what's up, doc?

i know three people who passed the Physician Licensure Examination:

GERVACIO, CHARMAINE ZITA LARDIZABAL
SIAPNO, DEBRELLE LOU PUCHERO
OBLEFIAS, JONATHAN ZAPATOS

charm and debbie were HS classmates from st. paul. charm was a class officer from 1st yr to 4th yr. she always has this blush on her neck and face probably because she's so puti hihi. her theme song is "love me for a reason" mwehehehe. debbie, i remember was a shy girl. i think the last time i saw her was on HS graduation. we were never that close but i know she is debbie and i am proud of her as well. and jo is a friend whom i met through friendster. i pest him with med questions from time to time - make that every time i see him online. hehe. i haven't met him personally but i know he's a good-hearted person.

it has always been every child's dream to become a doctor someday. i know i hoped for it once in my childhood. the difference, i guess, is they lived to make their hopes come true. it wasn't just a child's play but they were really called to it. some were called but didn't have enough dedication and guts to get through with it. i guess they're among the toughest bunch. they made it this far.

so there, i think i'm somehow proud to be acquainted with these great people. i know they're going to be good doctors with the biggest hearts. with this big leap, they have empowered themselves with the ability to heal, cure, and serve people. and what's next is really clear - people will entrust them with their lives and these lives will lie on their hands. they may pursue further education, but the important thing is, they're an inch closer to that every child's dream. :)

congratulations dear friends! libre?

tigdas updates

i'm just at home. all day and all night. what could i possibly write about but my tigdas...

so i went back to the clinic for my cbc count. i waited for an hour for the results. in the meantime, i watched dozens of kids waiting for their turn to be checked as well. doc is actually a pediatrician and so there were tons of kids there. i thought sobrang tiba-tiba si doc dito ah... hehe. that clinic is always that packed! everyday!

after an hour, i have the results and brought them to doc. she said that the platelet count is a bit low: 176. the normal value is 140 - 440. she asked me if i don't feel drained. "a little," i answered. so she wants me to be back on friday for another cbc count. she said she just wants to be sure the count is not dropping.

i'm not 100% dengue free. sheeez. ayaw ko na magka dengue. it's a traumatic disease for me - it almost killed me once way back 3rd yr hs. well, maybe because it was too late when we found out then. i've been having fevers for almost a week before we consulted the doctor. today is different. daig ng maagap ang maingat. maagap na ako. hehe.

i didn't get feedback from big boss about that vpn account so i don't know how i could work from home today. what keeps me busy?

matulog

at matulog

mag sudoku

manood ng tv

mag-internet

kumain

masaya diba? btw, i asked doc if it's german measles. yes daw. i also asked if i could take a bath. yes daw! yehey! and i also asked if nakakahawa pa ako by friday. yes daw so i should take friday off as well. haay. i miss my new cube.

meron akong...

tigdas hangin... sabi ni doc. viral exanthem - sabi sa medical certificate ko.

di ba masyado na akong matanda para magkaron nun? i thought. "uso ba yun ngayon doc?" i asked. yes daw, kahit matanda kahit bata. where the heck did i get that communicable disease? syet.

last sunday, my lymph nodes were swollen. particularly on the neck and behind the ears. i was feeling unusually tired. i thought all that sudoku made me drained haha meron na pala akong slight fever.

when i was about to take a bath yesterday,i noticed some rashes on my chest, neck, and arms. i thought those were just plain rashes and i went to work anyway. maria noticed my eyes were peachy in color... and true enough, my eyes were a bit swollen. when i got home last night, i had slight fever again.

mom said it looks like measles. i searched for symptoms and super swak sa mga symptoms ko. so i went to a clinic nearby and doc confirmed that it was tigdas hangin nga raw. i have to go back tom for blood tests just to be sure it's not dengue. not again, please.

so i'm on a three-day sick leave. i haven't earned that much leave credit yet so i requested for a vpn account so i could work from home on the 21st and 22nd.

hay. bawal magkasakit eh!

greatest gift on valentine's day version 2.0

it has always been a tradition for kuya to give me and mom flowers on valentine's day. i thought this year that it will be different and incomplete. kuya is away, so there will be no more flowers on vday. when i got home last night at 1:30am, there was this bouquet of red roses on my bed. in the card, it read:

dear ate/cat,

happy valentine's day!

love,
erwin/kuya

it was from a flower shop nearby. and i figured that kuya must have been the master mind but win was the implementor. hehe. i was teary-eyed. you thoughtful guys you... hihi.

it's not so much about the grandeur of the bouquet of roses thing, but who wouldn't want to receive roses, right? but for all i care, it could have been a mini cloud 9 chocolate, a bazooka bubble gum, a pretzel stick. wehehe... whatever. the thing is, he's far away and he still thought of giving us something. touched... sofer. mapalad ang mga babaeng iibigin ninyo at malas ang magpapakawala sa inyo. bwahahahaha!

greatest gift on valentine's day version 1.0

the greatest pre-valentine gift i probably received was the gift of forgiveness. a good friend has been aloof for a couple of weeks now. prior to that, he has been a great colleague. we shared sincere laughter, sentiments, and real friendship. he would pass by our work area to just fool around and laugh with us and, believe it or not, to impart the greatest lessons in life.

he started to avoid us all of a sudden. we didn't know why. we had a few paranoid clues but they were, for us, too shallow to repel him like that. we exerted effort to hopefully bring back what has been lost, or to simply know why he has been acting that way. but he continued to avoid us... said he was just too stressed with work. and we took it that way and we respected his indirect request for space. we found ourselves avoiding him just the same, bowing down whenever we see him just so our eyes won't meet, and yes, lousily pretending that we didn't see each other. it sucks.

we learned that yesterday was his last day at work. we received an email from him. he was apologizing and he told us that things were out of his control, but he promised us that he would keep in touch in the following days. we were in tears - a mixture of sad and happy tears, and every emotion imaginable.

thank you for the gift of friendship and forgiveness, given on the 13th day of february, year 2007. you can't get back what you have already given, and we'll keep this as long as we can... no matter what. we love you and you'll be a friend for life. 101.9

ulirang empleyado

whoever said that drinking on a monday night is ok? not that i had too much to drink. it's just a bottle, but we stayed out until 4 am. and i woke up this morning with a light head... and that's not good. i should get a plaque for being model employee. hey, i was able to balance social life with work! that's tough job!

the buzz

my current hit list:

heroes - is at the top of my list woohoo! i definitely love heroes! i'm aching for more every time i watch it. the twists make me feel bad at the end of each episode, and at the same time i feel good with longing for the next one. i used to not like claire. but now, i think she's very pretty and smart. peter is eventually getting control over his powerssss and i hope it'll be all good. my favorite character is hiro nakamura. he's so adorable! with that gigil look on his face every time he tries to control time, he looks like a baby. heroes... is simply the best. i wish i had an ability too. hehe. save the cheerleader, save the world!

prison break - i used to only roll my eyes when kuya would watch the first few episodes of prison break. he explained with eyes wide open that michael had the map of the prison tattooed on his body to save his innocent brother. lame, i thought. boring, more thoughts. but i was eventually forced to watch it. and there were two discoveries i made about myself. first is, i'm so in love with wentworth. hehe. and the second is, i probably missed 3/4 of my life had i not hooked up with him.. errrr with the series, i mean. there are so many twists as well, but i wonder how they could further prolong the story when the concept, really, is just prison break and man hunt. we'll see. i'd watch it forever if i have to. oa.

the holiday - is the latest movie i saw. fresh na fresh. something new for cameron - her role's not so kikay. kate was so pathetic at first - three years to get over someone?! and it's not even a relationship! jude was simply... yummy! overly perfect, though. he can't exist in real world! jack was cute! "boob graze!", i think, was his best line. mr. abbott's scenes were very touching. i would want to meet someone like him someday... someone who will make a difference in my life, and vice versa. there were a couple of good insights about relationships. very light, funny in some sense, romantic, cute film.

the messengers - haven't seen it. probably won't. i'd love too. but my movie partner doesn't want to see it. although i gave assurances that i'll hug him for the entire duration of the film, pat his butt so he can just meme, do whatever it takes to make him watch it with me, he wouldn't watch it. it'll give him nightmares daw. according to him, he'd rather watch it on dvd at home (where screams are allowed, probably). i'll take his word for it. just wait till i get one. just wait! and we'll watch it no matter what.

smallville - has been evicted from my list. i stopped seeing it. i used to love it, but it became this dragging piece of crap. how long till i see him fly with that spandex costume? argh. too much. win convinced me that the story's becoming interesting again with the justice league in the scene... so i watched the 2nd to the latest episode last night. it's becoming cute again but i'm still not that interested. giving it a chance though, so i'm putting it back at the semi-bottom of the list. we'll see.

maging sino ka man - dang. i used to watch it over youtube at the office (i'm not alone with this ordeal ha!). hehe. bad. but they probably found out about the mega bandwidth so youtube was blocked. clever. i sooo love celine and jb. not so much for bea and john loid. too mushy. all i could do now is ask cecil about it. what happened? so it's like this big jigsaw puzzle with too many missing pieces. i won't probably fill them in. sad.

on stepping stones

i know we all have a common goal and it is to be successful in life. we have different definitions of being successful.

to some, success is having megazillions of money in numerous bank accounts. the more money they gain, the more secured they feel, the more power they think they have. have an overflowing pocket and you own the world. the possibilities are endless. there's nothing you can't do or have, and they are happy that way.

others equate success to a happy family life. to have a decent and comfortable, if not luxurious life. putting the members of the family in a state where the necessities in life are handy is the priority. there might be a few room for the secondary pleasures, but everything could eventually come smoothly. what's important now is the family is there with a sturdy foundation.

to some, success may mean you are the apple of your boss's eyes. "yes, boss" is a staple phrase of the mouth. be good to big boss and you secure yourself of a good position in your job. you get good promises. you get to be the right hand. you get to know the headlines. you become almost immortal... almost. give boss a few "useful" information and you might have yourself grinning for some great surprises.

i recall that someone defined success as being anywhere you want to be at any given time. sweet! i like! hahaha!

people have different definitions of success and different strategies in life. we all have unique ways of reaching that end line. others are kind-hearted, others are built for the kill. when grasping for that medal we call success, we may step on other people, knowingly or unknowingly. we get what we want at the expense of stomping on other people's rights, make that SIMPLY stomping (not just stepping) on other people. and the others are just helpless and clueless that they're being treaded on. "i don't care, as long as i get there".

there's this game in takeshi's castle that's so like this concept. point A and point B are separated by water. player starts on point A and the goal is to reach point B by using the stepping stones. some stones are real stones, others aren't - they're merely floating and will pull the player along with it once stepped on. so you just hope that you get to step on the real hard stones. when you step on the fake ones, you fall. beware! you just might step on one of those and you too just might be engulfed by the murky water. game over. dead ka na. sa presinto ka na magpaliwanag. oh, it's just worth mentioning that this game on takeshi is sooo fun to watch! :)

lovers in bali

last saturday, after reggie's birthday party (salamat kay aman for the ride!), maria and i weren't in a let's-go-home mood yet. we decided to just stay somewhere where there's coffee and couch. and cafe bali it is (cafe bali nga ba?). it's a small cafe in megamall, really cozy! we had these potato balls with cheese stuff... and we swear manong's tukneneng tastes a lot better than those! i had strawberry with nut something coffee and maria had melon shake... and something else after that haha!

an acoustic duo was performing that night - the long haired gay-guy (ganda ng kutis!) was the vocalist and guitarist and the chubby guy was the hmmm... anong tawag sa parang tambol na kahoy na inuupan? so... the gay-guy was trying to make conversation with everybody in the room - over the mic! there were only a few of us anyway. so he asked for our names and asked if we were lovers. yes naman kami ni maria...

thus the phrase lovers in bali. duh. hindi ako masyadong natuwa sa mga talks nya. mas natuwa ako sa kanta nya. pwede bang kumanta ka na lang? if we wanted okray stuff, sa comedy bar sana kami pumasok diba? hehe.

he asked if we have v-day dates. and i said, yeah, kami nga ni maria e. LOL panindigan! and he said ang sweet naman daw namin. his partner (i think he's referring to his tambol guy partner) was never that sweet with him.

pwede syang mag sideline sa comedy bar... medyo dull nga lang mga jokes nya.. hehe good voice, though.

so, when we had the chance, we fled for dear life. haha... and we called it a night. lesbos!

"i don't drink coffee"

if this statement is true then the fact that i love to make coffee and everything about coffee doesn't make it false.

i may love the feeling of putting in half a teaspoon of coffee, a tablespoon of creamer, a tablespoon of sugar, and hot water in a cup.
i may love the aroma of coffee - be it instant or brewed.
i may love the sight of that dispenser filling in that paper cup with the essentials of coffee.
or i may love the ambiance of that darn coffee shop, along with the coffee mixes they make. i may even spend the entire day in a coffee shop, i won't mind!
i may love the act of gently stirring that lovely concoction to transform it into the most perfect coffee blend.

for all you care, i may - with a true smile on my face - lift that cup, put it near my lips... BUT I MAY OPT NOT TO DRINK IT. thus, making my statement, still, so true.

so what's the point of acting like a coffee enthusiast if i don't even drink coffee?

of course this is not about coffee! this is about something else. i absolutely drink coffee! i'm just making my point on when statements are oh so true or oh so false. and i'm oh so true! i bet ya! woohoo!