department head and a few other regarding the blackmailing. She was asked to reconcile with Matsubara. She came into the room gloomy and asked to speak to him in the next room. She walked down the stairs afterwards and cried. Fujita-kun saw the whole thing and told me. I decided this was enough damage done.

October 21, 2008 - I fired off 3 emails. One to Foreign student division, one to student advising and one to the head of my graduate school. Requesting for appointments so I can give them the situation face-to-face. I was extremely upset at how my department is dealing with this. Obviously they want to contain this within the department and possibly sweep it under the carpet, sacrificing us students and the teacher.

October 3, 2008 - My emails were answered, my email to advising was forwarded to Kagawa-sensei, who happened to be the person responsible for my current apartment. He is the head of a foreign student committee. The situation was escalated to him but I only had bout 15 minutes to speak to him. I menttioned that this student was originally from Yamazaki lab. He started to laugh. He said a few years ago, Yamazaki-sensei also sent a mentally-ill trouble student to Kagawa lab. Kagawa-sensei had to accept because Yamazaki-sensei is his senior. He spoke to the reception in a fury, "Another one from Yamazaki-ken"

In the afternoon, Foreign Student Center arranged two professors Sato-sensei and Takei-sensei to speak to me. Takei-sensei already met from my Kyoto trip in February. Sato-sensei is a very young female visiting professor. I believe they were both harassment officers, but decided they would hear my story. I spent 1 hour and a bit explaining the whole story up to this point and Takei-sensei sometimes had his hands covering his face. Before of the reporting structure, Takei-sensei believed that the person capable of making this decision would've been the vice-president because of the special circumstances. So they arranged another meeting for me with Yasumi-sensei, one of the two medical doctors who directly reports to the vice president.

October 24, 2008 - I met with Yasumi-sensei and he told me that he knows the situation very from from past appointments. Just so happened that he has an appointment with the head of my graduate school, Mishima-sensei in the afternoon, so he said he will definitely bring this up. Yasumi-sensei believed that we still should save the student. I agreed to, no one is beyond saving, but we shoudln't do this in our lab, at the cost of the other students.

Since then I have been communicating with the various professors, but I have a feeling that nothing will be done.... a truly disappointing outcome for the Tokyo Institute of Technology, the 2nd ranked school in Japan in the field of Science and Engineering. I fear that Waki-ken, from top to bottom will not last much longer.


October 29, 2008 - I was the first one coming to school today. When I checked all the doors and realized that Matsubara had forgotten to lock room 415. This is not the first time that he had forgotten to lock the lab, but for evidence purposes I have recorded this incident down. I went into the experiment room, preparing to start my fabrication at the scheduled time. I looked around and found no beakers. Ironically, Matsubara had 4 spots in the lab and 11-13 beakers and 4 fuel cells reserved. Oh and that includes his acids in the draft. Kim-san came in shortly into the lab also preparing to do his experiment, and he was enraged (once again) when he could not find the glass cell he needed. When he saw that Matsubara had 4 glass cells on his desk he got so angry. I documented everything with video and photos. This is generally what the lab is like when Matsubara is the sole user-in a mess. Kim-san deteremined that he could not start his own experiment (takes 12 hours) because of the missing parts so he went back upstairs. I went with him for breakfast so I can let him off some steam. A while later Waki-sensei came in because she had heard something from the other students. She suggested that we get Kohno-sensei to look at this together. What Kohno-sensei was was just as it was, a messy lab when Matsubara's things everywhere. I continued to stay in the lab to do my experiment and Matsubara came in a bit later. I headed up stairs to get Waki-sensei and to document this incident with my camera microphone. Surprisingly, Kim-san's claim of the missing cell was soon dismissed when Matsubara pointed out that there is a glass cell stored deep inside the oven and Kim-san washed it himself. Matsubara accused Kim-san of trying to discriminate against him when he had done nothing wrong. He pointed out that Kim-san didn't even prepare for his experiment the previous night nor checked the equipments with him, that Kim-san was just doing this to provoke him and to slow down his experiment. We later got Kim-san just after lunch and asked him to examine his equipments. After much debate and frustration, the only part that was missing is the plastic plug required to secure the electrode. Kim-san was forced to cancel the experiment because there was no time. We heard of Kim-san's experiment plan and dismissed Matsubara's claim that Kim-san is trying to jeprodize his experiment by booking and intentionally not using the equipments. Waki-sensei got very discouraged because she probably thought this was the chance to finally get some evidence on Matsubara, but all we got was a missing plug. Although undeniably the plug was essential for the experiment and it was a fact that Kim-san's experiment was canceled because of incomplete equipment. Waki-sensei then asked not to be involved in this kind of confrontation because Kim-san is seemingly losing every time. Kim-san stood there and said nothing. I could tell he had just lost his motivation to do anything. His pride was ripped apart. Yet in his mind he was so determined that Matsubara planted the cell there to frame him, to set up a trap. To me Kim-san is no longer logical. He had been driven to the edge and is about to become the 2nd problem because he could not see past his anger.

Kim-san now has delayed his experiment because of the plug and will move it to the following day, but in order to save time for tomorrow, he had to grind his electrode at night. I offered to stay in the lab with him and monitor their moves. Kim-san had promised to stay calm, but whenever he spoke his words came out bitter and sarcastic. Even a simple "Thank you" sounds ill-intended. I promised Waki-sensei that I will keep two eyes on Kim-san from then on.

Before the end of the day, when I was about to leave, Kim-san received an email from Matsubara. The emailed said, "it is possible to for him to reschedule his reservation as lng as you contact me. Please contact me the day before the experiment so he can prepare the necessary parts for you." However when he signed the date, he wrote down October 28th, 2008. It would seem like he had told Kim-san the day before the incident if he printed out the email. Yet the email was delivered and indicated by the server head on October 29th night. I honestly though he made a typo on the date. I don't remember what date it is most of the time. But Kim-san believed he was planting another evidence on him. Much to my expectation, Kim-san's silence only lasted a few hours and it was turning into a hatred that started to consume his mind.

October 30th, 2008 - Kim-san has forwarded that email from Matsubara to all the core students (people who are currently involved, that excludes Tao and Haryo) In addition he wrote the following, "I am a man who loves peace. But, War has started. And solider is never defeated in the war!" My heart chilled. Kim-san had declared war on Matsubara despite all my effort to keep him away. His embarrassment turned into dread and dread turned into rage. I appreciate his support, but I do not wish for a short-temper person to deal with the situation. There is a very big chance that Kim-san will be labeled as a nut and possibly be fired. Kim-san told me his plan, he said he will pretend to be friends with Matsubara to provoke him. He will send a series of emails in English to push him to the limit since Matsubara had previously suggested that Kim-san's Japanese was not good enough to communicate clearly. English was also his foreign language, so I used this excuse to ask to edit it so I can make sure he wouldn't cause any misunderstanding. It was a letter of harassment to me, filled with anger and bias. I ended up deleting 1/2 of the email before he sent it out. A bit earlier in that afternoon, I emailed Sato-sensei, a female professor / harassment officer to book an appointment for Kim-san. Kim-san has a very strong personality and the manly stubbornness. I hope Sato-sensei, a well-mannered, pretty, young professor can soften him up and guide him in the right direction. I found that I was getting more and more surprised at him because of what he is turning into. This is a great insubordination from me because I am his junior and much younger than he is. I was afraid this would hurt his pride further when me constantly talking down to him.

At around 4-5pm in the afternoon, one of the student reported that Matsubara was crying on the first floor.　My first reaction was go rush downstairs to see how he was doing, but I didn't find him there. I walked around the surrounding and eventually found him in experiment room, his eyes red. I didn't say anything to him because Kim-san was present at the time. Kim-san said to me later, "He is faking it, he wants us to see it. This is his strategy" By this time Kim-san didn't care if Matsubara is pushed to committ suicide of not.

I spent the whole day following him around, preventing him from coming in direct contact with Matsubara and distract him by asking bits and pieces about his proud research. Yet it was not a good day for experiments as his result wasn't conclusive.

When I took a break in the afternoon I strolled around the parking lot to see if there are any cats to play with me. One of the M2 students saw me and called me over into the counselling building. They were taking some sessions with the Phsyciatrist on duty. Urano-san had returned from Saitama the previous day and he came back to his apartment. He felt angry that right now it's only Kim-san and me carrying all the burdens when the Japanese students cannot do anything. He mobilized and convinced all the Japanese students to join in arms to take action by the end of 8:00pm. The plan was to appeal to Waki-sensei altogether for the firing of Matsubara.

That night Kim-san asked everybody to go for Japanese pancake after school. At 9:00pm I couldn't let him off my sight because I fear this would escalate. He learned that Waki-senei mentioned that Matsubara was stable at the time of the department meeting and this might have led to the decision of the department not firing him. Kim-san's logic got stuck there. He suddenly stopped walking and had this dazed look on his face. His logic was, every professor knew he and Matsubara was fighting. If Waki-sensei backed Matsubara up, that means Waki-sensei was accusing Kim-san of being crazy. For the next 3 hours we tried to explain to him the mentality of Waki-sensei and tried to comfort him on how everybody feels the same as he does. Yet he could not get over the fact that Waki-sensei was still siding with Matsubara. Kim-san had heard this before. Waki-sensei always hoped and talked about Matsubara getting better from time to time. It was not a surprise to me that she might've mentioned it during the department meeting. Yet Kim-san was so eager to label Waki-sensei as a traitor that she had openly spoke ill of him. After 7 beers, 2 restaurants and 3 hours and 30 minutes later Kim-san was getting no where. He became imperceptive to any reasons and kept going down the drain of his negative thinking. Towards the end, Ohgai-san tried his best to explain the logic with him, but he asked Ohgai-san to stop talking and just listen to him vent. We have achieved pretty effective ranting and venting for him at the cost of our evening, but I am not sure now if it did him any good. He called Yazu-san probably asking for more at 1 am. Yazu-san did not answer.

Oct 31, 2008 - The alarm clock didn't sound, but I woke up at 6:30am, the same time I have been waking up in the past week. I've only slept 4 and a half hours. Today morning the Japanese students requested a meeting with the professor to express their feelings towards Matsubara. I've elected to sit out the meeting to make this a Japanese student only meeting. As I was about to feed the cats at 12:00noon, Kim-san showed up as promised. He looked terrible. I later learned that he stayed in Aobadai and kept drinking until 4am. Alcohol was doing its damage to him. When we were at the parking lot, Waki-sensei and the M1 students caught up to us. Waki-sensei had a short chat with him while I was away in the library feeding the cat. By the time I returned to Waki-sensei, Kim-san had already left. I explained to Waki-sensei about what happened with Kim-san the previous day. She said that she explained to him, but he still does not trust her. Later I was able to catch Kim-san and we took a long walk around the campus. He was exhausted from all the insomnia and drinking. He was still not convinced that the professor is on his side.

At 2:30pm we went to the international student center to see Sato-sensei, the young, pretty, caring harassment advisor from Ookayama. During the meeting Kim-san completely calmed down and spoke in a very soft manner. For 1 hour and 20 minutes Kim-san poured out his frustration like slow running stream. Sato-sensei is a very charming woman (also unmarried), she said all the right words to turn Kim-san's frown into a smile towards the end. Her praises and encouragement I was very impressed that as a woman is able to comfort a burly man with such ease. She did what we could not after 3 hours. Kim-san quitely agreed that he will go home and rest. I walked Sato-sensei to her next meeting, a meeting with Yasumi-sensei. After I have returned to the lab. It suddenly felt like my bow had unwind and a surge of energy just leaked from my body. I came home to rest at 430pm.