chawcha-weechawchaw

Today I nearly choked to death.

My preoccupation with keeping my teeth white has made me develop a few peculiarities. For one, I always have to use a straw when drinking ice tea or cold coffee, obviously to keep these dentition-staining fluids from coming into contact with my front teeth. I don’t bite into chocolate and other dark solids with my front teeth—either I pinch them off piece by little piece, or I bite into them sideways with my molars.

I also don’t smoke… cigarettes. Now, I would be lying through my teeth if I were to deny that there are other things that you can smoke aside from cigarettes. That stuff can stain the teeth too, so they’re reserved for special occasions. And besides, brownies are a better alternative—aside from the fact that they don’t leave that burnt-toast aftertaste, you can stuff them into the back of your mouth without making them touch your front teeth.

When it comes to hot caffeinated drinks, I prefer to make them cool down a little so that it would be easier for me to gulp them down. I do this in such a way that I tilt my head backwards just a little, and by pushing the fluid to the back of my mouth with my tongue, I am again able to prevent the said liquid from flowing through my front teeth.

That said, there have been a few instances when I have gulped my coffee into the wrong pipe, reducing me to a sputtering and wheezing schmuck. I don’t have to tell you that it’s not a pretty picture, and thankfully it’s never happened in public, bless the heavens.

Now, this morning I had my worst choking episode by far, with me simultaneously coughing and gasping for air for a good full minute. Not that I’m laying it on thick, but in that long minute I did begin to have thoughts about death. Instead of having my life flashing before me, however, I thought about all the things that I have yet to do and achieve.

I have yet to make a name for myself, and to make my father and my other elders truly proud of me. I have yet to pamper my father, my other elders, my sisters, my niece. I have yet to give back to the people that I owe so much to.

I have yet to start my medical career, hopefully as a dermatologist. I have yet to go into a myriad of entrepreneurial ventures, and make loads of money out of them. I have yet to publish my first book, and various other scientific researches besides.

I have yet to learn the violin and the cello, and to rekindle my fling with the guitar and the piano. I have yet to master la langue française, and to learn Italian and Spanish thereafter.

I have yet to sunbathe, and dance barefoot, and drown my senses in the sound and smell of the waves crashing on the shore of each of the beaches on my long list of unvisited places of paradise. I have yet to have coffee—gulping it down carefully, of course—in a sidewalk café in Paris while drinking in all that la bonne vie has to offer.

I have yet to meet my Nino Quincampoix, who is dashing, and cultured, and eloquent, and adores and loves me to no end. He dresses well, and is intelligent, romantic, sensitive, and funny. He is a good Catholic, comes from a good family, respects my own good family, and has a good head on his shoulders. He knows how to handle finances, and knows how to party as well. He does not smoke like a chimney, and does not chase after anything that wears a skirt. He is strong, and in control of himself and the situations he gets into.

He remembers special occasions, and lets me do my own thing, while realizing that we have to see or talk to each other at the end of each day. He lets me fully into his life, as I him. He also understands my labile temperament, and does not have a fickle, moody temperament of his own to clash with mine. He knows how to give as much as he loves to receive, in more ways than one. He is as passionate as I am, and is just as committed to the concept of us. He kisses and hugs me and holds my hand in public, respectably of course, and proudly tells the world, "This is my foxy, gorgeous girlfriend/fiancee/wife, and I love her," and does not mind being cheesy from time to time.

And he is a fine-looking specimen, with Mediterranean features in the likes of Southern French, Italian, Hispanic or Greek. He has a nice nose, nice teeth, a strong well-shadowed jaw and broad shoulders, and stands between 5’8” and 6’. Now, at this point, if you’re telling me that I’m asking too much, buzz off.

And yes, I have yet to have my dream wedding, with my Nino Quincampoix of course. We have yet to honeymoon in Bora Bora, which is somewhere among the French Polynesian Islands.

I have yet to spawn my own offspring, after about 2 or 3 years of me and my Nino just enjoying each other. Of course, there is the matter of my biological clock tick-tocking, but that should sort itself out some way or another.

I have yet to raise my son into a fine, upright citizen. Yes, just one son, who shall be nicknamed Sandro, because I admit to being afraid of stretching my abdominal muscles too much and getting fat and acquiring stretch marks. Of course, I can simply work all the excess fat off. But then there’s the matter of stretch marks—my yoga instructor, for example, is still fit and sexy after having given birth to a child, but she has stretch marks.

Nonetheless, I have yet to have Sandro who, despite being an only child, will not be spoiled. There will be no spanking or other forms of physical punishment in my household, but only in that particular sense, if you know what I mean. But seriously, discipline will be instituted mostly via positive reinforcement and a little of negative reinforcement, like facing the wall.

I have also yet to regale Sandro with stories of my so-called adventures, and I have yet to tell him, “You know, son, I did this and that, and although I was no square, I did keep my sights focused on my long-term goals. I will not keep you from trying things out and experimenting, but you will have to learn to find your way back when you make mistakes. But don’t worry, son, that’s what I’m here for, to help you.”

So much, so much I have yet to do. And all that running through my head while choking on my coffee—100% Arabica beans brewed to absolute perfection—for a good, long minute.

All that because of my fixation on keeping my teeth white.

I am seeing red.

 

Just 30 minutes ago I got into an argument with a woman at the lotto booth. I had barely given the lotto lady my number combinations when this ill-bred louse of a woman laid her lotto card and money on the ledge alongside me. Now, in case you didn’t know, people who do not know how to fall in line do not just tick me off. They can cause me to blow my top.

 

I immediately told her, and very politely and gently at that, “Ma’am, you’re supposed to fall in line this way.” And I made a gesture behind me with my arm.

 

To which she replied, “E tapos ka naman e.”

 

This was when I began to get pissed off. I said, “I’m not done yet. Can’t you see I haven’t even gotten my stubs? I haven’t even gotten my change. You’re supposed to fall in line this way.” At this I repeated my arm gesture. And I really have to reiterate that I was still speaking mildly at this point, although I was already obviously annoyed.

 

She stood her ground and merely repeated, “Tapos ka na naman nga e.” She said that like it was a very natural thing for people to not fall in line the way civilized people are supposed to do. She even had the chutzpah to look irritated.

 

“That’s very rude of you to just lay your ticket on the ledge like that, not even bothering to fall in line.”

 

At this she very eloquently retorted, “Ang arte mo!”

 

Oh, that got me. At this I had figured out that I wasn’t getting through to this maleducated entity, so I decided to tell her in Tagalog, “Hindi ka marunong pumila. Bastos ka.”

 

She wasn’t backing off that easily either. “Ikaw ang bastos. Ang arte mo!”

 

For lack of more creative Tagalog words to throw back at this uncouth flea, I was reduced to repeating, “Hindi ka marunong pumila. Bastos ka.” Then I stormed off.

 

Holy Mother of God, I have never in my life wished that I could argue more fluently in Tagalog as badly as I do now. How I wish there was some way to put this uncivilized louse and every other person like her in their proper place which, simply put, is merely in line.

 

Just how absofugginlutely hard is it to properly fall in line!

 

Now friends, pray tell, what would have been a better way to handle a situation like this? I dislike arguing above all, especially with entities like the woman in question whom I regard as way beneath me. But sometimes you just have to give people a piece of your mind.

 

Last week, while waiting to cross Taft after buying donuts in the middle of hospital work, I happened to stand beside a 20 or so year-old neatly dressed woman. She coughed and, in broad daylight, spat a thick whitish glob of phlegm into the gutter. I looked her in the eye and said, “That’s disgusting, you know that?” I waited for her to reply, but she just looked away in shame.

 

At least she didn’t have the effrontery to justify her lack of manners.

   

Une conversation avec un homme que je déteste

Il m’a dit, “Votre sourire est beau, mais je ne le vois pas dans vos yeux.”

 

J’ai souri. “Comment, quand mon sourire ne peut pas venir de mon coeur?”

 

Alors il a demandé, “Ainsi ce qui vous ont appris?”

 

Les larmes mes yeux, du fond de mon coeur, j’ai dit, “Ce les hommes sont des porcs.”

Repent!

   

While waiting for my friend Beena to go jogging with me earlier today (she slept on me, that girl! haha), I was forced to sit in the waiting area of her condominium for about 40 minutes and read—for lack of more worldly fare like, say, fashion magazines—apocalyptic religious material which scared the begeezus out of me. Pardon the inappropriate language.

 

Not that the stuff I read was all entirely new. Having grown up in a very Catholic family, the concept of the Three Days of Total Darkness was all too familiar to me. That, as well as Jacinta, Francisco and Lucia in Fatima; Father Gobbi; the consecration of Russia; the apparitions in Medjugorje… you get the picture. I started to get exposed to these ideas when my sisters and I came to live with my Grandma when I was in fifth grade. Then, nightcaps consisted of the rosary prayed ever so slowly and devoutly, because my Grandma believes (and I do, too) that you do not really pray properly if you slur your words out too fast. Dinner talk was, at least half of the time, bound to lead to the importance of living a pious life. My sisters and I were also encouraged to read Catholic magazines like Misyon and the Catholic Digest, to which my Grandma had monthly subscriptions, and my aunts liked to buy me and my sisters colored comic books on the lives of saints like St. Bernadette Soubirous and St. Agnes.

 

We were the sort of household where loud music and television were banned during the Holy Week and while mourning, such as when my Uncle David (that’s Major David Sabido, PMA ’78, to you) passed away after being gunned down by Abu Sayyaf. Okay, we weren’t entirely banned from listening to music and watching TV, as long as it was religious. A typical Holy Week conversation would go like this. “May we watch a VHS tape?” (VHS was still the latest entertainment console at the time). To this my elders would reply, “Sure, Cha-wee! Take your pick.” And then out would come our collection of 2-volume VHS tapes with titles in the likes of Christ is King, The Coming of the Messiah, and The Life of Elizabeth Seton. The first two movies have scenes with John the Baptist preaching, “Repent! Repent! For the Messiah is coming.”  Allow me to say at this point that the movie on St. Elizabeth Seton’s life is still one of my favorites, and I really did enjoy watching the other two movies the first few times.

 

Having said all this, it would seem as if I grew up in an uptight and fanatically religious family. Not so. Admittedly, it did seem like so at the time. But I suppose that everyone, including my Grandma and my aunts, is bound to loosen up at some point. It is regrettable that, what with our diverging schedules, we don’t get to pray the rosary nightly as a family anymore. And there really can be no justification for not being able to hear mass as one family as regularly as we used to, although it really has been unavoidable for the past few years, most notably when I started medical school and moved away from home.

 

But at least my Grandma and my aunts have stopped breathing down my neck for quitting my post as presidium vice-president of the Legion of Mary. Also, my Grandma has added to her monthly reading staple publications in the likes of Reader’s Digest, Time and Newsweek. And yes, we have already reached a compromise on the whole no-music-during-Holy-Week edict. We play classical music instead, which I absolutely love. Although it beats the idea of sacrifice which is what it is all about in the first place, I don’t really care.

 

Sure, the very idea of spending three days indoors (“72 hours, no more, no less”) amid total darkness and roving demons (“There will be no demon left in hell, for they will all be let loose upon the earth”) isn’t exactly a very pleasant thought. When this concept was first introduced to me in fifth grade, I was paranoid for months. I constantly bugged my dad to rush home from work well before dark (“You must bolt all doors and shut all windows, and you must never open the door and peek out a window when you hear a loved one begging for you to let them in, for they are lost, and you shall be lost as well”). I worried like crazy for my cats (“Do not worry about your animals, for they shall be taken care of”). And until now, I have several bottles of Holy Water and one giant blessed candle in my room (“There shall be no electricity nor running water, and your light can only come from blessed candles”). And what happens after all that, (“After it is over it will seem that you are the only ones alive… there will be much clearing of bodies, but eventually all the plants will start to grow again”), oh can there be a more optimistic prospect than that.

 

You can only imagine how high-strung I was for a time when I was a kid.

 

Nearly a decade and a half of successful repression so easily brought back to my consciousness, all because Beena dozed off on me. Haha, I’m kidding. But seriously, what do I think about all that? Well, I’m keeping an open mind. Although I have been taking an awful lot of interest in Buddhist philosophy these past few years, I still am very much Catholic. You could say that I’m more spiritual than religious, and that’s the best way I can put it.

 

I haven’t been the most virtuous person alive, but I do value life, mine as well as others’, and I honor God. I still wear my scapular sometimes, and I have blessed medals under my pillows and a blessed rosary and crucifixes hanging all over the place. But what am I explaining myself to you for? You’re not the one to judge me when the Day of Reckoning comes. Hahaha.

    

Regression Line

Although it still baffles me, I have already become resigned to the fact that Filipinos just seem to prefer to walk on the road rather than take the sidewalk. I have also learned to just shake my head in annoyance when they cross the road under an overpass and not on it.

 

Every race does have its idiosyncrasies.

 

But if there is one thing I cannot accept, that one thing that can blow my stack, it’s how bad Filipinos are at lining up.

 

Filipinos suck at falling in line. I honestly do not understand why they would rather clump around instead of line up, or cut ahead in front of you instead of patiently taking their rightful place at the end of a line. Or if they do line up behind you, sometimes they practically push you forward or lay their chin on your shoulder, like when lining up at an ATM and they do not stand a respectable 2 feet behind you, or when they lay their bets down at the lotto booth when you haven’t even finished getting your lotto stubs (don’t ask me why I bet at the lotto—my dad, who’s abroad, has me making his weekly bets for him).

 

But going back to how bad Filipinos are at lining up, it’s downright irksome, and almost infuriating.  It’s shallow, but I can actually get into arguments with strangers and even older people who do not know how to fall in line. Call it my pet peeve, if you may.

 

At the hospital where I work, I have had to call the attention of patient-watchers and employees several times. I absolutely hate it when they do not line up at the laboratory, or at the blood bank, or at the mess hall, or at the canteen. I do not care if they’re 20 years my senior or twice my size. If you even so much as make the mistake of cutting in front of me, I’ll tap you on the shoulder, look you in the eye, and say this dripping with utmost contempt, “May pila po.”

 

Most of time, they feign innocence and say, “Ah, ganon ba?” and then head to the end of the line. Some people, however, stubbornly hold their ground. Once I was lined up at a restroom, and it so happened that the woman in front of me, whom we shall call Friend A, had a friend whom we shall call Friend B, who was lined up for the cubicle next to that I was lined up for.  Incidentally, the friends were both next in line for their respective cubicles.

 

Now, when Friend A was already able to get in, Friend B was left to wait her turn, because for some reason the person inside the cubicle which she was lined up for was taking a bit too long. She obviously couldn’t wait very long, because after about 30 more seconds of waiting, she blurted out for the whole restroom to hear, “Ang tagal naman! Siguro tumatae itong nasa loob!” And if that wasn’t bad enough, she sidled over to my line, and stood right smack in between me and the door to my cubicle.

 

After standing flabbergasted for about 2 seconds, I tapped her on the shoulder, looked her in the eye, and said, “May pila po.” She glanced at me for a second, and then shamefully addressed the door of the cubicle in front of her, “Ah, nakapila naman ako dito kanina e.”

 

It took all my years of education, every last bit of refinement, every ounce of breeding painstakingly inbred into me by my elders, for me not to answer back to her and say, “How dare you cut in line in front of me and justify it by saying that you were lined up here originally. You forfeited your place in this line, you uncouth louse of a woman, and you have no right to act as if you can reclaim it and display outright discourtesy to me and to every other person civilized enough to line up for this cubicle.”

 

Instead, I left the restroom in disgust. I didn’t need to go to the loo as badly as this boorish woman who seemed to have an urgent call to take a crap, anyway. In retrospect, I’m thinking it would have been nice, cathartic even, if I had actually made that outburst. But it’s past, and it’s not like it’s going to make her and every other person know how to fall in line next time.

 

Oh, but don’t you just hate it when people don’t know how to fall in line? And when they cut you in line, look back, and grin sheepishly at you as if to mock you and say, “I’m putting one over you and being discourteous to you and everyone else behind you but who cares because I’m smiling and oh ain’t it fun to cut in line,” oh, don’t get me started on that.

 

This Chinese guy I used to date once told me that Filipinos aren’t as bad at lining up as the Chinese are. Not that I care. But if this really is true, then I’m just so glad I’m not in China.

We are not gods.

I am not brilliant. As much as my folks like to brag about me to neighbors and distant relatives, and as much as I often envisage myself shining among the doctors revered by everyone for their genius, well, realistically speaking I’m just not.

 

I’m no Jun Ronquillo, or JJ Lao, or Tom Lo—brilliant doctors in the making who can rattle off the pathophysiologic nitty gritty of say, SIADH, or the mechanisms of action and administration of heparin versus warfarin, or the correction of all the electrolyte imbalances you can get out of a chronic kidney disease, all off the top of their magnificent heads. To be able to even come close to their abilities, I’d have to review and put into practice everything I’d have learned over and over, and over and over, and over and over.

 

But I’m not here to put my lack of intellectual luster under the spotlight. On the contrary, I’m here to talk about something which I believe is just as important for a doctor to have—heart. Compassion and humility. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that the people I just mentioned have compromised their compassion and humility in the name of medical acumen. In fact, these doctors are exemplary in their patient care and are actually very humble (well, except for Jun aka Not-A-Friend-Not-Even-A-Neighbor-Anymore whose humility is subject to question… hehehe, just kidding, Ex-Neighbor!).

 

Seriously, I’m no Mother Teresa incarnate either. But—and this I humbly say, I try to be.

 

When I first entered medical school I was very proud of myself. I thought of myself as being very smart, being in the 99^th percentile in the National Medical Admission Test (NMAT) and being among the top 160 students privileged enough to be accepted into the top medical school in the country.

 

That was then. Well, I admit that every now and then I do enjoy ruminating on the thought that for once in my life I did simulate a whiz kid. And yes, I confess to taking immense pleasure in the impressed look that people give me when they ask me what it is that I do.  But you see, I have come to realize that that pride can be dangerous, as it leaves one predisposed to being an overly haughty and, consequently, unfeeling doctor.

 

About a year ago I went out with a friend who, at that time, was thinking about going to medical school. When he asked me why I wanted to be a doctor, I told him it was because I had a thing about being in control. By that I meant that I wanted to be armed with a medical education because I did not want to be left in the dark, afraid and unknowing of what to do, should anything of a health-related sort befall me or my loved ones. I suppose my friend misunderstood me, because when I threw his question back at him, he replied, “Oh, I know what you mean. I want to be a doctor because I want to play God.”

 

Now, looking back, I find that statement scary. Sure, it would seem as if we can hold the life of a person in our hands, or have the power to determine the physical, mental and functional capacity of a person. We doctors are capable of so many things, that we tend to be so full of ourselves and forget that we are merely middlemen in the plans God has laid out for us.

 

I don’t intend for this to come off as a theological entry. Rather, let this be my way of apologizing to everyone who in some way or another begrudges doctors for being the pompous assholes that we all sometimes tend to be. Doctors are, after all, only human. But let it be known that I am deeply humbled, and it is not just because I am not brilliant, and it is not so much the phenomenon of being a small fish cast into bigger waters.

 

I am truly, deeply humbled, because slowly but surely the concept of us doctors being here to serve and help others is being inculcated in me. Yes, that might sound like bollocks coming from me, but you do have to credit my UP Medicine education and PGH exposure for that. Those, as well as recent unfortunate events which I am not at liberty to disclose. But no, no, no. I am not about to rush off to the far-flung bucolic reaches of the country and be a doctor to the barrio just yet.

 

Essentially what I would like to drive at here is that the challenge of being a doctor is not just limited to keeping up a perpetual life of study, and ridding the world of disease, saving lives, evacuating cerebral hemorrhages, reducing fractures, correcting imbalances, repairing malformations, enhancing beauty, and what have you. The tremendous challenge of being a doctor is also defined by the ability to improve a person’s quality of life, to alleviate his fears and apprehensions regarding his disease or abnormalities, to be a source of comfort. To cure, realistically we can only do sometimes. To relieve, at best we can do that often. But to comfort—that is something that we doctors ought to be able to do always.

 

I won’t be a hypocrite and say that I have been an angel sent from heaven to bring a smile to the faces of all the patients that I have handled so far. I do have my cross days, and you really cannot please everyone. But I try. And really, there is nothing like that fuzzy feeling you get out of being greeted with a warm “Good morning Doctora” when a patient or his family passes you by in the hallways of PGH, or receiving gifts from your patients. It is knowing that you have touched a person’s life, albeit briefly.

 

Of course, we cannot underrate the value of being the best doctors that we can be, and it is indeed our job to provide quality patient care. But as important as it is for patients to have a competent doctor looking after them, they also need to know that they have a doctor who will not see them as just a job, someone who really cares, who will really sit down with them, look them in the eye, show them compassion and empathy, and be humble enough to accept that doctors are not omnipotent gods, but instruments of healing.

 

Allow me to end this with one of my favorite quotes from the first season of Lost, which I believe I have already used in one of my earlier blog entries. While being condoled for the death of her husband, one of the plane crash survivors told Jack (played by Matthew Fox), “You have a nice way about you. Patient, caring… I suppose that’s why you became a doctor.”

For the love of coffee.

“Away, away with coffee!

Away, away with tea!

Milk and eggs are the best for me!”

 

We were taught so many nursery rhymes in preschool, and yet perhaps this is the one which sticks out in my memory the most. We have cassette tapes stashed somewhere here at home, blatantly documenting my leading my younger sisters through this verse. It had seemed like a universal truth back then, and up until I got to med school I never really gave much thought to its applicability in relation to my age.

 

I guess this notion, that coffee and tea are bad for you, really hammered itself well into my sense of right and wrong that I stayed away from coffee for most of my life. Even during my first three years of medical school, while my flatmates Tannia and Ann were downing coffee practically every night to stay up and study, I generally relied on my natural physiologic stimulants to keep me awake and to keep me going.

 

A lot of good that did. By the middle of my third year in med school I started drinking that once taboo beverage, in the midst of my growing desperation to stay conscious, coherent and ambulatory in the face of so many sleepless nights. Needless to say, I began my journey into the world of coffee addiction with a blue sachet of Nescafe Ice, which was all the craze back then, and judging from my growing dependence on this oh so marvelous potion, never to get out again.

 

I can’t live without coffee. If I don’t chug up a cup in the morning, I get more or less doomed to a day of drowsiness and, occasionally, a generally depressed mood. At night, if on duty at the hospital and I don’t guzzle down really strong coffee well before the onset of sleepiness, I transform into an incomprehensible and nonfunctional zombie.

 

I just remembered this time I was manning the triage table at the ER. I had with me then a transparent jug of cold café mocha which I had prepared earlier in the day. When a resident saw what I had with me, he said, “Ano yan, UGIB?” (Is that UGIB?) In layman’s terms, UGIB which stands for upper gastrointestinal bleed, is simply bloody gastric juice, which in retrospect did resemble the coffee I had then. It’s funny, actually, although some people may be grossed out by the thought.

 

Well, the bottom line is, I really cannot live without coffee. I’ve gotten so dependent on it, that the problem is that I may have become tolerant to it as well. I can fall asleep right after my third cup of coffee, sometimes even right in the middle of drinking it. Still another downside to this addiction is that I have probably developed narcolepsy. I am now known as the girl who can doze off in the middle of interviewing a patient, while standing up mind you, and that who can fall asleep while walking in the wards. Sometimes when I go back to my notes I find illegible passages of squiggles obviously scrawled in the middle of stuporous note-taking. Yes, it can get that bad.

 

Hence, my absolute need for coffee, taken at the right time and with the right potency. Well, any stimulant for that matter. Teh tarik, which literally means hand-pull milk tea, is a wonderful alternative. But then I’d still have to import the stuff from

Singapore

, and since I don’t always get a lot of relatives and friends coming to the

Philippines

from there, I literally have to ration what stash I have. Good old simple tea—I especially love oolong tea mixed with jasmine tea—works if I need a jolt in the middle of the day, but it is not enough to keep me going for more than 24 hours. And well, during that hesitant period when I was still pondering whether to take up drinking coffee or not, I actually played around with the thought of taking caffeine pills. But then, you know, nothing really beats waking up to the taste and aroma of freshly brewed coffee flavored with milk or creamer (nonfat, of course) and muscovado sugar.

 

I’m no coffee connoisseur, mind you. I still wouldn’t be able to tell if it’s French roast or Arabica, although I can, of course, tell if it’s barako as any nincompoop ought to be able to.

 

Oh, and yes, perhaps the most wonderful thing to come out of this addiction is that recent research has shown that coffee, in fact, is good for you, good for me, good for everyone. Contrary to the old belief that coffee gives you hypertension and predisposes you to a host of diseases, we now know that coffee, to put it in a general sense, has been shown to fight cancer. One study has suggested that an increased intake of coffee and tea may lead to moderately decreased risk for renal cell cancer, while another has shown that coffee significantly protects against breast cancer in women with a mutation in the BRCA1 gene, which is the gene associated with breast cancer. Also, a meta-analysis on coffee intake and the risk for hepatocellular cancer points to a significant inverse relationship between the two. To add to that, coffee has even been shown to enhance liver function.

 

And here’s great news for my dad who, despite being a heavy coffee drinker himself, has been on my case for drinking too much coffee. He’s been worried that I might get diabetes, especially since it’s a disease that runs in my family. Well, mon cher Papa, coffee has been shown to significantly decrease the risk for type 2 diabetes mellitus, provided that we don’t pile on the sugar, of course.

 

Furthermore, coffee has also been shown to help boost the immune system by activating our macrophages against H2O2 production and protecting our lymphocytes from DNA damage, among many other mechanisms. Several sources also cite that increased intake of coffee has been shown to significantly decrease the risk for gout in men. In addition to that, it has been shown that among French women with no prior cognitive dysfunction, those who drank four or more cups of coffee daily had significantly less cognitive decline as compared to those who drank at most one cup daily—this neuroprotective effect was even more evident at higher ages.

 

Having said all that, I guess I don’t even need to say that, to top everything off, coffee is one helluva great upper—I always get awfully bubbly and cheery after a cup.

 

Grand, isnt’ it?

 

Now before I end this entry and before you rush off to indulge yourself in a cup of what I would like to call one of man’s greatest concoctions, remember that coffee does have its downside. For one, you wouldn’t want to drink too much of it lest you want the jitters. Second, you should know better than to drink it on an empty stomach or if you already have dyspepsia. Third, and this applies to us women, know that it has been said that caffeine impedes calcium metabolism. My own personal research into this claim, however, has led to inconsistent results.

 

While some studies claim that moderate coffee intake does not significantly affect calcium metabolism, others claim that coffee does impair its absorption. Nonetheless, all of the studies I read would agree that significant reduction in calcium levels in the background of coffee intake only occurred in women whose baseline calcium intake was already low to begin with. So unless we want to get osteoporotic early on, we simply have to stock up on calcium every time we drink coffee. While one study suggests taking in about 2 glasses of milk for every cup of coffee, another says that 2 tablespoons of milk should do the trick. Whatever the case, we simply should ensure that we take in the recommended daily calcium intake of 2000mg, to prevent the precious calcium from ebbing away from our bones.

 

Going back to the nursery rhyme, aside from the ironic observation that what was taught to be good for us then can actually be bad for us now (that’s if you continue to drink full cream milk and eat more than 2 eggs a week, more so if you fry them), well, all I can say is that they should stop teaching such misleading poems to innocent little kids. Ok, that may be overstating it. But do indulge me and allow me to share my proposed revision to this very influential nursery rhyme. This, I believe, is what they should be teaching innocent little pre-schoolers instead:

 

“They’re not bad, coffee and tea!

But because I’m a kiddie,

Milk and eggs are the best for me!”

P.S. I did my research mostly via Pubmed.com. For a copy/list of my resources, just ask me for them as I saved most of them on my laptop.

 

Je pense à toi.

Je ne peux pas cesser la pensée à toi

Pourquoi? Pourquoi? Pourquoi?

Je me réveille et je pense à toi

Une fois, deux fois, trois fois

Je mange, je travaille, et je pense à toi

Le matin, l'après-midi, et le soir

Je ferme mes yeux, c'est tu que je vois

Toi, toujours, quoi qu’il en soit

Je couche, et oui, je rêve de toi

Si ce n'est pas folie, c’est quoi, c’est quoi?

Je ne peux pas cesser la pensée à toi

Je ne veux pas cesser la pensée à toi

I Thirst

Let me open my eyes at dusk tonight
Don't drive damnation into my heart
I don't mean to kill, I don't want a fight
Just let me live, a war don't start

Forget your task, release your stake
You know not a thing you do
An angry me you don't wish to make
Go away, child, my wrath has begun to brew

On second thought, come closer, child
Come, forgive me, don't feel cursed
There's something on your throat, your veins are wild
Yes, child, come closer, and quench my thirst

by Pearl Weena Marie E. Sabido
(copyrighted)

Squished tomatoes.

My third week in the barrio, and already I’m getting these scares about getting all these diseases. In the middle of doing a physical exam on elementary school chldren, I got bitten by what looked like a dengue mosquito, with the white-striped legs and all. But after reviewing what I was already supposed to know by then, I was reassured knowing that the painful bite I got on my arm wasn’t very characteristic of the said mosquito. Nonetheless, I’m still on the lookout for symptoms and signs of dengue, as I am still on the third of my two- to seven-day incubation/observation period.

 

Needless to say, this last week has been jam packed with me and my fellow interns doing PE on almost a thousand grade school kids, with almost 90 percent of whom having head lice. I guess you can’t blame me for getting paranoid and absent-mindedly scratching my head more often now. That, however, is the least of all my worries at the moment.

 

I guess you could say that the most significant experience I had this week would definitely be my having been infected with bacterial conjunctivitis. I’ve never had it before, and I always took it for granted whenever patients would complain about it. I used to think, “”Hey, it’s just sore eyes. All you gotta do is refrain from touching your eyes and wash them often and keep them from getting exposed to dirt, and you’ll be fine.” I didn’t realize until now how much of a pain in the ass it can be. A pain in the eyes, for that matter.

 

This made me realize one very important thing, and that is the importance of taking care of one’s own health. We doctors like to tell people to take care of their health, watch what they eat, refrain from smoking, and whatnot. We get frustrated when patents don’t follow up when we tell them to, or when they don’t take the medications we prescribe or undergo the tests we ask them to. Just a side note, it’s even more frustrating when your own family doesn’t listen to you—my mom has been having episodes of chest pain very characteristic of chronic stable angina. I’ve been telling her to get an ECG and go see a cardiologist. But she’s being so stubborn, and has only been relying on the nitrates I prescribed to her to get her through her episodes. Parents—they can be the most hard-headed patients sometimes.

 

Well, actually, it has always been said that the most hard-headed and stubborn patients are doctors themselves. I know doctors who smoke like a chimney, gobble cholesterol-laden food down like an incinerator, and basically just live their lives not according to the lives they advise their patients to lead. I guess it’s because we all feel so invincible, since most of us hardly feel any immediate effects from the risk factors we expose ourselves to. Personally, I’m guilty on that account. By far, I’ve had a number of needle-stick injuries, one from a Hep B patient, and so far my titers are clean. Also, I’ve probably had a zillion tuberculosis patients, some of them multiple drug-resistant, and sometimes I haven’t been able to handle them without an N95 mask to protect me, and so far I’m still PPD-negative and my annual chest X-rays remain unremarkable.

 

However, now that I’m literally a walking goldfish with squished tomatoes for eyes, I realize the value of keeping myself healthy, not really for my sake, but for the sake of my patients. When my community foster sister came down with conjunctivitis, I gave her the usual line. Just don’t touch your eyes and keep your hands clean. I hardly gave it a second thought when I scratched my eyes a lot that night. It was only when I began to ooze out a freakin purulent, teary, and painful discharge from my eyes the following day, in the middle of seeing grade school kids, that I realized how something as seemingly simple as sore eyes can impede you from doing your work well. I could hardly touch the kids, for fear that I would start an epidemic, and I admit that I wasn’t up to par at all that day.

 

So there you have it. The biggest lesson I learned this week would be to take care of myself first and foremost, because how else can I properly take care of my patients if I’m not healthy enough, to begin with?

Living along the highway.

After having gone through my first week in community medicine, the first thing that I can say is that living in the barrios may not be as bad as I was afraid it would be, after all. The family I was assigned to live with is the prototype of your typical Filipino family—extremely warm and hospitable. In the words of Lola, the grandmother who lives with the family, “Ay, parang sarili a!,” which she and Tita Susan, the mother and

BHW

, like to tell me and Ryanne from time to time to remind us that we were welcome in their household and to therefore not feel like outsiders.

 

And the Estoya family has indeed made sure that Ryanne and I did not feel like outsiders. They eat their meals with us, and allow us to watch television with them at night after dinner—believe, me, I’d never watched so many telenovelas and game shows in my life. On a similar note, they also allow us to help out with the family chores, such as doing the dishes.

 

I admit that the fact that the Estoyas have running water and a functional flushing toilet in a clean in-house bathroom has a little to do with my now more positive outlook on living in the barrio. It was, after all, one of my biggest apprehensions prior to this rotation. The Estoya family is relatively well-off, owning a relatively big house, with their own vegetable plantation, lambanog distillery, goat herd, carabao and pig, and even their own little piece of beach just 15 trekking minutes away.

 

Perhaps the biggest realization I made after my first week in the community is the fact that I have been living a relatively sheltered life. It brings me back to this time when I was in college, when I had to do field work for my Field Psychology class. My group then decided to study this group of girls who sold hair accessories on campus, and we consequently had to go to visit them every week in the squatters’ area they lived in. On the first time they took us there, I was literally taken aback. You see, I’d been going past that area along

Tandang Sora Road

for as long as I could remember, and even though I’d always known that squatters lived there, I didn’t realize how extensive and wide-reaching their community was. It was like one big maze, what with complex intersecting alleys running through diminutive shanties going up to as much as 4 stories high, with as much as 4 big families living in them.

 

One week in a little barrio in San Jaun, Batangas made me realize that I had been living all of my life along the highway, so to speak. The little enclave that the Estoya family lives in goes far back into the woods, off the highway. Much like the squatter community I had to go into back in college, it is the sort of place I wouldn’t know existed if I hadn’t been required to enter it. That is to say, I’d always known it was there, and from television, I’d always known what it looked like. But to actually go in there, and live there, and attempt to immerse yourself in there—that brings an entirely new perspective to just how cloistered I’d been all my life, thinking that I was living in a big world.

 

That big world, in fact, has just turned into one major highway. You drive fast and rush to keep up with everyone else who’s on that road with you, because in that big world, you cannot afford to be late and to be left behind. On the periphery, you see these off-roads and dirt roads, and you think you know where they lead. But in truth, you don’t really know. Until you stop and turn into these off-roads, and stay long enough, you won’t really know how much bigger the world really is off the major highway.

 

That’s basically it. Four days in the barrio, and I’m already loving it there. Everyone’s so friendly—despite being a new face in a place where everyone knows each other, I have learned not to be surprised when someone I’d never seen in my life before waves at me and says, “Magandang umaga ho, Doktora!” Yes, everyone, and I mean everyone there, knows each other. Once, Ryanne and I went to the palengke, located in the bayan far from the barangay we live in, to buy stuff for dinner. To get back home, we decided to take the jeep. There, the fellow passengers, who knew we were visiting doctors without us having introduced ourselves, asked us where we would be getting off. Even before Ryanne finished explaining that we wanted to get off just beyond the bridge past the barangay center, they already said, “A, kina Ka Larry!” Ka Larry, or Tito Larry, by the way, is the head of the Estoya family.

 

Needless to say, everything’s so laidback and relaxed. And despite the incredible heat—I think I’ve gotten more tanned here just by walking and sitting around than after staying in Boracay for one week—you just have to love the fresh air, and the beautiful trees, and the picturesque nipa houses with their lovely gardens and wooden fences. (The Estoya home, however, is a cement house).

 

I am looking forward to the remaining 5 weeks of my community medicine rotation, and somehow I think I’m going to be saddened once it’s over. As Lola also likes to tell me and Ryanne, “Mawiwili kayo rine e!” It’s true, indeed. Just four days in the barrio, at ako e nawiwili nga naman.

When I tell people I want to be a dermatologist...

I get the following reactions:

1) "Oh, so will you be the next Vicky Belo?"

To which I reply, "No. I will be the Weena Sabido." hahaha. No, seriously, Vicky Belo is such a big name in dermatology and I respect her for all the success she's had because of her hard work, but I don't see myself catering only to the cosmetic side of the field. I want to subspecialize in dermatologic allergology.

2) "What?! You're taking 5 years of med school just to be a dermatologist?!"

To which I reply, grrrrr. Just to be a dermatologist is freak ass hard! To get into the dermatology program of UP-PGH, the the premier teaching hospital in the country, you'd have to take the entrance exam and compete with, not just a host of other dermatology hopefuls, but also the med school topnotchers who want to go into the internal medicine program. That means you'd have to be topnotch if you want to get into the PGH dermatology program. PGH only takes in 5 dermatology residents every year. And, come on. Try diagnosing that skin lesion you got in between your toes. Chances are you won't even know how to pronounce its medical name, much less differentiate it from the similar skin lesion you got behind your ears, much less properly treat it.

3) "Why dermatology? Walang challenge."

To which I again reply, grrrrrr. Please refer to no. 2. Just because dermatologists are stereotyped for catering to beauty, it would be wrong, very wrong, to think that they've got no cerebral matter behind those beautiful faces. Dermatologists do not become dermatologists after a one-month seminar on zit-busting. Dermatologists become just(!) dermatologists after 5 years of med school and 3-4 more years of residency. Add another year or 2 for fellowship.

4) "Didn't you once say that you wanted to be a neurologist? Or a neurosurgeon?"

To which I reply, I'm tired. I want to have time for other things, too. I want to learn real, honest-to-goodness French. I want to study the violin and the cello. I want to travel, maybe live in France for a year or two. I want to be able to dress up in pretty clothes and look pretty without having to feel guilty about it. I want to be able to go on trips to the beach and stay there without having to constantly worry about whether my patients will live without me or not. I want to take an MBA. Most importantly, I want to be able to do all these things while I'm young.

5) "Don't you want to consider ob-gyn or pediatrics? They make tons of money."

To which I reply, I'm not in it for the money. I'm going to make a decent living in dermatology, anyway. Besides, I don't want to live the rest of my life having to get up in the middle of the night just to deliver a baby. Sure, I can go into gynecologic oncology. But, no, it's not me. And I hate kids, except for the cute ones. But you can't always get cute patients, now can you?

6) "You're going into dermatology? That's great! I can get free treatments!"

Haha. This I get from my family and friends. Sure, I can give you free treatments, dears. But don't push it. Ahehe.

7) "You have my full support." or "I'm with you all the way." :)

I get this from my dad and very supportive friends. Thank God for people like them.

Dermatology never was my first choice until now. I won't be able to routinely save lives like most other doctors will do. But it won't make me less of a doctor. I can still help and serve people, as crappy as that may sound.

I can help that 40-year-old woman with atopic dermatitis control her flare-ups and look good and feel good about herself. I can help that 24-year-old girl with polycystic ovary disease get rid of her chronic acne and obesity when all she wanted upon entering my clinic was to get rid of her pimples, totally unaware that she already had an underlying medical condition.  I can help that 60-year-old man with a seizure disorder secondary to a brain tumor live through Stevens-Johnson Syndrome after having taken phenytoin.

And yes, I can do all that while being pretty, a requirement in the field which I have no qualms about. hahaha! To top it all off, I can do all that while I'm young!

To be a doctor.

When I first entered medical school, I had no notion whatsoever of the inescapable leadership that society bestows upon doctors. My idea then of being a doctor was limited to that of treating diseases and relieving symptoms, performing surgeries and prescribing medications. Eventually it expanded to being a perpetual student and researcher; later on, it came to include being a friend, or at least, a source of comfort for the patient and his family.

 

But being a leader? It was only here in med school that I learned that, whether we like it or not, we doctors are expected to take charge and be on top of things. We are expected to have a stand, and when called for, to act on it. Leadership is all but thrust into our hands. People look up to us and they listen to whatever we have to say. Needless to say, we are a pricey commodity on the dating market—in the words of a friend, “Everyone wants to date a doctor.” Parents like to brag about their doctor children, and merely wearing a white coat and having a stethoscope around your neck can sometimes be enough for people to step aside and make way for you.

 

It’s not that I’m putting too much pomp into the profession, and perhaps some people would think that I’m overinflating society’s opinion of us. But you have to admit that there is some grain of truth to all of that.

 

Is it the knowledge we have gained and continue to gain in all our years of study? Perhaps. Or could it be more of the fact that we deal with real people’s lives? That more often than not, and whether we care to admit it or not, we do play a big role in how a person’s life will turn out—if he will be treated of his infection, if he will be rid of his cancer, if he will lead a good-quality life despite having a congenital or degenerative disease, if he will survive his injuries, if he will live.

 

It is overwhelming—all this power that doctors have the potential to yield. Not surprisingly, some unenlightened few do abuse it. Some choose to shrink away from it. A lot of others become great leaders and pioneers in their respective fields.

 

As a student doctor, I have this zealous desire to be great. I want to be a great doctor, to deserve the high regard that comes naturally with having a degree in medicine. But I am also aware of what it entails.

 

A few years ago, my friend and I were thinking out loud as to why medicine is a post-graduate course, and not a college degree which one can earn after a shorter period of time. Eventually, we came to the conclusion that it is because a medical career is not just a job. Being a doctor is not something you start to be at 8 am and cease to be at 5 pm. It is something that we become, something that we breathe in and breathe out every moment of our lives. If we allow it to, it can govern every major and minor aspect of our lives. And more often than not, that is exactly what happens.

 

To be a doctor—a multifaceted healer, student, teacher, comrade, and leader—is a vocation, a calling. It is not an easy one. That is why people look up to us and expect a certain degree of guidance and leadership from us. And that is why it is not easy to begin with.

Well.

It comes to a full circle tonight. A full circle of light within a circle of darkness.

 

I didn’t expect to live this long. Two things I was sure of when I first came to be here—that I would die, yes, and that if I did not do so in the soonest possible time, then I would go crazy and kill myself instead.

 

It was a question of when. It is a question of when.

 

It wasn’t always a full circle. It was never a full circle until tonight, and I will never forget what the sky looked like on my first night here. Just one dark circle, so far and so unattainable, speckled with tiny dots of light which twinkled as if in mockery of my stupidity, the futility of my situation.

 

When, apparently, was not meant to be soon. And how? How is a question that I have been asking myself, as well. I would die, yes, but perhaps not of starvation, as in a situation such as this, one’s primal nature takes over and you begin to think nothing of grabbing hold of a scampering rat and biting into it raw. No, no, it won’t be starvation for me, as there is an abundance of them here.

 

I would die, yes, of an infection perhaps, or some other illness that would slowly seep the life out of me. It is not very farfetched, after a month of being knee-deep in a pool of filthy, mucky water. And the circle—that one dark circle I cannot help but look up to for practically every breathing moment ever since I got here—it is not always the dark circle that it is now. Half of the time it is a disk that scorches me down to my very bones, more so the ones that I had broken on my way down here. Sometimes it is a basin from which rain would pour and drench me to the same bones I have just spoken of.

 

I could drown myself. Oh, I relish the very thought of it, more so the thought of actually succeeding at it. But no, it would be folly to even hope that it would let go of me that easily.

 

My fingertips have been all but bared to the bone. My knees have been scraped raw. All from vainly trying to climb my way out. My head is all but a soupy mash of gook—I have learned that ramming your head against the wall is not an effective way to kill yourself if you’re not brave enough to smash it as hard as you can.

 

How did I come to be here, you ask? It does not matter. How does one fall into a hellhole such as this, into a deep pit from which escape is seemingly not humanly possible? Silly girl, you’d say, you just have to watch where you’re going. If you had been on the lookout, or if you had even been listening to the wise ones, then you’d have been aware that such a hole, and not just this but several others, exists.

 

Some things, I say, are inescapable. As inescapable as it is inevitable for us to fall into the inescapable. And yet we try, we still try to get out.

 

I look up at the moon. A full circle of light within a circle of darkness. Yes, some things are indeed inescapable, but I don’t see how it can justify being miserable. And so I laugh. I laugh until I double up and fall down.

Passion.

It is that which drives me to get up every morning to go to work. It is the same thing which urges me to stay up all night (or to at least try) to finish a report or to work when I’m on hospital duty. It is also that which takes me to the beach whenever I am able, and that which makes me commute, if I have to but which I absolutely hate, for 3 hours just so I can spend time with my niece.

 

Similarly, albeit of a different kind, it was also that which would send tingles down my spine at that time when I was still so in love—when the mere sight of him, or the corniest line, or the briefest kiss made me happy and made me crave for more. It was that which made me want to give him everything and more to make him happy, and still feel that I hadn’t given enough. And yes, it was the same thing which macerated my heart to bits at the touch of betrayal.

 

Passion. How wonderful when it fires you up to do good, to do better, or when it simply brightens up your day. As much as it vexes you when a patient takes his pains out on you, or when it rains on your only day at the beach, or when the passenger beside you on the bus to see your niece doesn’t respect your personal space, I go on feeling passionate about my work, about finding myself in a place where I can relax, about the people I love.

 

For a time, I told myself that on the matter of love I would remain cold and detached, as I had grown afraid to give my all and get disappointed again. But then I’ve realized that that is the notion of a coward, and well, I admit that I’ve gotten tired of not having someone to feel passionate about. And so, as painful as it is to have your heart broken, I realize that I would rather get hurt and yet feel passion and be alive, than to keep myself protected and remain cold and dead.

 

In “Like Water for Chocolate,” Laura Esquivel tells of how passion is like a box of matches. In order to maintain passion, a match must be lit only one at a time, as lighting too much would burn the passion out too easily. On the other hand, the matches must be kept dry in order to stay viable, so one must steer clear of people who would dampen your passion.

 

The book ends with the main characters, Pedro and Tita, passing on to the next life while in the throes of a passion so intense that it led to their ranch burning down. That’s magic realism for you, but it does have an appeal.

 

I do not desire that much passion—haven’t I learned enough from my last relationship? But I do wish to be able to light a match again, and for the right person. The next time around I won’t light too much, and I will make sure that I will be lighting them for someone who will be lighting his at par with mine. And, yes, it would have to be someone who will take care not to dampen my matches.

 

Passion. That which gives you a sense of purpose, a reason to want to be better, something to look forward to. As much as I know that it can hurt you worse the more you feel it, and as much as I know that it’s not meant to last, I just want to live again.

Où es-tu, mon Nino Quincompoix?

Je veux tomber amoureux encore. Mais, j'ai peur être blessé, perdre le contrôle.

Je veux tomber amoureux encore, mais je veux un homme seulement. C'est mon Nino Quincompoix.

Je suis mort, et je veux vivre encore. Je veux avoir quelqu'un--quelqu'un pour m'aimer, quelqu'un à aimer. Quelqu'un pour avoir la passion pour moi, quelqu'un pour que qui ait la passion.

Mais, je demande trop.

Nino Quincompoix, existes-tu?

I just kinda missed answering these surveys. haha.

1. Where were you when it turned 2007?
> chez moi avec ma famille.

2. How did you get the idea for your
friendster name?
> it's just plain old weena.

3. What song are you listening to
right now?
> following by chungking

4. Has the death of a celebrity ever
made you cry?
> not that i can recall.

5. What color of shorts are you
wearing?
> i'm wearing blue sweats right now.

6. Do you talk to your crush?
> you mean dr peter p rivera of neursosurg? yakka! i wish! hahaha.

7. What did you do this morning?
> i picked up my laundry, cooked tikoy and ate it, had a few bonding moments with tannia and ann (love life updates--haha!).

9. What will you do tonight?
> it's wine night tonight!

10. What's your favorite memory from
last weekend?
> last weekend? haha.

11. What are the last two digits of
your mobile number?
> 81

12. What was the last thing you ate?
> tikoy. happy chinese new year.

13. What was last thing you drank?
> water

14. What was the last movie you
watched?
> ghost rider

15.What do you dislike right now?
> i can't think of anything, actually.

16. What food do you crave right now?
> sushi! i'm specifically craving for cuisine's spicy tuna sushi!!!!! ack!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

17. Did you dream last night?
> if i did, i don't recall any of it.

18. What was the last TV show you
watched?
> tv show? that'd be american idol. but the last thing i got to watch on tv was interview with the vampire--it's great seeing such handsome vampires while working out. haha.

19. What is your favorite piece of
jewelry?
> it depends on where i'm going. i'm quite minimalisitic--i tend to stick to only one piece of jewelry at a time (well, except for my watch). for nights out, just big earrings. i might add a dainty necklace/bracelet for more formal or special occasions. but for ordinary days, just my watch.

20. Name someone on your Top Friends
who is just like you?
> N-O-B-O-D-Y.

21. What was the last thing you kept
telling yourself over and over?
> get to work! get to work! get to work!

22. Who last text messaged you?
> sun de guzman. it's his birthday today.

23. Are you on any medication?
> just ferrous sulfate and b complex.

24. What side of the bed do you sleep
on?
> bed? what bed?

25. What color shirt are you wearing?
> a red/black/gray striped shirt

26. What is your favorite frozen treat?
> chocolate new zealand natural ice cream!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! or chocolate fruits in ice cream!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! or chocolate haagen-dazs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

27. How many piercings do you have?
> one for each ear.

28. What's your favorite store/s?
> rustan's. haha. coz it's got almost everything.

29. Are you thirsty right now?
> not really.

30. Who's someone you haven't seen in
a while and miss?
> my mursch!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

31. What did you do last night?
> watched ghost rider with aldrich.

32. Do you care what people think
about you?
> yes, i do. but sometimes when it reaches the point where i know they're thinking wrongly of me and i can't do anything about it, i end up not giving a shitty hoot.

33. Have you ever done something to
investigate trouble?
> the life of a doctor is almost all about investigating trouble. ("where exactly does it hurt? what kind of pain?  grade it from 1-10. since when have you been feeling the pain? yadayada...")

34. When was the last time you worked
out?
> yesterday, while watching brad pitt, tom cruise and antonio banderas playing semi-homosexual vampires.

35. What are your font colors on YM?
> just plain old black. back in college, i used to type in blood red/maroon font because i was the queen of vampires, you see. hahaha! i was such a kid.

36. Where do you live?
> good ol' manila, which i used to hate but which i have come to love (well, except for the sidestreets and the slum areas).

37. Are you aggressive?
> if i'm after something i really want, yes. well, who isn't, anyway?

38. Mobile phone network?
> smart and sun.

41. What is the thing that you would
most like to change about yourself?
> my lack of focus.

42. What size are your feet?
> 5, usually. i'm a 4 at janylin.

44.What is your favorite color?
- nothing in particular. it depends on the season. right now, i'm partial to yellow.

45. Do you like mustard?
> yes, i do. i love it with hotdogs, fries, and burgers.

46. What do you tell people when times
get hard?
> c'est la vie.

47. Would you ever sky dive?
> yes, one of these days.

48. Do you sleep on your side, tummy
or back?
> it depends. when i'm really tired (like when i'm post-duty), i tend to fall on the bed with my face flat on the pillow. on ordinary days/nights and if i've had enough rest, i tend to sleep on my side. rarely, i sleep on my back, like when i'm in a meditating mood.

49. Have you ever bid for something on
eBay?
> nope.

50. Will you stay in the game called
love?
> haha.

Just what is it with men and Dencio’s?

Now, now. Is it just me, or does the affinity Filipino men in general have for Dencio’s Grille compare to the way kids—well, Filipino kids, at least—feel towards Jollibee or McDonald’s? Dencio’s, Gerry’s—it’s all the same, and in my experience the average man will go to whichever is nearby.

 

Just today, I had lunch with my blockmates Gia, Ross, Jun, Don, Noel and Val. Since we went to Mall of Asia, having been let out early for lunch, I figured that the change of scenery would mean trying out a restaurant different from the usual fare we have in the good ol’ Malate area, where the hospital we all work in is located.

 

So when the guys started to gravitate towards Congo Grille and stood outside it looking at its menu, I myself was drawn towards the restaurant in front of it, Tokyo Café. I’ve never tried it before, and I’ve never heard any reviews about it, but the chicken teriyaki salad, shrimp and garlic pasta, and the various crepes they had on display looked awfully tempting.

 

As it was, I was the only one who got tempted. Well, save for Gia, who did say that the crepes looked yummy. But it was a decision that had to be made between 3 girls and 4 guys, and the guys obviously did not find the food Tokyo Café had on display tempting at all. Okay, okay. The "food" may have just been plastic replicas, but they still looked delicious.

 

So I was, like, “I’m fine with whatever.” And the guys were, like, “Okay, let’s look around.” So we looked around, and ended up in, surprise, surprise, Gerry’s Grille.

 

Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against Dencio’s, Gerry’s, or whatever grille whatnots these people can come up with. It’s just that I can’t help but wonder about why men love these grilles so much. Today’s lunch is just one example. And well, I’d have to say that, of the men I’ve dated so far, about 7 in 10 have taken me at least once to a Dencio’s or a Gerry’s. It’s not that I really keep track, and it’s just a rough figure, but you get my drift.

 

Hey, I love barbeque. I love crispy pata. I love grilled squid. I love liempo. And hey, sisig—the all-time guy favorite, a must-have on any meal had at Dencio’s or Gerry’s, and hell, exactly what you smell like when you step out of the grille—well, sisig’s great too.

 

So you see, I’m not really complaining. Well, okay, a little more creativity and variety would be very much appreciated. But as I’ve said, I’m just terribly curious. Sure, I’ve asked a few guys. But to tell me that they go for Dencio’s or Gerry’s simply because they like the food… no, that answer doesn’t satisfy me at all.

 

But then again, this could just be a classic example of a female trying to pick at the male’s brain. If that were the case, then I’d just have to tell myself to move on. The male is a simple animal, everybody knows that, and we complicated females just have to take them as they present themselves.

 

They say that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Isn’t it funny then, that the ones who got to the average Filipino man’s stomach were men named Dencio and Gerry?

 

 

I am weak.

Yes, I am.

I may give off the impression that I am tough and strong, and I may intimidate a lot of people and scare them off. I may appear level-headed and in control. I may seem like the type of person you wouldn't want to mess with.

But in truth, I am weak. I crumble in the face of stress, and I cry my eyes out in my room when my sense of internal balance is threatened. I rely on my dad and my sisters and certain friends to cheer me up and urge me on when I'm down. I find it hard to say no when it is time to be firm. Sometimes I hold on when it is time to detach.

But you see, I try, I try very hard to be strong. I may be lucky to have good social support, but I know that the strength to keep me going will have to come from within me. There is no one better to be strong for me, than I myself.

It is hard, being strong. Trying to be strong.

So you see, I may be weak, but I am trying the hardest I can to be strong, to detach, to be in control not just of myself but of the situations I get myself into. I can tolerate having friends and family who rely on me for strength. But I have no room in my life for a partner who is weak.

I am already weak to begin with, so I do not want someone weaker. I want someone with the same zeal towards strength, someone who can detach as I want myself to, someone who can be in control not just of himself but also of the situations he gets into.

I do not want someone who will hamper me from gaining the strength I so desire for myself. Rather, I want someone who knows his priorities and his goals in life and is strong enough to work towards them, someone who knows how to weed out distractions and focus on what is fundamental, someone who can help me focus on what is fundamental.

So yes, if you are weak, if you will only weigh me down, get out of my life. I have no room in my life for you.

Je suis célibataire, mon cul!

Je l'aime, mais il blesse. Mon cul!

Je l'aime terriblement. Et il m'aime beaucoup, beaucoup davantage. Il est le seul qui peut être patient avec moi. Il me comprend. Il m'accepte pour qui je suis. Il est disposé à faire n'importe quoi pour moi.

Il est l'amour de ma vie! Et je suis à lui. Elle blesse terriblement, pour moi et pour lui, seulement parce que je suis très égoïste. Je me deteste terriblement, parce que je suis très égoïste. Ah, je me deteste!

Zut! Je suppose que je suis censé pour être seul pour le reste de ma vie.

Je suis très confus!

The hardest lessons I've been learning this summer.

I am beginning to get convinced that 2006 may not be my year at all. Although it’s not even halfway thru and summer’s barely even over, in the last 2 months I have been subjected to a greater number of unfortunate events than I have ever experienced in my entire lifetime before then.

Last March, I got held up—for the second time, mind you, although this time I had a gun pointed at the back of my head—and lost my phone in the process. Then just this April, I felt for the first time in my life how it is to be treated as a delinquent student. If you’ve been keeping abreast of the happenings in my life via my blogs (funny, but I do get some fan mail, ahehe), I haven’t exactly been a model student this last year. Therefore, the day after I get back home in Manila after my stint here in Singapore, I will have to report back to the Neurosurgical department of my home hospital (PGH) and do a repeat 2-week rotation with them, and I will also have to retake an exam in Pharmacokinetics within a few days of getting back.

Now, if you think I haven’t been subjected to enough stress this summer, you’re right. For some reason, the powers that be don’t think that I deserve to be living the happy, carefree life I have been living and enjoying ever since I arrived here in Singapore 2 weeks ago. Last May 1st, 2 days ago, I was again reminded that life is not all peaches, and I was also forced to learn one of the hardest lesssons I have had to learn.

May 1st being a holiday, my Indonesian roommate, Indra, and I decided to head over to Batam Island in Indonesia where we planned on spending the day at one of the beaches there. Before then I was really looking forward to sunbathing at a beach in a country I’ve never been to, but while waiting to board the ferry which would take us to Batam, I just had this nagging feeling that something bad was going to happen. I mentioned it to Indra and she was, like, “Oh please don’t be like that. You’re scaring me.” Now, even though I tried to assure her that nothing has ever really happened whenever I’d get that disquieting feeling—“Probably just my nerves,” I told her—I myself couldn’t really relax.

Like I said, I’d sometimes get that nagging feeling and nothing always came out of it. It was different this time, however. When we reached Batam and I had to go through immigration, that nagging feeling only proved to be a peephole into another world of unfortunate events, the door of which had been opened for me to have no choice but to go through. Because I was too stupid to bring any identification with me (yes, scoff at me now, will you?), the immigration officer didn’t allow me to go through. It was just my luck, as some friends of mine have been able to enter Batam from Singapore before without being asked for ID. My Indonesian roommate Indra tried to persuade them to let me through, telling them that I was a medical student and there was no chance in hell that I would be staying as an illegal immigrant in Indonesia. But, well, they were just doing their job, and I couldn’t blame them.

What was beyond doing their job, however, was what made the hour-and-a-half long wait for my ferry back home to Singapore the longest hour and a half in my life. Well, ok, I can say that it was comparable to my first hold-up incident. Nonetheless, I felt harassed, terribly harassed, most probably because I was a female all alone in a foreign country (my roommate had already left me alone), and at least one fuggin power-hungry immigration officer couldn’t resist the urge to power-trip with me. There was this one particular officer, whose nameplate read Freddy Redy or some fuggin arse-hole name like that, who kept on sitting on the chair in front of the one I was sitting on and who kept on asking me questions. I kept cool and maintained a nonchalant façade, despite the fact that I would’ve probably peed in my pants (well, my skirt, actually) if I hadn’t peed before my trip to that effin island.

I could understand why he wouldn’t give me my passport until it was time for me to board my ferry. Hell, like I would kill to be an illegal immigrant in Indonesia, but ok, hands down, I guess that’s reasonably part of the whole package of being denied entry into another country. What made me effin pissed was that the few times I asked for my passport, Mr. Fuggin Freddy Redy would sneer at me mockingly and say, “Only at 12 o’clock,” while waving my passport in the air.

Then he’d ask me questions like, “So what’s your nickname?” Hell, like I wanted to make friends with him, but just so I wouldn’t offend him, I said, “Pearl.” “Are you married?” “No.” He looked me up and down. “But you have a boyfriend?” I lied through my teeth, “Yes.” “Where? In Singapore?” It took me a moment to think about an answer, but I ended up saying “No, he’s in the Philippines.” Then, he opened my passport to the page with my picture, ran his fingers over my picture, and said, “You’re very beautiful.” To which I replied, “Putang ina mo!” Haha! No, of course, as much as I wanted to tell him that, I only blurted out those words in my head. On the outside, I acted like I heard that sort of thing all the time.

Then he asked, “Why you look so sad?” I just looked at him as if to say, “No, you arse! Can’t you see I’m bursting with ecstasy at being denied entry to your country, getting my hopes up of being tanned at the end of the day, being harassed by an arse like you, and wasting 30 dollars which I could’ve otherwise used to buy the pumps I’ve been eyeing at Charles and Keith or the bikini I saw just this morning or even gifts for taking home to my family?” But again, instead of risking incurring the wrath of this immigration god-wannabe, I only said, “No, I’m just disappointed.” “Oh, you’re disappointed!” Disappointed. He relished the word as if it was the most exciting thing he’d heard all morning.

Then he left me alone for a good 45 minutes, during which time I prayed the hardest that I could, while trying to stay alert as my imagination was starting to run wild and I was beginning to fear that terrorists would suddenly appear and take the whole ferry terminal hostage. I thought of my dad, and how I regretted not telling him about my plans to go to Batam even though we were chatting just the day before. If I had told him, he would have given me all the reminders which I would probably be too proud and know-it-all to hear. In spite of that, I would probably have thought of packing all my IDs and other documents, which would have prevented this incident from happening in the first place.  More so, I regretted not telling him where I was planning on going because if anything ever happened to me then, then he wouldn’t have an idea where I was and he would go crazy worrying about me and he definitely doesn’t deserve that kind of stress from me.

Later on, Mr. Fuggin Freddy Redy, in his good-heartedness, came and sat again on the chair in front of mine and said, “Don’t be sad. I sing for you. What song you want me to sing? C’mon, I entertain you.” Then he mentioned the title of some love song—I can’t remember what it was, but it was in the likes of Celine Dion or something like that. I said, thanks, but no, you don’t have to sing for me. Then he said, “You want to come back to Indonesia? Come back tomorrow, and I will help you. Just call me. You want to come back to Indonesia?” Crap. I just said, “Yes, one of these days I will.” “How about tomorrow? Just call me and I’ll help you.” To which I said, “No, all I need are my IDs and documents, right? I shouldn’t have any problems the next time around.” And he was, like, whatever.

When it was finally time to board, he was nowhere in sight and I had to ask another immigration officer to get my passport. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate Indonesia and the Indonesians now. This other immigration officer was pretty nice and very professional, as well as this young immigration officer who told me his wife was a dentist and who lent me a pen and assisted me in filling up my disembarkation card. Moreover, one of the porters of the ferry I rode, when he saw my Philippine passport, asked me, “Pilipino ka?” I was pleasantly surprised and instead of saying, “Obvious ba?” I asked him, “Why? Are you Filipino?” “No, I just have plenty of Filipino friends.” A really nice man.

Well, thankfully for Mr. Fuggin Freddy Redy, his fellow Indonesians reinforced my belief that one cannot always liken a peach with an apple despite their being in the same basket. As with them, there are asshole Filipinos and there are nice Filipinos. And yeah, as much as I have come to love them now, there are also asshole Singaporeans as there are nice Singaporeans.

Unfortunately for me, my string of unfortunate events didn’t end when I boarded the ferry which would take me back home to Singapore. Of course, I was still praying like crazy even while inside the ferry, but when the ferry suddenly stopped in the middle of the ocean, you can just believe me when I say that I felt like I was eviscerated as I imagined men with guns suddenly barging in and telling us that we had been hijacked. Of course, nothing of the sort happened and apparently the ferry only meant to avoid some floating debris.

I was only able to breathe deeply and my adrenaline only started to dip when I coasted through immigration in Singapore with no problems. I then planned on spending the rest of the day on one of the beaches in Sentosa, but I ended up shopping and having to head for home as it was getting late and it would’ve been pointless to try to get a tan at Sentosa. Also, my Uncle Boom, who works with Sony here in Singapore, probably took pity on me and told me to have dinner with him. So naturally I had to go home and change out of the clothes I wore to Batam and out of that harrowing experience.

As luck—or outright stupidity—would have it, I ended up locking myself in my room. That’s when the dam broke. It took a while for me to cry like a baby before I thought of calling the owner of this flat up so he could send someone over to free me.

May 1st of this year was definitely one of the most taxing days of my life, and come dinnertime I ate the most I have ever had in one sitting in months (courtesy of buffet at Uncle Boom’s favorite Indian restaurant).

Now, as I sit here reflecting on all the unfortunate events of which I’ve seemingly had more than my fair share, I tell myself that it’s not all that bad. Ok, admittedly, if I could go back in time to prevent those things from happening, I would. But things happen for a reason, and they always lead to better things at some point or another.

Besides, I always tell myself, it could always get worse. In the case of my second hold-up incident, I also had with me then my passport, plane tickets and a few thousands of pesos. Luckily for me, the fuggin good-for-nothing hold-uppers only asked for my phone. In the case of me having to repeat neurosurg and retaking my pharm exam, well, I’m just thankful that they’re not flat out flunking me. And I can only just imagine how much worse a scrape I would’ve been in last May 1st.

As I said, these things happen for a reason, and if these things don’t kill you, they’re supposed to make you stronger. Believe me, the summer’s just barely past halfway over and yet I already feel exhausted. I just console myself with the thought that there are a lot of things to be learned, and little by little, my supersaturated brain is taking them all up.

This Saturday, I will be traveling to Malacca, Malaysia with some friends. This time, I’m bringing all the effin identification I can stuff into my bag. And well, just now, my roommate told me to be careful over there, as several weeks ago a woman’s face was slashed open by terrorists in that area. Dumbledoo.

My friend Tannia says that things like this come in threes, and she chalks up her belief in this to her own experiences and her mom’s. But one thing I do know with these unfortunate events—either they’re totally preventable, or they’re totally out of your control. My repeat neurosurg rotation and pharm exam, as well as the incident in Batam and my locking myself up in my room, they fall under the forner category. The thing with the terrorists in Malacca, well, that sort of thing I’ll just leave up to God.

Some deep survey.

Do you like yourself?
>>right now, no.

Do you love yourself?
>>yes, way too much.

Are you happy with your life?
>>yes

Why (or why not)?
>>because i've got people who love me and care for me, and i've still got a chance to repay them for everything they've sacrificed for me

If u had 3 wishes but each took 3 years off ur
life, what would u wish for?
>>first, that i be a successful doctor whom my dad and the rest of my family can be proud of. second, that my mursch will grow up to be a happy, well-bred, and successful woman. third, either that the philippines will finally get out of the shitty rut that it is in or that i can get my family out of it.

What makes you happy?
>>simply being with my mursch makes me happy. seeing my dad happy makes me happy. making my elders beam with pride and achievement at my achievements makes me happy. being pleasantly surprised makes me happy (like, yeah). receiving flowers, chocolates, getting spoiled from time to time. staying at the beach and hearing the waves crashing on the beach. accomplishing previously set goals. dancing to trance til the wee hours of the morning amidst laser lights playing around, making you feel high without the drugs and with only a little alcohol. getting a good bargain--i got a decent $1 beach blouse the other day! yeeha!

Who, or what would you risk your life for?
>>my family, especially my dad, my mursch, my sisters, my grandparents, my mom. rodex.

PICK ONE
living alone with tons of money or living with
your soul mate in a shelter?
>>pucha!

losing the love of your life, or never finding
them at all?
>>losing the love of your life. better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all. haha!

saying something u regret, or saying nothing and
regretting it?
>>saying nothing and regretting it. speak when you're angry, and you'll make the biggest speech you'll ever regret. that's one thing i've been trying to incorporate into my temperamental persona.

Keeping a harmful secret or spilling it and
hurting someone u care about?
>>if it's a secret worth keeping, i'd go for keeping it.

God or no God?
>>GOD.

Perfect no strings attatched sex or perfect
abstinent relationship?
>>perfect abstinent relationship.

Ignoble.

Je suis sur le point de perdre mon meilleur ami, le seul que j'ai ai jamais aimé. Je suis beaucoup trop égoïste ai laissé aller. Je suis beaucoup trop égoïste pour rester avec lui, aussi bien. Pour le ce, je me déteste. Je me déteste à l'os.

Oh, je me déteste. Je suis très, très fatigué.

Tuez-moi, s'il vous plait.

Je ne veux le blesser plus.

That senior high school survey. Haha. Been a long time...

Year: 1998-1999

1. Who was your (best) friend(s)?
** my pretty friends--the pretties! hehe.

2. What sports did you play?
** volleyball.

3. what kind of car did you drive?
** none.

4. It's Friday night, where were you?
** haha. you're looking at a sheltered girl here! i hardly went out.

5. Were you a party animal?
** ok, i didn't always go to parties, but hell, i was usually an animal at parties. ask chummy.

7. Ever skip school?
** everyday, during english class in senior year. english always was my favorite subject, but my teacher then wasn't exactly my best friend. ok, i didn't exactly skip school. i would just head on down to the staff room (i was features editor of our school paper) whenever english time came around.

8. Ever smoke?
** no, but i can tell you that i tried it during 5th grade and i didn't like.

9. Were you a nerd?
** no. strangely, i wasn't. i studied a little, but i never cared about grades. that's weird, coz i suddenly turned nerdy in college.

10. Did you get suspended/expelled?
** no, but i once got called to the principal's office for writing a controversial editorial.

11. Can you sing the alma mater?
** no.

12. Who was your favorite teacher?
** geez, i hardly remember their names. has it been that long? i do remember ms gapas, who was my english teacher (and my favorite) back in freshman year.

13. Favorite class?
** FRENCH!!!!!!!!!! english class would've been too, if not for the reason cited earlier. and yeah, i did love advanced chem class back in senior year. and ok, journalism too, coz i always used it as an excuse to cut class. hehe.

14. What was your school's full name?
** quezon city science high school. eep!

15. School mascot?
** haha.

16. Did you go to Prom?
** hell yeah.

17. If you could go back and do it over, would you?
** no. i would now prefer to attend a formal ball with more mature classmates. haha.

18. What do you remember most about graduation?
** that it was hot (my school is weird, they always hold graduation in the morning) and there was a lot of picture-taking.

19. Favorite memory of your Senior Year?
** jamming with my bandmates. competing and winning in press cons (journalism contests).

20. Were you ever posted up on the senior wall?
** there was no senior wall.

21. Did you have a job during senior year?
** not exactly. i did write application essays (for ateneo) for a fee. ack!

22. Who did you date?
** no one. no one worth dating then.

23. Where did you go most for lunch?
** we weren't allowed to go out for lunch back then. but i do remember that whenever my maternal grandparents would visit me at school, we always ate at max's.

24. Have you gained weight since then?
** haha. nope.

25. Where did you go after Graduation?
** lunch with the family, my favorite part of which was listening to my dad and my maternal grandparents talking about my college plan. see, my grandparents got me and my sisters college plans probably as soon as we were born. of course, my dad felt that it was his responsibility to finance my education. so it was decided that i would get a certain amount from my college plan every semester, which of course i just spent on shopping. crazy girl.

26. did you have a crush on anyone?
** of course i did. looking back, i realize i had the weirdest taste.

27. what was your "label"?
** snow white. hahaha. my sisters would scoff at this, definitely. i'm the darkest of us three. but really, i was called the snow white of the class. look at my yearbook.

28. what were you voted?
** let's see... i was secretary of ingay xientia, the band club. haha. i was also auditor of the english club, and secretary of the zonta club. those were the stuff i was voted for. that's aside from my job as features editor of the school paper. haha.

29. Did you lose contact with anyone you wish you
hadn't?
** no.

30. what was your favorite band?
** senior year? i can't just isolate my band choices to senior year... so, aside from peach powder (my band, haha! the name was simone's idea), my favorites back in high school were live (wasn't a big fan of their 2nd album, though), rage against the machine, garbage, bush, smashing pumpkins, alanis morissette (again, not a fan of her sophomore album, which technically isn't her second as she released an album in canada even before "jagged little pill"), kula shaker, and of course, the beatles.

tiptop, tiptop, tiptop. survey.

1. Have you ever been searched by the cops?
* hell, no.

2. Do you close your eyes on roller coasters?
* ahehe. yes, i do half the time i'm on one.

3. When's the last time you've been sledding?
* bugger. i've never tried sledding.

4. Would you rather sleep with someone else, or
alone?
* i'd rather sleep alone. most of the time.

5. Do you believe in ghosts?
* i do now. crap.

6. Do you consider yourself creative?
* yes. in so many ways. haha.

7. Do you think O.J. killed his wife?
* i need to study his case before deciding on anything.

8. Jennifer Aniston or Angelina Jolie?
* do i have to choose. i like em both.

9. Can you honestly say you know ANYTHING
about politics?
* i honestly don't give a hoot about politics.

10. Do you know how to play poker?
* yeah. i gotta work on my technique, though. i always lose a lot when i play. darn i hate gambling!

11. Have you ever been awake for 48 hours
straight?
* hell yeah. i can't believe i used to be able to do it back in high school and college, when i can't even go for more than 24 hours without sleep now that i'm in med school.

12. What's your favorite commercial?
* hmm... i'd say the bailey's commercial.

15. Do you have a secret that no one knows but
you?
* haha

16. Have you ever been Ice Skating?
* no. i'm such a wimp.

17. Boston Red Sox or New York Yankees?
* i'm not really into baseball.

18. How often do you remember your dreams?
* often enough. some of them have inspired stories.

19. When was the last time you laughed so hard
youve cried?
* hmmm... seems like such a long time ago.

20. Can you name 5 songs by The Beatles?
* she loves you. michelle. let it be. hey jude. strawberry fields. it's the beatles, man! who can't possibly not be able to name 5 songs by the beatles?!

21. What's the one thing on your mind?
* right now, finding a place in s'pore.

22. Do you believe in love at first sight?
* no. that's silly.

23. Do you know who Ba-Ba-Booey is?
* hahaha! no, and i don't want to.

25. What talent do you wish you had?
* i wish i could swim from one island to another.

26. Do you like sushi?
* oh you betcha!!!

27. Have you ever narrowly avoided a fatal
accident?
* not yet. never, i hope.

28. What do you wear to bed?
* pj's, most of the time.

29. Have you ever been caught stealing?
* nope, coz i've never stolen anything. well, except for this one time when i was in kindergarten. i "stole" a piece of cassava suman from the breakfast basket in school. i wanted to bring something home for my sisters, and my parents never gave me pocket money when i was in pre-school. apparently, all the food in the breakfast basket they'd be bringing out every morning was part of our tuition. i never knew, and i still feel bad over wasting something my parents had spent for.

30. Does size matter?
* most of the time, yeah. crap.

31. Do you truly hate anyone?
* no.

32. Rock or Rap?
* tough one. but i'd say rock. hahaha! remember back in the 90s when there was this rockers-vs-hiphoppers shit? i was a "rocker"! ahahaha.

34. Do you know anyone in jail?
* no, thank God. well, my dad at one point said that if i kept at my spending habits, then he would end up in jail.

35. Have you ever sang in front of the mirror?
* no, not really.

37. What food do you find disgusting?
* how about lizard meat?

38. Did you ever play, "I'll show you mine, if you
show me yours"?
* no. hahaha!

39. Have you ever made fun of your friends behind
their back?
* not exactly. you know, sometimes you and your friends get together and go, "hey, did you hear about what blah just did? it's the craziest thing in the world!!! blah blah." but all in good fun.

blah blah survey

1.Are u photogenic ?
> yes. ahehe. ok, not really.

2. What time do you go to bed ?
> it varies. i really wish i could go for 48 hours without it and still be functional, though.

3. What was the last thing you did before this ?
> search the net for lodging in singapore. (someone please help me find a room/bed space close to SGH which i can rent for one month from april 14-may 14 for 300-400SGD!!!)

4.Who's the one you always meet the most ?
> lately? the ghost of my deliquent past. haha!

5. Who's the person you'll call if you need
> need what? most probably my dad.

6. What's on your mind right now ?
> the ghost of my deliquent past. hell, i can't wait to get rid of ya!

7. What do you prefer?american idol/malaysian
idol?
> i never knew malaysian idol existed. american idol, of course! go elliot!

8. With whom do you wanna have fun with?
> grammar correction: "with whom do you wanna have fun?" right now, i'm in no mood for fun.

9. What movie do u wanna watch now?
> da vinci code. wanna see if it'll live up to my expectations.

10. When was the last time you