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Friday, March 30, 2012

Video: The Boyfriends

My best friend Ivy and I have these guys for boyfriends...in our dreams.

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Photos: that probably won't save the world :-p

March 26, 2012. My nephew (more like, cousin) Myles/Noyib before he bit into the Wasabi sushi roll. (Poor dude didn't know what hit him.)

Myles and his classmate JR slept over at my place for a couple of nights, so I  got to hang out with them. My conclusion? Teenage boys have a HUUUGE appetite...and are always texting. lol.

March 2012. One of my coresidents points at the pre-packed meals at the Co-Op. ..quick and easy, and with reusable containers. My fave is (easily) the Bicol express (pork in coconut milk, with lots and lots of chopped peppers!). I'd have it 3x a day, if I could.

Jan 2012. Oh look...a resto with my name on it (everyone calls me Manang/ "older sister",  back home. Even my nanny as a child calls me that.)

March 2012. The little dude had his dad watch over him the whole time, while he (the dad) instructed the barber ever few seconds...perfect haircut? or stage dad.

one of the two has to be the "cuter" option. :-D

And because Trina did not want the first years to be the only ones with the coasters on their tables, she got these Japanese-inspired ones from her recent trip to Japan for us. Guess which one's mine? (actually, it's the pink one, left-most, second-row.) Trina: "I knew you'd pick that." 

My teachers are greats in their field, I'm proud to say. We just recently went to a scientific meeting and one of  our teachers/consultants presented a lecture on Self-harm in Bipolar Disorder patients, and we were simply blown away. I thought (and said so) that it was "a masterpiece in organization/collation of data". She, Dr. J., was truly in her element, and now we have an idea of the shoes we have to fill when we do our Grand Rounds (mighty big!). :-D

This one was of the Guevarra "sisters"... ;-), during the 20 minute act break of the "Mamma Mia" performance. I had a great time with these ladies (Ivy's my best friend..and her sister and Mum were there too.)

Anyway,

it was a long day...can't get the stories out yet, though.

wait for me?

Love,

S.

Friday, March 23, 2012

Video: Falling Slowly

Joff and Dave's favorite song. 
And now i'm a fan. 
:-) Check out the lyrics.


I don't know you
But I want you
All the more for that
Words fall through me
And always fool me
And I can't react
And games that never amount
To more than they're meant
Will play themselves out

Take this sinking boat and point it home
We've still got time
Raise your hopeful voice you have a choice
You'll make it now

Falling slowly, eyes that know me
And I can't go back
Moods that take me and erase me
And I'm painted black
You have suffered enough
And warred with yourself
It's time that you won

Take this sinking boat and point it home
We've still got time
Raise your hopeful voice you have a choice

You've made it now
Falling slowly sing your melody
I'll sing it loud

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Extra:  lesson from Today's Grand Rounds presentation:

" Crying is not academic, but neither is belligerence."- me.

:-)

Love,

S.

Photos: From Leila's birthday party

My godchild Promise. Baby Love. :-)
with Trin and Chamie, my favorite girls. :-)
As you can see, Chamie's daughter Promise (and my godchild) totally loved the Spaghetti! :-D She's a cutie!



Love,

S.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

"I will have poetry in my life..."

for some reason, I can't get that line out of my head for the past 3 days.  :-)


This was the poetry scene, where David Jewell's "Delusion Angel" was read. One of my favorites. :-) Yes, I'm still a sap. Love, S.

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Eureka (or “Why I Love Book Sale”)


There is this thing I do when I’m feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders…

After a long day at work (and when things don’t seem to going my way), I have a favorite pastime…

I lay down all my bags and work stuff on the floor…shake my hair out from the tight ponytail, put on my dorky glasses,  put on the most comfortable clothes and go to this little nook in the mall called “Book Sale”.

For an escapist in a urban landscape, I find it meaningfully relaxing to lose myself in the piles and stacks of books. It is a rummage of sorts, a free-for-all hunt for that elusive second-hand volume which you can’t otherwise get for less than 200 pesos if it’s new.

I’m a sucker for sales… especially for books. I’m a self-professed cheapskate who has never had a lot of books of my own growing up (unless of course they were text books.).

Whatever I learned, I learned on my own… I never had a teacher, a guide, no one to recommend to me the next Pulitzer prize read that would inculcate the values of the masters… And I suppose, not a lot of people who could talk to me about the finer points of reading the classics, such as Dostoevsky or Nabokov.

(My older cousin, a voracious reader himself, was, but he once told me that I was as fickle as they come, and that I had never stuck to one interest, so that turned me off.)

I would fancy myself a connoisseur, because I had read a little of everything, from encyclopedias, to comic books, to the illustrated books over the years,  to graphic novels, and now, just recently, to the classics and poetry. I’d love to someday just be able to have the time to sit down and read through a book without having to worry about work tomorrow.  I just plain love reading…
Growing up, I didn’t have much money to buy books… they weren’t high on the priority list of wants.

So, I rented… =) 

When I was in grade school, I had a classmate, Ellezer, who rented out his paperbacks and Archie comic books, for 3 pesos each. This shouldn’t have been a problem now, but then I do remember that in 3rd grade, I only had a meager allowance of 20 pesos a day. Smile I could still remember him, E., thin and fair, with spiky hair, a slight overbite, and a a mole that took up most of his little chin, (in an adorable childlike fashion, of course). He also had long fingernails, with thin fingers, which I remember really well because I remembered how his hands looked like when he asked for the "fee". He’d bring a number of books to school and rent them out to us during recess, and then we’d read them during the day. My seatmate Michael and I were regular customers. So was Antoine (he has a ton of books now.). 

We’d read them in our desks while the teacher was giving a lecture.  I almost got in trouble with this, but I couldn’t help it, because in third grade, it seems, every book is a page turner. Smile 

One day, while we were in English class, I was reading this beautifully thick picture book about the Ancient past (which Jyanne pronounced as “An-See-Yehnt” then), my teacher caught me, and asked me a question,

“Ok, Sonia, tell us, what happened next in the story?”

The class was talking about a story in the textbook about the Legend of how the Hundred Islands came to be, and she was going around class, asking us questions about the story.
Looking up from the book I had [discreetly] read at the side, half hidden in my schoolbag, I answered, “Well, Ma’am, they became envious of each other, and started arguing.”

Satisfied, I suppose, she left me alone, and called another of my classmates. I had already read the all the stories in my third grade textbook weeks before, of course. I had moved on to other books. Sadly, I didn’t get to finish the book as English was the last class of the day, and the owner of the book took it home with her.

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I don’t know why I’m writing about memories from when I was a kid. I’m not even middle-aged yet. *grin*

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Anyway, I buy a book when I feel worn out, or sad, or just plain tired, usually. Its always a pleasure to burrow into the book shelves, and lose my self in the titles in the stacks. It’s a shot of dopamine right there.
(As of that moment, the whole, wide, crazy world had dropped away, and I was lost in the mellifluous harmony of beautiful words in my mind.)

I bought myself a bookshelf supposedly for my textbooks for residency…well, I ended up with books from Alvin Toffler to Tennessee Williams to even…Dacre Stoker (right, Bram’s grandson.haha).

A book is a drug, and I’m a junkie... Smile with tongue out
----

When I was younger, I was really into someone who read a lot of books…  And you know how I have the tendency to try to do things for a boy if I really liked him (i.e. practice writing in Chinese, learn how to cook)? Well, I tried that…I tried to read books he had already read… so he’d be impressed, and maybe, well, like me too (haha).

It ended badly. It was fun at first, but then it seemed like a chore after a while. It was almost like a race, a competition…it even felt like…studying. *grin*

So I don’t do that anymore….well, maybe I’d read some of the books on his list, but I wouldn’t want that to be the end-all and be-all. The joys of reading is not meant to be of any pursuit of a goal, except of course, that of pleasure.

So help me.

Maybe, just maybe, I wouldn’t have to do any catching up. Maybe someone out there might like the books I like too. Maybe he’d go giddy at reading Christopher Marlowe, or drool over the majesty of Neil Gaiman’s work…or, quiver with pleasure at reading Rilke, swoon at the or blush when he reads Shakespearean sonnets… *sigh*

I’m hopeless.

(haha.)

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Speaking of books..and sales… here’s a line from my latest acquisition, a novel by Julith Jedamus, The Book of Lies :

You may think that the sheaf of paper you hold in your hands is a book. It is not.  You may presume that the fine black lines that fill its pages describe a world that exists, but you are mistaken. Do not be deceived. What you are about to read is as empty as a locust shell, and as immaterial as smoke.
It is a house of lies.”

(Antaray… Winking smile)
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So anyway, I bought that. And now, I’m going to read it…

Seeya.

Love,

S.

Pardon Me, I'm a charm-school drop-out. :-p (March 17,2012. Leila's party.)



Monday, March 19, 2012

Give me a C-, give me a D-, Give me an O! :-)


Got an invite, and this "save the date" from my old batchmates from Post-Graduate internship. :-)

Looks like I'll finally get to go to Cagayan De Oro City soon (and see if its funny moniker is true too. :-))

I'm getting my ticket, and fixing my leave for the 12th of May.

:-) if there's time, I could go home (which is 6 hours away), or I could go to a totally different place and have a Camiguin experience, as well. :-) Yey!

I've been looking forward to going there... and now I'll finally get to do it.

See you, CDO!

~ Love,

S.

Video: Honey 2

was watching this last night, at around 2AM...it was a fun movie. I especially loved the choreography. Never mind the cheesy storyline... :-D Love, S.

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Photo: Promise's tat

P1050335 "No one's breaking my Ninang's heart again." - Promise.

(haha. :-) My godchild Promise and Me, during Leila's 2nd birthday party yesterday. She looked pretty fierce in this one. Especially with her [fake] tat.)

Love,

S.


Friday, March 16, 2012

Photos: Sunrise, OPD

the day of "reckoning".
Sunrise.

Baby baby. Astro Boy (February 2012) Mall rat. Heart Tree (February 2012) Waiting. 


I don't know if my photos are any good, but I do love taking a lot of them.

I was talking to my friend about my blog, and saying that my biggest regret in past blogs was that I didn't put too many pictures in them. That way, if I didn't get to write about something, at least I'll have the pictures to remember things by.

A good picture, supposedly, is worth a thousand words.

Never

I will never eat chocolate cake again. :-( :-(

Love,

S.

Monday, March 12, 2012

Photo: 5PM on the street

Men on the street, Pasig City.

Video: Love me Tender



I was doing rounds at the Psych Ward one night during duty, and one of the nurses asked me a question.

"Doc, would you tell your significant other if you had a psychiatric condition?"

Me: (after thinking for a bit) Yes, I would, but it isn't going to be easy...

Him: If i get a mental illness, I'll probably just tell my wife or girlfriend to just leave me...to think of herself first and just get on with her life. Taking care of someone with a mental illness is very difficult, and I wouldn't want that for her. I'd be good as dead.

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We've had that conversation some weeks ago, and that's what always comes to mind whenever I hear Norah Jones' version of "Love Me Tender"...

Sometimes, during quiet moments, this gets me to thinking. Getting sick with a mental illness can be so crippling, a huge loss in terms of control of oneself and how one feels, sees, or even lives. All the things sensate and beautiful that we as normal people  enjoy can become either a frightening reality for them, or a painful burden to carry, for most of them, the rest of their lives.

---

One time, during a consult, one of my patients told me, "Doctor, I want to know what it is to love...to have my own family. Please help me..."

(I'm a sucker for stories, but this was an honest plea. I pray I can always do something good for someone who needs my help from here on end.)

Love,

S.


Sunday, March 11, 2012

Kimono ken part 2


I found myself picking Kimono Ken for dinner after 3 years...

My friend Sep was in town and wanted to meet up while he was still in town for the Gastroenterology convention in Mandaluyong City. After work, I had to brave the rush hour traffic to get to SM North Edsa (which was "halfway" in between Mandaluyong and Manila...or so we thought.), one of our favorite malls to go to during Board exam review time almost 3 years ago. 

"Where do you want to get dinner? I'm buying," he texted. 

Anywhere was fine with me, but since I had a special attachment to Kimono Ken and Japanese food, I couldn't resist picking Kimono Ken and getting sashimi, or course.

Sep and I had been friends ever since freshman year of medical school (his mom also ended up being my endocrinologist). His girlfriend Precky, a dear friend, was one the first people I ever got to know in Iloilo. She was one of my housemates, I remember that she was the one who taught me the rudiments of speaking in Hiligaynon (the Ilonggo dialect) when I was still..."speechless".  :-) Sep and Precky got together when we were in Freshman year, and I still remember one time when I also got to eat Precky's blueberry cheesecake which Sep made for her. I was a regular, and I regularly got chika updates. ;-)

Back in 2009, when I was reviewing for the licensure exam for doctors, my constant companions and "commuting mates" were Sep and Jade Paul Morin (or "Morin", as we called him). I had review classes in Quezon City, and we had to get here everyday, so naturally, we'd travel on a daily basis. 

That being said, I'm still close to them, and we still try to get together whenever they get to be in Manila (they're doing their training in the province).

So anyway, Sep paid for dinner, and we had the usual. Uni (eel) "tastes like the sea", he said, and Unagi tasted really good. We both agreed that it tasted like fried Bangus Belly. :-) (I ate all the salmon, of course, it's my favorite.)

He obligingly took my pictures when I went loco over the star wars exhibit by Lego, and humored me when I talked about my recent troubles, and work stuff. Sep is almost like a "brother from another mother", or a cousin who calls me "dude" or "pare", and treats me like a sister.

Books, what our classmates were doing now (and why they were doing it), work-related stuff were constant topics. I asked him, "SO, when are you guys getting married, so I can finally attend a wedding in Iloilo? Have you gotten down on one knee and proposed?" (MC, one of our classmates, had gotten married yesterday, but I missed it.)

He chuckled and said that he hadn't yet. I was expecting no less than the usual proposal fanfare, of course.

We ended up hanging out at a coffee shop after dinner (and walking around for most of the night looking for said coffee shop), talking about life, work and relationships (and other people's and classmates' relationships, haha) and read most of the time. He bought an H.P. Lovecraft book , which undoubtedly was a better buy than the book I got for myself after I had read a few chapters. Lovecraft has a way with words. Fine vocabulary, twisty plots and fast action...I thought it was a good buy.

--- 

Now, this blog entry is just for light reading, and surely will not change the world in any way, but I just wanted to share that good friends are really good to have, and when you're feeling like less than your best, they can be just the people to talk to.  

He wrote, "Passion has the tendency to burn like the sun and die like embers. I hope and wish that you will never lose your fire." in my book. 

Pretty cool. And no, I don't think i'll ever "lose" my "fire"...at least, I don't intend to. 

Thanks Sep!

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Its always good to see old friends. :-)


Love,


S.







Photos: Lego Star Wars Exhibit


Lego and Star Wars, what a combo! :-)
(I love Lego. My brother and I used to have this pail of Lego blocks that we played with for hours on end when we were kids...and of course, Star Wars was THE Trilogy to watch. )

The model planes were super cool,and realistic...they even had an Anakin Skywalker figure, and droids... Their "hands-off" policy totally ticked me off, as I wanted to hold these Clone Wars ships in my hands. :-p

This here's a poster of Lego Darth, one of my fave Star Wars characters...so of course I had to pose. (Isn't he cute?)
This is a cross-wing Fighter, the same one used by Luke Skywalker during the battle with the Death Star scenes. Pretty cool.



Ships from "The CLone Wars"... personally, I haven't watched the Animated movie, but these ships were pretty well-made. Oh, and check out the Obi Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker figures near them.  

The battle of Hoth (in night mode). Check out how "realistic" the storm troopers are. :-)
  

And so that's me. Like I was saying to my senior, I'm a big kid. I still get excited by anything star wars. :-) (Photo by Sep)

And books! This HP Lovecraft book was really good paired with coffee jelly from Starbucks. (Coffee with something else.) 

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Comfort food


March 5, 2012. Sunday Morning.

      After a stressful time, I felt I needed some "feel-good" food.  I'm not one to really binge on food during stressful times, but these babies, however, were soothing. :-)

Thai Spring Rolls

Window Cathedral from Goldilocks for breakfast.


Laing (one of my fave food ever) from Recipes! :-)

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Usually, when I'm really stressed out, whether emotionally, or from work, I find myself sleeping a lot, or either writing a lot. This time, though, I've decided to try the "comfort food" route. It was okay, I suppose, but I don't think it'll be a common thing...I get full really easily.

Anyway, just a random post.

Love,

S.  

“Teacher, Teacher…”

Dr. Banaag's lecture

My job as a resident entails many responsibilities…quite a variety, actually. I’ve gone from being a program host, to being an errand girl, to being a mouse-clicker for a lecture, and most recently, being a proctor for a modular exam to first year medical students.

There’s nothing to it, really, and I’m not complaining. Where I do my training, they also require us to participate in the undergraduate curriculum, with us residents facilitating some of the activities of the medical students. Last week, I sat in for a lecture with Dr. Cornelio Banaag, on the developmental stages of life. A prominent psychiatrist, he is also known as “The Father of Philippine Child Psychiatry”, and I felt that I could not miss this particular lecture. It was a special lecture…it was videotaped and recorded, as Sir is 76 years old. The coordinators thought that maybe there would come a time when he would not feel well enough to do the commute from Pasig to Manila for lectures, so they decided to make it permanent.

Which is just as well. A Dr. Banaag lecture shouldn’t be missed. All those years of training, and experience really do come out in his lectures. The students were listening in rapt attention, and in the end, he had to field many questions, some of them even pertaining to how he lived his life. They gave him a thunderous applause ( a common practice after lectures) when he concluded the day’s lecture.

(I know I was absorbed…I filled up a lot of pages in my notebook. LOL.)

 

I think I got carried away… When Dr. Banaag asked me what I thought about his lecture, I enthusiastically answered, “It was very good sir, I was listening the whole time…I even took notes.” He chuckled, and said, “Yes, that is good, but did you think I made an impact on the students?”

(Oops… it wasn’t a lecture for me, I forgot. haha)

 

I can’t help myself, though. The Eriksonian stages and conflicts have always fascinated me, and I loved how things were both simplified and yet still explained in depth by Sir. And I was sitting in the front row…and it reminded me of medical school all over again.

(side note: I’m currently in the stage of Intimacy vs. Isolation, and I remember this conversation I had with someone a few days ago. I said, “It’ll probably just take a little flick of the finger, and I’m on the Isolation side of the spectrum…” It was partly because of the fact that I couldn’t settle (I was currently busy learning, and squeezing out the juice in life), and the fact that someone I was thinking about already had settled…on settling, on whatever was there…

(My wry thought? Psychiatry explains everything in life, actually.  )

 

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So this morning, I was proctoring the exam again…handing out the examination sheets, watching over the half of the class of 163 (Mia was at another classroom being the proctor for the second half). Dr. Chua, the coordinator, would transfer in between rooms), writing out corrections, getting asked questions, etc. I even had grown-up boys ask me if they could go to the bathroom.

(Dr. DF’s son, a tall, good-looking boy with a mop of dark curls and beautiful brown eyes approached me table in front and placed his test paper and answer sheet in front of me, and politely said that he needed to “visit the washroom”. By all means, do. Smile  My girlie senses tell me that in a few more years, he was going to be one heck of a handsome man, my teacher senses, on the other hand tell me that he was a bright young boy who probably studied hard.)

Anyway, that was that, and it ended 3 hours after it started…which was a good thing I scheduled my outpatient consults to start at 11AM.

 

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