mem...what?

mem...what?

Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha was... uhmm...ok, pretty informative to say the least. it kind of reminds me of a kristine hermosa-starrer soap, where the beautiful yet (quite unbelievably) unfortunate leading actress gets api at the start by the mother of her filthy rich, hacienda-owning leading man or the rich, snobby and less prettier karibal and then remarkably succeeds in the end. but of course, it is the unwritten law that the plot shouldn't be that simple. along its meandering course are several, and by several I mean a lot, predictable, IQ-dropping twists.

i find the sadness funny and the misfortunes even more hilarious. i mean, i am superstitious and i can be unlucky but is it possible that someone could be that unlucky? i was going through more than half of the novel and gahd she hasn't become a geisha yet. i spent all afternoon reading the freaking introduction. get there fasterrrr! and spare me the bland descriptions, please. i just had enough of those.

but i couldnt put it down. i ended up finishing it. the ending was tasteless. it wasnt particularly anything. now i have to see how they'll turn this into a movie. and with zang zi yi (did i get the spelling correct?)... let's see. she might be pretty but i don't like her. i just don't, ok?

i think it's me but is it

i think it's me but is it?

unless you go down the nearest mall or (if you're feeling more adventurous/daring) the famous divi, you won't feel like it's christmas. and certainly, you would only feel it because of the tremendous flock of people (who'll worship me sooner or later haha!) getting on your way, and your nerves as well.

i remember a few christmases back, i would normally get excited weeks before the 25th but now, nothing. i don't know. not even the chilly December air can get me into christmas mode. am i just getting older? but i'm not that old. and besides, isn't christmas for older people too? or so we think... i have reason to believe that christmas now, isn't as christmas as it used to be. for one, nobody seems to like christmas decors anymore. on our street you'd be lucky to find 4 or 5 houses all decked out. it seems that everyone else has converted? although this is not a far possibility...

even i don't have christmas spirit. i hate our tree. i hate the lights. but don't get me wrong, i love the gifts. keep 'em coming! hehe.
and yeah, on a different note, i'm currently addicted to imogen heap. you remember frou frou? she's part of the collaboration, as i recall. i'm kind of liking the whole UK music thing. it's fun. it's new and refreshing. at a certain point you just get tired of everything, and then, something like this comes along. like a, hmm... renaissance of tastes? i dont know but i do know it's good. :)

lantern parade

lantern parade

this has got to be the most shameless lantern parade ever. as if dancing around taft and surrounding streets in full lantern parade regalia wasn't enough, we were, all 6 of us, at the front of the line, singing and dancing like there was no tomorrow. it's good we ended up bagging the best cheer award. at least, the efforts weren't wasted.

it's just a happy event. that's all and happy hormones make me unusually high. plus, i can't bear mediocrity. especially if we have no reason to be. you do or you dont.

other than the best cheer award we also won most colorful award and both 3rd place awards for the lantern and the facade. although, i think we really should have won 1st for the lantern. stupid people... they should be throwing themselves out 8th floor now. or if my speculations are correct, ugly people do like to be surrounded by uglier things. harsh... anyway, 3rd isn't so bad and i remain thankful for it. yeah, i know, i could be a sore loser. but in my defense, i don't get competitive a lot of times. i dont.

now, congratulate us.

(you're not bowing low enough fool!)

it's been a bad day, please don't take a picture

it's been a bad day, please don't take a picture

spare me the self-esteem crap. there really are times when i just don't feel good about myself no matter how much endorphins are loaded in my bloodstream. and i'm not talking about a bad hair day here. just a bad day which is significantly different to a blah day in n times infinity ways. days when i just want to withdraw from all social interaction and just weave straw.

no amount of introspection could make it better, only worse. hoping is pointless. harsh realities come into view. and the weather, affirms the negativity.

i feel like trash and my migraine is only making everything worse.

i won't commit suicide but i can see why some people do.

this is not a test

this is not a test

i wanted to blog. i wanted to blog so badly that i dream of wanting to blog. but after that seemingly long hiatus, i dont know where to start lashing out my thoughts. they all seem to be tangled in my cortex (i am currently re-reviewing for a final exam), and i need major detangling soon. i dont need an emergency lobotomy, silly (maybe you do)! but i do need quiet time which is hard to get by these days. i don't know...the world is full of senseless buzzing.

i hate routine. at home lying around, doing nothing all day is not routine. work is routine. school is routine. the bus i take to school everyday is routine. fastfood is routine. basically, everything i associate with school is routine. yes, even rob is routine. >gasp!<

i'm not complaining... or maybe i am. im not even sure if i am already. its a whole big grey area now. routine makes you dull. i hate it. i'm not sure if the grayness or the predictability is wearing me down.

habit is a recurrent, often unconscious pattern of behavior that is acquired through frequent repetition. as opposed to routine which is basically the same but more mechanical. to put it simply, i hate it. tradition is one thing, but routine is entirely different.

but is it possible to do away with routine? not exactly. imagine doing everything for the first time... everytime. that's pretty much what it's like without it and its tiring. but as much as we sort of "need" some degree of routine, we also have to have an "anti-routine" element, which is sometimes impossible to maintain if the system runs on a circuit of overlapping routines. we have no choice but to, dare i say it, go with the flow.

spice up with variety as tolerated. do not overdo it. a dash would be enough to try to do things differently everytime. and i don't mean a hundred-and-eighty degree change. just please for the love of all things, avoid being mechanical.

and i would like to end with a bridge that's stuck in my head:

Hands down this is the best day I can ever remember,

I'll always remember the sound of the stereo,

the dim of the soft lights,

the scent of your hair that you twirled in your fingers

and the time on the clock when we realized it's so late

and this walk that we shared together.

The streets were wet and the gate was locked

so I jumped it, and I let you in.

And you stood at your door

with your hands on my waist

and you kissed me like you meant it.

And I knew that you meant it,

that you meant it,

that you meant it,

and I knew, that you meant it, that we meant it.

the inevitable happened

the inevitable happened

i have been delaying this far too long. had it not been for a chewing gum incident which rendered a part of me broken, i wouldn't have. yes, i was terrified. ridicule me if you must. i'm 18 years old and i'm scared of the dentist (which, mind you did not keep me from having trips to the dentist prior to this incident). as a result the inevitable happened, i underwent a minor surgery, the extraction of my second molar.

i opened my mouth as the dentist surveyed my teeth.

"we're good to go. either you have tooth extraction or root canal.(handing me a mirror)"

root canal wasn't an option. i have decided. it's either you take it out or you do.

"extraction, doctor."

"but if we do, we would have to install a crown jacket. do you know what that is?"

i know doctor.. but humor me tell me what it is. stalling...

"no doctor"

"ok its like this, (holding out a mold), blah blah yadda yadda"

i couldn't care less about a stupid crown jacket. take it out pleeease.

"so that' it. what do you say?"

"uhmm... i'll ask my mom first"

"ok. open your mouth"

i opened my mouth and closed my eyes. the dentistry tools are too scary. this i cannot see. with eyes shut i felt her (the doctor is a she), rub flavored topical anesthesia on the affected gum.

"ok gargle first"

i did. blindly following orders. after which she gently massaged my cheek. the events that followed, the tools she used and everything else from there on (except lucid moments when she asked me to gargle) are remembered through closed eyes. i couldnt bear seeing the tools. i didnt know why. i have handled scarier looking tools in the OR but i just couldnt stand the sight of these implements being used on me. until all movement ceased...

"ayaw ka yatang hiwalayan ng ngipin mo..."

apparently they're having a hard time taking it out. it wont leave me. but i have decided. more force was introduced. i couldnt open my eyes. i consciously did not want to see their faces while taking it out.

then i felt it. freedom at last!

"ok tapos na."

her words were liberating. i opened my eyes. a feeling of relief and a weird sense of liberty overcame me. she made me bite hard on a ball of i didnt know what (at that time), to stop the bleeding i suppose.

it's over. my right jaw was numb and i felt my lips were so swollen and i couldnt feel a thing, but i felt relief.

at last its over. now i just have the post-surgical pains to deal with.

and we wake up to the painful reality that is college

and we wake up to the painful reality that is college.

although my butt was practically glued to my sheets and getting out of bed is never an option, i unwillingly dragged myself to school. semestral break's over and we have been zapped into reality by 20 000 mega watts of unadulterated/overwhelming schoolwork. two weeks into the semester, and we have already been made to swallow papers, reports and a migraine-inducing long exam.

plus, in case you havent heard EVAT has begun raping our pockets and burning holes on our allowances. everything's skyrocketing but sadly our poor purses get left behind as we get lesser value for our peso. i just hope the benefits will be greater and more tangible this time, it wouldnt hurt to tighten our belts just a little more (but then again, it would, but we all have to make sacrifices), just make sure your eyes won't pop out, or else, EVAT will haunt you even in your medical bill.

however, this does not mean we have to be passive taxpayers, instead be vigilant consumers without overthinking because it can very well induce nasty stress-headaches which can be quite disabling.

remember, the following consumer goods are devoid of VAT:

- fresh produce from the market such as rice, fish, vegetables, eggs and meat

- house rent which costs less than or equal to 10 000 a month

- tuition fees, books, magazines and newspapers

- sari-sari stores, carinderias and other businesses earning at most 1.5 million pesos a year.

what does this tell us? to eat home-cooked foods instead, eat vegetables, to stay in school, read, support small-scale entrepreneurs and respect deadlines imposed by the landlady, understand economy, practice it.

this is a public servic announcement from yours truly :)

bum dee bum dee bum dee bum

bum dee bum dee bum dee bum

planet bum used to be paradise, but for some reason especially when you're bumming far too long, it isn't so fun anymore.okay, so i'm the queen of procastination, and i don't get anything done until the last minute, and i'm supposed to be enjoying this, but, hell i'm bored out of my wits and i've practically done everything in my power to stop it. i need to get out of the house. pronto! and as if the gods gave conspired, it kept raining all day today, when we're supposed to be out on EK. as a result, plans have been postponed indefinitely. i should have known something like this was going to happen. something like this always happens anyway. weirdly, i am kind of indifferent about this.

in the spirit of bumming, let's see what's on TV:

- breakfast shows, it's all over TV. you just have to pick one. your choice does not necessarily mean it is the most sensible. anyway, they are all alike. probably, you just need something to jump start the day (or load it with enough sedatives to render you on coma). yes, and there it is, pinoy big brother. guestings, features, more guestings. it's just there, early in the freaking morning. and wait, what are they doing? they're playing that song again and what? wtf?!? everybody's dancing. nooo... wait. what is this? i'm dancing too. get me out of here!

-late morning talk shows, where nobody actually talks. it's just littered with... well, you know what. i want to hurl myself out the window, but then again our house is just a storey high and throwing myself out the window wouldn't be so dramatic as it is utterly hilarious. oh no, not again. that song. everyone's dancing!!! even Boy Abunda, for crying out loud! it's scary! that song is seriously driving everyone nuts. it's like that Darna movie, where the antagonist (snake-haired woman, mother of all kontrabidas,Cherie Gil), hypnotizes people into getting into a zombie-like state. only this time, its a song.
-the usual spanish and asian telenovelas. are you seriously going to watch this? huh, huh?

-then its a carnival. noon time variety shows. woohoo! everybody knows how much i loathe these. i'd rather be a hermit than go through excruciating pain by watching these people make a fool out of everyone else. if you want to torture me, you know what to do.

-more daytime soaps. the ones in channel 7 are fun to watch just because you can laugh at the bad acting and super cliche dialogues and storylines, but it is equally painful if you watch far too long. and oh, watch out for that piercing headache, it's bound to come after.

-well, my favorite time of the day would be late afternoon, when i can watch cartoons. yay! they seem to be the only ones making sense now. it's quite hard looking for something sensible to watch. even the news is not making sense anymore. is it me? or is it?

holloween

holloween

local TV is a riot on Halloween. its absurd and utterly pathetic. all this media hype is driving everyone nuts as our minds are literally fed with useless and irrelevant information. just like this:

newscaster: ano na ang mga huling kaganapan dyan sa Manila North Cemetery?

field reporter: maayos naman ang lahat dito, paparami na ang mga tao, maraming nakumpiskang alak, baraha, patalim, na nakikita sa video ngayon.

newscaster: at ang puntod ni (so and so)?

field reporter: nagtirik ng kandila at nag-alay ng bulaklak ang pamilya ng namayapang si (name of dear departed here), dumadami na rin ang mga taga-suportang nais dumalaw sa puntod ni (so and so). sa puntod naman ng namayapang si (name of deceased matinee idol here), pila-pila ang mga tagahangang nais masilayan ang kanyang puntod, at ayan nakikita niyo sa video nagtitirik ng kandila ang mga kaanak ni (matinee idol). binisita na rin ni (name of murdered celebrity's daughter here) and puntod ng yumaong ina kaninang mga alas-tres ng hapon blah blah blah (useless shit you shouldn't care about). yadda yadda.

you turn on the tv for the 6 o' clock news and that's what you get. and all you ever wanted was your daily dose of current events.

well, apparently tv networks have this habit of feeding us with more than what we need to know. information overdose... overkill... imagine if these information were converted to calories we'd all be Obese type 5 by now, wallowing in lard and blubber. we'll all die of heart disease.

i mean so what? do we really need to know how much people actually visit these dead people? should we care about how every single celebrity remembers the dead? do you seriously want to know how much candles are burning on some dead guy's grave? come on...

and as much as i like useless information (or rather seemingly useless information), this one's so useless that it'd be accumulating cobwebs on your brain.and i tell you, you don't want cobwebs. they're too contagious. and by contagious i mean, viral. it will seriously corrupt your hard drive (i hope something's in there). scary.

as precious airtime is being wasted by pointlessness, people just have to be selective. feed your mind only with what adds to your brain. and if you're in for a good laugh, go ahead watch it. it can be funny at times until such point where you get annoyed but you'll laugh nonetheless. anyway, it will be another year before you see it again, or maybe waiting time will be less if election seasons coming, but let's not go into that now...

don't want anything fancy

don't want anything fancy

just a simple greeting. thanks for putting up with me for two years. you are technically my longest online relationship (considering there are none). here's to many more years of bashing, lambasting and plain old angsty joyful blogging.

Happy Birthday Bloggy!

try Googling failure.

hit the I'm Feeling Lucky button.

voila!

google has a warped sense of humor...

this is what nothing else to do is like

this is what nothing else to do is like

i swore to sanity i'd take this break seriously and if it ever came to that point, i'll be "careering" it to death. i'm officially officially on break mode meaning laziness levels are like up to a 100+

and as expected, nothing blogworthy, or anything i'd rather openly share on this journal ;) has happened over the past few days. my time is spent mostly in bed or on the couch either sleeping or making up for lost quality time with the tv. or in any case, i'll be busy geeky-fying myself. neurocizing! as how, the demi-goddess of ultra-geekiness, heavens bless her, Zafra (see, even the name parallels the ring of the Hindu godof destruction Shiva) would put it.

currently, i'm on the greek mythology diet and memories of our high school english class plays suddenly come to mind. couldn't help but laugh. our group as i recall, chose to perform pygmalion and galatea, not because we liked it, but because it was short and it was easy to portray plus, there were i think less characters needed. this was freshman year. so Pygmalion was this woman hater guy/ sculptor who ironically enough, fell in love with one of his works, Galatea. naturally, a non-livng thing as a sculpture made of stone and ivory could not respond to the worldly desires of men, so with this dissatisfaction and, dare i say, perversion, Pygmalion prayed that Venus would make Galatea real and they could have real sex (of course, that was not directly stated in the text, but only a moron would say this was not implied!). so anyway, being the hopeless romantic goddess of love that she is, she agreed to Pygmalion's wishes. Galatea was now human, of flesh and blood and passionate desires. it all boils down to the two having sex (again this is implied) and ultimately bearing a child. everybody gets some and lives happily ever after. end of text.

as a high school freshie, so innocent and naive, uncorrupted with the ways of the world, i actually thought it was all fairytale like. but now that i'm more learned, and i actually get to think about it, i say, it's creepy. sends shivers. think Pinocchio. and imagine Gepetto was actually a phedophile? freaky huh? this is exactly what happens in the myth of Pygmalion and Galatea. think again. does the Machete series actually allude to this tale of smouldering passion and desire? more like it.

so what is it actually telling us? that weird sexual preferences are favoured by the divine? that the perv gets away with it because of his extreme desire and passion? or that hope and prayer prevails?

i don't actually know. i'm too freaked out to.

people love complaining

people love complaining

i have been extremely lethargic lately, and the worst part? i shouldn't be. not now, not with all the stuff i should be doing for the semester's end. i'm on slow-mo and the world (or at least my academic world) is on fast-forward turbo. i can't keep up.

and as if a great conspiracy is at work, i'm having migraine twinges...again. with episodes of nausea.now, i literally cannot function. i suspect a certain undisclosed person caused me to have migraine attacks. oh if words could kill...if only they could... you are sooo dead right now.

plus, i ran out of meds (or i lost it, can't remember, too tired to think). it's prescription and i lost the damned piece of shit paper. so how is this? we're supposed to go gallery visiting again at 10 and my head is still throbbing. it doesn't get any better than this.

sembreak is like a few steps away, but i can't feel it. make me.

what the fuck were you thinking?

this was what i have been avoiding all along...

and although i thrive on stress

this is not the kind i'd rather be living on.

got it?

but then again, maybe not.

on giving up

on giving up
one day you wake up. you're late for class but you can't seem to get yourself out of bed. every movement is a feat, a bitter pill to swallow. you wish everything would just go away, or better, if you could just go, diasppear into oblivion. if only sleep could wash away the burden.

your fate is resigned, you decide.and you give up. for some reason, you just can't continue going on anymore. you have been so fed up with life.you have finally reached super saturation. you need to stop, breathe and think. recollect your thoughts. vent your feelings. cry if you must. after all, repression is breeding ground for rage.

after which, you get a clearer view, a broader perspective. either you go on or give up altogether. at most times, you continue at other less frequent times, you don't. you weigh your options, you either stay or get out of the system. you want out. you realize you are just human and life as one is not without its limitations.

sometimes giving up doesn't mean defeat but rather holding on, to life, hope and sanity. when life blows hurricanes your way, you don't resist. instead, you bend with the direction of the blow. in the end, you remain standing, you survive, molded and strengthened by the wind.

this might be a terrible attempt at consolation... but i certainly hope it will do. :)

taft me now

taft me now

person A: "bakit parang ang sakit sa baga ng hangin?"

me: "friend, behold...this is taft."

beloved taft avenue's air pollution levels have gone totally out of control. as in literally, you breathe in smoke and dust plus, if you're lucky enough, the aroma of either rotting garbage (read as gar-badge) or shit (apparently, a lot of people think taft is just a long stretch of toilet cubicles). if you wouldn't die getting run over by an 18-wheeler truck that sees red as "go", you would, however, from apparent intoxication, carbon monoxide poisoning and/or later development of a lung disease, you choose...

in times like this, when i'm on the verge of serious toxicity, what with all the papers and school stuff i have to do, the exams and all, the toxic soup that is the air, is not helping at all. more so, it worsens the condition. as a proof, now, i have colds, tenacious phlegm and migraine. i may not live to see the day when people start bringing with them oxygen tanks to work, to school or just when they want to take a stroll down taft (for whatever reason, i could not comprehend). or this might happen quicker than we could say "taftavenuesucksthelifeoutofme".
anyway, if you want to live longer stay away from places like taft. or if you can't, repent now, start changing your life, who knows? taft might just take dear life...

i know he will. :p

you might have heard about this

you might have heard about this...

If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.
(Hardly seems worth it. I don't even drink coffee!!!)

If you farted consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas is produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb.
(Now that's more like it! Now, that's what I call weapon of mass destruction.)

The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to squirt blood 30 feet.
(O.M.G.!)

A pig's orgasm lasts 30 minutes.
(Everybody wants to be a pig now on their next life.)

A cockroach will live nine days without its head before it starves to death!
(Creepy.)
(I'm still not over the pig.)

Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour
(Don't try this at home, maybe at work)

The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached to its body. The female initiates sex by ripping the male's head off.
("Honey, I'm home. What the....?!")

The flea can jump 350 times its body length. It's like a human jumping the length of a football field.
(30 minutes..lucky pig! Can you imagine?)

The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds.
(What could be so tasty on the bottom of a pond?)

Some lions mate over 50 times a day.
(I still want to be a pig in my next life...quality over quantity)

Butterflies taste with their feet.

The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue.
(Hmmmmmm......)

Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people.
(If you're ambidextrous, do you split the difference?)

Elephants are the only animals that cannot jump.
(okay, so that would be a good thing)

A cat's urine glows under a black light.
(I wonder who was paid to figure that one out?)

An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.

(I know some people like that)

Starfish have no brains.
(I know some people like that too.)

Polar bears are left-handed.
(If they switch, they'll live a lot longer)

Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure.
(What about that pig??)

requiem

requiem

existensialism knocks and we realize that we are but humans, and everything will ultimately end in death. it's just a matter of who would go first and who would live to see the last, of hope and losing it.

i have always wanted to go like Morrie. no big scenes, no struggles, no painful defibrillators, no grasping for air, that kind of stuff. i wanted to expire as peacefully as possible. my body turns into a smoke version of me and finally be blown by the wind. perfect.

but, alas, we have to face our own mortality. indeed not every death is peaceful as it is painful. and while age definitely comes with death, death does not necessarily come with age. the moment we live, we are eligible to die. it is a sick package.

which is why nothing breaks my heart more than seeing all these sick children in ward 9 knowing that most of the cases have poor prognoses and even poorer funds for medical care. because of their situation they are forced to fastforward to maturity and when you try and listen to what they have to say, they may talk even more sense than most of our politicians. but sooner or later these kids have to go. and not a single one of them, deserve to be there.

what even hurts me more is that, we can only do so much for these kids. i wanted to save them and take them out of their misery, a bit messiahnic i might say, but there's a limit to what you can do. after resources have been exhausted, there's nothing to do but wait. i never felt powerless in my life. and sometimes, after the wait, you find out you couldn't have done anything more and they finally succumb to death. finally, the misery is over. it's sad. but you know, once in a while we have to have a brush with death to be reminded of life and to be thankful for it.

Phateros

Phateros

nanggaling nanaman kami ng Pateros nung Sabado. buti na lang mabait si Lord di umulan. pero di rin ako nakapag-sunblock, dang! at dahil magaling kami ng aking partner na si blove, na-assign kami sa Siberia. you don't ever want to be assigned to Siberia, sa mabaho at maputik na Siberia ng Sitio Pagkakaisa A. had we known, na yun na pala yung Siberia, we would never have agreed to be assigned there. kaya nga lang, magaling kami, we took it as a challenge. right... haha.

half way through the survey mangiyak-ngiyak na kami. yung mga kasama namin, patapos na, kami wala pa sa kalahati tapos ang dami pa naming nakalimutang itanong. we just wanted to get out of the place. kaya pumunta kami dun sa suki naming tindahan, to take the break we deserved. after sinukmani, sprite, skyflakes, mr.chips, boy bawang and tootoos nga ba yun? (puro junkfoods), we were so back in the game.

actually, i'm getting the hang of this community diagnosis thing. adventure and bonding to the max ito. sana lang, pumasa kami sa panlasa ni dones. i heard siya raw yung mag-ggrade sa min. oh no! actually, di pa kailangan mag-panic ngayon. ready... get set... panic!

mas marami kaming bloopers ngayon. meron kaming household na sinurvey for hypertension. and there was this family member na 110/30 ang BP, not a very promising reading for aa 20-something adult male, medyo abnormal nga e. halos lagyan na namin ng taning ang buhay niya. medyo tinakot nga yata namin siya. but fear is good, most of the time, fear warrants compliance. siguro naman magpapacheck-up na siya. hopefully. sabay gatong pa ng biyenenniya sa anak niya "hala... wala ka ng tatay...". haha. pinigil ko ang tawa ko nung sinabi niya yun. ngayon, naniniwala na ko sa antagonistic mothers-in-law

marami ring mga bouts of laughter which were most of the time unaccounted for, habang siryoso kaming nagiinterview ng mga tao sa kanilang mga bahay-bahay. ewan ko nga e. baka nawi-wirdohan na sila samin. bahala sila.

tapos yung weighing scale na dala-dala namin. it was the funniest thing. haha. you have to see it to believe it. but it was functional nevertheless. :D eto lang masasabi ko, susmaryosep!

babalik nanaman kami sa thursday. yay! Siberia again... sweet...

some things

some things

only happen to me. just after fervently hoping it wouldn't. parang nananadya.

and i thought lady luck and i were friends. but apparently, she is one tough prankster. pag siya ang nang-trip, iba. expect the unexpected. and you'd definitely believe that nothing is impossible.

there i was minding my own business when some senior girl (thanks to her!) approached me and told me the red flag was on...big time! and scenes from my life flashed before my eyes... oh no! i'm dead. really... ok, no. but i was good as dead. i wished i was dead. i honestly, hoped i would just vanish right at that moment. the thing was, i was in uniform. and i reckon, hours earlier i was actually telling a classmate that that was the worst thing that could ever happen when you're in that godforsaken uniform. or, when you're wearing anything for that matter.

so anyway, i tried to wash it off, but to no avail. it was darn difficult in that dress. so i opted for cover. i was trying to be as discrete as i could but somehow the janitor noticed and told me i should get a jacket and tie it around my waist. like i didn't know that! the problem was, no one seemed to have a jacket anywhere. and every person i asked automatically knew what was going on. practically, the whole college knows. you could just imagine how many people have known.

every person i asked, plus every person within 1 meter radius the time i asked, plus every person on the girl's bathroom and everyone within 5 meter radius from me automatically knew. even the guard approached me and offered that i use the boy's bathroom, when all i wanted to do was to put on my apron. duh i don't need the boy's bathroom to do that!

i literally, wanted the earth to swallow me back whole.

anyway, after everything that happened, i couldn't muster the strength to get on with my life and my migraine was threatening me again. so i skipped class and went home. and that was the best thing that happened to me. for the day, at least.

so here's the continuation

so here's the continuation

i wrote this exactly a week ago. and i have completed the required number of major and minor operation assists. things did not go as planned but i finished everythign nonetheless.

by now, i have assisted 5 major operations and 2 minor procedures meaning i am 3 minor operations away from completing the PRC requirement of undergrad operations assisted for my license (every student nurse has to have at least 5 major and 5 minor assists aside from the other requirements to be eligible for a license). but the college, as merciless as it is, requires students to have a minimum of 10 major and 10 minor assists (a total of 20) to be able to complete the undergraduate program. the good thing is, however, we can complete it anytime during the entire course. with the PGH being our base hospital, completion is guaranteed. mahina na ang 20 assists. normally, naeexceed pa yung required.

anyway, if things go as planned, i'll be able to finish everything by thursday.:)

i'll try to recall in as much detail as possible every case i was able to observe.

first case

OB-OR delivery room

c-section

diagnosis: multiple congenital abnormalities

i was among the people who arrived earlier so i was assigned to the OB-OR which usually had really early cases. at that moment i wanted to curse myself for being too early. too early for my own good. the thing was they give you room assignments and just let you be. leave you there without so much specific instructions as to what exactly you were going to do upon arrival at the operating room. without the comforting (and at times annoying) presence of a clinical instructor constantly, religiously whispering instructions and reminders at the back of your neck, you feel kind of lost. me? i was sh*t scared! i didn't know what to expect from a caesarian section. and no matter how many times i tried to brace myself, no amount of bracing could calm the nerves. my heart was pounding, my head was throbbing along with it in a constant ominous duet. i wanted so badly to back out. yun bang parang gusto mo na lang mamundok at magtanim na lang ng kamote!

so i entered the operating room, did the obligatory pleasantries to the nurses on duty and followed an order to scrub. scrubbing is the act of preparing yourself for contact to an all-sterile field. it involves vigourous hand scrubbing with a brush (that could literally scrub your skin red) and 7.5% betadine solution, gowning (putting on the OR gown) and donning gloves. it's more complicated than you think. you have to be extra cautious and mighty vigilant about sterility. a slight doubt, hint or contact to an unsterile surface and you'll be stoned to death! really... ok no, but you'd either be yelled at by the doctor and or scrub nurse or be stoned to death. or in worst cases both. but in any of the situations you'd have to live with the stigma that comes along the phrase "scrub-out". and i tell you, the stigma is too real, the experience traumatizing that many a nursing student have lost hope in life because of it. just a reminder, whatever you do when in scrub, eat, drink and breathe sterility! for your own sake...

after scrubbing, (my first time ever to scrub) the patient was already on the table apparently anesthesia-loaded. the scrub nurse, the one i was supposed to assist, was busy preparing all the instruments, so for the first few minutes i was on one corner trying to make myself scarce. praying that it should all end. the next thing i know, i was called to come near the OR table and they were already cutting the patient's abdomen. things happened real fast. one moment they were on the skin, and then they were dissecting layers of fat the next. another moment still, and they were already taking the baby out of the mother's belly. remember that scene from the alien movie (i just can't remember the title, i'm not good with movies)? it was a lot lot lot like it. apparently, the baby they took out had an incredibly huge head and a bunch of other congenital anomalies. remember fabella? it was fabella on a whole new different level, bloodier but still the same characteristic stench of amniotic fluid, one that sticks to your clothes long after the procedure is done.

eww... now i can remember its smell as i type this.

so after they have taken off the baby, they took out the even alien-er looking placenta. (i am seriously nauseous now). a mass of dark red, slimy, jelly-like flesh. it was all weird seeing it come out of the abdomen. then afterwards, came the long and boring process of suturing the abdomen. the whole time i was actually imagining what could happen if the patient suddenly awakens and sees this huge opening on her belly. or perhaps the sight of the opening wouldn't bother her but the thick layer of FAT would.

when the procedure was finished, my head was throbbing inredibly that i had no other intention but to get out of the operating room. and i did. since i was at the hospital already, i went and sought medical opinion regarding the headache i was having continuously for 3 days for fear that it could be a tumor or something. no definite diagnosis was made. but i was advised to take medications.the headache resolved. meaning i am tumor-free. after my first operation assist, one thing was sure, i do not ever want to go under the knife. thank God.

tweaked version

tweaked version

pictures from Pateros

children of Pateros

"innocent eyes"

"playground"

"potty-trained""hallelujah" "this aint heavy"

*must give props to blove for the wonderful pics from Pateros

baptism of fire

baptism of fire

any self-respecting nursing student would sooner or later face the perils of the operating room. and if you're kind of squeamish and weak-hearted, this is not for you, i repeat, this is not for you.

just for the record, i do not have any claims to greatness and i'm not pretending like i don't feel like throwing up everytime i imagine layers of skin, fat and muscle being dissected, that i'm strong enough not to feel my stomach do tremendous backflips and somersaults everytime i smell the stench of burnt flesh from the cautery machine, that i do not wince at the sight of tons of sterile gauze soaked in blood and that i feel absolutely nothing when i see surgeons cutting through human flesh as if it were palatable meat. pretense is not mine.

on the first round of clinical duties, yes, we were assigned to the OR. and of course, as it is PGH, the OR would not just be a single room, instead a whole floor, a complex even and i tell you it really does live up to the name "OR complex". i have been to the ORC for about 3 days now, the first day we even toured the whole complex but until now, the slightest change of orientation (e.g. a closed door) would render a lost me. yeah, i have a very poor sense of direction plus the place was a literally a labyrinth. one time, they made me run after a stretcher which had gone from the ob-gyne OR room to the PACU(post anesthesia care unit) to give some stuff and when i turned to go back, i didn't know where i was, and where i was supposed to go. but no, i could not ask for directions. getting lost was not an excuse. through perhaps a combination of luck and (ahem ahem) woman's intuition i was able to go back to the nurse's station all in one piece. the labyrinth failed to consume me. :P

to be continued...

now here's some piece

now here's some piece

on commitment, love and the whole b.s. magillah.

love actually

must give props to arun for that.

lessons learned:

for the girls, stop pretending that we're always on the losing end here. once in a while you have to cut the guy some slack, yes, even just for the effort. and please, not everything is about you so stop being a drama queen and quit whining.

for the guys, at least you get to choose. hell, you can even spend a whole lifetime choosing, dating and checking out every female species you can. ergo, it would not be anyone's fault but yours if you do make sucky choices.

joke time muna

joke time muna

oo na. corny na kung corny. :p

Pedro: Galing ako sa doktor, nakabili nako nghearing aid. Grabe! ang linaw na ng pandinig ko!

Juan: Talaga?! Magkano bili mo?

Pedro: Kahapon lang.

LOLO: Gino paabot nga ng kape ko

APO: Lo, Gina po

LOLO: Gino paabot nga ng kutchara

APO: Lo, Gina po

LOLO: Punyeta ka Gino! Tigil-tigilan mo yang kabaklaan mo!

MISTER: pag namatay ka, isusulat ko sa nitso mo "MALAMIG NUNG BUHAY, MAS MALAMIG NUNG MAMATAY!"

MISIS: Ah ganun?! sa nitso mo naman "SA WAKAS NANIGAS DIN!"

WIFE: Himala! aga mong umuwi ngayon.

HUSBAND: Sunod ko lang utos ng boss ko. Sabi nya"GO TO HELL",

kaya ito uwi agad ako...

Lasing (takot): may multo sa banyo natin!

Wife: Ha? Bakit?

Lasing: kasi bumubukas yung ilaw pag papasok akong banyo eh.

Wife: punyeta ka! ikaw pala umiihi sa ref!

DAD: anak, bili mo ko softdrinx

ANAK: Coke or pepsi?

D: Coke

A: Diet or regular?

D: regular

A: bote o can?

D: bote

A: 8 oz o litro?

D: Punyeta!! tubig na lang!

A: viva o wilkins?

Juan: bday ng asawa ko

Pedro: ano regalo mo?

Juan: tinanong ko kung ano gusto niya.

P: ano naman sinabi?

J: Kahit ano basta may DIAMOND.

P: ano binigay mo?

J: Baraha.

Teacher: We are descendants of Adam and Eve!

Student: That's not true! My dad says we are descendants of an Ape!

Teacher: We are not talking about your FAMILY!

KRIMINAL1: "Pare, sigurado ka bang dito dadaanyung papatayin natin?"

KRIMINAL2: "Oo, nagtataka nga ako, 1 oras na tayodito wala parin siya!

Sana naman wlang nangyaring masama sa kanya."

** (in the obligatory AngTV-ish tone) Ngeee!!!

you know the world ain't safe when

you know the world ain't safe when

1) Ukranian women drug street children and drink their blood

- but no. they're not into that yucky stuff of biting their victim on the neck. instead, they use disposable syringes to draw blood. right... now that's safe!

2) Animal Homosexuality is too real

-please please follow link for clear visuals...

3) Students idolize Adolf Hitler

-Nazis don't rock mahn! and well, yeah, (surprise!) he's EVIL.

4) Snickers (TM) have poison threats
- in New South Wales , at least. wow! thought that was close.

5) Even donkeys have become sex addicts
- uhmm... f*ckin asses.

6) Pot clubs outnumber McDonalds
-or on second thought... maybe now, the world is safer.

rockology 107 @ UP Manila

rockology 107 @ UP Manila

sandwich: asteeeg. sabog siguro si raymund. pero ayos pa rin, saya ng tugtugan. galeng.

parokya ni edgar: ibang level ng kabangagan ito. galing ng tugtog. saya. and mind you, they are very,very down to earth people. walang star complex. mas astig yun. i seriously think, frontman chito was loaded with Prozac.

people: saya ng crowd. there were a bunch of sweaty, stenchy, non-UP, body slamming, bad apples but it was okay. annoying yet... well, still annoying. buti sana kung gwapo. hehe. mga ungas ang babaho niyo!

nakaka-high talaga. ibang klase. lalo na kung medyo malapit ka sa speaker at medyo feeling mo may dysrrythmia (oops geek alert!) ka na at sumasabay sa beat ng tugtugan yung puso mo. tapos pagkatapos medyo bingi ka na from auditory fatigue (geekzoid alert x 2). haha. ang saya nun!

-------------------------------------

the famous tawas experiment

gone awry.

given really vague instructions as to the methodology of said experiment,

we went ahead and gave it a shot.

but to no avail.

crystals were supposed to grow. colors were supposed to appear.

yet all we had in the end was a shit-stained piece of alum.

so very "anti-climactic".

rockology 107 @ SSC

orange and lemons: GREAT showmanship mahn. loved the cuts. i might buy the album.

hale: yawn... snore... slit wrists... way too girly stuff. not for me.
-------------------------------------------
chili chip @ gdonya

venue: astig. free beer. but i don't drink beer even if i want to (i think it makes you look so cool when you're chugging the bottle) can't stand the taste.

bands: no definitive description. batopik was good though (better than the last time i saw them perform). especially {ahem ahem}.

people: i refuse to bash (although, i'm itching to) people i'm not fully acquainted with. bashing would be reserved for ----------------.blogspot.com. my alter ego. hehe.

humanities 2

humanities 2
is a potent sedative. and i'm dead serious about this.
it's unexpicably coma-inducing especially if Prof.B happened to be your professor. art doesn't get any more stupider than this.

last meeting we were asked to bring art materials for some "art exercise". i brought some old oil pastels and a 16-color crayola box for that pretending like i know how to use them. and then we were asked, using said "art materials" to draw whatever idea comes to mind. (or at least pretend to draw. not everyone has talent, you know)

no, not a concept but an idea. although the difference is still kind of a blur to me. anyway, Prof. B gave us examples. like, a flower is a concept but romance is an idea. a mountain would be a concept but summit was an idea. get the picture? yeah well, okay, roughly.

so i went ahead and drew whatever came to mind. actually it was more of, what i can draw, than what i wanted to draw. well, i thought the idea could follow afterwards.

then came 30 minutes or so of bashing each other's "art work". haha. well, except of course, for those who showed more potential. anyway, our word for the wise would go something like "tell them its postmodern and you're sure to get off the hook."

my ingenious "work of art" didn't go exactly as planned. it was pretty much a bunch of circles. it was decent enough for me. though any self-respecting kindergarten student could replace it or maybe even do a little enhancement.

yeah, so there goes my short-lived (or did it even live at all?) art career.

me and art? yeah well, how do you phrase it?

fuhgedaboutit!

really really disturbing

* blog owner is without possession of said video

guess what?

guess what!?

i was LATE today...

for an exam!

now, am i great or am i great? haha. in your face -----! :p

------------------------------

i'm worried

i'm worried.

we are on our second week of classes and never, ever, even in the squeaky and cobwebsy corners of my mind have i imagined a week straight without a single tardy mark on my record. this is just so not me, that it scares me.

has the late ms. egay been resurrected?

and am i really that ready to face a life of punctuality?

oh, i don't know... for all we know, i'll be reverting back to my old ways next week or even the days to come, tomorrow or the day after that or may be even the day after the day after that. nothing really is for certain.

what i do know is, i have not been feeling optimal for the past days. out of 8 days, 1 day had been with febrile temperature, 4 days with tenacious cough and some 3 days with a terrible heavy feeling in the head.

oh no... maybe...but no...

could this really be the effect of too much punctuality?

i have stopped responding to paracetamol for my headaches and i'm slowly forging a dependency for mefenamic acid 500mg. ooops.

a punctual drug dependent...

what do you think? not my cup of tea xD.

* that klaudia koronel girl is on TV again.
enough already, it's way past graduation season. this is overkill. overkill!!!

super size me and you

super size me and you

ATTENTION BOYS AND GIRLS!!!

How Much Does One High-Fat Meal Contribute To Heart Disease?

March 04, 2005

Heart disease is the No. 1 killer of women and a leading cause of death for all Americans. So, researchers at the University of Miami wanted to know if eating just one high-fat meal can contribute to heart disease.

In the acclaimed documentary "Supersize Me," the filmmaker eats all his meals at a McDonald's restaurant for a month, causing his weight and cholesterol to climb.

"We've known for many years a high-fat meal on a regular basis can cause a lot of problems," said University of Miami study participant Araley Peter.

But researchers wanted to know what kind of an effect just one high-fat meal would have.

"The results were very surprising," said University of Miami researcher Eduardo De Marchena.
The startling findings were recently published in the American Heart Association's journal Circulation.

"The people who participated in the study were all young people, like me, in their 20s without any medical problems," Peter said.

On one day, the participants were served a low-fat breakfast of Frosted Flakes, skim milk and orange juice. The next day, participants ate a very high-fat breakfast, consisting of an egg McMuffin, a sausage McMuffin and two hash browns.

After each meal, blood was drawn and tested. No problems were detected after the low-fat meal. But the same couldn't be said for the latter experiment.

"The thing that's very interesting in this study is that just a couple of hours after a high-fat meal, we found evidence that there was damage already in the surface of the blood vessels," De Marchena said.

The evidence was a dramatic increase in micro-particles released when the lining of blood vessels is damaged. And three hours after the meal, harmful blood fat called triglycerides, shot up 81 percent.

"We think that this will eventually lead to hardening of the arteries. It can also lead to clotting or forming clots inside the blood vessels, which can potentially lead to stroke or heart attack," De Marchena said.

And it doesn't have to be a fast food breakfast to be damaging, according to De Marchena. Researchers say the meal they tested was 50 grams of total fat, with 14 grams from saturated fat. And their findings apply to any high-fat food combo, no matter where it's cooked.

The study sends a strong message, according to heart expert Dr. Gervasio Llamas, from Mount Sinai Medical Center.

"Just one meal that is high fat and unhealthy can hurt your arteries. One day, one meal will hurt, and it's measurable," Llamas said.

The high-fat breakfast tested was made up of foods from McDonald's restaurant. McDonald's said that it is committed to offering quality food choices and that the "study is not about McDonald's. It is not where you eat, but the food choices you make, and especially how much you eat."

Researchers agree, and they are planning a new study.

* from the eye-opening super size official site of super size me --http://www.supersizeme.com

** "one burger McLard and a large McFatty fries to go please!"

*** temporary fastfood diet withdrawal follows...

**** {enough with the asterisks already!!!}

who let the stupid dog out

who let the stupid dog out

as i was on my usual bus ride home, an unusual sight caught my eye. a dog, the breed of which was unclear to me (but then again, i wasn't so keen on dog breeds), with its off-white fur lay undisturbed on the middle of the south super highway amidst uninterrupted traffic flow. reason leads me to believe that said dog got run over by some car and just left its lifeless corpse there. total hit and run.

the bus i was on was brought to a halt by an entirely different matter so i was able to observe the dead dog from a distance. it wasn't very far now before the canine had to be once more got run over by some vehicle. my heart was pounding as i anticipated the event, but it was not of excitement. it was more of pity for an already dead dog to be crushed by a ton of steel on wheels. i just hoped the dead dog would be spared of an 18-wheeler.

then it happened. the dead dog was hit by a van. for a second, its lifeless corpse was airborne, landed hard, flat on the asphalt pavement a few yards from where it originally lay. although i could not hear a sound, i felt its bones crunch on impact with the hard surface. and the van did not seem to have noticed the carnal act it had just done.

i gasped too loudly when i saw it that i was lucky not to have woken up the person sitting beside me. some sight it was. for the entire trip, i was actually trying to figure out what went into the dog's head for wanting to cross the highway. i gave up thinking but resolved that dogs could not think (that's why they are dogs!) so that he got ran over by some automobile.

i bore witness to this event. and it still haunts me to this day. then again, it's not everyday you see some dead

dog get hit by a car 'no.

* i happened to catch "dude where's my car?" on TV, and mahn this has got to be the stupidest, most pointless movie ever. although i admit laughing at the stupidity and utter moron-ity of it all. haha.

one last take on summer

one last take on summer

classes will be starting soon and apparently, my body's having a difficult time recovering from the paralyzing effects of summer. i have been so used to the lethargy that the mere thought of getting back to the usual school routine tires me already. yet i am quite thankful we'll be going back to school soon. verdict: must have serious conditioning...

well, summer class was a breeze except for the whole speech comm fiasco (and even that did not require much of my efforts or maybe i was too darn lazy too exert effort :p). and guess what? i earned my first (and maybe the last i'll ever have for my entire undergraduate life) 1.0 this summer in PI 100. i should say sir piwi sure knows how to dispose off unos. hehe. anyway, comm 3 classcards, i heard, haven't been issued yet. oh well, i'm expecting a tres anyway. again let us be reminded of the delicate balance that the world is on. you get a 1 and you expect a 3 somewhere else.oh life!

moving on... i just came from samar last tuesday morning. spent about 4 or 5 days there, i'm not quite sure. we got there thursday morning and that same afternoon, headed the beach and got beach-wasted until 9pm. i did a bit of snorkelling but iwas sh*t scared to go any further than a few meters from the shore where luckily some parts of the reef were but it was teeming with life. lots of fish and sea urchins (yeowch!) and some other sea dwelling life forms which up until now i could not quite figure out. some i saw only for the first time and some were quite familiar species. i was practically swimming in fish. very nice.

oh and i just love the beach at night! very picturesque and well okay, though i have been avoiding the use of such word, romantic. and even that is an understatement. the stars, it has been so long since i last noticed how beautiful they were. the moon, shone with a bright eerie yet kind of majestic yellowish glow. fireflies lit the trees, almost adorned them like artificial lights. the distant floating lights of the boats that have already gone fishing illuminated the horizon. it was some amazing display of lights against the dark silhouette of the sky and the sea. sitting by a bonfire, the sight was just breathtaking that i could look at it forever and i was actually half expecting for some old mopey song to play even if just for the effects. i had never been thankful enough for the power interruption that intensified everything more. it was pretty enough observed alone but deep down i kind of thought it would be much prettier if you had someone to share it with, someone other than a bunch of old folks and rascals for cousins. :)

on the 28th we attended an aunt's wedding. they put me on veil. it didn't seem to be a problem not until i discovered they were doing the service on some Visayan dialect, which i understood very little of, if anything. most of the time during the ceremony, my mind wandered off to some unknown plane. anyways, so there i was, sitting on the pews waiting for some god-given signal to let me know when i was supposed to go and pin the darned veil. once i have made the mistake of standing up to do it. i was already on the aisle when they told me it wasn't actually time for it yet. and then i thought about the last wedding i attended before this, the ceremony's entirely in Japanese and i imagine everyone anxiously praying to get on with the eating. this time, i seemed to be the only one clueless about everything, not that i wasn't normally clueless enough. i found it rather comedic though to be found in that kind of situation. almost too sitcom-ish.

the following day, sunday, we headed the beach again though this time with all of our relatives, most of which i don't even know. there were i think some 50 of us there. weird thing was they had to bring along a keyboard and an electric guitar with matching amps and probably the guitarist too and sang along. i guessed the videoke machine just wasn't enough. with all the commotion going on, i felt kind of out of place and that's when i was introduced to some people who i hung out with the whole afternoon at the beach, very, very nice and accommodating people. looking forward to hanging out with you people again.

i could have stayed longer but i had yet to go and enroll myself for the coming semester. bummer. :P

i took the test and guess what? i am...

Which Takeshi's Castle Character are you?

some quiz

some quiz

Got this survey from some other blog

THREE NAMES YOU GO BY:

1. Egay

2. Egs

3. Erica

THREE SCREEN NAMES YOU HAVE HAD:

1. akireus

2. acire_yram

3. eggnogakireus1987

THREE PHYSICAL THINGS YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF:

1. Eyes- eventhough they give me away 98% of the time (dang!)

2. Complexion- natural tan, true blue (or brown) pinoy. although i must admit, i do not always like it.

3. Dimples- yeh, how could i forget about them?

THREE PHYSICAL THINGS YOU DON'T LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF:

1. Perpetually messy and unmanageable hair

2. Complexion- see...i can love it or hate it. depending on my mood or the time of the day or the weather or the lighting. depends on a lot of stuff really.

3. Legs- too scrawny. i never really liked it.

THREE PARTS OF YOUR HERITAGE:

1. I don't

2. have an idea

3. what you're talking about

THREE THINGS THAT SCARE YOU:

1. anything that involves me and a stage

2. death

3. intimacy and physical proximity

THREE OF YOUR EVERYDAY ESSENTIALS:

1. Bath- never a day without one

2. A dose of rock music at anytime of the day

3. Facial wash- to keep skin breakout free :)

THREE THINGS YOU ARE WEARING RIGHT NOW:

1. UP Shorts

2. Shirt

3. Pink and black slippers

THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE BANDS OR MUSICAL ARTISTS:

1. Silverchair

2. Eraserheads- the gods of my generation :P

3. Bob Marley

THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE SONGS: (current)

1. My Chemical Romance- I'm Not Okay, reflects current disposition and stature

2. Silverchair- Greatest View, just the right amount of angst and mush

3. TBS- Slowdance on the Inside, no particular reason

THREE THINGS YOU WANT IN A RELATIONSHIP: (this really made me think)

1. Friendship

2. Passion

3. Commitment

TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE (in no particular order):

1. If given a choice, I'd certainly choose to be more popular.

.2. Guilty pleasure: listening to Mandy Moore's Coverage album and secretly liking all of her films including those which sucked.

3. I can go totally out of my way to avoid conversation when i just don't feel like it.

THREE PHYSICAL THINGS ABOUT THE OPPOSITE SEX THAT APPEAL TO YOU:

1. Scent

2. Physique- yung alam mong lalaki pero hindi super pa-macho gets?

3. Face- yung walang masyadong pimples :)

THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE HOBBIES:

1. tv

2. crafts- when i'm up to it or when i'm bored to death

3. nothing- i just love doing nothing

THREE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO REALLY BADLY RIGHT NOW:

1. learn how to play the guitar like steve vai... yeh ryt!

2. ****

3. and get away from all of life's complexities

THREE CAREERS YOU'RE CONSIDERING:

1. Hospital Nurse

2. Nurse on a cruise ship

3. Educator

THREE PLACES YOU WANT TO GO ON VACATION:

1. Hawaii

2. Some exotic place in Asia

3. Europe

THREE KID'S NAMES YOU LIKE: (boys/girls)

1. John

2. Paul

3. George (and Ringo)

THREE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO BEFORE YOU DIE:

1. surf

2. sing with a band :p

3. travel the best places in the country

THREE WAYS THAT YOU ARE STEREOTYPICALLY A BOY/GIRL (whichever you believe yourself to be):

1. i'm addicted to nail polish

2. i consider flirting a vocation (haha)

3. i do get kilig sometimes

THREE CELEB CRUSHES:

1. drake bell

2. hugh grant

3. ken zhu (hehe)

THREE PEOPLE WHO HAVE TO TAKE THIS QUIZ NOW:

1. anyone who

2. finishes reading

3. this

speech disaster

speech disaster

everybody practically knows how much i despise public speaking. and boy was i too lucky to draw #1 on our class lottery (that meant i went first) even after fervently wishing and praying to get any number other than 1. i know... my luck (or the apparent lack of it) is insanely unbelievable. it's almost like being trapped in a Salvador Dali. so absurd. so entirely surreal.

i have always hated being first. second maybe, but definitely not first. there's definitely something about this whole "going first" fiasco that did not quite align with my cosmos.

maybe i hate being the decoy or maybe i hate being the one who get fed first to the sharks. basta, i hate being #1. it's just too much responsibility.

rumors are (and i am living proof that the alleged rumors are true) my speech comm professor is not exactly thrilled by those who deliver their speeches first that more often they get lower marks. lower than the mean score. and because i was first, i did get an emabarassingly low grade. well, apart from being first, i also kind of sucked. he should have cut me some slack though, being first was real tough especially if you have congenital stage fright working against you.

but here's the thing, after all the speeches were over, the man just had to, by some weird twist of events, announce our scores. i mean, come on! i really didn't mind having the lowest grade in the bunch, but you do not have to f*ckin rub it in my face! maaahn... that was so embarassing. especially when everyone else did fairly well in the exercise amd you kind of didn't.

but wait, the torture did not end there, much to my demise. gaahd, this was the worst part. before finally revealing the score, he just had to broadcast his criticisms (constructive or otherwise, good or bad) about your speech. didn't pose much of a problem if you had done satisfactorily and he has actually something good to say about your speech but if you went first and you kind of screwed up the whole performance, it was hell. duhr!!! no matter how polite you say it, it will somehow come out as "you weren't so bad except for this one tiny bit of detail... you made such a mess!". thanks a lot for rubbing it in, harder. now my confidence and self-esteem level is down to -100, great! just great...now how in the world would i be able to get through on more speech?? how!?

but i can't do anything about it now, can i? so i tried to feign disinterest and drown his voice into oblivion, as if i never heard him, although what i really wanted to do was to crawl into a hole or vanish into thin air, whichever event happened first.

i'm not against criticism. if anything, i welcome it.i'm saying this not only for bad reviews but also for good reviews as well. it has to be done in the proper time, place and context. and there's a very thin line separating critique and shaming.

and sir, one last message:

what in the name of heavens were you thinking?!

death forecast

death forecast

a quiz site tells me that i would die an average death on the average age of 67 years old, giving me less than 50 average years to fulfill my average dreams and resolve the average issues of my 40 % normal life , one of which is whether i shall use the name Dona Rosa or Dona Guadalupe, both ridiculous and equally annoying, as my Mexican name, in case i try to runaway to Mexico City from a lawsuit that involves frequently changing my name. in the less than half a century of my average existence i'd be known in Japan as Rei Takana and in Ireland as Fiona O'Conor . in pornstarlandia, i'd be Karen Kung-Fu Grip (wtf!).

but i need not worry, i only have a 17 percent chance of going to hell for being greedy and lazy. nevertheless, i'd die loved and feared by many. if it's any consolation, i'd be buried in a tomb. now that's a treat. x(

lost my phone

lost my phone

i'm almost over, about 97 percent over the fact that my phone got lost by this dude that from now on, for purposes of confidentiality and safety, we would refer to as "brother".

it's funny how when you say the same things over and over, the emotions that come along with them slowly wear off. and then it gets annoying. really annoying. so i'm not telling for the nth time how "brother" lost the phone... which negates the whole point of bloggering(TM) the whole thing. X) the thing was the phone seemed to have mysteriously vanished.

I have theories though something involving "brother" and the word "aliens".

anyway, i'm using a new number, which should be posted on demand. i reckon the dangers of posting it on a public blog such as this would be enormous. i have people running after my neck... hehe. the last thing you'll need would be neck congee on the menu.

mt.banahaw

Mt. Banahaw

had us all fighting for dear life.

not quite.

despite the utter lack of action and exercise in my life, i managed to get out of Banahaw, alive and all in one piece. although one of us, nearly broke a bone on the descent . a day's worth of tour in Banahaw is actually equivalent to nearly 18 yrs of living sedentary`. and the stairs leading to Sta. Lucia Falls was simply hell on earth.

so i came up with a banahaw equation:

(extreme heat + rough terrain)

zero public toilets

= an undefined mixture of exhaustion, contempt and constipation

----------------------------------------------------

unaware of what we have gotten ourselves into...

jeepney

down at sta. lucia falls. this is not worth my 500 steps.

exhaustion overload

madaya si sir, hindi siya bumaba

inside the cave

creepy statuettes inside the cave

outside the cave

Gateway

Gateway

is a relatively new place in the heart of Cubao. it was actually a rather refreshing venue for meeting my friends (kare, kes, bert). the whole place is neat and unlike the uber populated malls in manila, a lot quieter. you'd enjoy walking around though you can almost tour the mall in under an hour. the interesting thing about it is this outdoor oasis at the center of the mall. it's sort of like a mini rainforest complete with real butterflies and unrealistically green foliage on a gigantic hollow tube. the best part was you can lounge at the garden seats there if you're feeling a little nature-sy .

the place was about to close when we decided to leave. it could have been really fun though if we stayed a little while and just let ourselves get trapped inside the mall, that's like my ultimate fantasy maaahn. and then, i'll be off to raid Mango and Fornarina... bwahahaha. and perhaps, a little stop at the supermarket for refreshments after i get tired from all the raiding. bwahahaha. >:D

*Cubao is really scary after dark.

when we are continuosly pestered by oil-price hikes, somewhere else in the world...

Absent husband returns home ... as a eunuch

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - An Indian man who left his wife and two young children two years ago shocked his family when he returned home as an eunuch, wearing garish red lipstick, the Asian Age newspaper said Thursday.

After a fight with his wife, the jobless Nabiullah left his family in Hathipur town in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh in the summer of 2003 to look for work, the paper reported.

During his absence, he got himself castrated and became a eunuch, earning money by singing and dancing, a common form of employment among India's ostracized community of eunuchs.

"I was always fond of singing and dancing, but felt suffocated in my body as a man," Nabiullah was quoted as saying.

His wife, Shama Parveen, fainted when he returned home late last month and now wants a divorce.

"I cannot live with this eunuch and subject myself and my children to social ridicule," she was quoted

* i don't know what to say

** really

*** poor wife...

galera chronicles part 1

galera chronicles part 1

despite all the hassles we had to go through, we managed to have a blastin' good time at the beach.

my mom nearly kept me from going to that galera trip. so in consequence, instead of my usual early self and meeting them at around 4.30am at metropolis, i arrived at around 7-ish thereby delaying the trip for two and a half hours and rendering us behind our supposed schedule. of course, it also meant me having to recite a litany of apologies, for being the cause of such delay.

from there, we boarded the bus to the port where we were supposed to get on a large motorized banca to take us to white beach. the bus ride was (oh gahd) a terrible pain in the butt. literally. i mean, it had to be the longest bus ride of my life and i have been to 12 hr trips on bus. perhaps a combination of excitement and cramped seating space were a cause of condemnation of a 3 hr trip that lasted forever.

reaching the port, we had to wait like two more hours for the boat ride. and when we were finally called for boarding, we were totally scared out of our wits, they were overloading the damned thing and we nearly backed out. luckily, another boat arrived (not the one we were supposed to be in), a much safer boat, although an hour later than the supposed schedule which was 12:15. sayang, we were this close to having cute friends hehe. but they opted to ride the uberly overloaded first boat.and we never heard of them since. we have a theory though, that they were devoured by the sea. but we saw them the following day, they seemed quite okay. so maybe they managed to survive. i knew it. the cooler they dorkily tugged along with them was a self-sustaining rectangular bathysphere. i knew it. damn it i'm right. how else could they have survived such wrath?

well, i slept through much of the boat trip, awakened by the splash of water from outside the boat which soaked the back of my shirt. i was considerably lucky because kester (who was sitting beside me) got wet twice. and we were the only ones in the boat who, by some twist of faith, got splashed with water. it's weird considering the window behind us had some kind of plastic curtain to keep the water out. i actually gave up tryingto figure out how the hell we got wet.

i thought we were never going to see land ever again... so we collectively wished real hard, and prayed, sang hymns and burned incense. after an hour of lip-service we were at the beach. it was 2-ish then. whether the prayer and hymns and incense had something to do with it, is beyond me. i was okay with the fact that we were actually walking on sand, real sand.

then we were faced with a bigger problem. we still had no place to stay. the beach front hotels were all already fully booked. luckily, some locals were willing to share their residential space (if the price is right, of course) to the disillusioned tourists. so we landed paying for a shack among the woods. we literally had to take a hike to reach the godforsaken place. it wasn't the least bit hotel-sy (not that we were actually looking for a hotel-ish place. any airconditioned room could have worked) and we even had to share the house with the owners. while we slept at the rooms (their rooms), they slept on the floor at the living area. it was, well... a house-- a typical probinsya house, i might add, with a 30+ inch cable tv. neat... at that point we were willing to take anything just so there was somewhere we could spend the night (and somewhere, where we could take showers). we figured it didn't really matter because we were going to be out at the beach the entire time.

so we finally found a place, it was 4pm then, meaning we have all forgotten to eat lunch, what with all that looking-for-a-decent-place-to-stay fiasco. by then, i had a really, really throbbing headache and my world was literally spinning before my eyes and then i started throwing up. i felt really sick, maybe from hours of having eaten nothing (i forgot i was not able to eat a decent breaksfast) and the sordid heat that burned the very core of my existence. if i did not have a hat on, i feel all the gray matter would ooze out of my ears in search for a more tolerable weather. so there i went. the whole household hearing the entire episode of me puking in the toilet. really, really disgusting. :P
i was not really in the mood to go to the beach despite the prodding , having

KLSP

KLSP

(sa mtv, video ng spongecola- KLSP yung palabas)

kuya: ahh..yan pala yung KLSP

egs: oo nga. di mo alam?

kuya: e ano ba ibig sabihin ng KLSP?

egs: Kulang Lang Sa Pansin

kuya: ahh... akala ko KuLangot Sa Pader.

wtf...

heat wave

heat wave

my overused statement for today (and perhaps a couple more months): NAPAKAINIT!!!

sobrang init talaga. kaya naman pala naimbento ang summer vacation e . dahil wala sigurong gaganahan mag-aral kung ganito kainit tapos yung classroom niyo hindi aircon tapos siksikan pa. sus, naiimagine ko pa lang nanlalagkit na ko. ewww... ito yung pinaka ayokong feeling sa lahat. yung mainit na medyo humid tapos parang laging pawis yung mga tao.kadiri talaga. sa sobrang init bumigay na yung isa naming fan. overheat daw. right...

tapos pansin niyo? mas maraming creepy, crawly stuff kapag summer. ayoko pa naman nun. yung pinakanakakatakot e yung mga lumilipad sa malapit sa ilaw pag gabi. parang hindi nga nauubusan ng pila ng mga langgam sa kusina namin e. kahit anong pahid ng miracle chalk (na bigay ni Tita Del, pangontra raw sa ipis at langgam, pero di ako naniniwalang miracle yun) ang gawin mo, hindi pa rin sila mawala-wala. sa bagay kailangan natin silang intindihin, 'they're saving up for the rainy days'. hehe.

kanina habang tirik ang araw, tanghaling tapat, at walang magandang palabas sa tv, naisip ko bakit ba hindi na lang mag-hibernate ang mga humans pag tag-init katulad nung ginagawa ng mga oso pag winter? sa ganong paraan, hindi na natin kailangan magpawis at mag give-off ng heat na dumadagdag pa sa amount ng universal heat energy. hindi rin naman efficient ang magtrabaho pag ganito kainit dahil mas mabilis tayong mapagod. di naman tayo tulad ng mga langgam na kailangan mag-ipon ng food para sa tag-ulan dba?

kaya lang hindi pwede. masyado tayong ginawang adaptable ni mother nature. kainis.

ayun. kaya rin natutuwa akong manood ng spongebob. kasi sila kahit sa ilalim ng dagat, nagssnow pa rin. kaya gusto kong pumasok. kasi sa school aircon. sa bus aircon din. sa rob aircon din. kung pwede nga lang dun na matulog para malamig e gnawa ko na. kaya lang di ako nakapasok ngayon. bad trip. dami ko pa namang lalakaring mga bagay. tapos gusto ko rin magpalamig sa bus. oh well, bukas na lang siguro. buti na lang pala binalita sa kin kanina na hindi nako magffinals sa kahit anong subject. yehey!!! ang saya.

pero mainit pa rin ngayon. malapit na kong maligo sa ice water.