Photos: Everybody Loves Gen!

Gen, one of the my friends from medical school, the birthday girl, celebrates her birthday with dinner at Italianni's...and yummy cake from Theobroma!

Almost everyone was there, including "The Three Amigos", Vick, Tope and Chamie! :-D

Some of us girls; Gen, Kuai, moi and Jenai.

Gen slices her cake!

That vegetarian pizza was something else... well, she was on a diet, and the health kick was pretty obvious in the food we ordered. Love Italianni's! :-D

Floyd  does her souvenir photo for her birthday!

Phillip and Jerry...:-p

Now THIS is chocolate cake. Theobroma, thou art <3. :-)

The girls in dresses (per request of the birthday girl).

[One of the many] Faces of @flipadfoot.

Good conversations all around.

 

 

 

 

Tired, but definitely happy. :-)

 

:-) Happy birthday, Gen. May true love and the happiness it brings find its way to you... :-)

Photo: with Herv and Gayle

With Gayle and Herv...two very good friends from Sci High. They just popped over (from wherever they were at) and we had dinner together at Cafe Breton...

Ah, good times.

:-) That's "Gaylederma" and "Manager" in da hauz... :-)

Ah, love them. and Loved that we had a great time! :-)

Love,

S.

Photo: Micro-Reunion

One of my high school friends got promoted, and he invited us all to dinner at Italianni's, this really nice Italian restaurant at Greenbelt...

I arrived late, 'cause I had a thing at Quezon City, but I fully intended to be there, so there I was, just in time for dessert. :-)

 That's Herv, Gayle, TonTon and Twan. :-)

 (I think we spent 75% of the time laughing out loud.) :-)

 I got home at 1:30, they drove me to my place.

When I got to do some "Me" time on the balcony, I thought about how much dorky fun we had in high school, and that we will always had those fun blooper memories to laugh about. :-)

 Love,

 S.

 P.S. Guess what...we talked a lot about my line of work, i.e. "Hey, I have this friend..." and so on and so forth. :-D

Black Ink Pasta...

is not for a romantic date. lol, unless of course, your date fancies black teeth and lips.

if you're out with medschool classmates, like I was last thursday, it is just the yummy thing to order.

was out with my med school friends... Smooch! Grin! (and no, i'm not dating currently at the moment, but if i were, i'd probably order Black Ink Pasta and see how the guy would react to charcoal smiles.) Fun night, all in all. Love, S.

The Fabulous Baker Boys

I had the Fabulous Baker Boys over for dinner the other night.

Around 6PM, my friend Antoine texted that he was in the area, and he wanted to see my place.

He had just gone to the hospital to hang out with his younger brother Lance, who works in the outpatient department, where he recently started further training in surgery (Lance is a dentist). They usually meet up once a week, and the last time Antoine was around, we had had dinner downstairs.

I had met Lance only last week, but Antoine is one of my oldest friends, I've known him since kindergarten, and we have been schoolmates since then. Being comfortable with Antoine, we can usually talk up a storm, and I think I might have been too comfortable with Lance then. He was quiet, and was only speaking intermittently. But he was speaking. :-)

"Twan, did you think I was being too loud earlier?" I remembered texting Antoine afterwards. To which he laughingly replied, "No Fan, it's just stranger danger."

"Oh, right." (Really, I should quit asking a lot of questions.)

One time I was asked, "Hey Fan, what do you think the Hand-on-hip posture means?" Antoine and Lance both had the tendency to do the "hand-on-hip" gesture, and they wanted to know what it meant.

"I don't know, Man, I'm not working, I'm off-duty today, remember?"

(Actually, even though I'm in training in Psychiatry, I don't read people as a default mode. I like looking at people, but I don't go around diagnosing them of something one way or another. I don't like labelling people right off the bat. That's pretty draining, don't you think? I once remembered putting in a full day's work worth of interviews and then going out to meet my friends in Makati. I was commuting, and at one time, I got caught in a throng of people who were trying to cross the street, and for a little while, I felt overwhelmed. I remember thinking then, "It's so hard to really know one...how can I ever handle so many people?"

The task of knowing what a patient is going through is quite tedious. To do so requires "active listening", meaning, one has to observe a patient tell his or her stories, knowing when and what to ask, ask the significant other (i.e. watcher/bantay/folks) the same questions to get another side of the story, and just over-all being "in the here and now".)

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We ordered pizza and we ended up with two family-sized ones (I had received a promotional text message from Angel's Pizza and if I ordered a family-sized one, I'd get another one free, and then have a 1.5 liter of Coke and carrot cake besides.). When the pizza boy came, with the, umm, carrot cake slice, we had to stifle our guffaws. I was expecting a whole cake. Instead, we got a, well, one that was truly different from what we had expected. I actually felt sorry for the delivery person. )

My cousin Greggy was also sleeping over that night, so there were four of us having pizza dinner at the dinner table. There were laughs all around, as Antoine was telling us funny anecdotes about people and his travels to Europe and Central America. Dentist Lance also had his stories. I shared mine too. It was good fu, and there were a lot of laughs.

Greggy signed off early (I found him sleeping on the couch with the TV on), but the guys and me ended up talking until morning in the balcony). It was 3AM when they left, actually.

 

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Lance and Antoine don't look anything alike, but Antoine says they have the same forehead (but he looks like their sister Nikki's daughter), they're both tall, though, and Lance is taller at 5'11" or 6', to Antoine's 5'10" (with slouching). They were so much alike in different ways though, and Lance could match Antoine book for book, and little historical info per little historical info. (I learned quite a lot about other things in life, and between them, I got another little list of recommended books to read. :-) )

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"Fan, why don't you write a book about all your experiences here...?" Antoine suggested.

"I suppose...maybe someday I will, but I'll use psuedonyms, a lot of them, of course." I answered.

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(Thus this blog. :-))

Love,

S.

P.S. The Fabulous Baker Boys is a movie with Beau and Jeff Bridges in it, plus Michelle Pfieffer. Saw it when I was in grade school...the title seemed apt, even Twan and Lance's last name isn't Baker. Starts with a B, but it's not Baker. :-)

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!

---- 

Its always good to see old friends. :-)


Love,


S.

Photos: Long weekend swim

I had a great time during the long weekend.  I spent it with family. and people i loved.

That's me and my godchild Promise, who went for her first ever swim at the pool where I lived.

This is a vintage-ish pic of me and her on the rocking horse...something I'd keep, and show her when she's older. 

Chamie and Tope were my friends from way back in Med School...and they both had Promise. That's Erika, Tope's niece who thoroughly enjoyed the swim and definitely wants to come back. :-)

had a great time, with the "whole household".

I know Promise had fun...

In fact, so did Manang Bebang. ;-)

Love,

S.

Free reading

My best friend Ivy was in town for the weekend for a work-related thing. :-)

I've known her since I was 13, a veritable "sister from another mother."

Earlier tonight, we were eating our Starbucks stuff and drinking coffee at the dining table of my condo. After tasting a bit of the strawberry whipped cream from my waffle, she went, "Phan, this is so not high school anymore."

And we had a good laugh. Starbucks was never a consideration for snacks back in high school...

(We've come a long way, Vivz.;-) )

Oh, and if I might add, the National Bookstore floor is a nice place to hang out in. Especially at the photography books section. I found this cool book on Digital Photography...and tips on Portraits. I wanted to buy it but I suspected I could read it in one sitting, so I...did. :-)

Oh, and Ivy took this picture, when i told her about the trick of the 45 degree angled lighting. She applied it immediately. And yes, I like portrait photography, people being my favorite subjects. 

Anyway, speaking of cameras, if you want a "bridge", I would definitely suggest a Canon G12. It's pretty cool. Tried one out this morning.  Sweet. 

:-)

Love, 

S.

"Utilitarian"

My good friend R. just recently celebrated his 26th birthday, and I got him a present, which I told him was “utilitarian”.  He agreed. It was inexpensive, of course, but I figured it was something he could use, being the busy medical student that he was. According to him, it was just what he needed…however, after a few beats, though, he said that I should have gotten him the bigger one.

(Some people, tsk tsk… are never satisfied. ) 

Anyway, he reminds me of my brother…if my brother were in Medicine, and could talk a mile a minute..including being obsessive compulsive. Which he is so not. Well, they even sort of look alike. (And like any younger brother, he can be annoying, especially when he tries to talk like he’s older.) I figured the reason why we hit if off was because, in a sense, he was like family, right off the bat. My co-residents are used to seeing him around and talking to me. Initially, they asked me if there was anything going on between us, but of course, there is nothing to confirm. He’s just a friend. I’d say brother, but we’re not related.

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Why I wrote this? No big reason… I’m just stuck in the house with a migraine and I can’t bring myself to go downstairs to get me some pain meds. I just wish someone would whip me up a utilitarian present of a pack of pain meds. preferably Cox-2 inhibitors.


Please. please. please.
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Love,

S.

Soft seats

Hello.

Welcome to the unedited, conversational edition of the last-minute madness, which only I, Sonia, erstwhile Med-School Thera Group Presentation Amazon Princess character can do with typical Sonia style.

It is actually 2:30 in the morning, but for some reason (and probably because earlier, I had napped on the couch while my friend Loreen worked on her thing on the dining table :-)), I cannot sleep anymore. I haven't the energy to do more thorough reading of my Schizophrenia notes, which I really should, so, I decided to just have another couch sessions conversation with my loyal friend readers.

Hmm....

What fun stuff did I do today?

1. I got to taste Baklava from Greece, which, I have to say is quite an experience. It's got chocolate, lots of sugar, and flaky pastry. My friend Gen Yap was giving it away as one of her souvenirs from her very recent Grecian cruise holiday. Oh, and she got me a key holder...a silver teddy bear with the Grecian flag stamped across its chest. Pretty cool. :-)

2. I pretty much spent much of the evening with Joe and Gen, and we watched "One Day". It was a good movie (and Joe couldn't give a correct assessment, as he said, he was biased 'cause Anne Hathaway was in it.), and apart from the kilig moments that went on, I have to say it was an absorbing film. Well, like any other girlaloo, i'd want the characters to end up being happy together, making babies and all that...stuff. :-p Well, it was a love story almost 15 years in the making...a veritable tug-of-war of emotions (gosh, I love these troubled characters) until, of course, the love affair climaxes, but not quite.

*sigh*


No spoilers here, of course, unless you really want to watch the movie for yourself, I will keep my thoughts on the scenes to myself.

She, Anne Hathaway's character, always knew from the start, that she wanted the guy. He didn't. It had to take him a long long time to realize that he needed her, loved her, even. (I suppose girls are infinitely wiser when it comes to matters of the heart, then? :-p) Jim Sturgess, the guy, was cute. adorable. and all that stuff you would want in a guy. but he was slow. he tried to make things work somehow, but it didn't really work.

Of course, I cried my usual (secret) tears at the end of the movie. I don't really know why I still do these things...movies are movies, escapist fare that we all engage in to feel better, or to have fun. I suppose I cried because I felt for them. (I always do.) Unrequited/Unexpressed love for years, and then when everything does happen, something happens to her.

:-(

(Anyway, in the UK, unrequited sounds like the Kwai in the movie The Bridge over the River Kwai, whereas, in the States, it sounds more of the quit in quitting. :-p Just sharing a little factoid.)

3. I hung out with Gen and Joe and we had a great pasta dinner at Ravioli , which is a pretty good pasta place at the midtown wing of the mall. I suppose I'll be going back there every so often. The herb chicken was pretty good.

Speaking of herbs...i sort of postponed a movie date due to schedules. And I suppose "Crazy Stupid Love" was not a good movie to watch with a boy. I chose Conan the Barbarian instead. I don't suppose I want to watch a chick flick with a guy, and not even to send a message. In my [humble] opinion, chick flicks are better enjoyed with your girl friends, or in the privacy of your own room so you can bawl like a kid whose super colorful sticky-sweet Halloween/Valentine candy got taken away from him or her at Christmas. (lol....)  Well, you get the idea. It kind of sends the wrong message too. Watching a chick flick doesn't have the Cupid's arrow effect, not even of suggestion, at least not for me...I have a pericardium of steel...but with marshmallow soft centers. haha:-)

So, Conan the Barbarian it is. :-)

I just found out (because he told me) that one of the interns who rotated in Psychiatry some months ago, yup, Jim with the [*sigh* beautiful] fountain pen is probably going to be assigned in my hometown, or if not there, in Cebu, at least. He asked me about the places in my province, and said that maybe he would want to start a career there. It was funny, here I was, seeking new places to train, and to have an adventure, and here comes this guy who wants to go back there to have his own adventure...

LOL. I'm getting a flashback of that book I read back in grade school which was so popular....the "Choose Your Own Adventure" series? The ones where you get to pick where you want to go next and continue flipping pages until you either die, or win? :-p I hung out in the grade school library for hours on those kinds of fare, and what-not.

Anyway, I must be boring you. It's late...no wait, early. It IS 3Am after all...and I have to go to work in a few hours.

You've been a great audience. Gnite.

Love,

S.

P.s. I wanted to apologize to someone for doing something that wasn't very nice. And, my friend Joe tells me that I've grown so skinny, I was even cachectic. eww. But I am so not. I think.

Thanks, Vivz

Just recently, my best friend Ivy came to Manila. Her sister Ann and Loreen had just passed the medical boards, and I just recently had a birthday...so we ate out.

Steak dinner. Coffee. Lots of laughs. (The usual Fun-with-Ivy-Guevs time.)

And then her younger sister Ann and Loreen went off to go somewhere and we were left alone on the soft chairs.

And after thinking a while, I asked, "Say Vivz, will you ever get tired of me talking about...stuff?"

And she goes, "Nope. I may not always agree with you, but I don't think I'll ever get tired."

And I go, "Ok, cool. Thanks. I think it'll take a little while longer than I thought."

"Let's talk about the trip, then!"

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(we've been friends since we were both 13, actually. But it's funny. we've never had a scuffle/fight/whatever. I reckon it's either I'm non-confrontational, OR, we're just both too cool. :-) )

(She got that name because when Antoine mentioned that she looked like that CNN Anchor Veronica Pedrosa, and then I started calling her that. and it stuck.)

lucky me.

Love,

S.

Take care of you.

"It's a lifestyle choice..."


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After doing my rounds on my patients last Sunday, I still had a few minutes to spare before Sunday Mass at the hospital chapel was supposed to start. I knew my friend Pettie was on duty at the hospital (I wasn't), and so I decided to bring her some doughnuts and coffee. 


I called her to check if she was at the pedia ward at the time, and when she picked up, I went the way I usually call her, "Hoy, Petula! Are you on-duty?" She laughed, and I had to go, "What's so funny?" And she said, "Sorry, I didn't know my phone was on loudspeaker, everybody in the callroom heard you say that 'crisp' way you talk, and they all laughed." 


(Err... yeah. My bad. Pettie is short for Petula, but for fun sometimes (and because of familiarity), I call her Petula. The crisp Cebuano accent is also part of it. )


So when I got to her ward, i just dropped off the coffee and left. The Pediatrics ward (and anything involving these little kids) is one of the busiest wards in the hospital. When I saw her, she looked pretty harassed, and even though it was just 11:50 AM, she looked like she'd been working a day already. "Hey Man, here, you better have this too," I said, as I handed her the iced coffee. They were just about to start their patient endorsements, and as usual, she was in a hurry.


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Later, for dinner, I met up with friends of mine from school. Actually, they were a year ahead of me, but since I hung out with them alot back when we were in medical school, it wasn't any different when I got to  start residency. I was always a part of the group, an honorary class member. We had dinner at a Persian restaurant, called Arya at the mall, and had coffee afterwards.


As always, we had a good time. The POC Ortho Boys JoeJoe and Tope were there, Chamie and I from PGH Psych were there, Roxanne from Adventist Medical was there too, along with Gen from Pedia and Vera from Patho (who happens to live in the next building).


 These get-togethers are always fun for me. Especially since lately, I've been having spells of homesickness, or loneliness every now and then, which is totally uncharacteristic. I live alone in a relatively big house (and it doesn't have cable or internet access, that's why) and although I'm not complaining about my digs, sometimes it's just good to hang out with familiar faces.


If there's anything basic  I've learned in Psychiatry, it's that, to survive, you need to have a good primary support group...otherwise, you'll fragment and have a psychotic break (but that's like, in the worst cases of course). 


We talked about people, the news, work, new research, plans....just the usual. It's like having a family, where you take care of each other, I suppose. 


Gen Yap made a joke about how we Psych people were so "non-toxic" we could go about in heels and skirts, doing the "rampa". "Hey...it's not all that cushy a job, Gen, listening to people talk about their problems and helping them through it is not that easy."


(Hell, I think I'm even developing a permanent crease in my forehead from holding my "Interview Face" for long periods...:-))


------- 


Sometimes I think, that freedom of choice comes with a price. You put yourself in a place full of the possibilities of a great adventure, but you know fully well that there are also things familiar to you that will have to leave behind, even if temporarily.


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My friend Pettie makes great sandwiches. One time, when I was from duty, and didn't have any dinner, she reached into her bag and said, "Hey, I made you a sandwich." Tuna on Wheat Bread. Yum. (One of my favorites.)


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I do stuff like that for my other friends as well, it's not that I expect them to pay me for it, or expect them to give me the same thing in return, I always thought that if you could make things just  little bit better for another person, then you should. 


We all need to take care of each other around here. :-)


:-)


Anyway, Good night. (I'm on duty tomorrow.)


~ Sonia.

Manila, August 2010.

I can make decisions at the snap of a finger...OR at the end of 5 days.
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I recently took a trip, and did some career-related things that I've been planning to do for quite some time now. It was something I've looked forward to, and since it was pretty important, and was all-business, I didn't really announce it with much fanfare. 


(I have this thing about not announcing works (or major decisions) in progress...I want to downplay things until I'm really sure. It would surely be a blow if i had had high expectations and then crashed miserably. I'm a bit selfish about my ego.:-p)


I had booked my tickets in advance ('cause it was cheaper that way) and besides, one of the hospitals I applied for really put their application schedules down. That was pretty helpful in planning everything.


The airport was packed (in Dumaguete terms, of course), and it seems many people were also making the trip to Manila that morning. I was travelling alone, which was more economical of course, since I was paying for my trip and every other expense. As much as I would've liked to bring a veritable entourage of cousins along for a fun ride, it simply wasn't going to work out. (Perhaps, when I'm a bigger name, and millions richer.)


I saw Manny Pacquiao getting off the plane from Manila that morning. His presence created quite a ruckus among the ground crew who had pictures taken with him while he was on his way to the arrivals area with his wife Jinky. I remembered that he was scheduled to speak at Silliman University's College of Law as part of the Founder's week celebration. (I didn't get the full-on view of him, but had to settle for what the zoom lens of my camera could handle.)

Manny Pacquiao being led by his entourage to the Arrivals area of the Dumaguete Airport.

Airport terminal entertainment included these three visually differently abled (they were blind) gentlemen who cranked out a variety of old-time tunes from Matt Monro (my favorite in their repertoire, actually), and even jukebox oldies from the likes of Eddie Peregrina and April Boy Regino. Which of course, were never my favorites, but I still had to hand it to him, the guy could really sing. 

The three blind musicians who rocked the airport music scene. August 26, 2010. (lol)

I seem to be getting into situations where kids abound. I sat next to a mom who had triplets...and I even got to bottle feed one of them when one of the others was acting up probably due to the pressure. I couldn't help myself and after introducing myself (and telling her I was a doctor), I asked her about her prenatal history, and all that. She was kind enough, and the kids were fun. 

The quirky little triplets. August 26th, 2010.

My uncle (and aunt and cousin) picked me up at the airport when I got to Manila...and dropped  me off at where I was staying (it was closer to the hospital than their place in Paranaque). My cousin Gerard and I had lunch 
at the mall, and for a little while, I had to be accustomed again to being in the big city, with the mill of busy people (talking in rapid fire Tagalog,mind) and the neverending traffic. (Yet, I had fallen in love with this City a long time ago, with its promise of adventure, so i figured traffic would only be a minor detail in the grand scheme of things.But we'll see about that, 'cause almost everyone I knew who's ever been in Manila has never liked being there, if it weren't for the studying or the work that they did.)

A degree in foreign services. Now why didn't I think of going into that? natch. :-) August 29th, 2010.

First off, I went to the hospital where I was going to be taking my exams the next day. I went alone, of course, I usually am lately. It's not that i didn't need anyone to go with me, it was just that i needed to get a feel of things without having to bother anybody. And besides, I didn't want to embarrass myself in front of anyone should anything go wrong. Like I said, I was terribly self-conscious about having to show anyone a work in progress. 


The secretary who handled the scheduling was friendly enough, and after getting the details (and doing some additional payments for exam fees and stuff), I walked around a bit. We wouldn't know our room assignments until the next day. Since it was my first day back, I was still self-conscious about my Tagalog-speaking skills. Argh. Nothing makes me more anxious that speaking Tagalog. (I have to translate things in my head first, and that takes practice.)


Anyway, the next day, I found out that the room assignments were by group/specializations. Mine was to be held in a conference room on the second floor of the hospital and when I got there, there were a handful of students already in (which I adjudged to be from UST, because most of them knew each other). Well, the exam was 40% general medicine, and 60% Neuropsych, and when we handed our exam papers in, the chief resident (who looked like she was going to be a tough cookie, er, senior) told us to "make ourselves available" on so and so date for the interview. 

Sto. Domingo Church. August 28th, 2010.
So it looks like I'm going to be back in Manila again pretty soon. :-D

I wolfed down lots of rice and beef stroganoff afterwards, 'cause I got so hungry. Comfort food that my roommates and I had last year when we were living near UST.
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The Picture Show Room. National Museum. August 29, 2010.

I got a second-hand book on digital photography, which I totally love! :-) 


It's still pretty new, and has got great text and lots  and lots of pictures. 


The previous owner had written something in illegible scribbles which totally bummed me out, and if that were originally for me, I'd have wished, they were written like this, "Dear Stephanie, here's to a lifetime of great pictures. Love, (insert name of significant person)" 


LOL. Kidding. But of course, beggars (of good bargains) can't be choosers, and i was terribly lucky to have found that book. It smells great, and i started reading it the minute I got it. My cousin Chris doesn't like second-hand books, but I do. I always thought of them as extensions of their previous owners, and they came with attached memories, highlighted notes...and essences. They were lived/breathed/pored over and loved. I believe that makes them more special.


(And so,with dramatic flourish, I therefore say to the heavenly love that has made it possible to get that book to me, thank you very much. I love it. It's absolutely perfect!)


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Overfeeding time, with JoeJoe. A Veneto, Mall of Asia. August 27, 2010.

Oh, and I got to see my dear friend JoeJoe, an old schoolmate and fellow staff member of the school paper. Like any true friend would, he took me out to the Mall of Asia and fed me A Veneto pasta until I could no longer take in anymore and threatened to lose my cookies. Initially, I had asked him to take me out to a Japanese restaurant instead 'cause I was so hungry and was dreaming of a plateful of sashimi all to myself. He laughed and then said, " Just wait til you try this pasta place I'm taking you to, THEN we'll see if you'll still want Japanese after."


The darned dude was right, after all that pizza and pasta...I didn't think I could look at another plate of food again for that night. And after we walked around the grounds of the Mall of Asia, he got me a long tall glass of Caramel coffee at Seattle's Best and challenged me to down the whole thing down. I couldn't, of course. The next things I want to try when I get there would be the bungee jump thing, and take pictures of the sunset on Manila Bay. <-- I'm looking forward to it.


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Joejoe did his internship year at the Philippine General Hospital, and since I was going there to visit a family member who was admitted, I asked JoeJoe to give me a tour after. Haha, Joe was great. He talks to me mostly in English, in that off-the-cuff comfortable way that I'm used to have him talk in ever since we were in school. He showed me around the hospital and gave me useful info and "side notes" (although not all of these were terribly useful to me, they were just pretty hilarious, that's all.)


One time, we passed by this guy (an intern, i suppose, judging from his clothes) and I had to stop walking for a bit. :-) I elbowed Joe, "Joe, check that out, remember my crush back in med school... the tall guy, XXX? I thought I saw someone who looked like him, eek!!!" Joe didn't see the guy, of course...because among the two of us, I was probably the one who was more likely to have her attention caught by a guy.  Oh but the resemblance was uncanny... *sigh*. I got giddy. Joejoe just pretty much laughed at me in amusement.


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A painting of the Philippine flags in the Picture Show Room. National Museum. August 29, 2010.

I applied to two hospitals, and they're both interviewing next week. I'm nervous about it, actually, I mean, I love doing interviews...but I feel that this one is no joke. Joe said that I might have to prepare a script or something, haha. :-) I downloaded something from the internet, and well, the resource person who wrote it said that there was a need to get things down for some questions that were routinely asked, so I might have to work on that too.


Oh, if only interviews were as easy to do as honestly telling someone you like what you felt. (I got the idea from watching Sharon last night on tv with Hershey, over delicious hotdogs).


Bituin Escalante and Sharon Cuneta were doing a duet, and they were doing this great song that went something like, "Kung ako na lang sana ang 'yong minahal, di ka na muling mag-iisa... Kung ako na lang sana ang 'yong minahal, di ka muling luluha pa... Narito ang puso ko, naghihintay lamang sa yo..." (Anyway, the song's down this paragraph.)





LOL. it's corny, I know, but the principle is still the same. You're basically letting these people know that you're a good person, and you're willing to work hard at making [training] work, and that, deep in your heart, that is all you ever really wanted.


Right?


:-) 


(I hope I didn't embarrass myself with that CORNY spiel. haha)


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Hershey Miaco at the National Museum. August 29, 2010.

I checked out the National Museum with my little cousin Hershey. I loved it...even if we didn't get to finish looking at everything. AND my camera's batteries went flat when we got to the Spoliarium. LOL. I'm definitely going back.


I love Art and History...although I wouldn't say my feelings as academic, because, the closest description I can come up with is this, "Seeing great works of art makes me overwhelmed enough to feel like peeing in my pants." That's how I love looking at art. lol.

"Those who have eyes hear, and those who have eyes see." By Camille Dela Rosa. National Museum. August 29, 2010. (I liked the Salvador Dali flair and feel of this one. Edit: even if it is kind of disgusting.)

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Anyway, I've got work tomorrow. Be seeing you. This was a pretty long entry...and I hope it made up for the week I was away.
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Oh, and in reference to my opening sentence, my decision was that...i am decidedly scared. afraid. anxious. of what the next few months will bring. That, despite my best efforts, and despite giving myself away...I wouldn't get picked anyway. and that would totally break my heart.


Which is why I haven't made contingency plans in case I don't get in. :-) I so want to.


(And that goes for other things in life, too.)


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Love, 


S.