hallo-vember

Okey, so this is like... one week late?

But since it's still November, I still want to post this here. If only because it's not a very common site in the Philippines, where instead of Halloween we have Tingkalalag, which means Time of Souls.

So, BOOOOO!!

Kalabasa with lights

yes, here it is

The blurb inside the ice cream tub cover says:

"One bite of our Macaroons and we're confident you'll agree they're one of the best. Moist and very chewy, they're made with lightly sweetened milk and mixed in with tender grated coconut shreds oven-baked to perfection. Scattered in a light , buttery classic vanilla ice cream, and swirled with rich caramel fudge, Macaroons in Vanilla ice cream is a combination that's classic and romantic.

We put our ideas where our taste buds lie. That's why at Selecta, we are committed to bring you an exceptional ice cream experience. We lavishly use only the finest milk, chocolates, nuts, and the choicest fruits that nature has to offer. This ice cream is made exclusively for your pleasure, from source to scoop. Created with so much passion, you can taste it.

This paper lining assures you of ice cream that is safely packed and handled with care. Enjoy!"

Wow. I think this is the first time I've actually read what's written on the paper covering the ice cream in the container. As I keep saying, I'm not much of an ice cream person. That's why I'm wondering why I have vivid mind images involving ice cream.

Like:

Driving out to Blue Bell Creameries in Brenham, Texas, in a van full of assorted relatives, having our picnic lunch in somebody's driveway, then laying down among the bluebonnets blooming on the hillsides, to have our pictures taken.

Savoring the absolutely fabulous three-layered chocolate parfait at the Broadway Centrum, in Quezon City, just a few minutes away from my post-grad dormitory.

Eating ice cream with peanut butter at the Insular Hotel in Dumaguete with someone who doesn't even remember that memory.

vanilla and macaroons, by Selecta

I am a cake lover and not an ice cream girl, meaning I can skip a meal just to eat cake and I can be perfectly happy not eating ice cream for a year. Until last Monday, at Jean's birthday dinner, where for dessert we had Selecta's latest flavor, Vanilla and Macaroons. Vanilla is too bland and blah for me, macaroons too oily, but the combination of the two just hit the right spot and I found myself repeatedly digging into the ice cream tub searching for the elusive macaroon, which reminded me of creme brulee and the heavy cheese cupcakes of yore. It was sickeningly sweet, of course, but -_- .

Surfed the net for a pic of this sugar spiking concoction but could not find one! Darn, I so wanted for you to see a picture of it. Now I have no other choice but to get a tub myself, for documentation purposes. ::slurp::

miss Dumaguete?

Found a great blog about Dumaguete:

My University Town Blog

Ellen's Angel

This is a blurry celfone photo of my helper Ellen's baby girl, Angel, born by Caesarian section last October 11, while I was in Manila. Arrghh. I promised Ellen I would be with her when she gave birth but I wasn't able to keep that promise because her CS was an emergency one for fetal distress.

Gladly, both mother and baby are ok now, 'home' already and getting used to their new life. However, their new 'home' is in Bacong and not with me in Bagacay, so I don't get to play grandma as I thought I would.

cute little Angel sleeping

Buglasan 2009

It's the last day of the Negros Oriental Buglasan Festival 2009 and we're going to the boulevard to see the fireworks! Yey!!

Some links:

Buglasan 2009 Hush

Buglasan pics by The Scalpel Master

Street dancing by Revenui

Hello!

Surprise! I'm back, writing again, after a week of wandering in the limbo land of the plants and zombies. (I am getting very good at that game, heheh.) It's sem break in Silliman so the teachers and students are all in zombie mode. Relaaaax our brains, that's our motto during this three-week-vacation time, of which only one week is left. -_-

So what will I write about?

First, there's the swimming update. For several weeks now, since I started using the kickboard, there has been that element of dread each time I go to the pool. This is because swimming using legs only is superlatively tiresome for me. I could not finish the 50 meter pool length without one or two rests midpool. It has been so freakingly frustrating not to have the lung power, energy and leg muscle strength to finish even just one continuous lap.

Then one day this week, it so happened that Coach Meriam was swimming also, and she casually mentioned to me that the secret to finishing the lap is just to relax. In fact she swam with me (very slowly for her) as I kicked my way all the way from one end of the pool to the other, for the first time ever. I was ecstatic! It's really doable diay. Relax, relax, relax is my mantra now.

Second thing to write about... oh, that will be for tomorrow.

i once wuz here

This is one of the classrooms on the second floor of Palma Hall at UP Diliman, where we had a conference over the weekend.

I felt like a ghost revisiting a fave old haunt, knowing full well that I can't go back to that time and place, yet wishing so anyway.

lost driver's license?

Something good has been going on at the local LTO (Land Transportation Office) lately: one can actually get a replacement for a lost driver's license in just one hour!

I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't experienced it first hand yesterday. Where before any LTO transaction was fraught with red tape, muddled instructions and a generally primitive operating system, these days the LTO has upgraded and digitized marvelously.

When I renewed my driver's license a couple of years ago, I had to carry in my wallet this little paper that said "all paid up but card license will arrive from Manila in a few months" or something to that effect. The few months turned out to be several months because my new license somehow traveled all the way to LTO Bayawan (probably because I have lots of relatives with the same family name there) before finally coming back to me in Dumaguete.

So last Monday, when I realized that my driver's license was missing, I was already dreading the rigmarole of getting a replacement. The last time I saw my license was at the Cebu Pacific check in counter at the NAIA Terminal 2 in Manila on my trip back to Dumaguete. By the time I realized that my license was not in my purse, we were about to board the aircraft and there was no more time to go back to all the places at the airport that I went to. The next day, I asked my cousin Ivy, who was flying to Manila, to please check with the Cebu Pacific Info Desk in case my license turned up somewhere, but alas it was to no avail.

Left with no choice and afraid to drive without a license, I immediately went to LTO Dumaguete to report the loss. As in most establishments in the Philippines, the security guards also double as Customer Service/Information Personnel. "I lost my license... what to do?" I asked the guard. He said get these: (1) Affidavit of Loss from the Public Attorney's Office (PAO) at the Hall of Justice, (2)photocopy of my Taxpayer Identification Number and (3) photocopy of my birth certificate.

What he didn't tell me was that details (ID number, expiration date, etc) about the lost driver's license were necessary for the Affidavit of Loss to be made. Good thing I had a photocopy of that driver's license but it was at home so I had to go home again to get that. All that data was actually in the LTO computer, retrievable in a couple of mouse clicks. But, the computers were off-line at that time (a not-so-unusual occurence in Dumaguete), so that was a no go.

Getting the Affidavit of Loss from the PAO was a breeze, done in 30 minutes, free of charge. Armed with the affidavit, photocopy of my TIN and my birth certificate, I went back to the helpful security guard who now pointed me to the correct windows to begin my transactions. Filled up the application form, posed in front of the camera that took my picture, affixed my (digital) signature to my picture, paid 479.63 pesos at Window 5, sat in a chair and waited (while they were checking their files for any untoward reports regarding my license) for about 35 minutes, then voila! My new driver's license was ready! I think that was incredibly fast!

That's why I want to thank and congratulate whoever thought up this simplified and efficient way of replacing lost licenses. The LTO is no longer a dreaded place to go to.

lovely family

My dear friends Erlyn, Atit and their children: Gabby, Kurt and Kyle, before the boys had their hair cut.

manila group

As serendipity would have it, Batch 78 Manila group had a tapok while I was in Manila last week. Here we are all warmified in the photo, even as Evalyn and I were shivering in the centralized airconditioned home of Atit and Erlyn.

From left to right: Evalyn, Sheila F., ako, Judge Bel, Erlyn, Justice Atit, Rolito and Alan D.



Not in the pic are: Hya, because she has moved to Dumaguete (!), Mitch, kay latecomer, and Leouel, kay stranded somewhere in the highlands of Northern Luzon. Leouel was supposed to treat the batch at The Fort, but everybody thought that was too far away in Taguig, so the new venue was Atit and Erlyn's place in Quezon City. Which was just as well, because all roads from the mountainous north were impassable due to rains and landslides, and we would have washed dishes in upscale The Fort since our sponsor couldn't make it.

This was our sinfully scrumptious menu: sisig (this was the second time I had sisig in a cardiologist's home. the first was at Silai's house. is sisig now cardiologically approved? hehe), kinilaw na bangus (I loved this!!), talong salad, steamed tilapia, pork something (I didn't eat this), sinigang ba baboy (I ate the kangkong leaves only) and pork barbeque. (I am also wondering why we had all that pork.)

For dessert we had caramelized saba banana (banana que gud), mixed nuts with dates (gailog mi ni Mitch sa dates), cassava pudding, assorted pastries, AND turns at their electric massage chair! Half the group had karaoke singing at their music room while the other half stayed downstairs for some serious catching up chika.

Overall: Great company and food! Glad I was able to attend. Thank you, Manila Group!

F4

Even as the country reels again from another typhoon, other kinds of Floods are happening as well.

F1: Flood of donations from generous groups and individuals

F2: Flood of rebuilding and repair efforts for those affected by Ondoy and Pepeng

F3: Flood of plastic, by Miriam Coronel Ferrer, a comtemporary in UP

F4: Flood of memories as I walk thru the hills and halls of the UP Diliman campus

staghorn calculi

(Warning: some blood and tissue here.)

A staghorn calculus is not a deer doing advanced mathematics. Rather, it is a stone (or stones) thats form inside the kidney and over the years, takes on the shape of the renal calyces of the kidney, hence the name.

This x-ray (copied from the Diagnostic Radiology of Houston, Texas) shows a staghorn calculus on the left kidney. Notice the stone's resemblance to the antlers of a stag or deer.



This here below is the surgeon removing part of the staghorn (golden brown, center) from the now open kidney, which was markedly enlarged and filled with pus.




We tried to save the kidney and just remove all the stones but in the end we opted to do a nephrectomy instead as leaving it in would probably do more harm than good as it was infected and already severely deformed structurally and most probably functionally as well.

open kidney and staghorn calculi, separated after many, many years

dgte food goes a long way

At this rate, it won't be long before I get really fat.

Last night we were at Nerisse to savor their delish kare-kare and bagoong. With plenty of rice, of course.

And tonight we were at Ka Waway and had one plate of sizzling sisig. Each. The sisig was so spicy hot, a lot of rice was needed to balance the taste. Of course. ;p

So tomorrow, I need to do many pool laps. Some of those laps will be agonizing ones, holding on to a kickboard to make my leg muscles stronger. Agonizing because it is very, very kapoy to swim using ones legs only.

Here, see my very own brand-new kickboard. Between the Spiderman and the Dora the Adventurer designs, it wasn't a difficult decision at all. Besides, when I'm all out of breath and want to quit, I tell myself, persevere and one day you might actually get to swim with the honu in the crystal waters of...

moving UP!

Yup, I'll be moving to UP Diliman this coming Friday, but only for a weekend conference.

Everytime I go to Manila, visiting the old Diliman campus is a must on the really-want-to-do list. And if time permits, I indulge and savor walking thru the Silliman-like grounds, reminiscing the past with nostalgia, as old people are wont to do.

That is why I was quite ecstatic when I learned that the venue for this conference would be UP Diliman and not the usual UP PGH or UP Manila or some other hospital or hotel setting. I would love to sleep in-campus and wake up in-campus again!