Soulful Flux

Going Solo

2011-12-10T09:24:00.001-08:00

Photo by me

I love what I do, but one of the worstthings I have to get myself through in this stage in my life in CN is goingsolo. I regard myself as someone who responds well to social facilitation. I’ma team player by nature. All the years of my life have been graced by theluxury of having people walking together with me, along every kind of pathimaginable – the aisle of a classroom, over bridges, along marshes, along desertedalleys or major boulevards, inside the church, inside the wards, ICUs, healthcenters, inside the library. Where ever I go (with the exception of the bath,of course!), I’ve never been alone. I’ve had friends call me Ms. Independent andtell me that I’m a kickass lady who knows what she wants and gets them. Whatmost people do not know about me however, is that being alone can paralyze meto the point of making me tear up.

The recent years I spent in CN has beenremarkably blessed. I ended up losing a couple of friends who were eventuallyreplaced with the best bunch of groupmates who turned the worst clinical daysinto the most inspiring and heartwarming ones – my golden CN days, as I nowfondly call these times. But then again, the perks of growing old do not comewithout setbacks. With the last days of my senior year come clinical duties bypairs, with each working in different pay and charity wards. It was the thoughtof going solo which really gripped me by the throat – no one to give your dailydose of peptalks before you set foot in the ward because there’s no one to haveyour usual morning walks with, no groupmates to laugh with through all themisery of early morning cramming before the CI arrives in the area apart fromyour partner, no CI to guide you, no people to grab a snack with, no one totalk to in the library when you get back from the hospital. The life full ofpeople who held me together in one piece is now on the opposite shore and now I’mleft to keep myself whole. The first day was the worst, knowingthat it will be one of the very few days in the next 5 months that I’ll bewalking to the hospital at dawn together with the very person whose presencefor the past year or so screams home, that I’ll be spending the first nighttorturing my hands with things I am supposed to write, that I’ll probably enterthe lounge with no one to share the first day craziness with. I do not careabout the amount of things I must get done, because my workaholic self withobsessive-compulsive tendencies can take care of that. What killed me everydaywas really being alone.

It was the same heart-wrenching scenarioeveryday up to now, but as they say, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”It did not come to my attention until now that each day that passes seemslighter; I can now barely notice the eerie silence of being alone, the freakysadness of spending time all by myself, the deep madness of the sentimentalmarch to the hospital before the break of day. It is one of those rare moments Iam thankful for, because things have finally become routine. For the first timein years, I am relieved to wake up and see the novelty of something has finallyworn off. Like most difficulties, this too shall pass.

I thank God for times like these: timeswhen I realize that the worst is over, that beginnings are always the hardest, thatstanding up again is toughest, but once I’m back on my grubby little feet again,traipsing along those familiar, lonely paths is much easier. At the end of theday, there’s nothing left to do but to let my hair down and savor every wakinghour I’ve been given the privilege to spend in this place, lest I want to growold and look back regretting that I wasn’t able to make the most out of my timehere because I was so preoccupied complaining about its flaws (like what mostpeople here do.)

Once again, it’s a lesson learned: goingsolo can’t kill me after all.

When Learning Ceases

2011-06-30T23:10:00.000-07:00

Photo by me.

Three years into the university, I find myself slipping into that black hole of being a slave to my grades a couple of times. Being in a class where your professor tells you to forget about the grade you’ll get is a breath of fresh air. It reminds me of the student I sometimes fail to be. We were having a class discussion about whether the formal mode of instruction is outdated for the learning style of our generation – kids who grew up with the power to do homework, research and learn something (although perhaps superficially) all at their fingertips. When the class was asked what kind of education we want to receive, I pointed out that I wanted an education operating the way it should be – that students attend a class hungry to learn and acquire the skills needed to make them competent contributors to their own chosen fields, rather than enter a classroom every single day with the ultimate goal of pleasing the teacher and meeting the minimum requirements to safely say “I passed”. With such notion being raised, my professor replied:

“If I could use a time machine, I would go back to the time when the grading system was invented and I would destroy it. Because of its invention, teaching ceased to be a calling and became a profession. I can only imagine the amount of potential we kill every time teachers give a student a five. A grade is but a number. Never let anyone judge you by a number, much so yourself. The day you start caring about your grades is the day you stop learning. A card of excellence is just paper. It will rot. But the knowledge you get because you wanted to learn… it’s yours forever… or you could pass it on.…”

It would be hypocritical of me to wash hands and say I did not fall prey to such a system. Of course I did and I probably still am on certain occasions. It is saddening, however, because I am not the only one. Most of us are guilty of it. At the end of the day, we all emerge with passing marks but when we look back, we see not a single tinge of enjoyment because we were all too preoccupied with trying to pass.

Before college, recognition days were among the most important on my academic calendar. It felt like I was given a time to shine. It made me feel admired and important. When I was new in college, I would industriously join the line of students outside every department waiting for a chance to claim their class cards at the end of every semester. Back then, it felt really good to tell your parents you aced your subjects. Several semesters after, however, I would hear my mom complaining about not seeing my class cards anymore. It started when I was getting my class card for this subject which gained my liking. I was 2 people away from the department assistant releasing the class cards when I felt like it did not matter to me anymore. I do not need to shine and feel important like before. I turned around and went back, surprised to not care. The subject exceeded my expectations and I loved it not because it gave me a chance to get a grade of one; I loved it because I loved it. I was satisfied, and like pearls to milk tea, grades are just an add-on.

I know some people who get better grades than I do. Ironically, on most days they are more jaded than I am and some throw complaints about studying whenever they can. When I hear them ranting, I almost always fall silent and brood over whether I am being just like everybody else, being enslaved by a scale of one to five. I sometimes do. I fall. When times get really tough and I have to fulfill what I think people think are my roles, I have this tendency to want to just get over with them. When I call those times to memory, I would regret to have deprived myself the feeling of being in that moment. I hate looking back to memories and all I see is my tired self, even if such moment is a milestone because I did something new, something right or something different. If I throw my worries out of the box, there’s more space for excitement. So I decided to keep it simple: live learning. My professor added,

“It is not about whether our mode of teaching is outdated or not. It is about what learning means to this generation now. (For example,) many students do not enjoy mathematics because fear of failure preempts the experience. They fear math either because they’re already afraid of the teacher giving them a five and/or because people say math is difficult. It is sad. Most students get defeated even before the first lesson.”

He was right. The reason why I said it was the education I want to have is because I feel most students I know are falling prey to this system. Today, most students use the strategy of nosing around what a teacher is like, what the teacher’s class requirements are and what things need to be done in order to get a passing mark, instead of trying to get a whiff of what is there to be learned and giving all efforts one can. Students who fancy a little euphemism call it pragmatic, but I think it defeats the essence of learning. Most children get tired of going to school because every single day is just another day of trying to avoid failing. You just know something superficially – only enough to raise you a level higher – but you don’t know it by heart. It is identical to building a city of skyscrapers; only that we are made of wood.

My grade school and high school self would probably be devastated not to see an excelling mark on my report card. My college self, however, would look on the marks on my class card, whatever they may be, with contentment. It may not always be skyrocketing, but I’m happy to say I learned and I enjoyed doing something at my own pace because that is where I am at my best. I do not want to learn at the expense of my own enjoyment, being too busy trying to achieve and be something people think I should be. A few years back, I thought it was my grades that got me all the respect and affection I was getting; that it was my grades that became my ticket to this university and the basis for all those scholarship grants that I received. Now I daresay it was not my grades; it was me. It was my effort. It was my liking for what I do. Grades gauge some things, but they are not everything. They cannot speak for what goes beyond them. There is so much more to learning than getting a "one".

As Always

2010-11-10T09:49:00.000-08:00

Photo by me.

So it’s 13 minutes before I officially part with carefree days and sleepful nights. The three-week break has given me the chance to be happy and simply do the things (things = sleeping, sleeping and sleeping) that I love without the nagging fear of them being rated on a scale where one is king and five is baloney. The sembreak-starter’s resolutions have formally become the ultimate sembreak-ender’s apologies. It was part of my ‘free days’ bucket list to travel a bit to some piece of Philippine utopia with Darcy (my 40D), bond with my sisters in some bowling alley nearby, reunite with my penchant for watercolor painting and review for December’s NMAT. Sometimes plans just don’t materialize because unfinished business won’t allow you to do other things apart from itself. For the two weeks that I had been home, there has not been a single day that I did not think about our group’s community diagnosis. We are handling four out of the six zones in the largest barangay in the municipality of Pateros since half of the batch, us included, had to divide among ourselves all the barangays in the whole municipality for the diagnosis of all its senior citizens. If previous batches worked on alleys or zones of specific barangays only, our batch had to do it 3-4 barangays per group. In all luckiness, our group, having the fewest number of members, was assigned the biggest population to work with. It was that tedious. If it had not been for the perseverance of my awesome group of 6, we wouldn’t have been able to present the CDx with satisfaction and integrity. My groupmates had worked with me all throughout the break, revising parts here and there, staying up until the wee hours of the morning to talk about program plans and all the geeky stuff.

My plans of going somewhere else this break had gone down the drain when my savings from earlier months went to financing everything Pateros during the latter parts of the semester. The 3-week-old plan of donning bowling shoes and hitting the shiny maple lanes was replaced with season marathons of CSI and House, M.D. in the comforts of our couches because I felt the need to enjoy the crazy and heartwarming coziness after having gone home only 5 times for the past 5 months. The plan of practicing “wet on wet” watercolor technique among others was replaced with making digital paintings out of mediocre photos I have taken because I accidentally left my filbert, rigger, flat and round synthetics and sables in my haste to pack my junk the morning of my scheduled trip back home because I fell asleep while packing the eve before out of sheer stark weariness from all things CDx. Worse, I left all my NMAT reviewers in Manila due to the same reason.

Plans are plans and work is work. If there are things I don’t regret doing during my supposed break, those are being productive photography-wise and doing volunteer work in the PGH emergency room. At least I learned to employ other post-processing techniques apart from making duotones, was able to release my Manus series online and help out and get a whiff off emergency room work.

I am not expecting this semester to be all candies and rainbows. It would be boorish to geekdom and idealism to wish things would be fun and exciting. Of course they will, however, things will happen the UPCN way. Candies will be locked in the sweets cupboard and rains shall pour before rainbows will appear. So before the sembreak (which did not feel like one) says adieu, I say only one wish: that I wake up everyday still gaining happiness from loving what I do and still having the freedom to do what I love...

Confessions of a Daddy's Girl

2010-06-25T13:52:00.000-07:00

A tribute to all dads in the world

Photo by me.

Quite a lot of people, including my mom, have told me I'm a daddy's girl. More often than not, I find myself simply denying it because I equally love her and because my dad is closer to my youngest sister. On the flipside, I sometimes think otherwise; that maybe after all people close to me are right.

As a kid, I would spend my time bathing in sweat while chasing other children or running in circles on the street during late afternoons. Before the last rays of the sun would say goodbye, I make it a point to look at the far end of the road and wait until I catch sight of my dad walking home clad in his white shirt and jeans or slacks. He had no car back then, so he patiently uses public transportation to get to work. Upon seeing him, my feet would carry me as fast as I could towards him, not because I’ll give him a kiss on the cheek or on his hand, but because he always had a pack of ice candies for me. That was the bulk of my internet-and-gadget-free childhood.

When I was in primary and secondary school, he would diligently wake up at 4:00 in the morning to cook breakfast for my sisters and me. Until now, he does so for our youngest, since Ayana and I started living in the metro for college. He would make us sandwiches and drive us to school, including those Saturdays when we have to pull-off extra hours for club activities and trainings. When Ayana and I graduated as class valedictorians (modesty aside), my happiness reached high heavens. Of course, I was partly proud because it was the culmination of our academic efforts but more importantly, we got to give him and my mom their well-deserved seats for those nights: the seats reserved for parents of students in the honor roll. They deserved the medals more than we did.

He is extremely overprotective. One of the reasons I almost never went out malling with classmates even up to high school was because he and my mom would always be worried. Before I could get out of the house, he would first give a litany of his safety reminders which I had already memorized as a kid. I never complained about him always accompanying me to school every enrollment day for a new semester. He once said I might get teased in school for having a parent who always tags along, but I don’t really care. In fact, I love it when he and my mom go with me to school because I love showing them off to the world.

He is a man who started from scratch. He never went to college, started toiling at age 17, was never without a job since and worked his way up. My mom sometimes tells me that the reason she allows my dad to hoard clothes and shoes now is not only because he is the one working in the family, but because he never had the luxury of enjoying them when he was our age. He would happily put up the Christmas tree at home as November comes to a close because as a child, he never spent Christmas with one. When he and my youngest sister went to Disneyland sometime ago, I knew that the kid in him loved the place too.

Every day, I make a conscious effort to do actions that would make him and my mom proud. But along with it, I also make sure I show the world how much I’m proud of them too. I remember this class recitation for my History class when my professor asked us to describe our ideal man. Unlike others who gave answers such as "witty", "handsome" and "kind", I stood up and proudly told everyone: “Someone like my dad…”

2010-06-07T04:56:00.000-07:00

Photo and PP by me.

An incredible weekend getaway is one of the best ways to end summer classes… or should I say, to kickoff another semester of books, papers and patients? A classmate celebrated her 18^th in a country club somewhere down south. I don’t normally go to birthday parties; as a matter of fact, it was only the 2^nd Hey-I’m-getting-legal celebration I attended in my college batch and it was the 2^nd to the last to ever be celebrated. I missed out on tons, I know.

It was a night of coats and long gowns, shiny black shoes and stilettos, cocktails and chardonnay, simply put: glamour. When the formal program ended, my batch mates and all other guests freestyled on the dance floor. Being the insipid girl that I am, I slouched back onto my chair and pretended to be texting in between moments of peeking through my camera’s viewfinder and photographing the scene. A random guy asked if I wanted to dance but I respectfully declined his offer.

Whenever people I know, especially my batch mates go partying and dancing, I always take a step back and sink into a comfortable seat from where I can quietly watch them and just blend with the background. Others would call it anti-social or even party-pooper-ish but I call it creative. I love to people-watch. Seeing everybody laugh their lungs out and move in sync with the party lights and music is enjoyable enough for me. It makes my brain work. We don’t always get to be the star dancer every single time. Sometimes, we have to do back up, sometimes be the choreographer. We don’t always have to be on the dance floor to see everyone up-close. Sometimes, it’s better to be observers outside the circle and just zoom in from our spot. That way we have the advantage of both perspectives. When everybody retires to their seat, I feel happy to have shared the moment too, even from a different vantage point.

That night, when everybody else was still putting up their biggest smiles for camera lenses set in front of the media wall, I went ahead. Taking a last look of the giant ballroom, I walked over the red carpet, past the front doors and into the midnight air. I found a classmate ready to call it a night and since there was no sign of some pairs of wheels that could take us from the hall to the place where we had checked in during the morning, we decided to take a walk.

I took off my 3-inch stilettos and joined him barefoot. The concrete was cold and so was the air but the faint lights from outside some of the elevated units along the road warmed it all up. My friend and I were conversing blithely, his loosened tie and cello complementing his laid back demeanor. The celebrator’s brother drove past with their mini cooper, sending a draft of air that made the ends of my gown brush against my shins and feet. For the first time in the night, I felt like dancing. It was not a walk after all; it was a dance. Never mind if I might have to take a gown with frayed ends to the drycleaners days after, end up having blisters on the soles of my feet or have my friend think I’m a crook if he hasn’t yet thought so. I understand that sometimes life isn’t about how much I try to blend in and act expensive, to dance when everybody else is dancing. I love it when I leave the spotlight to dance when no one is watching and only when I feel like it. No one can blame me for preferring the sound of crickets in the night over Lady Gaga and other contemporaries booming and resounding in the ballroom, for choosing to sashay down a slope of concrete over creep-walking on a shiny hotel floor.

I continued to walk, sure and proud to still be my own person. I danced under the moonlight and I rocked it.

A Peek into the Future

2010-05-25T07:48:00.000-07:00

Photo by me.

The class went hiking on Mt. Banahaw a few days ago. As usual, I got elated travelling south and communing with nature. It there's one thing I regret about having to live in Manila, that is being deprived of the serenity and sense of purity that nature offers. While eco-parks in the metro do exist, rural areas still provide that genuine "green" feel, at least for me.

I've always told my significant others that I plan to get old in a farm away from the city -- a place where I do not have to mind traffic and to endure all forms of pollution. I want to spend the rest of my golden days waking up to cold mornings, hearing the cock crowing, or the stream flowing nearby. I want to grow old taking care of little children and all the people I love. Then on late afternoons, I'll fall asleep on a hammock under a mango tree while knitting. I believe it's growing old the Pinoy way.

City living is definitely enjoyable. People I pass by inside malls are sporting the latest in fashion, I get to see and sometimes buy the latest gadgets, I get to dine in the restos I want and get almost everything I need with relative ease. However, I do believe that all of these will be of little importance to me when my hair has turned gray. For a girl who was raised not surrounded by high fashion, the latest in technology, shiny cars and the like, growing old means going back to the time when life is simple, soulful and pure. I love my life as a city girl, but on the inside, I will always be the Filipina raised humbly in a lovely province.

One day, I'll definitely go back hoping that modernization hasn't yet eaten what was left of my true home.

The lady has feet

2010-05-08T17:34:00.000-07:00

Photo by me

They say dreams are outlets for people’s hidden desires. Sometimes they are means for people to cook up creative juices. In my case, dreams always play the role of puzzles. Whenever I wake up from a dream I always feel weird and more confused than I was when I slept.

I’m always running away from something in my dreams. In one, I had just finished my final lap in a race, and suddenly I couldn’t stop running. I wanted to get away from the people because something tells me to flee the scene. In another, I was in a dark museum with all these dioramas on all sides and then in the wink of an eye, I was running away from Japanese soldiers who came. There was also one in which I was fleeing away from home and there was a well-lit street. I hid in a white van but my dad found me inside lying prone on the seat. In yet another dream, I was running away from a brown hound with the fiercest eyes.

I grew up with “running away” being the theme of my dreams. In all of them, I always feel like my feet weren’t fast enough to carry me. I was a track player in my younger years and the frustration always gets deeper and deeper every single time I dream of having to run away and I would struggle because I wasn’t running that fast; that it somehow felt my legs and feet were restrained. I know how amazing it feels like to kick off a good run and feel the air glide smoothly under my arms. Somehow, it was a different thing if seen in the context of my dreams.

I’m not really the type to be swayed by dream meanings that sprout here and there over the web or even in books. But just for the heck of it, I did some research.

From a dream dictionary:

Runaway

To dream that you are a runaway, indicates that you are dealing with issues of belonging and acceptance.

Running

To dream that you are running away from someone, indicates an issue that you are trying to avoid. You are not taking or accepting responsibility for your actions. In particular, if you are running from an attacker or any danger, then it suggests that you are not facing and confronting your fears.

To dream that you are trying to run but cannot make your feet move as fast as you want them to, signifies lack of self-esteem and self-confidence. It may also reflect your actual state of REM paralysis while in the dream state.

To dream that you are running alone, signifies that you will advance to a higher position and surpass your friends in the race for wealth. Alternatively, you may be running from some situation or from temptation. Or it may also mean that you need to hurry up in making a decision.

They’re always about confidence and belonging and avoiding issues and people. As far as I know, there isn’t any issue or matter I am avoiding and even if there are really people I am keeping myself away from, those are only the useless perverts around Manila, not people of any significance in my life. I feel loved and I do feel like I belong in school, even at home. I like what I am and I do not feel like I have to please everyone else. Now that I’m older, running away in my dreams seems to be a routine. However frustrating they can be, I guess there’s still something good in them. Looking on the flipside, at least it’s just in my dreams that I have to run away from people and things. In real life, nothing and no one can make me back off or flee.

We're all mad here

2010-05-02T09:37:00.000-07:00

I realized I've quite neglected this blog for some time, but I hope it's not too late for me to give an update. I have actually a semester's worth of word vomit here in my laptop and for some reason I've encrypted all the files so they're all as private as they can get. Last sem's been overwhelming but my belief that hardwork gives sweet gifts in the end made me endure everything. It's actually only now that I start to feel like I have the reason to say my chosen field is tough, or even extremely difficult. The requirements, especially paperwork, are not really mind-boggling, but the quantity is just unforgivable.

I have two more years to spend in UP, 7-8 years if luck is on my side and I get into the College of Medicine. It's a 0.01 in 10 chance but I'll still give it a shot. Sometimes life feeds us with all the opportunities possible and all we have to do is chew and swallow. I'd rather not get accepted somewhere because I didn't really meet their standards, rather than not get accepted just because I failed to try my luck. Hopefully, everything will fall rightly into place when the time comes.

For now, I'll just live every moment like there's no tomorrow.

It's Beginning to Smell a Lot Like...

2009-12-04T10:11:00.000-08:00

Christmas...

Had I not seen the Christmas tree at home I wouldn't probably remember it's coming.

This season has never been the kind of thing that gets me really giddy with anticipation. Our family always celebrate at home or in the province, receiving phone calls from missed relatives and friends, gathering around the dinner table to have some fun and eat. I wonder if this year's celebration wouldn't veer away from the pattern. I just realized I'm growing more and more unattached to Christmas every year. When I was a kid I'd always start my countdown a hundred days before. I'd wake up to cold mornings with the stereo booming with the same old yuletide songs and I would spend the day thinking endlessly about getting the gifts I want and then sing my lungs out caroling with my childhood friends at dusk. Things change. Today, my cellphone's alarm would wake me up, I have to drag myself to the bathroom hating the chilling water, I rarely hear Christmas songs, I don't care much about the gifts and I am utterly surprised to know pasko na pala.

I'm not populating a wishlist because this year's been generous enough and all I have to do is prove myself worthy of the things I received year round.

Of New Beginnings

2009-11-12T06:26:00.000-08:00

So I got carted off back here in Manila yesterday for class opening this day. I badly miss my family, as usual, but I think I'm getting better in handling that. I can't believe it took me 4 hours to fix all my things. Funny, I decided not to put all my books on top of my bed's headboard because the pile is unbearably high now and I'm getting afraid that an earthquake may just happen while I'm sound asleep and all of them might make a funky crash landing on top of my head. I realized I have too many things around. I don't even know how I'm gonna stash them all again when I move back home for good after all this schooling.

School is starting to overwhelm me. Our N12 professors maxed out the whole 8 hours for lecture and laboratory a while ago (which, let me repeat, is our first meeting). It was fun but still frightening because it's only a month or so before we say hello to the delivery of pregnant moms in Fabella hospital. First days always feel like this but time taught me it's a cycle -- you get overwhelmed at first and your legs feel like jell-O, you get the hang of the toxicity, you slowly gain confidence and you finish the course and you get a little break in between and go through the same process until graduation. It's just like every set of classcards we get at the end of one sem are tickets to getting a new set of syllabi for next sem's courses. Cool. Everything is getting so real.

I also saw my CRS grades tonight. As soon as I saw my grades, my heart skipped a beat. Effort really does wonders. Thank you, Lord! I was already sulking in class a while ago because the idea of med school popped from somewhere and I felt like I was too incompetent for it. Well, okay, too incompetent for UP Med. To be honest, I haven't really aborted the idea that I could, out of tons of luck or even through a miracle, enter my school's College of Medicine. I've been hearing stories about the GWA of people who are lucky or probably exceptionally smart who got accepted and my overall GWA needs 0.something to match theirs, plus I don't even know how I'll fare in the NMAT. I hear some people say, "Kung alam ko lang, sana kumuha nalang ako ng madaling premed..." But I don't believe in that. What's the point in getting a skyrocketing GWA when your competencies suck bigtime? I'd rather spend 4 years of my life on something that will really be of help come med school. So yeah, I was already on frown mode before I saw my grades for last sem because I didn't think I'm not gonna see good results. Buuuuut... I giggled and rolled on the sofa when I saw them. I was really giddy while I was praying to and thanking God a while ago. God is really made of awesome! Efforts for the win! I'm so happy to learn all those hardwork from last sem were not wasted at all.

I think that's all. Back to work! Hala sinipag mag-aral?

Overhaul

2009-11-08T06:48:00.000-08:00

Overhaul. My online presence badly needed it so I'm here again toasting my eyeballs in front of the computer screen. The old getup of this blog doesn't look right anymore so I changed it to something more mature. I'm using the beta layout so technically it was gotten off somewhere because I don't feel like making a whole layout from scratch at the moment, plus, I'm having issues with Blogger classic. I just tweaked the codes a little to make it suit my taste more. I'm also immensely impressed with the improvements Blogger's been having recently. Mind you, I've tried much of the really decent blogging platforms around but I always end up going back here. Wordpress is pretty okay and their post editor used to be better than that of Blogger's but not until now. The latter's post editor rattles cages. The ads here are optional too (ahem, Livejournal and Xanga). And most of all... the layout is VERY customizable, from magazine-like ones to gallery looking ones, name it and it's possible. Okay, enough confession of my love for Blogger. The major change in this blog will be the content. Well, not really change, but I'll just separate some of them. I've decided to stop or lessen the amount of pictures or other works I post here. I don't like my writings being mashed up with photos or scanned artworks so I'm placing them somewhere else.

I'm quite glad my layouts shop is well again. I abhorred the idea of having the codes re-parsed and re-hosted. I want to make new layouts but school is coming in a few days so I have to start refreshing myself with the lessons I have unlearned during the break. Besides, I'm not in the mood to write and edit codes recently.

I also decided to do a cleaning of my DeviantArt gallery. Some works look pretty mediocre now so I deleted them. I also cancelled my Twitter account because it's a big stalking machine in disguise, which is the same reason why I deleted my plurk account. And yes, I'm not that dumb to not know that tweets could be protected but I'm just not the trusting kind. I haven't posted much in those two anyways.

I also put up my Tumblr page again for the shallow reason that I needed a place for dumping random stuffs and I wanted to follow photography tumblelogs. I am still sucessful in keeping Facebook at bay, though. Almost everybody has one, but I don't feel like it's my thing. Besides, my Multiply serves me well.

So yeah, I think that's it.

It's the little things

2009-11-02T05:56:00.000-08:00

I'm 18 now. I know it's a little more than a week already but I guess I have to write something that'll be a good read a few years from now. It was a normal birthday, I guess. No balloons, no 18 roses, no gorgeous fondant cakes, no 18 dances, none of the traditional way girls celebrate their "introduction to society." But that's exactly the way I like it. I could have gone home and celebrated it with my family, but I have a Biochem exam, and two more coming up so I opted to finish eveything first and go home free. I celebrated with a few friends at The Old Spaghetti House, my family came to Manila to visit me, my dormmates bought me ice cream and gave me cards, we had cake while studying for another exam, Sister Gemma and Sister Lucy gave me hugs, my cellphone kept receiving birthday messages from friends both new and old who I didn't expect to remember, I got my 40D (OMG! 10x), and yeah, I had mad fun.

I guess wanting to keep it simple was the result of believing that it's the little things that matter. It's that Rocky Road-eating thrill I felt while with my dormmates, it's the lovely trip I had with my parents on our way to the camera store, it's the old-school birthday song my classmates sang for me (which I immensely loved), the awesomeness of the rosary Sister Lucy gave me, it's my dormmates effort to write messages on my birthday card, it's everything heartfelt.

I couldn't have had it any better so thank you everyone for even just remembering it was my special day. :D

Because we all need to start somewhere

2009-10-11T10:23:00.000-07:00

Recent feature of my works from different webbies. Much love to those who are kind enough to give me the credits. I had this experience before when I came across some of my own works in someone else's DeviantArt account and I sent him an email regarding the matter. I got no reply but after a week his account was gone. Again, thanks so much to the following. Larger versions are available when you click the photos :D

From Philstar.com

I wrote an article for Philippine Star's summer special before high school graduation last year but I forgot to take a screenshot of my article's page thinking Philstar won't replace it for this year's summer special articles. I found this PDF from Scribd.com from a fellow article writer last year who was brilliant enough to take a screenshot of his own. So, yeah, my teeny tiny name could only be found on the sidebar because it's his article's page. Oh well, better than nothing. :D

From Bidhy.com

An old photo showing my photography noobness. Photo was taken circa 2005 so technically I still don't have an idea what I was doing yet. But that's the way things are. No one's born an instant expert. They got the photo and notes from my Flickr account.

From National Geographic

Since I'm not yet 18, I asked my mom sometime around April to submit a photo for NatGeo's Daily Dozen on my behalf. The editors show their picks from all the submissions daily. I could not find the exact feature page where I saw it back in May but here's a gallery screenshot from Your Shot. I wish I could work for that magazine. Ngaaaaw!

From Islamicmovements.com

Latest is a feature of a Taoist temple photo taken around August this year. Gotten also from my Flickr photostream.

And from my beloved BlogNetAwards:

Quintessence is the old name of Butterfly Kisses :D According to their website:

Nominated for Best Diarist Blog is Quintessence a site that has been described by the nominator as one that shows the life of an idealistic artist as well as amateur photographer working her way to becoming a medical doctor. She shares her thoughts on life, her plans for the futures, her concerns for humanity, especially for the Filipino race.
The BlogNet awards team completed their review and found Raiza Kasilag’s description of her life as a 17 year-old student nurse to be both charming and entertaining. The photos of Manila are stunning. This is a chance to see life through the eyes of a student just getting started and to remember those hectic school days in a warm sweet way.

For Denesy Jao

2009-10-11T08:37:00.000-07:00

"Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment or the smallest act of kindness, all of which have the potential to turn a life around..." -- Leo Buscaglia

Photo credits: Kenneth Gacula

The Bitter Pill

2009-10-03T10:55:00.000-07:00

It was a happily hectic friday afternoon. A Greenpeace member came to speak to our class about global warming. We learned and bade him goodbye. I could remember him giving us these words...

"Our generation's issue is about freedom and human dignity. And I can proudly say I did something. YOUR generation's issue is something environmental. I hope one day you could look straight in your children's eyes and proudly tell them you did something for the environment..."

And then we left. We celebrated Nursecissism that night. We had pizza and fun. And then the rain started to pour. We went home drenched in water. I started studying for tomorrow's exam. I almost didn't sleep that's why I know the rain hadn't stopped since it started the night before. I went to school and wished I'd do well in my departmentals. It rained cats and dogs. The exam was called off after 2 hours and we had to go home when the streets were already partially flooded and it was raining harder. I changed clothes and bathed in alcohol. I slept... and it was still raining.

I woke up the next morning and saw what the rain did to my people. It was devastating. News have reached the international community.

Days after, I went to school and gave what I have. It's the least I could do. Never mind that I have to get a less yummy lunch for several days. My fellows are dying. We repacked the goods and hoped each bag would do a devastated family some good. The response to the calls for help are overwhelming... people posting donation information on their online spaces, prison inmates skipping meals just to donate, foreigners donating everything in their paypal accounts, celebrities diving in neck-deep flood waters to save their neighbors, people raising funds, teenagers giving up their savings, gradeschoolers packing up goods, a million tales of reaching out... I live in a country of heroes (excluding the corrupt and phony scumbags, of course!)

I can't be any prouder. Welcome to the Philippines...

Where do I go from here?

2009-09-21T04:30:00.000-07:00

"I’m just a little bit caught in the middle
Life is a maze and love is a riddle
...
I am just a little girl lost in the moment
...
I’ve got to let it go
And just enjoy the show"

Yes, I'm quite lost. And since both my parents are regular readers of this blog, writing this entry somehow means boiling myself in my own stew. For the past weeks (or months) my mind's always off to some place painted with colors not as monochromatic as that of where I am now.

I was talking with Ate Hane a while ago. She used to take the same course as I am taking up but around this same time last year, she decided to shift out and take up BSBAA (business ad. and accountancy) instead. The talk was casual and somehow it drifted to what we want in life. I told her I envy her for she was able to gather courage and somehow effect a great turn, that is, get out of Nursing and live the life she would enjoy better. She asked me what I'm interested in and I said FA or Journalism, which, as it turns out, was what she really wanted. I realized that the things that can make us happy are not everything that we humans consider superior. She has been taking up two of UP's triple quota courses and yet she wasn't really happy. Fine Arts was an option from the very start, but the fear that her parents might not agree kept her from pursuing it. As for my part, I don't really hate Nursing. I love it, as a matter of fact. It is noble in its own right. If given the chance, I'd continue to Medicine. To be a doctor will never be erased from my dreams.

... but FA is FA and Journalism is Journalism. Times just come when I feel like I've always chosen the safe path and many alleys are still waiting to be explored... that apart from going to the hospital and donning on scrub suits or a white coat, I'd also love to be able to walk up to my own studio or workplace someday, wear an artist's apron and dabble in paint or sculp figures... that apart from doing rounds in the hospital and checking on my patients with a stethoscope dangling down my neck, I'd also want to climb mountains and cross rivers with a camera in my hand... that apart from writing clinical abstracts or prescriptions, I also want to write for my own column or even publish my own book... that apart from reading my Pathophysiology, Medical Parasitology and Microbiology books, I'd also fancy browsing through artbooks and read a Murakami, a Shakespeare, a Sionil-Jose or a Garcia-Marquez...

I am a carefree artist trying to survive in the cruel but charming world of the hard sciences. Sadly, it makes life tough for me. The field where I am in never fails to keep me busy, but sometimes it is not enough to fill that part that only color, form, pattern and rhyme will ever complete.

I've been daydreaming much lately. I want to put those creative juices into tangible things. I want to create something I can proudly call my brainchild. No one in my family or in my circle knows I've been studying a certain form of art for months now. It keeps me happy. It probably is hard to connect all the dots now, but I feel the picture will be clear and sharp a few years into the future, and who knows, I might end up crafting something that will turn out as a good form of enterprise.

I guess I don't want to spend the rest of my college days being just like everybody else, always covered in tons of books, always complaining of the toxicity school is bringing them and always wishing they never chose this field. Maybe like them I'm not giving up... not when I've already given up and sacrificed so much for where I am now, spent so much money on my education, and abused my own health to comply with all the requirements. Yes, it's the point of no return but I guess I'm not allowing life to push me around. Yes I'd still want to take up FA or probably Journalism but I'm here taking up something I still believe I want, but that does not mean I have to wait for the chance to get them to be shoved in my face. There are pieces of those dreams scattered around me and just because I can't see them doesn't mean they're not there, and the reason why I could stand not complaining about how tough my chosen field is, is because I have a life outside it. And that life is visual arts and writing.

It is so paradoxical that we all know that life sucks, but most of us spend most of our lives whining and crying over spilled milk. When I was little I often asked God why he gave me so little talent. I have the voice of a toad, the dancing ability of a scarecrow, and the confidence of a person with inferiority complex. I later realized that there's a secret formula to being good at something, and that sheer talent won't actually get people far. I learned about passion. May be I cannot sing , dance and act, but I learned that I can write and draw, paint and make crafts. Passion kept that spark alive and had I not discovered it, I might have ended up a bored and boring but school-intoxicated kid.

There are times when the call for one is greater than that of the other. Mental gridlocks say hello to me all the time. But then, I guess I am happy to somehow pursue both worlds. It's the kind of thing that gets me giddy and confused but at the same time both fields temper each other in a unique manner which makes me want to just stay put and enjoy the moment.

Deep within the city

2009-08-31T05:55:00.001-07:00

Went on a temple tour in Manila last Saturday with a couple of batchmates. At first I was very skeptic about going to this tour and cutting a generous amount from my allowance to go on this trip. I never thought i'd enjoy it very much though. My batchmates and I are joking around with the thought of riding a bus while visiting temples which are only a few blocks away from school. One temple was even just beside a classmate's condo unit. I ended up swallowing my own words after finding the tour interesting instead of dull. I was given the chance to appreciate other religions and cultures and somehow free my thinking from the confines of Catholicism.

Another thing that got me hooked the whole time was the fact that I was holding a camera. It's been ages since I last indulged in photography which is one of my interests. For the first time in months I got to apply what I have been droning on during my free time -- the technicalities of the field. Gigabytes of my laptop's memory are dedicated to photography ebooks which I read every now and then to somehow make me an informed hobbyist. I can say I'm pretty happy with the results.

These are carvings in a wooden structure in the Taoist Temple in Adriatico. The craftsmanship is just breath-taking.

Here is a view of the porch of the same Taoist temple. I had to darken the photo a bit because it was overexposed.

Another look...

This is the Blue Mosque in Maharlika Village, Taguig. What separates this mosque from others is that its dome is blue, instead of the usual green (which represents paradise). According to my professor, the Imam said he had the dome painted blue because it is his favorite color. There are actually only three blue mosques in the world. I enjoyed listening to the Imam while he explained the history of Islam and debunked myths about their religion.

I took this while listening to the Imam's lecture.

The little Buddhas at the Fo Guang Shan temple in Vito Cruz.

My classmates and I all found the Buddhist temple the most serene of all the ones we visited. We were even taught basic meditation techniques before we left. I realized how badly out of shape I am because I can't do the lotus position.

After the field trip I was supposed to have my duty from 5:30 PM onwards in the Opthalmology ward in PGH because my last patient was discharged immediately after her cataract surgery and I didn't have the time to implement my care plan. I was supposed to get a new patient but my clinical instructor was apparently sick. Life could really be tough, I know.

I took a shot of SOJR (Sentro Oftalmologico Jose Rizal) in PGH before I left and called it a day.

When people compare you to your sister

2009-08-16T00:51:00.000-07:00

I've already come to terms with the fact that a portion of my life was to be spent getting compared to my younger sister. Even when we were young, people who know us never failed to populate a list of our similarities and differences faster than we can grow. Much of them leaned on, of course, looking at our differences.

I remember taking out my younger sister's photo for my friends to see. Faster than lightning, someone told me she's prettier. I know. I've heard that a million times in the past. I don't get offended for I know it is true. Some of our teachers back when I was in high school have told me the same thing and I know a few more would grab the chance to tell me that had the opportunity presented itself while I was still a student there. It would always be like, "Mas maganda siya sa'yo, pero mas matalino ka naman." To which I would reply, "Hindi po. Mas matalino po siya kahit noon, mas masipag lang siguro ako mag-aral." At least that's what I know. When we were kids, she's the one who'd always bring home the bacon. She outplayed me in a game we called "paramihan ng medal". I'm always the one who had to roll up my sleeves higher in terms of school for I was not gifted with the brand of intelligence she has. I started staying up 'til the wee hours of the morning for school since I was in sixth grade. She only had the need to do so during her sophomore year in high school because she learns so much faster. So whatever distinction I had academically in the past was probably out of sheer effort and a bit of luck. When people compare how both of us fare at school, I tell them the same thing over and over sans the drama, of course, but that's all true. I just find it unpleasant when people make it look like our being sisters should boil down to who is better than who.

I remember her telling me once, "Ikaw kasi eh, kung di mo ginalingan edi sana hindi sila nag-eexpect sa akin." Of course I was hurt. First and foremost I didn't want her to live her life following the trail I left. She's completely special in her own right and I want her to make her own path. If ever she follows mine, I want her to take it not because people expect her to do what I have done, but because she wanted it herself.

Friends from my previous school told me a lot of people call her Ms. Congeniality while people even in my own circle call me “the girl with the taray factor.” My sister has this aura of overflowing friendliness, perhaps because the corners of her mouth are always dragged up to her ears, while mine don’t give way for a smile as often. But I'm not really the snob people tend to think I am. I'm not really the type of person who loves to smile, but when I do, it's very heartfelt.

She has the height of a model, while I have the height of a… I don’t know… a nerd, maybe. But then one of the perks of standing smaller than your younger sister is that she’s always mistaken for being the older one. Even when we were kids, when we go home to the province for Christmas, relatives would say she looks older. I remember a dinner out with my family, when this pretty waitress at Italiannis even asked my dad who is older between my sister and I.

Between the two of us, she’s the better leader. I once posted here about my fear of manpowering a team or speaking in front of people I barely know – two things she can do with so much ease.

She hates it that much of my things are drowning in pink – my sheets, my laptop, my jug, my bathrobe and much much more – while I hate it that she’s not girly enough to love pink.

One of my teachers told me that between the two of us, I'm the Dalagang Filipina. She said my posture was quite more pristine that that of my sister's; that unlike her, people don't see my tonsils when I laugh and I don't "bounce" when I walk.

She loves numbers and is better with them, but she abhors the health sciences and literature – the things I immensely love. A couple of times before she took her college entrance exams, she asked me what courses would be nice. I offered her options here in UPM for these are the ones I know better, and a couple of times too, I heard her say no. I encouraged her to read the good novels and books I have at home, and she’s only read 3 of them.

She loves music, something which I don’t have an ear for and sometimes when I’d try to sing, she’d laugh at me… First, because I did not get my lyrics right. Second, the song’s genre was way unfit for teenagedom. Third, I’m out of tune.

I’m head over heels for Harry Potter, both movies and books, while she’s never read a single book and even slept in the movie house while we were watching the fourth film.

When we were kids, she’s the naughty one and I’m the good one. I can never forget she hit my head once with a wooden piano toy. It was this red grand piano without legs that’s about the size of a 14” pizza box which my grandma sent us from Hongkong. I was lying prone on the floor coloring my book when she came out of the bedroom and smashed my head with it. She also cut my right eyebag and left cheek once with a block of lego. There I was, building my “dreamhouse” when all of a sudden she threw tantrums and attacked me with a piece of my favorite toy.

I can go on and blab about the two of us, but to cut the story short, here goes… My sister and I are different as much as we are alike, and that entails people do not have to judge us using the other as the standard. We were not born to compete with each other, as other siblings in this world are. There may be things one does better than the other, but that does not mean our parents love her or me more.

PBA09o998057

Legal

2009-08-04T10:10:00.000-07:00

I'm dedicating this blog entry to two of my closest friends, Arden and Toni. They both celebrated their 18th birthdays recently and they came up with the idea of having a joined birthday treat. We went out on thursday afternoon, not on the usual friday night because Toni is flying home to Zamboanga for her party and because the rest of us had to attend a separate one ... UPCN's Tea Party.

It's brightens up my day when I see my friends beaming with glee. It's not the traditional 18th birthday celebration held in a hotel with all the fancy gowns, but it definitely is a celebration at its best -- simple but very heartfelt. After all, this is what birthdays are all about -- celebrating the gift of life with the people dear to you.

Nothing beats a fun treat with the ones you love around. We were actually lugging around laptops because we had to finish a few papers, but sometimes ditching your work and having fun seems the best thing to do to stay sane.

Three 18-inch pizzas + tons of scrumptious fried treats + this cake + a healthy conversation = excess sodium, fat, sugar and fun intake. It's turning 18 the healthy way.

I just noticed, everyone in my circle is turning 18. I will be, too a few months from now, but I don't really care about getting old. What my mind is harping on is growing up. After all, it's all about acting your age. How to do that and live up to a new set of expectations is now part of everyone's to-be-solved list. Apart from the countless parties lined up for this year's debutantes, everyone had to mind getting serious filing for more IDs, etc. Everyone's joking around with the phrase, "Pwede ka na makulong!" or "Pwede ka nang mag-asawa!"and laugh about it, but at the end of the day they realize that things do change when people turn 18. Perhaps, nothing will be different overnight, but there will definitely be cues reminding you that there is a greater degree of freedom as you step into this age but like what they say, there's no such thing as a free lunch. It's greater freedom plus millions of responsibility. You can no longer use "being a minor" as a reason because now, you have the right to say hi to prison bars when you terribly screw up. You have the right to drown yourself in drums of liquor and not have your parents back you up when you get in trouble.

A couple of months left, and it's my turn. I'll grow up but I will never grow old.

The triumph of science over death

2009-07-25T09:04:00.000-07:00

Photography by: (my friend) Kenneth Gacula

Post-processing by: (me) Raiza Kasilag

What you see above is Rizal's The Triumph of Science Over Death. In school, in front of the college of Medicine, there is a statue of the same piece - something I should never have ignored ever since my first year. I'd admit, I am knowledgeable of the many trivial things about that statue but I have never ever contemplated on what matters more -- on the profound meaning it possesses and tries to communicate to all the curious eyes that have seen it through the years. I must say, taking a path in this field offered me much insight about the frailty of us, mortals. Science saves us from these frailties and the statue, from this day on, will be a reminder of one of the most significant reasons why I should thank God for science.

What happened today was something I never expected. It really is not as serious as it may sound in this entry, but at least for me, it is. Sometimes, it is in these simple instances that life hits you hard in the face with the most basic facts which you take for granted.

So I was jogging with my roommate early this morning. We jogged to CCP and made 8 rounds up and down the ramp there. After the last round, as we were about to head home, my chest felt like it was being crushed, I felt dizzy, and everything around changed in color. I was having difficulty in breathing and I thought it would just go away. Before we crossed the street, everything fell dark and I can't see much and my chest felt tighter and tighter. I knew pretending that I'm okay will not do me and my roommate any good as I will really collapse in the middle of the street if I try to go on. And so I told her I had to rest and managed to sit myself before my sense of sight left me.

I should be thankful because at least, I know what is happening to myself. At least I know I had to keep breathing no matter how painful and hard it was because the oxygen level in my brain is to hit rock bottom anytime soon. It was very hard to process things with a dysfunctional brain. All of sudden, things I had to stuff in my brain for pathophysiology class made sense and they started shooting from nowhere... constriction of the airways... paresthesia... pallor... nausea...etc....etc... I knew I had them all, but I can't think straight. I was afraid of losing consciousness in the middle of a busy place like CCP and of course I didn't want to be a big burden to my roommate. I'm confident she'd know exactly what to do if ever things go badly out of hand because she's a medical intern but this is her weekend off from school. I shouldn't make her work.

It lasted for about 2 more minutes. She took my pulse rate and kept me breathing deeply. After a while she kept me talking, and I knew she was testing the coherence of my thoughts. And I was right. It was hypoglycemia.

Even if I was groggy the whole time, I can hear my brain screaming admiraton for her. She was calm all throughout and took great care of me and I realized that she was in the right field. On our walk home, I kept pondering on how things could have been if we didn't know anything about my condition. What if we both panicked? What if I got permanent brain damage? What if, what if, what if? And for that I can't help but thank God for the knowledge he has given us. It seemed as if my world had been turned upside-down because for 5 minutes, I was the patient and it felt like staring at death straight in the eye. It was the worst 5 minutes of my life. I never expected it to happen to me because I've always jogged to CCP before, sometimes, even from Grandstand to CCP and I've always felt fine and energetic. I was a track-and-field player in high school so activities should not present much of a challenge for me. It was just disturbing to experiencing firsthand what I study in school. It just proves you can still be a victim in the field you try to excel in.

Thank God for science, at least things are better managed now than ever before. We just have to always use what we know only for the good. What happened today reinforced my decision to stick to this field no matter what.

What the metro taught me

2009-07-15T01:03:00.000-07:00

Photography by: (me) Raiza Kasilag

After a year and two months of brewing myself in tons of lecture and information overload, allow me to take a look back at how things have been during my first year…. Those bewildered eyes (with no bulging eyebags yet), spanking new clothes, optimistic spirits that scream innocent idealism – I never thought I possessed them just last year. It is amazing how just twelve months of being in the university can alter your views so much. When I see the freshmen at school, I always smile because it brings back old memories which overwhelm me with nostalgia, and because I know the world will never be the same for them a year later.

Student 1: Hahaha… Nakakatawa. Halatang-halata pala pagfreshie, no?
Student 2: Oo naman. Ikaw ba naman nasanay sa sarap ng buhay bigla itapon sa gulo ng Maynila… isiksik ka pa sa UP na melting pot ng lahat ng ka-weirduhan sa buhay. Hindi ka rin ba magmumukhang takot?

Amen to both of you. I heard these two students talking in the cafeteria while I was buying myself Carbonara as a reward for doing well in a quiz. Yes, small things make me happy easily. I was thinking of exactly the same thing as I just saw a block of freshmen entering the place. Of course I smiled discretely and happily went to my next class reflecting on how matured and less idealistic I have become.

I was on my wit’s end laughing and laughing after realizing I didn’t know how to even cross a busy street alone when I graduated from high school. All my life, I’ve had my dad to drive me and my sisters to school every morning. The car would stop in front of the school’s gate and I don’t have to worry about crossing a street or whatsoever. I don’t even know how to order meals from the counter of a fastfood resto because my parents would gladly do so for me. I didn’t know how to withdraw greens from the ATM nor do I have any idea how to ride the LRT or MRT. I even feared going to college because I don’t know anything about life outside home and school.

When I entered college, I realized I can’t always get other people to do my stuff for me. I had to learn to cross Taft Avenue rain or shine, and you well know what Taft looks like after a heavy rain. I had to learn to use the public modes of transportation in order to survive and I had to learn to order food or else I’ll have no meal for lunch... All these plus a whole lot more. First times are always what you’ll remember best. The first time I crossed a busy street, I told myself, “OMG hindi ako nasagasaan! YAY!” That will always be funny to me. Back then, I won’t care about getting stuck in traffic for 1 hour because I thought it was cool.

Day by day, my idealism fared from high to low. I started getting irritated to Taft Avenue, I realized that fastfood is poison, I’d curse perverts on the street, and everything will just look bland and ugly even if nothing much has changed ever since my first time. That’s when it struck me that I should put on a façade which will hide my vulnerabilities because I look too innocent and too young. I have learned to never let down my defenses. The outside world showed me that my good grades and trivial knowledge won’t actually get me too far in a poor little world where the street smarts survive. When you get robbed on the street, you can’t stop the culprits from robbing you just because you’re a genius.

Today, I feel so used to the hustle and bustle of the metropolis. I realized that the streets of Manila will always teach me something important everyday, perhaps something I need more than what my professors teach us in school. Day by day, you get better on devising PLAN B or even PLAN C because you realize things don’t always go the way you want them to and there’s nothing you can do but to compromise. You don’t always have to be the know-it-all nerd traditional educational institutions in the country push you to be. You can always be an idealist, but always keep your feet flat on the ground so you’re always in touch with what is real.

As I look back on who I have been a year ago, all I can say is “Kaya ko naman pala.” It really is true that IQ gets you through school, but EQ gets you through life. When I was young, I dreamt of making the world a better place. I guess I have to learn to make myself better first and do my part for the world when I’m competent enough.

PBA09ns3o554

The Alpha and the Omega

2009-07-12T03:57:00.000-07:00

One of the things that weirded me out when I first stepped on the grounds of my dream university is the fact that religious culture is not as strong as it had been with my past schools and probably with most of the schools in this country. Growing up in two Catholic schools for the past 13 years, I find it amazing how people surrounding me now are very much open to everyone else's beliefs and religious practices. After a year of staying here, I can say my eyes have witnessed real people whose religions are those that I've only read of in books. It is weird not getting required to pray every time a class starts and ends, or before mealtime or attend mass at school, pray the rosary, etc. But I guess those thirteen years of Catholic schooling somehow imbibed values and practices in me which come out naturally now that I'm in college. I may not be required to engage in certain Catholic practices now, but I'm rather thankful because I have already learned them by heart. I would be a total hypocrite if I tell you I'm oh-so-religious. Of course I'm not... not even near. But despite that, I have devised unique ways to express my faith. Of course you don't have to see them and I guess I don't really have to prove anything to the one who created me because I am already accepted.

I really find it amusing that my classmates managed to lead and pull off weekly meetings for our bible study. Apart from the busy schedule and the toxic lessons we have to stuff in our heads, we need to fulfill other roles at home and in the community. So I really find it amazing that some of them sincerely offer their time and effort to gather the batch and preach us the Gospel. The fellowship started last year, during our first semester and I'm pretty proud to say that things are going well because we just had our pilot meeting for this year last Wednesday. We always have it at the student's lounge because it has this serene atmosphere which is very conducive for relaxing and reflecting.

We actually had a long exam in one of our major subjects the day after but everyone just dropped the idea of going home and studying after grilling our brains in a 4-hour-lecture. Everyone was a bit tensed for that exam but we were all glad that the bible study relaxed us and gave us assurance. It is wonderful to get reminded at times of how much you need God especially when you feel so burdened from the demands of school and life in general.

The fellowship also serves as an outlet for us to express both our joys and pains and share them with the people whom we'll be spending the rest of our college lives with. The mere fact of knowing that people are there to listen to you and laugh with you in times of glee and comfort you in times of sorrow is assuring per se. Come coincidence, sometimes you'll learn that your classmates share the same sentiments and fear... Sharing your pains with someone else makes the trouble lighter in the same way having someone to share your happiness doubles the fun.

I guess what keeps this group alive is that we are able to establish real relationships apart from the normal classroom interactions which scream monotony. There exists some things you can do formally as classmates but most of what we deal with in real life also needs real people as solutions.

Hat's off to God for giving us another member, Stephen. Most of the time, people get along well with each other because of the parallelism their personalities or interests exhibit. You can technically call our batch a marketplace of all sorts of persona and yet we bond like long lost brothers and sisters. We believe we get along fine because we all live in the light of reaching a common dream under the guidance of a supreme power… a power which transcends all our knowledge and strengths combined. No matter how invulnerable you think you have become, you still need a God who’d stay with you because the world could let you down anytime.

A rather late post

2009-07-05T05:08:00.000-07:00

Did a little shoot with Barbie dear. haha

A few days ago, as I was looking for a pair of shoes in our bodega, I saw a big paperbag full of our Barbie dolls. My sisters didn't want it in the room anymore so our youngest came up with the not-so-cool idea of stuffing them inside the paperbag with no protection from dust, etc.

I decided to restyle one of the Barbies so I, together with my sister sewed a little gown for Barbie. It was made of three layers of black chiffon plus an old pink ribbon. The tube top was made out of my old black stocking. LOL. The gown is secured at the back using prym studs. I actually made her a petticoat out of starched tulle because I can't find organza or anything close to crinoline here at home. Sadly it didn't get used because it became too fluffy that Barbie would end up looking like a hag.

My youngest sister cleaned her up with alcohol (WTH?!) and Ayana and I styled her hair with Vitress and my dad's hair gel because she looked like a slob from years of not combing. We replaced her earrings with a pair of my own.

Photography and Post processing by : Raiza Kasilag

Lighting and set assistants: Ayana and Micah Kasilag

Post-processing is done by me using Adobe Photoshop CS2 and Adobe Lightroom 1.1

I just love everything about this photo. The lighting is perfect and I love how the lens made her features look softer and more queenly.

Hey! It's barbie in black and white! Sorry I just had to post this because I grew so fond of it.

Mono-appreciation is just love. I still love black and white snaps more than colored ones. It just takes the right amount of light and you're almost done :D

This will be the last of this pic spam. I really hope I have more time to do things like these.

Just about everything

2009-07-01T02:20:00.000-07:00

After a decade of not posting... I'm back. I'm currently not the usual internet freak I used to be. I don't know. I just don't seem too interested in surfing and blogging and posting pictures as of the moment.

Anyhow...first things first... UPDATES! School started already and within a matter of two weeks, I already have two absences. I was sick for almost four days because of erm, flu-like symptoms. Three of my friends also exhibited the same set of symptoms and also had to skip school because of that. Many of our classmates were also absent. And I'm running out of masks. And a friend and I had to wait for three hours in the UP Health Service for our medical clearance. But I'm not complaining. I know there's so much to do in there and we are not the only clients in the place. And hello... this is the Philippines...

I also forgot to tell you I won for the second time in Blognetawards! Yay! They always send my winnings in my paypal account immediately. I already won around 11,000 php in their monthly contest. I spent my first winnings on the latter part of summer sem and I also used what's left for my books this semester. My second winnings.... well I spent the whole 6K for my stethoscope and sphygmomanometer plus a couple of other little things. I wanted to buy a cheaper set of steth and sphyg because I tend to lose things but my parents insisted on getting the pricier ones because they last longer (hopefully til med school. haha). So there... goodbye 6K!

It feels so different when it's your own money you're spending. I noticed spending feels easier when it is my own money. It always feels hard when I withdraw from my ATM account because it's my parents money and I know earning doesn't come easily. Maybe it was easier for me because I didn't really work for it. I just browsed through other people's blogs and gave comments and poof! 300 Canadian dollars. I know the feeling will be different once I start working but oh well.. hopefully by that time I have mastered personal finance. LOL. I also made a promise to myself. Since having a verified paypal account can be so tempting because you're always a click away from buying stuffs from the internet, I promised not to fund my paypal account. Money flow SHOULD always be into and not out. So yeah.. the only way that account will have money again is through my online earnings. Thank you blognetawards!

On another note, Gaks and I will be joining another org at school. It's called UPerture, UP Manila's first university-wide photography organization. I wasn't able to attend the pilot party because as I told you, I got sick and had to undergo self-quarantine. We are still to submit a profile plus a photo essay plus 20-30 shots of an inanimate object from different perspectives and angles. I haven't done any of that yet but I will this weekend.

Jam and I are also planning to join UP Panitikan. I've totally aborted the original plan of joining the Manila Collegian this year because I know toxicity is soon to arrive. UP Panitikan is much less toxic than Kule so yeah, I think I'm joining. I just want to go back to writing again. But well... to be honest, I still badly want to join Kule. I just don't know how to find the right time when to. Maybe not this year but certainly in the future. I have much much bigger plans of joining ******* ********** and I tell you it requires me so much experience as a photographer and as a writer/journalist. I miss writing for the school paper very much. And I am sooo excited for that plan of mine.

Narsilikha, the only org I am currently in, will also be handed over to one of us sophomores. And I am seriously not taking the responsibility. I told Gaks to take it, but looks like MNO and Maskara is also going for him, plus he is now NAC's new vice-chair. We'll probably ask Chup or Carlo to be the new leader. I don't want to take it because I know I've always flunked leadership roles and I've always been a better follower. I hate having responsibilities and I fear that Nursecissisim 2009 will be a major disaster if I take charge of it.

Leadership have and will always be my weakness, I tell you. I've always turned down jeers from my classmates when class presidency was talked about way back in high school or even in elementary. I refused to run for president of the student council when I was a senior (even if one of my teachers was prodding me to run as an independent candidate). I didn't attend the selection of officers for my school's publication on purpose so I would get automatically disqualified from being the editor-in-chief (even if our adviser is telling me to take the position). Also in my senior year, since I was already an officer but with no definite position yet, I volunteered to be Bravo company's deputy company commander because I don't want to be a candidate for the batallion commander's position. You can ask my partner, the company commander, and she will tell you that I never ever ordered a command on our company. Never... not even on a platoon or on a squad. I just feel so shy. My six-year-old self is coming back. But don't get me wrong. I am only a coward when it comes to handling groups of people. You can still ask me to dive into dung heap or go bungee jumping. It's just people I'm afraid of... especially "intelligent" people. And you don't wanna know why...

So much for now... bye!

What now?

2009-06-10T05:42:00.000-07:00

I'm currently at Mary's now and I'm officially missing home. It's still five days 'til day one in UP, but I decided to pack my things and stay here for the remaining days of my extended summer vacation which I owe from the Influenza AH1N1 scare. I wanted to get used to the things I normally do here and hopefully get the hang of things by the start of my sophomore year. The nuns welcomed me warmly as well as my dorm buddies so I think I won't have trouble adjusting.

Packing my junk hadn't been so much of a burden since I basically dumped all my stuffs on the upper loft at home after I moved out of Mary's late March. Some of them are still packed so that was no problem at all. I brought a couple of bags which, I am suspecting, won't get used at all because I love my backpack so much. I have gotten around to cleaning my shoes, and yes I still brought my beloved pair of running shoes, Cali snickers, white peeptoes, all my ballet flats, slip-ons, and almost all my slippers -- my pink bulky ones, the Momo pair, the blue pair from Planet and my pink Billabongs. I love footwear much.

The big room's still quite empty. Ate Joy's the only one who stayed ALL summer in the room and, speaking of our room... it's super clean! It has been repainted with white and the floor is now super shiny! It looks so new. But it looks so drab without my roommates too. So that makes me miss my family so much. Before I unpacked my things a while ago, I laid on my bed and cried first. I can't believe I just unleashed the big crybaby in me. That is the reason why I opted to go here earlier. I can be a big emotional mess when I am away from my family, so I needed time to adjust. I don't want my emotions getting in the way especially with school matters.

Soooo... school matters. For now, I just want the AH1N1 problem to stop. I don't want to hear anymore news about the start of classes getting postponed because that would mean we have to cram school work in such litte time, or there will be less time for sembreak or worse, no sembreak at all! And since my birthday falls on sembreak period, of course I want to have more time for it. There is NO WAY I'm thinking about school on the day I turn 18. Just on my special day, I want to be stress free. And of course I miss my batchmates, especially Wonders and Team P. I miss their loud spirits, their laughter. I want to jog and run and run again. My feet want to hit baywalk and Grandstand once again. But maybe not now. Not when your own environment has the greatest tendency to betray your health. Go away swine flu!!!

So help us, God.

Rennaissance

2009-05-29T11:41:00.001-07:00

This is the last photo I took before my self-imposed photography hiatus. I haven't taken new photos since the first week of April. I guess we really notice a great deal of things, both substantial and trivial, when we are deprived of the right to say that be are "busy". Now that life is officially uneventful, I notice how much unattached I had become to some things I love.

It was definitely a wake-up call for me when I had this YM conversation with a friend:

Carlo: "Hey, what's happening to your DA?"

Rai: *thinking that my beloved DA page had been screwed up or hacked or something* "HUH?! What happened?!"

Carlo: "Ano na nangyayari sa DA mo? Yun na nga eh. WALA"

I had expected myself to be livelier now than I'm enjoying a break from school but, I found myself wishing it was schooltime once again only after a week of being free from too much work. I think the stress school gives me had been a big part of who I am already that its sudden absence puts me in a "floating state". Withdrawal syndrome. LOL

Goodbye Year One

2009-05-24T06:05:00.000-07:00

It's done. It's over... for now... Hell week is over. Summer's saying adieu to a lot of people, but to me, it's just about to say hi. Summer sem's officially over and it ended with a bang. Organic Chemistry down, Patho-physiology, Microbiology, Parasitology, Nursing Foundations, Biochemistry and History II to go.

A lot of my classmates and I made it to the cut for the exemptions for both Math and Orgchem finals. I somehow wished I took the Math finals though. My blockmates who took the risk said it was very easy. Could've gave me an additional 0.25 in my final grade. Oh well.. that's why I get for choosing to be safe. But man, I tell you you can't blame me at all. I spent 5 gruelling days reviewing for my 3rd departmentals in organic chemistry so I can make it to "the cut". My blockmates and I were really on cloud nine when we learned that we got the org.chem exemption. We really don't want to take the finals anymore because that's one hell of a RISK. Flunk the finals, might as well think of spending 5 years in UPCN.

Anyway, enough blabbing about my CSF-draining summer sem. I'm officially a sophomore. YAY!

P.S. Sorry.. no creative juices as of the moment...

Epic Failure

2009-05-10T04:26:00.000-07:00

There are times when you'd feel exasperated about making those who don't share your passion understand why you love what you love. Though that fact shouldn't come as a surprise, I still find it apalling and even heartbreaking to know that some people don't take seriously the things that I do. I'm not the greatest dimwit on Earth so I know someone's laughing. They don't need to learn my language or understand my world's jargon. It doesn't need a superb mental faculty to express appreciation.

If only I had other things to share with the world, then I'd leave all this crap and settle for alternatives. Sadly, this is the only one I've got. If only... * *** * *** **** ******* ** *** *** ***...

Maybe I dreamt too much. A realization is starting to dawn on me now. Maybe all that dreaming will just be a big waste of who I am. I'd better find those alternatives FAST and leave my happy little niche in the world which was kind enough to accept me.

Epic failure.

DELICADEZA.....

2009-05-01T23:02:00.000-07:00

...is something absent in the Philippine political scene... I don't think I will ever be proud of anything pertaining to Philippine politics. Pathetic...

Yearning for happiness

2009-04-17T08:52:00.000-07:00

Time passes so quickly and I am well aware of the inevitability of us humans always longing for the things we love -- the things which make us happy. I may be learning much from my everyday experiences, but old habits, especially childhood ones, can never be unlearned.

I'm happy to say I am starting to draw again after letting my knack for this craft go all rusty. I wasn't able to finish it (as you can see, the cat doesn't have whiskers). I ran out of things to do during my precious break from school, so I resorted to the thing which had played a great role in my younger years. Having done this reminded me of the time when I cried because I missed getting a spot in the honor's list because my grade in Art is 85 and the minimum grade for all subjects had to be 86. Nine years had now passed and the best I can do is smile at how much things had improved because of practice and inspiration.

Since I haven't drawn or sketched something decent in the last five years or so, I had trouble controlling my strokes. At first the lines were going off in all sorts of directions and erasing them constantly and redoing them was sometimes straining. Nevertheless, the feeling of seeing my childhood dream materializing right before my eyes was so great. When I was in kinder, I wondered when I can successfully and accurately draw onto paper what my eyes see or what my mind imagines. Though there had been a considerably long hiatus in this hobby of mine, what matters to me now is that my childlike self is officially back -- inspired and hungry to see what is there to art that I still have to discover.

I'm planning to do a croquis of a woman next time. I guess I'll have to look for someone who's willing to spend a quarter of an hour on every position possible for me to sketch. I also miss my old brushes and paints, etc. I want to have time to paint again, but this time I'll make sure I do it on canvass and not on some crazy board. Since summer sem started just four days ago, I'll probably just let it finish first (organic chemistry starts to make our brains soupy) then I can hunt for my youngest sister's palette and easle in the forest that is our room. LOL. Then I'll just fumble my way through the tubes of acryllic paint she and I had been hoarding in box for so long.

But don't get me wrong. Photography is still my comfort zone.

Humbling, I know...

2009-04-10T02:10:00.000-07:00

Hi guys! If you've been following me for quite some time, you'd remember that I joined Turn Right's photo essay contest in the Ateneo de Manila University that was organized by the Loyola Film Circle. Our submissions were up in display in one of the halls there (I forgot which. LOL). I didn't have the time to go to ADMU with Gaks to see our works because we were too busy for our History midterms (which was later postponed). The theme for the contest is LOVE. Well Gaks and I didn't win but anyway, here are the photos I submitted together with their repective texts. Hee, it's my first time to do a photo essay so please bear with my works.

Cradle of Nationalism

"This remnant of our past reminds us of not just the colorful history we inherited as Filipinos, but also of the undying patriotism exhibited by yesterday’s heroes, both legendary and unsung. The century-old window lined with iron bars give the people of today an idea of the oppression that had transpired in the old times. A country like the Philippines is blessed to have had citizens who were willing to fight for the sake of their countrymen and for the independence of their motherland. After years of warding off oppression, here we are, like this structure, damaged but still standing. Its roof points upward – a clear sign that we still have the chance to move forward… the chance to reevaluate ourselves as Filipinos… the chance to show LOVE that is dedicated to our country…"

Dear Sentinel

"The Guwardiya Sibil… In the old times, many Filipinos suffered in his hands. Literature depicted him in the context of harshness and brutality. He tortured; he killed. But did he have a choice? Would you believe the notion that he loved the country?

Unwillingly, he inflicted pain to his countrymen. Under the colonizers call, he caused suffering not because he wants to, but because he had to protect his significant others. He shot men with his rifle, not because he was fascinated by the sight of blood oozing out of warm bodies, but because he wanted to end his brothers’ pain. He loved his motherland… He just had no choice…

Now he takes a look back and expresses love by guarding a piece of our past – a past to which he was a patriot, an oppressor, and a slave…"

Photo Details:

Photography by: Raiza Kasilag
Location: Intramuros Manila
*Taken during one of my class's trips outside of school

Canon Digital Ixus 65
Shutter Speed: 1/501 second
Aperture Value: F/6.3,br.Focal Length: 7 mm
Exposure compensation: 0
ISO speed: Auto

I missed this.

2009-03-28T21:43:00.000-07:00

I'm back from hell. Yes, Raiza's back. Bigger (by that I mean I gained a few pounds), bolder and stronger. The two weeks that passed was definitely what I expected from UP. Pushing myself to the limit has always been my problem since I was in sixth grade (but now it turns out to be an asset). I haven't had enough sleep for two weeks straight -- an hour a day -- wouldn't even add up to forty winks. I wonder why time has never been my strongest ally. Modesty aside, I haven't been corrupt in my ways as a student. I do my job just the way I am supposed to. I don't go out to party, I don't indulge in retail therapy, and best, I do not procrastinate. I wonder how some of my classmates do it. They don't seem to be so ... toxic. Oh well, it's either they're really geniuses or I am just obsessive-compulsive. I can't leave a page unturned when I review for my exams and I can't proceed to other important things when I haven't finished another stuff that I had started. It has been the best two hell weeks of my life. I learned to catch sleep whenever and wherever possible, be it in the PGH - Health service or even in the National Library. I'd find myself waking up covered in tons of books and photocopied required readings. I'd find myself light-headed in class because of lethargy. I'd find myself not wanting to walk or move because I'm so tired of studying... But I also found joy. It feels good to learn what I can do and it felt great to see the results of this hardwork.

I'm currently enjoying several days of vacation before some final exams. I only have to finish 1 final paper together with some notecards and study for just 1 final exam in anatomy and physiology and I'll be on my way to enjoying a week of vacation before my summer classes start. I didn't reward myself with anything (though I originally planned to GMask my own phone myself). I guess being able to go home and see my family and my cat is definitely a whole lot better than any material thing. And I guess I'll have to get used to doing away with material things because buying to much stuff is not so practical anymore and after a year of indulging in treats after exams is becoming cliche already. I'm better off seeing humble grades and travelling home than burn my savings after working so hard. It violates the laws of personal finance.

Anyhoo, here are some of the pictures from my trip to Bulacan. I know it's super late to post it now, but being the OC person that I am, I have to post everything in my backlog. The Philippines is really one of the coolest places on Earth scenic places-wise. :D

A cave in Biak na Bato National Park (photo by Pauline Dayos).

Off trekking somewhere (Photo by Clarice Redonda)

A cool lagoon (Photo by Kenneth Gacula)

Leaving the cave. (Photo by Carlo Magno)

People going down another cave (Photo by Me).

Barasoain Church (Photo by me)

That's me being half-lost somewhere (Photo by Clarice Redonda)

And before this post becomes a photo-spam, I'll leave you with this LOST-ish picture of our whole class. It's the first time we've had a decent picture that's taken by somebody else outside the class. Yay to the tour guide who took this shot!

Of sleep deprivation, past lives, bloodbaths and shoes?!

2009-03-07T19:17:00.000-08:00

It's funny how we all come to a point when we just feel like thinking of weird things and just let our imaginations run wild when our minds are too battered with what our society calls the "must-knows". We all have our share of going through the pain of having to learn things which do not seem to have any relation to our lives or to our future careers. In a world where people value scholastic aptitude more than practical skills, it becomes a big nuissance when you have to pretend to understand unrelated things just because your predecessors did.

When my mind is just too tired because of school, my imagination never fails to free me from my chains. I know it's funny, but it's the only thing that keeps me sane. The thing I find interesting is that much of my classmates also resort to the same stuff. I have heard of what people are imagining but this week's subjects are the most interesting. While Toni and a couple of friends are studying for a Chemistry departmentals last time, the notion of past lives entered the discussion. Don't laugh. This is serious o_0!

Raiza: "Bakit ganon, feeling ko nabuhay ako sometime sa Victorian or Edwardian era sa England noon? Basta hindi ko ma-explain..."

Toni:"Feeling ko talaga DOLPHIN ako sa past life ko eh" *started acting like a dolphin*

I nearly fell out of my sit. I've always thought I have one of the nicest past lives, but Toni's idea was way way better.

Weird as this may sound, I am a Catholic, but I believe in reincarnation. I think this is why we hold extreme fascination for certain things; they spark our interest because they remind us of who we used to be. I think that's the reason why I love "The Three Musketeers", Victorian fashion, Cedie (that cartoon set in Scotland yard), etc. Last weekend, my eyes got glued to the TV because the movie "Becoming Jane" (The life story of Jane Austen, the writer of the Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, etc) was being aired. I got surprised because I don't really watch TV and yet there I was extremely happy, interested and fulfilled. Yesterday, while we were eating lunch with a couple of friends, the subject of past lives was again mentioned.

Raiza:"Feeling ko and past life ko ay....."

Paula:"Noble sa Victorian England?"

Raiza:"Woah!, How did you know?!"

Paula:"I dunno... Dun kita pinaka-nakikita."

See, I'm not crazy! I knew it! And if you think my imagination's pretty colorful, wait 'til you hear this one:

Toni: "Minsan na-iimagine ko parang may I-pod tapos pipili ka nalang ng outfit mo for the day tapos yung suot mo mag-transform into that outfit..."

Haaay Tonz...kaya kita love eh. Anyhoo, our imaginations won't be so creative had it not been for the main culprit - Chemistry. I actually love Chemistry but this week's exam really bothered me. I understand the lessons and I try my best to learn. I've been sleepless for the around two days straight (spent almost 34 hours in the study hall), and so are my classmates. I really wish our efforts would pay off in the end. It's super frustrating when you know you have studied so well and when you see the exam, you just feel like you haven't studied anything at all because it's so freakin' haaaaard! Does the DPSM even know what "mercy" means? LOL

Because its raining toxic stuff this week, I've decided to detoxify. :D I'm in the hunt for new shoes. My heart says I should buy but my mind says NO. First, the new pair will just suffer extreme damage because of the dirt in Manila. Second, there are almost over a dozen pairs under my bed, some of which are still unused. Third, my feet are more comfortable in my flip flops. Fourth, it would cost me money which I could have just saved for my dream DSLR (I wonder how many pairs I'll have to restrain myself from buying to be able to save 42K for that cam). Last, shoes enjoy the least attention because most people don't really look all the way down. So the final verdict... don't buy a new pair but look for cute ones online and let my imagination work again. I want a white peep-toe slingback (wedge) but I found something cuter. Here are the pictures:

The pair is from April, by the way. So long... my imagination's got work to do :D

Of Missing Home and Vacation Thoughts

2009-02-28T01:30:00.000-08:00

I won't be going home for another three weeks and though I know I can manage to live without my family for while and fend for myself, it kills me to not be able to spend time with them especially during family occassions. For one, I spent last Valentines wall-climbing with friends, sleeping on the couch and bonding with my laptop. No bonding with the family. They spent dinner out while I was stuck reading the annotations on my books and preparing for yet another gruesome week with horrible lessons to swallow without even chewing. Tomorrow, I'll be hiking with my blockmates and will be enjoying what Biak-na-Bato in Bulacan has to offer. It would've been a really exciting feat for me, had I not learned that my family will also be on a trip to Batangas... without me. Apparently, my grandma will be turning a year older tomorrow and my family's leaving for the province to celebrate with her. Though my grandma and I aren't really that close because of the distance that separates us, I can say it really kills me not to be able to go with my parents and sisters to have fun with her and wish her good health, etc. I haven't seen her in a year so it really hurts.

On an absolutely brighter note... I'm so excited for summer vacation! I know I can't expect much duration-wise because I'll surely hit the streets of Manila just one week after the end of classes this sem because I have summer classes. It's really part of the curriculum to have summer classes for three years! It's hell, I know but I can put up with it. I just hope I don't get too tanned because I don't like to use an umbrella. I'm really really excited for my 1-week vacation. LOL

Anyway, since I haven't done anything productive relating to photography, I'll leave you pictures from last year's summer getaway. These were shot by me in Calatagan, Batangas.

A random shot which turned out to be great!

A fisherman's best friend :D

White white sand

Early morning stroll :D

Creepy creepy beautiful

Salad Contemplations

2009-02-14T22:16:00.000-08:00

This week's totally been a blast. I never thought I could accomplish much in a week without dying or breaking down into tears but oh well, I do think I'm growing up. I can say I'm really happy that semi-living on my own made me tougher.

Monday

Anatomy-Physiology class started pretty late so I had time to review more for the exam. We always have a quiz evey meeting so I've already gotten quite used to it. If there's a single funny thing I learned in this class, that would be "I should be thankful if the required reading for each class session doesn't exceed 200 pages." It might sound exaggerated to you, but not to students taking up medically related courses. For us, it screams the truth... Chemistry class assumed its usual boring role but I still did my best because I really don't want to fail. I'd rather swallow hard chunks of chemistry than taste the bitter pill of being delayed. :D

Tuesday

Nursing 2 class is a 5-hour class and for a student like me whose attention span needs improvement, its a total torture. LOL! It's a good thing our discussion was a bit smooth though it was totally intensive. I am very thankful that the professor who handled the early part of this subject was a bit stringent, and I really developed good studying habits because of her.

After class, my friends and I had lunch at Wendy's. It is where we usually eat out when we're to lazy to think of somewhere to eat, or when nothing comes out when we rack our brain for any idea of something delectable. At 1:oo PM we went to the library to review for the upcoming Chemistry departmentals. Wilson and I studied for about 5 hours (with a 1-hour sleep in between. Yes we fell asleep in the library.) This is one thing that makes high school miles apart from college. When I was in high school I usually review for an exam the night before (LOL! I can't believe I even graduated with flying colors) And don't dare tell me most high school students aren't like that. Everyone procastinates at least once in their life. Show me a student who has never ever crammed a single day and I'll worship him/her. Anyway, in college it's a totally different thing. Now, I usually review 3-5 days before the day of the exam because you just can't squeeze everything in an all-nighter. I've learned it by observing people and I told myself I'll should, by all means, avoid experienceing it first hand.

Wednesday

My PE teacher cancelled the class so it meant my day would start at 10:00 for Chemistry lab class. Thank God, a fire didn't break out in the lab this time and no one got hurt and no glasswares were broken. Our group and AC's group seemed to be very lucky because we did finish both experiments 6 and 7 thirty minutes earlier than the expected time. We got bonus points for being able to titrate an acid properly, producing a light pink color, not purple. To be honest, we also failed a lot of times like our blockmates, but we kept on titrating until we succeeded. There was even a time when ran out of the unknown acid that we don't have enough amount of aliquot to start the procedure. YAY! After we finished, we helped other groups to titrate their own acid samples because being so crab won't do us any good.

I spent three hours of History class listening to what my prof has to say about Andres Bonifacio supposedly being our national hero instead of Rizal. He's been saying that since the very first day of class. I've always thought my prof was just so into Bonifacio that he is being too critical of the others but sometimes, his warrants make sense because he could back them up with logical points. What I did like about what he taught us today is that every writer represents the different ways people coming from different socioeconomic class look at Philippine History. He said Zaide presented us the elites' way of analyzing our past; that Agoncillo gave us the way the masses have seen history, etc. Makes sense, no?

Anyway... during the break our prof gave us, Kenneth, Toni and I rushed to Robinson's to have our artworks printed for the UP College of Nursing Art Exhibit. Yep! We submitted our works and they all looked fantastic when printed 8R. Below 2 of the 3 snaps I submitted.

The photo above is part from the Intramuros set where Jam modelled for me. I sent them to a friend living in Qatar to have them post-processed.

This is a random building inside Intramuros. It was taken during the musuem-hopping with one of my professors.

After submitting my works I joined the UP College of Nursing Amazing Race. LOL! I can't believe I did that! 4 freshies were invited to join together with 4 sophomores, 4 juniors and 4 seniors and I was one of them. It was a refreshing experience being able to play with our Ates and Kuyas and I just can't help but admire them. I've proven they still have a life even if school always eats them up. And if they made it past terror profs and gruelling subjects and reached where they are now, why can't I right?

Thursday

I have no morning class on Thursdays but Toni and I went to school early for our Chemistry Peer Tutorial. We signed up at the LRC the week before and I'm so glad we did. I learned so much from our tutor. His name is Kuya Jonas and he is a 4th year BS Biology student. He'll already passed UP Med and is just waiting for his interview. NAKAKAINGGIT! I guess I'll pray for him because that's the only way I could ever give back the help he gave me. And I'll also pray that I'll be like him someday - a doctor.

After being a tutee at the LRC, I ate at Pizza Hut with my friends who also came there to study. Then we went to CN to attend our Anatomy lab class where we were taught how to use a stethoscope properly. LOL. I really really can't wait to get my own steth next year. It feels so good to be learning many things so I can start taking care of people the way a nurse should. :D

Friday

I took my chemistry non-departmental exam at 11:00 AM then rushed to the Cancer Institute for a discussion with blockmates and our clinical instructor. Everybody shared their thoughts about what things they learned from our duty there. During my turn to speak up, I said that we don't have to have Cancer or anything life-threatening to start appreciating the beauty of life. It sounds rather cheesy but for a 17-year-old like me who have seen people nearing death, it is full of reality. Knowing you'll soon die isn't the only timeyou should start assessing how you are living your life. I live by those principles that's why I maintain this blog and spend a good thirty minutes each day reflecting on how I fare everyday and asking myself if I am still living my life the way I should. Appreciation should not start when death is already very apparent because we just might die one day without ever being thankful of the life we are given.

Okay. So after dropping by at the Cancer Institute, I took my Chemistry departmentals. Yes, non-dep in the morning and dep in the afternoon. It's torture the UP way. LOL! And yes I finished it on time, Thank God. Everyone was just one the verge of crying after the exam - mixed emotions, relief, anger, fear, unsure answers, forgotten test items, rants, curses, thak you's, etc. I was supposed to go with Toni to watch the acoustic night at our college but then, we weren't able to see each other after the exam so I went out with Carlo, Wilson and Jam to detoxify. Since Starbucks is reeking with people we just decided to eat at Wham. Wilson and I craved for sweets so we bought Italian yogurt from The White Hat. We were able to get one cup free because of the coupon I got from my Cosmo 2009 Planner. YAY! Wilson, Jam and I had ours topped with peaches and strawberry while Carlo ate his with cookie crumbles and homemade cheese. Too bad we forgot to take pictures of these pieces of heaven. Heh!

Saturday

Valentine's Day! My blockmates and I went to Market! Market! to go wall climbing. It's a requirement for PE class. We took the LRT to EDSA station then MRT to Ayala station. Walked a bit to McKinley then boarded the bus going to Bonifacio Global City and met our PE prof at Starbucks.

While commuting to Boni, I took the opportunity to observe fellow Filipinos...busy Filipinos. I told myself I don't want to be like much of them someday, chasing time working for money, trapped in the what multi-millionare Robert Kiyosaki calls The Rat Race: Wake up every morning, go work for money, and soon retire with only little bucks in their pockets. I guess I really don't want to be like that. I only see it now because the walls of UP are plastered with the perky life of rich kids now. Talk about education not being available to the needy anymore. Going out and having a taste of the real world gave me a peek of what is to expect when I graduate from college and start fending for myself. So there... I really think I should start earning so I'd learn to manage my own money. I want to start a business ASAP. I'm serious!

Below are some of the decent pictures from the wall climbing we did. They are from Kenneth's 450D but I took some of them. BTW, special thanks to the Kuyas at Camp Sandugo for helping us out.

Before the wall climbing activity. This Jam toying around with Chup's 450D. It makes me happy to belong to a class of photography enthusiasts... makes things easier since we speak the same jargon.

AC and Arden being super spiders! I'm glad no one was hurt and we all had a wonderful time.

My friend Jonna climbing Wall 1. Trivia: Almost everybody in the class got a grade of 1.0 in this activity. Yay!

And of course the best part of a single lady's Valentine's Day is when her dad wishes her a Happy Valentine's. My dad greeted me that's why I'm so touched. Sweet. He told me the family's having Valentine's dinner at a steakhouse. I dunno where but maybe in Alabang or at Town. I really wish I could join them...

So there. That's about my week. I'll end this post with a description of what LOVE is from the movie Captain Corelli's Mandolin. Happy Valentines to all!

"Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being "in love" which any of us can convince ourselves we are.
Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two."

Of Being Toxic

2009-02-06T02:30:00.000-08:00

Let me first start by showing you one of my favorites among the photos I've taken so far. The picture below is actually my official entry for this month's "Your Shot" photo submission for National Geographic Magazine. Since I am not yet of the right age, I asked my mom to submit the photo for me. My parents never had problems on me loving photography (or so I think)... but I'm so glad she agreed to submit it on my behalf. The subject is the top portion of a lamp post I saw while walking around Intramuros (yeah, I took it the same day of the Intramuros shoot with Jam).

Now, onto the main topic. I don't think this week is the most toxic I've had, since I got some sleep. When I came here last Sunday, I went back to being my grade-conscious self and decided to read in advance the whole chapter about the Respiratory System of my Anatomy book. I felt thankful because my professor and I were on the same page the whole 3 hours of Anatomy and Physiology class. Now that's what I call positive reinforcer! At least I don't have to reread the whole chapter before the long exam. Last week's test results were also given and I'm so glad I got a high score. It really is logical when you get positive results on something you prepared so much for.

During Nursing 2 class last Tuesday, exam results for last week's Human Development exam were also given and man! another high score! I'm just happy...but still intoxicated by schoolwork. I spent the evening at Toni's because I had to do a paper on a movie I didn't watch (it was an old film and I fell asleep even before it started, but well, thank God for Google! At least I found its transcript online!) and I had to study for my History midterms (the coverage of which was never taught). We had to access our professor's blog and he posted the topics included in the test there. Great. Although I have to admit the articles were written with great sophistication, why call it midterms when it was never ever taught in that term?

Wednesday... is disaster day. Our PE professor made us look like mops because of the routines we have to do. I didn't eat lunch because I have to print the paper I wrote the night before, had to enlist myself for summer classes and I have a chemistry lab class starting in just a few minutes. During lab class, a fire broke out on Toni's table and her index finger was burned. I don't know what exactly happened because I was so engrossed preparing 0.1 molar of Sodium Hydroxide solution and the next thing I know, there was fire on the table behind me. I don't know, but my reflexes were so weak then. All throughout the time the fire was on, I just stared at it and just held the volumetric flask and graduated cylinder. Everybody was in a state of panic (though they were all screaming "don't panic! don't panic!" at the top of their lungs. LOL) When the fire was out, all the was left on the table were the remains of unburned methanol, Toni's semi-burned laboratory manual, and shards of glass which were from the test tube she dropped when her finger caught fire. Methanol, according to my prof, is carcinogenic. If you inhale it, it's not going to be healthy. The funny thing is it didn't hit me immediately that I was standing next to spilled methanol and that I had been drowning in its smell. I was still diluting my solution when I noticed that everybody was filing out of the room with their noses covered (some with their masks on)

Chup from behind: "Putek hindi na talaga ako makahinga...ang baho!"

Raiza and Jam: *looking at each other with panic setting in* Diba METHANOL yon?! *rushes out of the room*" LOL

On Thursday, I took my N3 lab exam and I think I fared well. I just hope I'd get high grade. I don't want to take the finals in N3 anymore because the coverage would be the whole book and it's like 1000+ pages! I'm not that crazy yet! And because "An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure", why take the finals when I can strive hard now and get the exemption?

And Friday...wow...Friday was hell. I had to wake up very early and rush to school at 6:30 because our clinical insturctor in the Cancer Institute had an emergency meeting and we would be handled "daw" by another instructor. When she arrived she just said "I don't have time to meet you today. Just prepare for your meeting next week." and my blockmates and I were like, "Man, I left so early for this?!"

Oh well, that's about my week... BTW, I just want to tell you guys that I joined a a photoessay contest in the Ateneo de Manila University and my photos are currently on display there. The contest was organized by the Loyola Film Circle and a friend just told my blockmate to join. My blockmate, in turn, told me to join with him and now we are just waiting for the proclamation of winners! YAY! Pray for us!

Touched by a sick child's words...

2009-01-30T22:32:00.000-08:00

Have I ever told you how much I love children? Words will never be enough to tell how much I love them. I love the way their simple acts of love exude innocence and truth.

Friday is my NSTP day. Last sem, I spent my NSTP days in the Out Patient Department of PGH. This semester is being spent in the PGH - Cancer Institute. I thought every Friday would be the same for me. We were always assigned to do chores in the Pedia Ward and though I still feel sorry for the children there who are fighting cancer, I guess I have become calloused. If you do something over and over again, novelty eventually wears off and you'll suddenly think you want something new. That's what happened to me.

I remember the first time I entered the Pedia Ward. There were seven kids who were fighting for their lives. Their faces were blank with pain and sometimes, with anger. I found myself walking out only after 5 minutes upon entering because I was on the verge of tears. I wanted to help but I couldn't do anything. I was helpless and I guess I didn't want to see them in that condition.

The next meetings weren't so painful after the first. At least I could look at them and give them hugs whenever we meet. During the Christmas party my blockmates and I whipped up for them, I even asked my dad to give me books for children so I can at least give them something. Every friday, that's my routine. My cellphone would wake me up, I get ready for my day, I'd have breakfast, drop by the College of Nursing, pass by the gates of the Cancer Institute and meet the kids. I have become used to seeing them give me their sweet little smiles in the morning and in just a while witness them all cry once the premeds for their chemotherapy is being administered by the nurse. I always grimace in pain, not physical but emotional,when I see them like that; but the pain has become less and less heartbreaking everytime.

Last Friday's meeting brought me back to reality. Our clinical instructor assigned us to different clinics of the Cancer Institute. Jairah, one of my classmates, has been having a hard time establishing rapport with the patients in the Hospice Care Unit. The hospice unit is the place where last stage cancer patients are being taken cared of. Chemotherapy isn't working for them anymore and their families have already accepted what is bound to happen. They are just being treated for the pain, but not for cancer anymore. I decided to help Jairah talk to them not knowing I'd be an inch close to crying once one more time. It was hard to initiate a conversation because the patients would just stare at you blankly or shout in anger, death creeping slowly in their nerves. You can't say "Okay lang yan. Gagaling ka rin." because they know they will be saying goodbye soon. You can't cry in front of them and show them pity because you'll just add insult to injury.

Being a freshman nursing student, neither one of us is capable enough. I felt so vulnerable and I can't bear seeing them in pain. I decided to excuse myself and seek refuge...seek comfort from the Pedia Ward. All of my classmates did the same. They came back to relieve themselves from the emotional stress the other clinics gave them.

Upon entering, I saw John Mark. He's a four-year-old victim of retinoblastoma. I knew he could only see me with one eye but I hope he saw me smile back when he feigned recognition upon seeing me. I spent the time with him and felt a lot better. I guess I was the one being cured. Of all the kids I have been with in the Pedia Ward, he is, by far, the most resilient child I've seen. He'd smile to everyone, let other kids have his toys, follow what his mother says and just always be happy. You can even say he's not ill. While we were playing the nurse came to give him the premeds for his chemo. I've seen other children cry their lungs out, kick in anger and pain whenever the premeds were being given. John Mark reacted differently though. It was as if he wasn't in pain. "Masakit kamay ko." That was everything he said. He asked the nurse for the empty syringe (without the needle, of course) and told me he'd give me my dose too. I continued playing with him and after a while I asked him a question. I never thought I 'd get an answer which would have a great impact on who I am and who I aspire to be.

Raiza: "Sino mga kaibigan mo?"

Patient: "IKAW..."

It was a short answer, but I was so speechless for the longest time. Children his age are supposed to be talking about other kids and I was expecting he'd utter the name of another kid in the ward, but instead, he said it was me -- a complete stranger who's life he is changing. He smiled after and it was very heartfelt. I was already too tired to cry and for the first time, I didn't want to leave the ward. These past few days, I kept on pondering about my med school dream... if I should go and continue working my way to becoming a pediatrician or be a nurse and be lured by dollars and pounds and euros. His word gave me the answer I needed. Yes. I'll be a pedia because I love kids... I'll be a pedia so kids don't have to be sick... I'll be a pedia because there are a great number of John Marks in the world and they need me... You may say I can take care of children even if I'm just a nurse but don't you think I'll be of greater help if I'd endure 6 more years of Med school and become a doctor?

VINTAGE : Officially Mine

2009-01-10T04:51:00.000-08:00

It's officially MINE! My mom now gave me her vintage Konica C35 EF P. Yay! I don't know when I'll start using it since I often depend on our Canon point-and-shoot for recent snaps I take and I still haven't used up the roll of film I placed in the Olympus auto (and I'm still hoping for a Canon 450D for my 18th). Maybe I'm just overreacting but you don't know how much this means to a shutterbug like me (how many people own vintage cams nowadays?). The best thing about it is it's still functioning even if it's really old. It's the second version of Konica's C35 EF, the "Pikkari"

Having a camera buff for a mom certainly is wonderful. She got this cam 27 years back (That's why I'm so happy to now own a cam a DECADE older than me.) It's the cam she used to freeze time then. She used it to take pictures of her and her high school and college friends. It was even one of those very few lucky cameras which were used to capture scenes in the Malacañang Palace the day it was first opened to the public after the First People Power Revolution in 1986 (cameras weren't allowed the following days anymore )
I really love it to bits but I'm still hoping I'd find my first cam. It's a pink rangefinder with a metal mount for a flash unit. I got it when I was 8 years old and now I don't know where it is.

"The Konica C35 EFP is a 35mm compact camera with built-in flash, made by Konica in Japan, introduced in 1978. The 38mm f4 lens is fixed-focus. Inside the filter thread is a switch giving a choice between 100 and 400 ASA, which switches between two apertures. The shutter is single speed, 1/125s. There is a CdS cell providing a low-light warning, but not full metering. The build-in flash pops up when selected by an orange release button; pushing it back down again turns it off. There is a button on the (user's) right of the lens for close-up flash. Power for the flash and the exposure warning comes from two AA batteries. " Source : http://www.camerapedia.org/wiki/Konica_C35_EFP

A BIG THANKS TO NANAY!!! I LOVE YOU!

Almost shot during the New Year

2009-01-05T06:59:00.000-08:00

As we opened our doors to the year 2009 a couple of firecracker and stray bullet injuries have been reported. Normally, I let the news I hear about such enter my right or left ear and let it slip away through the other. This time, there had been a big difference. I'll be sharing with you guys my family's experience with STRAY BULLETS during this year's kickoff.

At around 11:00 of New Year's eve, in the midst of the noise coming from a multitude of firecrackers here and there, my family and I heard a very loud bang which seemed to have come from somewhere very near. It was very distinct from the ones I've been hearing all night because it sounded like some metal had crashed with another metal. My mom asked what it was and my sisters and I said that it was just something from a firecracker that hit our garage gate. My sisters and my mom soon ignored it but I went near the front part of the house to peer outside the window to confirm thatsomeone had lit up a firecracker in front of our garage gate. But when I got a clear view of it, there was none. Not even a single personwith some firecrackers. Since what I saw told me that the sound must've come from somewhere else, I shrugged my shoudlers and carried on with what I was doing.

January 2, 2009... as my father was wiping the rear part of the car, he noticed a dent in it. As he started looking around,he also noticed a hole in the garage roof. He said it looked like a bullet hole. As he continuously inspected the garage, he also founda deep dent on the garage gate. With his suspicions growing, he tried to find a link between the things he had just noticed. After a few more searches, his thoughts had been confirmed. He retrieved a bullet from a 45-calibre pistol... Apparently, the bullet passed through the the hard garage roof, then it ricocheted on the rear part of the car and finally hit the sturdy gate (which exlains the sound we heard during the 31st).
He showed it to us. It was my first time to see a real bullet. I know my dad. He always has this calm demeanor and though he didn't look alarmed or fuming with anger, I knew he was somehow mad. Who wouldn't be?! He just found a cursed piece of tin that might have ended the life of one of his daughters or his wife or even himself! Had the 45 been fired at a slightly different angle it would've affected the bullet's trajectory and one of us or one of our neighbors would've been hit. That's really one thing I should be thankful for as the new year starts. Thank God no one was hurt!

And as for the *beep* *beep* *insert curse here* dimwit who pulled the trigger before 2008 ended... peace be with you. What is done is done. You're so pathetic for almost killing decent people. What the hell is up with your messed up brain (if you have any)?! Celebrations are not an excuse for people to drop their responsibilities nor is the New Year a reason to fire your gun indiscriminately. You might be drunk but hey,your gun is not just a piece of metal - it's a deadly weapon so watch your actions before karma takes its toll on you.

I'm not so sure I want my dad to have police ballistics look into the incident. A few acquaintances could pull some strings to make the processingf ast. Sure, authorities will find some marks on the bullet but the owner will only be traced if the gun's registered. I guess I just don't want to know who the person behind this is. If the police finds out, chances are my dad's going to file charges or the owner will do something bad again (maybe threaten us or something). Eitherway, our family's peaceful life goes up to smoke and I really don't want that to happen. So I just wish this thing won't happen again (I'm not even sure how we will celebrate New Year next time).

Hope this serves as a lesson. As for me, hearing news about stray bullet stuffs every new year will definitely not be the same again.

If only humans weren't so complex...

2009-01-05T00:30:00.000-08:00

I've been burying my nose in my anatomy and physiology book for over 72 hours now. I started about well, 10 days before but there ARE seriously a lot of interruptions. How boring life could be for a student like me huh? Well, okay it's not totally boring because getting to know how everything inside me works is really fun.I just don't think I really love medical jargon. Gaaah... I'm totally drowning in a LOT of medical terms. I dunno, maybe my neurons are so drained because of all the stress this is giving me. Wow. I've changed.This is actually the first time I ever referred to studying as "stressful" Okay... Time for a little euphemism here. Maybe it's "stressfully fun"?

Oh well... The only breaks I have are bladder breaks (of course!), mealtime breaks (which consists of run-of-the-milleating hours) and TV breaks. Now don't get me wrong. My TV breaks refer to DVD marathons of House,M.D. so my worldis currently PURELY medical. It's totally ironic. I stop studying everything medical for a while only to face the TVscreen and drown again in a sarcastic and overwhelmingly scientific medical drama.

Or maybe I'm just getting the hang of studying almost half of my ana-physio book. My professor teaches it like it's really easy. Or maybe it's almost nothing to him now after spending so many years in Med school. And what's my "medical time" compared to that, huh?

I can't understand why I want to be a doctor. What kind of brain cells do these people have that enabled them to finish studying? If only I have the power to learn all the stuff doctors need to know in the snap of a finger...If only 10 years would pass by like 10 days would... If only medical words aren't so polysyllabic...If only I have all the time in the world to study... Ahem. Calling the Ministry of Magic...I badly need a time-turner. While my classmates are studying all of these stuff, I'm also studying them PLUS personal finance. Talk about studying assets and liabilities and how real estate and investments work and thinking about business... add that to studying stuffs like Haversian system, ventral cavity, dermal papillae, hyoid bone,keratohyalin, ventral foramen and a whole lot more and you've got a ZOMBIE! Awoo!

Heh! I'm not yet done with Tortora... and I'm still forcing myself to read Colayco... What in the world am I doing?I'm trying to kill myself by stuffing both Medicine and Finance in my poor little head.

If only I was born a Donald Trump with a medical degree... or born a House,M.D. with an MBA and a multi-billion empire...

Oooops! My laptop's running out of batt. I'm out!

December

2008-12-28T03:20:00.000-08:00

(Photo Credits: Chup Redonda and Carlo Magno)

Me and Jonna. Lunch at The Old Spaghetti House. Pesto Spaghetti is love.

Our first lunch as a complete group. We've lost a couple of good people since the first sem and now I'm hoping our circle would stay whole all throughout (come trying times... come Med school... come whatever)

Now I really like the facade of the College of Pharmacy. It's very well crafted (specially the dozens of little dolls) and the Sablay gave the building a dramatic and very ethnic touch!

Hello dears!

Random pic inside the UPCN bus. *JP in his Gryff jacket and Chup with her Canon 450D*

The idea's nice but I'll have to say something's wrong with the the letters. I dunno but maybe it's those stray paint marks on the sides of the letters.

Happy 100th!

I really like this photo. It exudes a certain aura which is both classic (because of the colors) and modern. Heh.
Spectator 1: Asan ka ngayon? Hahanapin kita.

Spectator 2: Palma Hall.

Spectator 1: *nosebleed* Sige hindi nalang kita hahanapin. LOL

Memories

2008-12-24T00:30:00.000-08:00

The first months of my college days slipped away too quickly and after the first semester, my batch’s student count is down to 68. Yes… 68 left. It’s a sad thing that 2 out of the original 70 freshies cannot see themselves as future nurses anymore. To both of you guys… we will miss you. Maybe UP Diliman life will suit you guys better than that in UP Manila…

“I have nothing against Nursing ma’am… I actually like Nursing… but I do think I’ll be happier and I’ll be able to do better in another course…” This is what my blockmate told one of our professors when the latter inquired about the reason why he was shifting.

I am starting to get anxious not only because we are losing some of our batchmates, but also because I have heard of 16 upperclassmen being delayed. They were only 68 in the batch when they entered school this year and now only 52 were left. The other 16 would have to take Nursing for five years instead of four. The notion of getting delayed bothered me even more when another upperclassman from another batch approached us the other day:

My friend: Hi ate!Upperclassie: (with teary eyes) Magiging classmate ko na kayo next year…

———– a panicked exchanged of looks ————-

My friend: HAAAH?! Bakit?!

Upperclassie: Delayed na ko! Bagsak ako sa N_ (complete subject name not shown for privacy)

When college started we smiled and even laughed when people, especially our professors, called us the “cream of the cream of the crop” “Hoorah for those who emerged as the top 70 among the thousands of UP BSN applicants” DAMN IT. That was what everything meant for us when we were just starting. Before, it was all about who outsmarted who in the UPCAT. Now it’s all about who can and who will stay. Some of us entered Nursing because they are really interested in this field. Majority, however, were just persuaded by their parents who are either nurses or doctors. I know that it is inevitable for more of us to shift in the future. What saddens me is that no one will be able to benefit the slot they’ll leave behind. Those slots will be forever empty because the UP College of Nursing doesn’t accept shiftees from other courses or schools.Their slot would actually be wasted. It could’ve been given to others who really want to take up Nursing and serve other people. Fine. Blame the cursed nursing bandwagon in the Philippines. Andaming Nursing graduates pero konti lang naman ang registered nurses. Blame all those profit-oriented Nursing schools in the Philippines. Get lost pseudo-nurses. I mean it. It’s affecting me so much more than it seems. To the parents: Kung ayaw ng anak niyong mag-Nursing edi hayaan niyo nalang po. I know you just want your kids to have a nice job in the future… pero naman…kayo kaya mag-aral…

Out of my looming depression about this whole thing — loosing more batchmates and the what-ifs of getting delayed in the future too — I went digging for more block and batch pictures that we have. I actually shed a tear while browsing through some of them. I found an album of one of our really cool batch events and decided to style them up a bit and post them here. These are pictures of our blockmates’ cheerdance presentation during the interclass badminton tournament. These photos really helped lighten my mood a bit.

Inspite of everything, we still have little time to spare for fun. We’re teens for crying out loud. We are still building who we are as we walk through life. It’s just that maybe our path is a little to steep and I’m just happy that we’re pulling each other up. I really hope our batch will make it. 3 1/2 years to go…. 7 sems + 3 summer sems = 10 sem nalang! Help us Lord. I know we can do it.

Sanduguan 2008

2008-12-24T00:14:00.000-08:00

I wasn’t planning to blog about bloodletting not until I received an emergency text message a few days ago. Our block head informed us about a girl needing immediate transfusion since she’s been bleeding for quite some time already. If she doesn’t get the transfusion, she only has 20% chance of living. I didn’t know who the girl was, but I really wanted to donate blood for her. So what’s it got to do with the Sanduguan poster design at the top?

Last September, the Male Nurses Organization of the UP College of Nursing spearheaded a bloodletting project for the PGH Blood Bank. The event was called Sanduguan ‘08. I was one of those who donated blood. Upon receiving the text message, I felt a little guilty because I know I can’t donate blood yet because it has only been 8 weeks since the Sanduguan and the minimum time interval between two donations is 12 weeks. It really made me sad but heck I can’t do anything. I can’t interfere with the normal processes occurring within me.

So if you have time and you are willing to extend your help to those who need it most, please do so. This little act of kindness can save lives. This is the perfect and the most appropriate reason to BLEED FOR OTHERS…

For more information on blood donation click here

Harvard among others

2008-12-24T00:07:00.000-08:00

Two ivy league schools have kept me busy these past few days (LOL). Yep! That’s right. Ivy League. Harvard and Yale Open Universities. Now I really know why I should be more than grateful about God granting mortals access to the World Wide Web. My mom recently told me about Yale Open University. I looked it up online and found my way to the consortium of the world’s top universities currently offering openware resourses. So far, Harvard and Yale Open U’s are the ones I’ve tried. Other top universities in the world like John Hopkins and Massachussetts Institute of Technology are also offering online courses.

Both online schools offer a variety of courses one might be interested in. Harvard’s distance learning program requires registration, and the resources they provide there are basically just the first lectures for the courses they offer; if you want access to succeeding lectures, you’ll have to pay school fees. With Yale Open University, it’s a different thing. You pick a course, and voila! You get access to each and every lecture they provide up until the last day of the sem. The good thing about Yale’s is that you can download the materials used in the lecture and even the video of the lecture itself. For every class session, they give you list of the required readings, plus you’ll get term exams like your midterms. Access to online lectures vary depending on the speed of your internet connection. The good thing about Yale’s is that you have a choice between an HTML transcript, an audio or a video of the lecture. However, resource materials that professors use in Yale such as the powerpoint presentations they use in class are not available online. They really don’t provide it … but Harvard does. In Harvard’s online lectures, your window is divided into two: one for the video of the professor speaking in class and the other for the resources he/she uses.

Sad thing however, is that you don’t get credits for whatever class you take. But man! You study because you want to learn and getting credits is just an icing on the cake. After all, it’s free! Anyone who has access to the internet can avail these online lectures!
For my first time, I chose Philosophy 176 at Yale. It’s all about death. Below is a screenshot of the first among the series of lectures I’m currently enjoying.

Prof. Shelly Kagan discussing about DEATH… yes Philo 176 is all about death. We’ll be dealing with the arguments about the existence of the soul next time… Call me weird but I really like this class. It reminds me of my Philo 1 class in UP (which by the way is the best class I’ve had so far)

Next up is Harvard’s. I had fun watching the first lecture for Psychology E-1504 which is all about Positive Psychology. It deals with happiness.

This is Prof. Tal Ben-Shahar discussing the psychological aspects of a fulfilling and flourishing life.

The lecture window… cool huh?

The internet certainly enables us to the the impossible. Just imagine what a few clicks can do these days…

Narsilikha

2008-12-23T23:43:00.000-08:00

I was once told that an orgless UP student is given the moniker “barbarian”. Well who wants to be called a barbarian, right? It’s probably the reason why I wasn’t purely myself a few weeks before school started. Before I entered college my mind was leaning on the notion that I’d have trouble finding a club or an organization to belong to. I’m not into the typical stuff (dancing, singing, acting, etc) that school societies look for… I don’t even have an ear for music… and even if my parents would would allow me to join a sorority or a frat’s ladies’ circle I don’t think I’ll have the guts to join one… and I’m pretty sure they won’t find anything interesting in what I am as well.

All I can do is immerse myself in photography and express myself with the tip of a pen and do a bit of web and graphics design. You’ll probably say, “Why don’t you join your school’s editorial assembly since you love to write” or “look for clubs which deal with charity work” Well, that’s where I’m getting at. When school started, The Manila Collegian (the official school publication of UP Manila), was what I had in mind. I even darted across the lobby of Rizal hall when I heard that application forms for that organization were already available just to secure myself a copy. But there are just times when you’d have second thoughts about something you’re really sure with in the beginning.

At first, I didn’t know what was keeping me from filling out the application form I obtained earlier. The details that form was asking for weren’t really intimidating. What position was I applying for? I could have said newswriter or feature writer or photographer. What positions have I held in some organizations before? I could have said I was the associate editor of the Sinag Editorial Assembly. What other credentials do I have? I could’ve said I did join journalism seminars and that I won Newswriting twice at the press cons I used to join before and this and that…ha-di-ha… At first it was unclear to me. I could’ve submitted my application early but I found myself getting happiness from procrastinating, from finding excuses to not submit the cursed application.

What’s the matter then? Suddenly, the light bulb lit up… it hit me. I was scared. It seemed too irrational to be frightened to do something you’ve always wanted to do but believe me, it just scared the writer out of me. I’m in UP. Thing is, I’m now in a totally different world. These people — my would be readers — they scared the hell out of me. When my mom asked me about it, I just said, “Ibang klaseng mga tao na kasi ang magbabasa ng mga sinusulat ko eh.” You may say I should be happy because my readers are now all part of the intelligentsia. Well you see, it’s exactly what bothered me. It felt like everybody would just shove it my face if I write something they don’t like or someone would just write to me and refute some points I’ll raise in my articles…stuff like that. Francis Bacon said, “Knowledge is power” and with that much smart kids around, that’s too much. Maybe I was being pessimistic then, but oh well…filing for application ended eons ago so I’d have to say goodbye to my good old Manila Collegian chance.
Just when I thought I’d have to call myself a barbarian, luck came to me with its pleasant surprise! Narsilikha, an organization in the UP College of Nursing, warmly welcomed me to her turf. Narsilikha is open to students who have a deep passion for art in the form of drawing, sketching, graphics design, concept formation, etc. When they asked me to submit some of my artworks, I gave them my photography portfolio and web and graphics design portfolio. Luckily, I got in!

First Major Narsi Task

It has long been a tradition of the UPCN to celebrate Nursecissism, a night where all four batches of Nursing students in UP gather and showcase something for the whole college to see… a commemoration of our core values — Integrity, Nationalism, Care, Universality and Excellence. Narsilikha was tasked to do the stage decoration for the said event, as well as the other paraphernalias such as the trophies and sound sytem. With only a week left to prepare, Narsilikha members had to move and plan quickly so as not to disappoint the college.

We came up with the theme: “Black and White…GLAMOROUS” Since the upperclassmen had toxic scheds and had long shifts in the hospital, the freshmen and some of the sophomore Narsi members took on the job. Chup was assigned to do the poster design, Kenneth for ticket design and yours truly for the faculty invitations. We also helped out with the stage design. It was a great feeling to be part of Narsilikha. It gave me both a sense of freedom and a sense of responsibility. I felt free because I know this field is where I can express myself best, with my train of thought creatively producing ideas we can use while I work with people who share appreciation for my love for art. The feeling of being responsible stems from the fact that we know we’re the only ones in-charge and without our effort… goodbye Glam Nursecissism…

Since it’s a black and white party, we had to transform the stage into a black and white playhouse. Below are some photos we randomly took while having fun unleashing the artists in us. I used “we” beacuse no one in particular took all the snaps because we all had fun tinkering with Chup’s Canon 450D especially with the stage lights on!

This is how the stage looked when we were just starting… badly needed black and white stuff!

Draping on the go…comes with free thumbtack injuries!

Chup and Carlo, two of my beloved Narsimates… informal photoshoots like these are inevitable especially when you have an entire airconditioned auditorium for your own use, a DSLR at hand, stage lights to play with and a whole bunch of tired and ~~vain~~ photography-loving kiddos around! And finally… after almost a week’s hardwork we came up with this:

************

My messed up self cutting the invitations I made for the faculty… Finally, we finished our task and we surely spiced it with so much love… Finally I found a place for myself. Narsilikha is not as big-time as The Manila Collegian or any other organization in UP but I’m proud to be one of it’s members. When I was a kid I used to hate art… but now I totally like it. It takes a few encouragements to join a group like this… but it certainly requires tons of effort to stay here and continue producing works of art…

Die Zauberflote

2008-12-23T23:36:00.000-08:00

Some of my blockmates and I recenty watched an adaptation of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. It was a production by the Philippine Opera Company. In this play, POC introduced a new character named Ana who eventually finds herself being brought to a faraway Kingdom by an enchanted flute.

At first, I was utterly disappointed when I saw the play. I was expecting a real opera complete with all the arias from noted characters especially the famous Del Holle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen (the vengeance of hell boils in my heart) aria of the antagonist, the Queen of the Night as well as the Ein Madchen oder Weibchen (A girl or a woman) aria of the bird catcher Papageno. Technically speaking, I’d have to admit the production pool did a great job. It was just that my age bracket isn’t the right audience for it. After doing my research though, I found out that POC specially crafted this show for kids (probably why even from the start I’ve been wanting to watch La Boheme instead of this one). Well, that explains why my blockmates and I found ourselves lining up at the entrance door of Tanghalang Aurelio Tolentino with a bunch of…kids. I also found out that POC, together with the play’s director, Mr. Kokoy Jimenez, aimed to bring Filipinos, especially children, closer to classical entertainment — the sole reason why they transformed Mozart’s originally daunting opera into something very whimsical and enchanting. Well, i guess I did like POC’s purpose after all and that’s enough to outweight the fact that the play didn’t suit my age. I think I would really like it if I were in my gradeschool years.
Before parting ways we decided to fill our stomachs with scrumptuous food. We headed to Harbour Square and ate a light meal at the Pancake House. Below are some photos taken at Harbour Square. Special thanks to Arvin Latonio for the pics!

Looking for a place to eat…

My blockmates…

Wilson…soul searching…

Everything went great so I’d still call it a day!

Isang Panaginip na Fili

2008-12-23T23:21:00.000-08:00

For our final paper in Philosophy I, we were required to watch at least one out of the following plays: Jokla Club, West Side Story or Isang Panaginip na Fili. Since I haven’t made up my mind yet when Jokla Club hit the stage and none of my blockmates want to see West Side, I opted to watch Isang Panaginip na Fili. At first, my mind lingered on the notion that I won’t enjoy the show because I’ve already seen a play of Rizal’s El Filibusterismo before. Little did I know that Dulaang UP was whipping up a great musical that people from different walks of life would certainly love.

The musical was shown at Wilfrido Ma. Guerrero Theatre in UP Diliman’s Palma Hall. I have never walked the grounds of UPd again since I took my UPCAT last year, that’s why I am really glad to visit it and have the chance to see my high school friends who have gone there for college. UPd’s lush greens surely helped me detoxify from both the stress and polluted air UP Manila has been giving me for the last couple of months.

Anyway… Isang Panaginip na Fili was directed by Mr. Floy Quintos. Mr. CJ Javier and Mr. Tony Mabesa stood as the composer and artistic consultant respectively. I have to say the production was very great. Below are some promotion photos taken by Mr. Jojit Lorenzo. They were originally posted on Mr. Franco Laurel’s Multiply site and he gave me permission to grab some of the photos. (Thank you very much Sir!)

Pepe Rizal

Paulita Gomez and Dona Victorina

Maria Clara

I really like the fact that the musical was able to evocatively relay Rizal’s message: Where is the Filipino youth? Kabataan, hinihintay namin kayo… It was a message signifying a very important moral — that we children are not being taught history just for the mere reason that we need to know how Filipinos were oppressed ages ago, yada-yada-yada — that the youth ought to know their roots and that we are obliged to save the country from the social and moral ills of the past… so that the same mistakes would not be committed over and over again…
How about you? Can you step up to Rizal’s challenge? :D

For more photos just follow the following links:

♥ Isang Panagainip na Fili - Preview Night

♥ Isang Panaginip na Fili - Opening Night

♥ Isang Panaginip na Fili - Week 3

The reason behind Butterfly Kisses

2001-10-24T02:57:00.000-07:00

I got this blog title from the song "Butterfly Kisses" by Mr. Bob Carlisle (which I got from Toni). This song shows how every dad feels about his baby girl growing up and eventually getting married. I think this song not just applies to fathers, but to mothers as well. I love this song to bits but the following lines always make me cry:

"In all that I've done wrong

I know I must have done something right

to deserve a hug every morning

and butterfly kisses at night."

I didn't grow up used to giving hugs or kisses to my parents; I'm not used to expressing my love for them through words so I thought if they would sing part of a song for me, they would sing those lines. Just imagine your mom or dad singing that. Doesn't it make you cry too?

LYRICS:

There's two things I know for sure:
She was sent here from heaven
and she'sdaddy's little girl.
As I drop to my knees by her bed at night
She talks to Jesus and I close my eyes and
I thank god for all the joy in my life
Oh, but most of all
For butterfly kisses after bedtime prayer;
sticking little white flowers all up in her hair;
"Walk beside the pony, Daddy, it's my first ride."
"I know the cake looks funny, Daddy, but I sure tried."
In all that I've done wrong
I know I must have done something right
to deserve a hug every morning
and butterfly kisses at night.

Sweet 16 today
She's looking like her mama a little more everyday
One part woman, the other part girl.
To perfume and make-up from ribbons and curls
Trying her wings out in a great big world.

But I remember
Butterfly kisses after bedtime prayer;
sticking little white flowers all up in her hair.
"You know how much I love you, Daddy,
But if you don't mind I'm only gonna kiss
you on the cheek this time."
With all that I've done wrong I must have done
something right to deserve her love every morning
and butterfly kisses at night.

All the precious time
Like the wind, the years go by.
Precious butterfly.
Spread your wings and fly.

She'll change her name today.
She'll make a promise and I'll give her away.
Standing in the bride-room just staring at her.
She asked me what I'm thinking and I said
"I'm not sure-I just feel like I'm losing my baby girl."
She leaned over... gave me butterfly kisses with her mama there,
Sticking little white flowers all up in her hair
"Walk my down the aisle, Daddy-it's just about time."
"Does my wedding gown look pretty, Daddy? Daddy, don't cry!"
Oh, with all that I've done wrong I must have
done something right.
To deserve your love every morning and butterflykisses-
I couldn't ask God for more, man this is what love is.

I know I gotta let her go, but I'll always remember
every hug in the morning and butterfly kisses.

Acts of love may not take the form of butterfly kisses, but they are surely appreciated when sincerely done.