Video: I Love You Always Forever

Happy Easter, Everyone!

(My current theme song for Sunday Duty.) :-)

Just feeling happy, happy.

The Day Manila [Almost] Stood Still

This was my first Holy Week in Manila. Usually, where I'm from, after we do the early morning Via Crucis (Way of the Cross) with the family (and pretty much everyone in town), we spend the time at home, everything is just laid back, and somewhat solemn.

I had just gotten off work, and I wanted to feel a little bit of the Good Friday spirit, so I decided to go to the closest church that I liked, Malate Church. As usual, a trip is never complete without pictures. Here's a bit of how it all looked, just a few snapshots here and there. :-) 

Taft Avenue, Manila at 5PM. (Believe it or not.) (April 22, 2011)

The Outpatient Department of my Hospital. (It's so strange to see these chairs without PEOPLE.)  (April 22, 2011.)

"Papa Oom MOw MOw"

:-p these guys are a hoot. :-)

(MoymoyPalaboy and Roadfill. Gee thanks, Aleah.)

Now I can't get their faces out of my thoughts.

~ S.

The Downside

I love my job, and I've said it over and over in my entries.


There are downsides to it, though.


 After a bit of a crazy/busy/rollercoaster-y week, I therefore conclude that life as a Psychiatry resident is not all peaches and cream.


Case in point (or should I say, cases), during the past week:


1. One of my patients decided to go somewhere far far away, and not take his meds because there was nothing wrong with him (and this was after I did major major maneuvers).


2. A mother of one of my patients asked me to revert her son's medications back to the first generation antipsychotics (which have more side-effects, and are more neurotoxic) because she just simply couldn't afford to keep her son on the medications because of her meager salary.


3. A borderline patient has been incessantly calling the Call room and outpatient department, threatening not to take her meds and just go home to the province.


4. A coresident's patient has asked me to call up my patient because he's convinced that my patient, R., stole his beloved grey and black jersey, and he thinks this is so because his bag looked like it had been dropped hastily (as if someone ruffled through it), and because when he had last seen him, my patient had looked "suspicious" to him.


and lastly,


5. I just don't feel peppy enough to care very much these past few days. I admit to have shed a few tears in frustration, but right now, i'm kind of spent. To be perfectly honest.


(Which is probably why I've decided to hole up here in the department library to sort out my thoughts.)
There have been other good points as well...but right now, I just really want to wallow in this self-realized misery.

There really IS such a thing as...

A silent parrot

Nuns who love videoke

...and Bleeding Heart flowers.

.

Thetalesoftheeasyrider.wordpress.com

I'm sorry, but I had to stop.

The little red blinker kept saying it wasn't ok to go to my site anymore.

:-(

thetalesoftheeasyrider.wordpress.com.

Day 1.

i still love you.

- S.

Hot and Cold

At People's Park in The Sky, Tagaytay, Batangas, where it was cooooold. and visibility was nearly zero. :-)

I liked the Amphitheater idea. ( Imelda Marcos had this "palace-type" place built in th 70's for President Ronald Reagan's visit to the Philippines...guess what, he cancelled. The place never got finished. 

Taho was the only warm thing in that cold, foggy, wet place. If i weren't such a romanticist, i would have signed it off as a bad idea to go, but since i am, i totally thought it was a new experience. it was so dang chilly there! kinda like Baguio, but wetter.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Venus come out of a....Pineapple?
(haha...kidding of course.)

A dried up wishing well. People still throw coins into it for sentimental value... as the "esteemed tourist", I had to drop my own. *i wished for my heart's desire to be happy.* :-)

That's Taal Volcano (yes, and it's at level 2 warning) in the distance, "A volcano within a lake..." (Miss Universe 1993 Dayanara Torres said something else, but this was the gist of it. Her words sounded prettier though).

Taal Lake...within toe-dipping distance.
(It's so hot here, and to think that chilly and foggy place was just an hour away.)

Not a lot of new stuff to read this week....i've been too tired to sit down and just write.

This hasn't been a very good (and by that, I mean, leisurely) week for me.

Video: Strong Enough, Sheryl Crow

heard this sheryl crow song last night...
by accident.
loved it.
are you strong enough to be my man?
so catchy...

Chimi comes to the callroom!

 

My friend Chamie's little baby Promise was due for a follow-up with her pediatrician...and she stopped by, staying at the callroom with her nanny (who also happened to be Chamie's nanny when she was a baby!) while Mommy Chamie attended didactics for the morning...

she's about 6 days old.

                                                                                 She's adorable!

My first Family Meeting

I did my first family meeting this week.

Boy, was it hard.

After all that emotional strain, I felt I only wanted to do three things…

1.      Call my mother to bawl (I did. She was in church.)

2.      See my boyfriend and bawl. (Right. I should get me one. :-p wishful thinking, haha, but I suppose boyfriends should be around for these purposes..)

3.      Call my bestfriend. (But she’s ‘non-showbiz, so she wouldn’t feel it as intensely.)

I ended up with the next best thing.

I went to hear Mass. And then a friend of mine (and his co-resident  with GC’s, haha)ended up buying me green tea latte (with soy milk) from Starbucks afterwards.

And saw a bit of Barbie Almalbis rocking it out on the stage at the mall. I always thought she was super cool.

Barbie Almalbis, rocking it out on her purple Guitar. (Robinsons' Ermita, April 10,2011)

Oh, and I had my toenails done. Haha.

And then, eventually, I got to thinking that everything was back to normal. And the world was right again.

J

Back to work for me.

G’nite!

Love, 

An adopted little brother figure

 I made friends with someone from my hospital, just recently, and I think we’ve hit it off. One time, after rounds one afternoon (I wasn’t on-duty then), he and I got to talking. And we just ended up hanging out and talking after work outside the ward.

He reminded me so much of my little brother.

He even looked like my brother. J

He was a pretty verbose, and entertaining little fellow(and I mean that with all brotherly respect, of course) , and it was just as much fun discussing movies, as it was discussing about psychology principles and medical school.

All in all, one of the most fun conversations I’ve had all week. 

Vibe of the Week

I tend to give my heart's worth of work. (Butterfly Iron work, April 2011)

One time, while on duty this week, I ended up taking my time making notes at the nurses’ station. I had just come from a harrowing (well, in my case anyway) 2 hour talk with four of my patients in the wards.  As much as I enjoy hearing stories, I sometimes need to take a break to recharge. I don’t know if it’s just me (or that I keep thinking about it), but talking to patients for long periods takes something from you.

A little of your “vital energy” gets sapped. I suppose it’s because this kind of listening and interacting takes time, and effort, and concurrent care. You have to make a conscious effort to remember detail, and put it away in memory…so when you have to get back to the books, or consult someone about it, you can pull it out easy and infer a great deal out of it.

Caring about the other person also helps… (Although I’m not saying a good set of notes don’t.)

Chatting up the nurses there was a reprieve of sorts. Sir John B had on his cool playlist, which I checked after I recognized on as The Script’s Breakeven, one of my favorites. 

We got to talking about music, and in the end, I got invited to his band’s gig in the weekend. He’s a cool, all-around guy, with varied interests. He’s married, but he and his wife don’t have a kid yet, so I presumed that was pretty much why he had time to dabble in many things; photography, music, gadgets, even Photoshop.

The other nurse on duty at the time, Sir Ken was also of a different sort. He was also a musician, but classically trained…and he liked crystals. A lot.

He kept his stones in a mint-green chamois bag which he took out later in the shift, and wore on his right wrist. They were huge and chunky, and pointy. One was made of glass-like quartz, and then the other was tourmaline. I turned it over and checked it out, and asked him jokingly, “Would you happen to have some rose quartz there, sir?”

(Rose quartz is supposed to draw love to the wearer.)

His eyebrows shot up, and he went, “Oh, so you know about this too, Ma’am?”

“Nah, not really…I just know about some.” I said.

And we discussed a variety of topics from Gem stones, chakras and which started on Wicca, but was cut short because I received a call from the ER, regarding a patient that needed meds.

-----------

Earlier, while I was writing down my notes, he just casually pointed out to me something, “You know what Ma’am, I think, that you use a lot more of your heart than most of the other psychiatrists I’ve seen here. There are two things that could happen… you could either have compassion fatigue, or…worse, you could suffer from a burn-out”.

Time is my friend. (Talisay, Batangas, April 2011)

“What’s the difference?” I asked.

“Well, compassion fatigue  is when you get tired of caring, and then everything all becomes routine, and then you just stop caring…” he said. “On the other hand, if you use your heart too often, and just keep giving and giving, until you can’t give anymore, you run the risk of giving away all of yourself…”

(That got me to thinking. It was something I will probably have to deal with, later, considering I have the tendency to.)

------- 

Daily Snaps

We're in the middle of a residents' meeting. Sort of. (April 2011)

I just love this pretty building right near my hospital. :-) (April 2011)

Love is probably when he ties your shoelaces when you can't ( and other chorva). :-)

I don't even have to explain how easy it is for me to hold them this way. ;-) (With Promise Nazareth Robles Entona, born April 5, 2011)

There is always a story behind kids taking care of littler kids...and this girl-woman sure isn't the mother. :-S (April 2011)

A common sight in a physician's meeting at my hospital. By my rough estimate, only 8 of (approximately) couple of hundred plus residents came.

Here comes chimi.

My friend Chamie gave birth last april 5th, 2011.

A little bit of an intro…

She was pregnant during the screening stages at the start of residency, and was seriously thinking about whether or not to go through with residency at all. With hesitation, she approached the chief resident of our program, and told her of the situation.

Apparently, she was the right person to talk to. With a big smile, and a reassuring pat on the back, the chief resident told her not to worry, “It’s not so hard,” she said, “after all, I myself was pregnant two years out of the three in residency…” (She wasn’t the only one who was pregnant, by the way. Our other chief resident is pregnant, with twins. :-))

That put my friend’s fears to rest, and so far, things have been ok. Sure, she’d be sleepier at times than most of us “non-pregnant” folks, and would sometimes be highly emotional over something, but she managed pretty well. Her patients would go home very much improved. As far as work and studies were concerned, nothing was amiss.

So anyway, you have been forewarned… since I have fallen in love with little Chimi (note: we called her pregnant belly chimichanga, after I started calling her that, and the name stuck.), the next few pictures will just be of her and her “fans”.

If this looked like a maternity shot, you're mistaken. I was actually balancing her in between my... er, i was putting her on my chest. (Look Ma, no hands...)

(I love babies because they're really really soft and smell like milk and are so....fuzzy wuzzy, for lack of a better word.

Spandau ballet - True lyrics

My current favorite song. :-)

(Watched it on Modern Family. Made me cry. :-))

The Black Seeds - So True

My Nephew Mikoy put this up on my page. It's a good morning song.

Quoted from Wikipedia.

The Black Seeds are a musical group from Wellington, New Zealand. Their music is a fusion of dub, funk, afrobeat and soul.
The Black Seeds have two double-platinum selling albums at home, and successful European album releases through the German-based Sonar Kollektiv label. The Black Seeds perform with eight members, with instruments including vocals, guitar, saxophone, trumpet, bass, drums, bongos, keyboard and wood block.
Lead singer Barnaby Weir is also associated with the sideprojects Flash Harry and Fly My Pretties. Former band member Bret McKenzie is also a member of international award-winning comedy duo Flight of the Conchords, as well as playing Figwit the elf in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings. Their song "One by One" was used in AMC's Breaking Bad Season 2 Episode 9, "4 Days Out".
The Black Seeds have released seven albums: Keep On Pushing L.P (2001) and On The Sun (2003), Into the Dojo (2006) and Solid Ground (2008), a live album and remix albums Pushed (2003) and Specials (2010).

NTRO:
Oh yeah
Oh yeah-eh-eh

VERSE 1:
The sweetest stuff, you give to me
It makes me feel fine
Every little word that you say to me
Keeps my heart on time
Red blood flowin' like a rough rapid
When you are near by
Ain't no doubt 'cos it's plain to see
You set my soul on fire

CHORUS:
Something so true
Is what I get from you
An' I hope that you'll see
You get the best of me
[2 TIMES]
Oo wee

VERSE 2:
Most generous love, you spread around
To the people in your life
Sharing the weight and the pressure
Just to make it right
I hope one day that you get it back
If that karma stuff is true
Here's a little song just to make a start
Called something so true

CHORUS...

SOLO...

CHORUS...
Oh yeah...

OUTRO:
It's so, so true [4 TIMES]

Video: Bituing Walang Ningning

I love this song...this version particularly. Yet it's so melancholic, I seem to feel ambivalent about whether I should be happy about it, or if I want to cry.

(Don't mind the visuals...just put the headphones on and close your eyes. You'll see what I mean. Or hear.)

----

Still at the hospital. Not on-duty, but I had to do some stuff, put some papers together. so dorky. and it's a Friday Night.

I'm attached to the hospital by the hip, it seems. If it weren't so...relaxing, then I'd probably bolt off to my home, where it's warm, and my bed is soft and pillows squishy. i miss my bed.

:-S

I have a morning consult tomorrow.

Photos: Faces and Silliman University

Some pictures I took the past few days...

 

One of our consultants...He was the moderator at the Grand Rounds held recently (Aleah's). I took this one because I thought that this was the kind of pleased face you wanted to see at your grand rounds. :-)...The usually give you a beating. Acadmically, of course.

 No, I wouldn't dream of walking outside "This Area". Would you? (Plane ride home, some 30,000feet(?) up in the sky.)

Tennis Girls. March 28, 2011. Tennis is the one game where love is not the most important thing to score... But these little girls probably don't know that yet. I found them sitting up in the scoring booth "keeping score", while the graduation ceremony was going on. 

I pack light. Not. March 2011. 

When I got back, I brought my tennis rackets, some stuff from home, and the all-important cooler of comfort food, cooked by Ma, and some others by my titas/titos, who know my faves. Heck, I even got fried rice, the special kind my Tito cooks.  

:-)

Pick me up at the Irport? March 2011.

A Typo, of course, but the peeled sticker only added more charm. :-p

A shot of the strategic planning. This one is of a roomful of psychiatrists reaching for the sky. Not a common sight, mind you. (March 2011)

One of my favorite haunts when I was in College. The Library.
3 floors of absolute book heaven....oh how i loved this place! :-)
(I was at my cousins' graduation a few weeks ago, and I couldn't resist taking pictures like a good little tourist.)

Someone told me that someday I was going to get in trouble for taking pictures of strangers in "compromising" poses. Well... in my defense, I take pictures of the human condition...isn't that a good enough reason?

Back in College, this was where we played tennis...the gym had walls. It was a good idea for them to hack at the walls and install the big tarp. At least it was a fail-proof plan in case the rains came and ruined everyone's graduation make-up and shoes, right? :-)

(The court looks much more improved. It was shell when I was still at Uni.)

---------------- 

Long day at work today.

Good night y'all!