Photo: 5PM on the street

Men on the street, Pasig City.

One Good Day

It was a stroke of luck.


A table all to myself at the nearest StarBucks, with the lamp just hanging above. Perfect lighting, perfect little corner by the glass window, space enough to wrap my legs around the table leg and a nice cup of Toffee Nut Latte in hand, with my name on it (it simply is my favorite).


Ma'am Wamcie and Pearl, who are my seniors at work wanted some "quality studying time" after work, and I ended up tagging along.I was a little late, so when I went there, I had to drag someone's extra chair from a different table, positioning myself for some light reading ("The Elements of Style") and perhaps some writing.


My inexpensive sketchbook (I don't draw, I just like writing on clean,unlined paper) was on my lap, and I was just getting comfortable, hooking my legs in the rungs under Ma'am Wamcie's chair when the couple on the next stable stood up and I scored their spot.


----- 


Ah, life. It was packed in Starbucks that night... there were lots of people sitting on the couches, and the tables, and there were still more milling around at the counter, waiting to be seated. I was amused that whenever they'd pass by the planner stand, they'd reach for it, and then turn it over in their hands, and then immediately ask for the sticker card which you have to fill up so you can get your own planner. I know I did. (Obviously, I want one...although it's going to take a me a little longer than most people, unless of course i get outside help.:-p)


I like Starbucks...but not for when I'm studying. Maybe to just do casual, friday night stuff, like hang out with friends and write, watch people milling around. I learn a lot that way.


---- 


Earlier that night, we saw Gary V. perform at the mall for the tree-lighting ceremony.  We were on our way to eat dinner at a SuZhou, a dimsum place in Mabini (which has the best Spicy Sour Soup this side of Manila), when we heard someone sing "Pasko Na, Sinta Ko". We thought it was someone singing karaoke to the Gary Valenciano song, and doing a fairly good job at it. When we looked, lo and behold, it WAS Mr. Pure Energy himself! :-)


Can't say I'm a big fan, but hey, the guy can really hold the audience in thrall. The main audience was mainly a group of students and their teachers (who embarrassingly squealed with glee when Gary V. went by their areas). 


I remembered my cousin Ria saying back in high school (she saw a Gary V. concert), after seeing him on-stage that he was "gwapo kaayo!" (Cebuano for: Very Good-looking). Thenn, I just pish-toshed her and went about with my business. But...after seeing him perform live, I've changed my mind. The man simply is a bundle of energy. And I liked the positive vibe...he talked about his being diagnosed with Diabetes (type 1) at age fourteen and how he had been on insulin ever since. He even showed his insulin pump (which substituted the insulin shots he used to give himself every day.), and talked about how the life expectancy of those diagnosed with this was just 30 years, from the time of diagnosis. He was on his 33rd year, and there were no signs that he was stopping.

Anyway, in this pic, he had the spotlight on him, and he looked almost ethereal. You have to admire a man who does his job with as much pep and good vibes like he does. :-)

Also, may I be excused if I say that he has noticeably one of the nicest derrieres I've seen on a man before? Lol... i never notice these things, but with this picture, I hope you can understand why I have said so. :-p

Gary V. performs during the Tree Lighting Ceremony at Robinsons Place, Manila. November 6,2011.

And there's the beautiful tree that changes colors...:-) The mall was lit up with Christmas lights and Christmas songs were playing, and frankly speaking, I was looking forward to it, even if I won't be able to go home during the holidays. I've always liked Christmases. I'm contemplating on decorating somewhat at my place, so we'll see... :-) (I'll be working that day, though.)

---- 

And so we went to SuZhou, this yummy dimsum place I've been to three times before in the past month (and will probably keep going back to), because its food offerings are simply delish. :-)

Spicy Sour Soup (after I'd taken my share, of course), SuZhou.November 6,2011.

Xiao Long Pao (Shanghai soup dumpling). November 6,2011.

I went with Pearl and Aizah this time, but the first person who introduced us to this place, and made us "loyal minions" to the delicious food in this delightfully affordable  hole-in-the-wall (but almost always packed full) on Mabini St., was Dr. JCP. Sir, one of our favorite and admired consultants* , was a certified foodie who definitely knew his food and where to go for delectable goodies. This place was one of his haunts, something he discovered while walking around the Malate Area. 

This is where we're getting "instruction" on the finer points of eating the Chinese dumpling. :-)

Century Egg on Tofu, with Pork floss. 

Shrimp Tempura.

That's me, acting like a total dork (I'd already scarfed down four of these babies), courtesy of the "food endorphins". :-)
 On a serious note, though, I do believe (especially after this meal) that there are more things to life than meets the eye, and we are definitely lucky to benefit from the experiences and reflections of those who have come before us, especially when they give their time and make an effort in sharing what they know. I've always thought that learning was not only in the classroom, or in the wards, in the confines of the hospital, but most importantly, they were from the people who we interact with. (Thank you, Sir!)

-----

Earlier today we had our first ever lecture in Forensic Psychiatry, and well, I thought it was a bit anticlimactic, considering I was waiting for "action" in terms of The Profiler, or Criminal Minds. hehe. Not today. It seemed like there was a lot of bureaucratic red tape involved in Forensics. And I'm not sure if it's going to be my cup of tea, but hey, things could change in the next few months.

----

Oh, something came up that day. That was kinda nice. sort of.

When I was making rounds that afternoon, Surgeon Boy ( a surgery resident I have a bit of a crush on because he was super tall and had nice hands) came up to me and asked if I was  the Psych resident on-duty, because I think he had a patient he wanted to refer. Oh, snap. I wasn't, but with a perfectly composed face (because I couldn't help smiling to a little to myself when I first saw that he was in the ER), I told him that I wasn't, and that he could call the local number to refer that particular patient to the resident who WAS on duty. He was a tall one. and I do mean tall. I had to crane my neck just so i could look him in the eye when he talked to me. 

But, well, that was that, I did a quiet little "Eeek!"  and went over to my patient,  back to the business of doing psychotherapy. :-) It was a nice surprise.

The nicer surprise came in the morning, though. I thought I saw Doctor Boy in my ward, while I was making orders. He was probably going into the department office for something or other, but i wasn't able to stare (like last time, haha) because the mother of my patients was calling me and in my direct line of vision. Shoot. He still made my heart skip a beat, though. tsk tsk.

----

It was a good tour of duty. 

I admitted 2 patients, and saw one at the ER during my 36 hour duty period. I can't talk about them here, but suffice it to say, the consultant I worked with was very helpful and gave me a lot of lessons. 

My intern was super-efficient. Lol. With lots of initiative...AND teaching capabilities. It was pretty amusing to see her call the clinical clerks into a huddle first before they presented their patient to me. :-) And the clerks were inquisitive and had a lot of questions. I liked that.

Oh, and the Pre-res I was on-duty with, had pocket wi-fi...so there was free internet all day (haha). Funnily enough, he's my age, and it really is a small world, as I found out that we had both competed during Nationals  back in High School. He for sportswriting, and myself for editorial writing. "No wonder you looked familiar when we first met," he said before. Ok, he did look kind of familiar, when they were first introduced, but I wasn't sure where from. 

(Oh, and we both didn't win. Interestingly, my other coresident, Chamie, won though, she was 2nd place overall in Nationals for Feature writing.)

Guess what we ended up doing while waiting for patients? Well, we ended up writing. 

He was typing into his netbook, and I was scratching out my own "writing project" with pen and paper. typical. :-p

----- 

I've got my portfolio of patients together for the accreditation. Thinking about the number of patients and their families I had interacted with over the past year was daunting. Had I changed any lives? Have I made enough of a difference?

* scary *

------

Oh, and at the start of it all, I woke up early, got ready for duty and work to this song By Blaque, "I'm Good"... about a girl who is ok, with or without a man. (ok, but i don't feel as intensely as a ball buster.I just won't settle anymore. LOL)

Which is kind of like, My theme song for the week. ;-)

---

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was the summary of one lucky Friday. :-) Have a good night, y'all.

And...

Merry Christmas. :)

Love, 

S. 

Photo: Never Let Me Go

"Never let me go". August 5, 2011. Binondo, Manila. Photo by S.

Sitting across this couple in the jeepney, and seeing them all "entangled", the only thought that was in my mind was Kazuo Ishiguro's book (although it's of a different theme altogether), "Never Let Me Go." (Hold fast, one of you just might get away.) <-- PDA's are fine, and I have no problems with other people doing it. But currently,I'm ambivalent about what I feel about it, if that were me.

And I'm like, holy cow. now I'm a cynic.

(tsk tsk..)

Love,

S.

Photo: Torn Between Two Lovers

While walking back to the hotel after dinner, I saw this guy on the street. "Torn between two lovers", who were both larger than life. Must be tough.

Ah people...they will never cease to amaze me.

(Photo by Sonia:  Dusit Thani, Makati. July 29,2011.)

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.

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. 

The Five People You Meet...on-Duty

Sleeping to Dream. February 17,2011. 

I love my job.

It’s quite (by “quite”, I meant VERY) interesting, and every day, I always meet someone new, or learn, discover, or be taught something that I hadn’t known before. (I suppose it has been fairly obvious from the start. My job is not my [whole] life yet, but suffice to say, I’m just terribly glad that I am where I am right now.)

I’ve always wanted to be in a situation where I could 1.) help people, 2.) never be bored because there was always something new to surprise me, and 3.) dress up the way I want.

(J Shallow, but hey, perks are fun once in a while.)

-----

This piece is not at all related in any way to Mitch Albom’s book, but of course, I have learned something from them at some point or other.

The anti-social

I had finished admitting my first patient for the day, when I noticed the Family Medicine resident interviewing a balding man, dressed in a collared shirt, khaki pants, and leather shoes. He had a green envelope that he kept tucked under his arm. “Is that a referral for me?” I asked the family medicine resident who was on-duty at the ambulatory care unit. “Actually, Ma’am, we’re still trying to figure out if this patient can make do with counseling, which we can do at our out-patient clinic…” he said. He went on to say that the patient said he was “depressed”, and that he had “suicidal ideations” (his own words, take note). I figured, since I was there anyway, and I had a feeling that they were going to refer the patient to me for further evaluation, I went ahead and examined the patient anyway.

When talking to a patient, it is best to keep an open mind, as you never know what you’re going to get. Yet, there was something about this same patient that annoyed me. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but while I did my usual “run” (when I talk to someone, I like to take note of their eyes, their mouths, the facial expressions they are capable of, the way their hands move, the way they move when they talk to me…and if their eyes tell me anything.), and felt…weird

When I talked to him, I felt weird…he wasn’t psychotic (that’s what we first year residents are supposed to handle at the ER), and he talked normally, but I could smell that this was something else…a personality disorder. I noticed that as we were talking and I tried to get his story from him, I had to consciously stop my eyebrows from meeting in the middle. I was annoyed semi-consciously, and yet I knew I had to hear his story through. He came alone, and claimed that he wanted us to admit him, so that his family would see him and do something about it.

He was a pretty bad liar (which was probably why I had an aversion to him).

In the end, he checked out my DSM list for a personality disorder.

“Congratulations, S. you just met your first anti-social, “ my consultant said.

(It wasn’t a very pleasant experience.)

----

The family medicine resident

My senior told me one time, about how important it was to properly coach the family medicine resident on-duty at the ambulatory unit in evaluating psych patients so they wouldn’t have to wake us up in the middle of the night for a patient referral which wasn’t emergent anyway and could be seen on an outpatient basis.

(Actually, I don’t mind patient referrals, because I’d go see them anyway.)

The resident (whose name was the same as a guy I used to date, by the way) was ok enough, a bit timid, which amused me, because there was no seniority, supposedly. We were both first year residents.

FamMed and Psych (that’s mine) aren’t really the most popular departments in my hospital (possibly because we’re not as “impressive” as the internists, or the surgeons?), according to Trina, one of my co-residents. Still, I do believe we both have our merits…and it all boils down to it being a lifestyle choice.

------

The fresh-faced clerk

That day, I was with a student. He was a junior at the College of Medicine, and on that day, he was up for a 12 hour duty session, and he tagged along. I had him interview the patient I had diagnosed to be anti-social, while I went over to the Blood Bank to do my weekend work there.

When I came back, he had written out his histories, and was endorsing the patient to me (in this context, endorsing is when the resident, moi, would listen intently to what information he reads off his sheet of paper while I point things out, and I ask him questions, or do some teaching.)

He tagged along with me, for most of that day. I didn’t mind at all, because teaching students has always been a fun activity for me (and besides, in my hospital, it is a MUST to teach students, it is a tradition we all are meant to uphold.)

Besides that, he looked like a young Scott Wolf, and happened to be my mentor’s nephew. The most fun thing about him was the fact that he was Ilonggo, and we talked in that dialect. Furthermore, he was from this place in Iloilo called Tigbauan, where they speak an altogether different dialect, called Kinaray-a, a hard, crisp-sounding dialect. (Ahhh, music to my ears, of course.)

(I miss Iloilo and its sounds. It was home for a few years, and I’ll always have fond memories of it. :-)) Anyway, he was a pretty verbose clerk, and an able student, who’s convinced me to look into Stephen Covey.:-p)

The anxious mother

That same day, I had another patient who was brought into the Ambu (yes, another one. When I checked her chart, it said that she was brought in because she wasn’t taking her meds.

My first impression of her was that she was just terribly misunderstood, and people at home got on her nerves. She had temper tantrums at home, but when I talked to her, I found her to be easy enough to talk to. And I had no fear whatsoever of her jumping on me and beating me up…

…which was what her mother’s “painted picture” of her was. “Tie her up now, doc, set her mind properly. Admit her at the psych ward now! She’s a danger to herself and to us!”

Whoa…

(let me say that again…)

Whoa.

I find it easy enough to talk to people, and if I didn’t, I usually have a way of getting to, but this patient’s mother was just impossible. I then understood the principle of counter-transference.

She made my blood boil, to say frankly. I wonder if her daughter feels the same way… This mother had a way of twisting things, and that if you hadn’t talked to her daughter first, you’d say that the kid she talked of was a mad, raving lunatic.

What a pity.

The patient did exactly what I said, she took her meds and gave herself the shots.

She wasn’t primarily a psychiatric referral; I had the family medicine patient refer her to the internists because of her more pressing medical problem and checked up on the pair every two hours.

They left against medical advice later in the day, and I wasn’t informed.

When I inquired later, “Hey, did the patient ever become agitated?” the EMS personnel said, “No, but the mother did.”

(haha.)

What a pity. I feel for her.

-----

The look of love.

A patient was referred to me that night, for behavioral changes. She had been brought in from the northernmost part of the Philippines (a very long way away). She had been admitted for days at a hospital there, and since she wasn’t getting any better, they brought her here.

She was indeed mentally ill, but it was an early onset case, and we strongly felt that we could do a lot for her. She was quite hard to talk to at first, but it was pretty understandable. She had had typical antipsychotics, and was still feeling the side effects.

I talked to her husband, as well, and he was a knowledgeable enough guy, and knew her symptoms. He was very helpful during the interview.

The memory of him holding his wife, keeping her steady while we were interviewing, his looking at her with so much love…got burned into my memory, in a good way.

Mental illness is no easy matter, and it helps a lot to have people around you who care enough about you to help you go through it.

I knew from the start that this patient was going to get better in more ways than one.

-----

(I don’t mean to get emotional when talking about my patients, but in the general sense, they all have unique stories. I try to stay as objective as I can, any emotional involvement hampers the work that I do. I lose all "powers", that way. :-p)

Photo: Batman in Manila



Batman decided to do his crime-fighting on a moped, one hot Manila summer day...
(February 13, 2011. Roxas Blvd, Manila. PHoto by: S.)


Robin: "Holy Conolly, Batman!" (WHAM! POW!)

I saw this dude while I was riding a taxi, on my way home from the airport. lol. the dude definitely is a  character.

"Cause it's FUN"

I only had one patient waiting for me at the outpatient department where I was supposed to go during the afternoons after our lectures/didactics.  I was looking forward to seeing this patient, as he was one of my first admissions, and as such, he was my first discharge. 

He was a young man, barely out of his boyhood. He was a smart kid…an achiever when he was in grade school and high school. Everything seemed fine until he ended up being greatly disappointed because of a family matter. It all went downhill from there. He was initially brought in for check-up because he had problems coping (suffice to say, he had problems I can’t describe right here for ethical reasons). The mind, including the ego, is a strange, and powerful thing… at the peak of your youthful talent, if it breaks and turns against you, you will never be the same again.

(Or you could still go back, but it’s going to take a lot of work.)

 At 22, a couple of  years after he fell mentally-ill, he had already been admitted into the psychiatry ward of my hospital twice. Because he was smart, he had looked up what his illness was all about…what highs and lows of it were, and how being a patient was supposed to be like. Actually, it was quite amusing when I first met him at the emergency room. He was pacing, would sit down and then get up again, and then do some martial arts forms (he strongly believed he was a martial arts master) before sitting down back again so we could  talk to him. One time, he looked me in the eye and then said, “Are you really a doctor? How come I know my disease better than you do?”

Despite my wearing the prescribed “empathic poker face” (which we are supposed to use while talking to patients), I couldn’t stop myself from cracking an amused smile. (The dude had a point.) So of course, yes, I told him I was a doctor, and that yes, I was going to help him. And so, followed the days in the psychiatric ward where the “wholistic” treatment, covering all the biopsychosocial aspects were implemented. He got out and I remember him thanking me profusely, and his mother wanted to talk to me on the phone when he got out.

J

----

And just this afternoon, when he showed up for the pre-scheduled check-up after his disharged, I couldn’t help but notice how, with just the right tools, enough support, and proper medications could really change a person. It could make or break his/her future. The man/boy who went for his check-up with me was a neat, debonair gentleman, dressed in a clean shirt, dark denim jeans and leather shoes, with his hair well-combed, and a bright countenance on his face. Quite an improvement from the restless, high-energy, young patient I had first seen at the ER a month ago, who didn’t know what he was doing with his life.

This patient was now able to take his medications on his own, able to realize what was wrong with him…and taking another stab at the bright, hopeful future ahead of him.

It was quite a long process, and his being there took a lot of effort from a team of people who helped him; myself, the nurses, his family…which finally made him realize that he held the central role. Everyone was going to be there for him, which allowed him to pull himself together. J

(I admit, it doesn’t sound as dramatic as the  scenes one sees on Grey’s Anatomy, or as mind-boggling as House’ , but I can’t deny that the feeling of knowing that you helped give a person another chance at life, and giving him hope when he broke down because he had none…is nothing short of magical. J)

(Upon leaving, he thanked me, and promised to show up for the next follow-up schedule. He also apologized for his behavior in the ER (he still remembered that he had doubted my being a doctor the first time.) I, in turn, reassured him that I thought nothing of it, of course.)

-----

Trina, Mer  (my co-residents) and I were at the callroom earlier just hanging out, each doing some work on his or her laptop… “I can’t get it, why can’t people see that Psych is fun?” somebody said, after we were talking for a while, and the conversation somehow ended up on that line..

We all just laughed. (“I know, right?”)

-----

I just love my job and the opportunity it affords me to help people in a not-so-conventional way.

-----

One time, I found myself talking to an old med school classmate at the hospital entrance while we were waiting for the oath-taking ceremonies to start that morning. He was telling me about his job, saying how stressful it was (he’s an Anesthesiology resident), and how, in crucial moments, he had to make sure that he was able to do the procedure of putting his patient “to sleep”, and then bringing him out of the chemically-induced sleep again…all the while making sure that so-so patient is breathing properly. And all this with a consultant/attending, a senior resident breathing down his neck.

Him: “It’s so stressful.”

Me: My job is stressful too, you know.

Him: Aren’t crazy people crazy already? Nobody’s going to die there, unlike in my specialty.

Me: Well, (pause) if they come to me crazy, I have to make them “uncrazy”…doesn’t that sound stressful and important as well?

Him: (Silence…) Hmm…true.

----

Got tons of paperwork to do…but I just had to update you, lest I fall into the deep pit of Burnout oblivion. ;-)

Thanks, you’ve been a great audience.

Love,

S.

Luneta Park

I was feeling sick on Friday, it was a pretty slow day for me.

Nothing serious, just a day that happens to most everyone at times...things don't seem to be going your way, and sometimes its an effort to get out of bed. (The fact that I had paperwork to catch up on, and an impossible assignment to report about, didn't help my condition at all.)

Well, to add to that, I missed the UST fireworks (I love fireworks..). My friend JC had told me about it, and he said that they were probably going to have fireworks again. Tito Father said that I should go, it was going to be fun in UST. It didn't push through, much to my chagrin.

Anyhoo...whenever I have these "down times", i usually just sleep it off, or sometimes talk it out with a close friend. For Friday night, my "radio host" was my cousin Christo. I have a phone on the Sun network i use for patients, which is also pretty convenient to use to call home, so we chatted on that. After a long time of catching up, and pep talk, here was the gist of the story, " You know, S., you're where you want to be, doing the job you want to do. This is not the time to let anything, or anyone get you down."

(heck, even a psychiatrist needs a little pep talk every now and then.)

-----

Saturday morning was a beautiful day...the clouds were cirrus (which meant great weather later), and the air was crisp and cool. I didn't have work, so I decided it was time to see the city's sights, or one of them, at least. From my window, I could see nearby Luneta park, just some blocks away. It would be fun to take pictures. (Taking pictures of people always was a joy.)

I left my camera at the Hospital call room, so I decided to fetch it before setting out. My phone has the same megapixel power as my camera, but there's nothing quite like the feel of a Canon. (Especially Mine. *love*)

It was still pretty early in the day, but apparently not for other people. I saw a friend walk by that morning, obviously in a hurry. I figured he had a 7AM time in schedule, which was pretty much why he was walking in quick, long strides. I was just going to trail behind him, because I was in no hurry, but he called me over when he saw me. He chatted a bit, but didn't break the pace. He looked like he just hopped out of bed (that probably wasn't his own, judging from the size of his backpack, or the clothes he was wearing, :-S)  and dressed in a hurry for work. I was going to tease him about it, but then I realized that I shouldn't...I myself hadn't showered anyway, and besides, it was none of my business to.

----

Anyway, when I went to the park, I did a bit of sightseeing...quite like a regular tourist. the last time I'd been in Luneta was years ago, and I was a different, younger person then. :-)

It was a bit of a walk, just the perfect cardio exercise to perk me up. For some reason, the air was quite fresh, for manila. Instead of doing the quiet walking around, and being lost in thought, I was doing my favorite role...the tourist-type photographer, but for people. ;-)

Which makes me a photojournalist?

:-)

Blogger is not cooperating and letting me upload my pictures, so you'll have to check them out here. Captions provided, for your reading pleasure.

-----

Saturday morning was a good learning experience. One of the mature defense mechanisms, as we all know is Sublimation, which involves us taking our anxieties and troubles from inside and taking them out, reworking their energy into something useful. I may not be able to do it all the time I get into a funk, but trust me, if you're in one, doing something constructive definitely helps. Heaps.

(photos here.)

Happy Sunday!

The expensive lesson

I was convinced I was invincible.


Up until this morning, at least.


I missed my flight home. I've been sitting on my tiny tush for the past couple of hours (4 more to go, actually), waiting for the next available flight, which is this afternoon as well.


Ever heard of the saying, (more familiarly) from the 90's Brandy song "Almost Doesn't Count"? Well, it's true. Exasperatingly true, I might add. 


               Sure, I woke up at 4 in the morning... 


                      Sure, i cleaned the condo...


                               Sure, I got a relatively fast taxi...


But it still didn't make up for the fact that the airport check-in counter closed minutes before I got there. Which left me no choice but to have my ticket rebooked. I suppose I must have looked ultimately funny because I was carting around my Krispy Kremes, lugging around my... luggage (of course) and being weighed down by my oversized carry-on (for my books, and Dean, my laptop.)...and to be told at the counter that they had closed 10 minutes ago. yech.


For the longest time, I thought I could wrangle myself out of any situation (and talk my way through anything), but no, not this time. "We're closed, Ma'am." And that, dear friends was that. Silly old me had to walk over to the Cebu Pacific Service Center with tail between legs and heavy bags in tow.


And so, two hours and a couple of thousand pesos later (and work schedule changes), your loyal servant is sitting comfortably cross-legged on one of the lounge chairs, munching on leftover Potato Chips for breakfast. There has never been a time when Natural Sea Salt-flavored chips has tasted so delish. What's for lunch, you ask? Umm... Krispy Kremes. (They're fattening, and they're for my brother, but the original glazed ones are just scrumptious.)


I reckon I'm lucky Dean (the laptop) is fully-charged, and my 3-day unlimited internet credits won't expire until 3pm (just in time for boarding)...and there are so many interesting people to watch.  Actually, I'm more concerned with just "hanging out" online, than actively taking pictures (and the usual crazy things that I do when I'm bored.)


Even luckier was the fact that I had money on hand which allowed me to get things done quickly. Shiet. What if I had only a couple of hundreds (for terminal fees, haha) and nothing else? Lord, Tabang... (Anyway, that couldn't have happened, because I always have the blue plastic "magic" card which contains funds I've earned (a.k.a. bled, cried, lost sleep over, worked hours for) over the past months.


Which almost made me realize how much of a risk all this was...I mean, for the longest time, I've always done things at the last minute, or close to it. I've escaped most times unscathed, but now this....is a different story. I absolutely will not do it again. I promise. *Pinkie Swear.*

(Is that an overcast sky...or just plain smog? )

Yes, after this [expensive] fiasco, I vow never again to do things at the last minute, or be late again (to which my aunt said that "somebody" was going to be happy upon hearing this, I suppose she meant my mother, haha).

----- 

When one is stuck in an airport with long hours before her and no one to spend it with, one tries to busy herself with activities...or thoughts. I'll try my best to entertain you, because, dears, I am trying to entertain myself too. :-)

1.) Years ago, it was Dunkin Donuts...then Gonuts Donuts...and now, it's Krispy Kremes!  <-- Personally, I'm not a big pasalubong giver since recent years, because I've been travelling alone more, and it's taxing to bring along donuts when I myself am an incorrigible packer. But hey, it makes people happy (my brother gobbles the stuff up), and people from work like trying new things, so I guess it's ok to bring things occasionally.

2. My back hurts a little. Which reminds me, that apart from the procrastination, I also vow to try to "pack light". Enough said. :-)

3. Christmas at the psych department meant a lot of presents and cute stuff from the other residents. 

4. I think I like the NAIA Terminal 3 better than the for PAL. For one thing, there's lots of space here, and lots of comfortable chairs. 

5. The lady next to be is carrying a month-old baby, wrapped in a white wrap-around blankie, trying to push its little fist out from his covers (so cute.) , and she goes, "Gang, why don't you go and get tickets, if you need money, use the HSBC ticket. "Gang" was a tallish guy in pink who did as he was told. He spoke to me in Hiligaynon...and in bits and snatches of conversation, asked I had a husband, 'cause I looked 30. Yeah, his wife agreed. You look haggard. (Who wouldn't, after shelling out that much money...and lugging around the bags?)


Oh, and maybe all I needed was a shower to return me to my former glory.


I just want to get out of here.


Love, 


S.