Top Less

I've been Top-Less for more than a week now.

Well, actually that should be LapTop-Less for more than a week now because I left my computer at the computer shop Wednesday last week yet, on the morning before we left for Manila. But incredibly, until today, more than a week later, my laptop is still not fixed yet. Grrr.

So I'm just posting from the kids' computer, which is not very conducive to writing because they're always breathing down my neck, waiting for me to go get up and let them do their facebook and gaming stuff.

So I'll be off now. Ciao!

biggest delegation

Leaving for Manila today with 19 medical students(!) and some faculty members to attend the annual medical schools' convention, this time to be held at my alma mater, UERMMMC. I have a feeling we are going to be the biggest delegation this year. Go SUMS!

01-11-10

the newlywed's first dance

A week ago to be exact, on January 11, 2010, our surgery resident Herbert Rebaya and his long time sweetheart, our former student nurse, Louella Mendoza, wed in a love-filled ceremony and reception at El Pueblo Genovivo.

H and L

Avatar, Again!!

To prove that I really, really liked that Avatar movie, I watched it again today, yey!!

With my parents and nephew, three generations kami didto.

drama moments

I just got home from our OR OUTing at Robinsons where we had a gulped-down lunch of finger-lickin'-good KFC chicken and where someone (who will remain nameless) said, "This mushroom soup tastes different" before he found out that it was the gravy he was scooping up!! Heheheh. Gulped-down because we wanted to catch the first showing of Avatar at 11:25 am. It was quite funny eating with someone counting down the minutes before showtime. We have fifteen minutes. Five minutes now. Three minutes. Can't we ask them to hold the start for a while coz we have to pabalot our left-overs pa? We were all tickled because we are used to countdowns at the OR, for example after giving succinylcholine, we ask the nurses to time us 60-75 seconds before we intubate the patient.

So after all the doggy-bags (and non-doggy-bags) were packed and sealed AND left at the KFC counter for pick up after the movie (where else but in Dumaguete can you do that?), we all trooped to the cinemas where we oohhhd and aahhhd at the niceness of the comfort rooms and the moviehouse. Wow! Even better than some Manila or Cebu theaters!

It was the first time for some of us to be inside the Robinsons cinemas and some of us did not know that there were armrests in between seats. So we were like promdis in the city, getting to know a mod place for the first time.

And when the movie was shown, I almost cried but choked back my tears, twice. First, for the beauty of the movie: the story, the animation, the imagination, the creativity. I think the characters were very engaging and there were moments when I could relate to their emotions. In Visayan, nadala jud ko sa ilang gibati. And second, I think it was just wonderful to be watching an outstanding movie in the company of my beloved coworkers, the awesome Dr. PPA and Dr. JAO, who are not only excellent, excellent practitioners but persons with such big hearts and gracious spirits I feel so privileged to be working with them. It was our treat actually for the OR staff, the feisty and very efficient workers who make our professional lives so much easier.

After the movie we had big cobs of sweet corn (from a stall on the second floor near the food court) to cap what we hope to be the start of more OR OUTings to come.

O.R. and OUT!

Needless to say, the Operating Room (O.R.) is a very high-tension place. Many of the things that happen there are acutely, and literally, a matter of life and death. Oftentimes, energies are in high gear, movements are very precise and well-coordinated, sequential events anticipated, instruments snapped smartly, equipment humming smoothly. Sometimes things can get harried, and a lot of things fly: sharp commands, instruments, tempers, assorted tissues and fluids. Those are really trying times that leave everybody spent and exhausted afterwards.

That is perhaps why the Operating Room is also one of the liveliest places in the hospital, where jokes, stories and food abound, to somehow lighten the gravity of the situations and conditions presented by each case. The OR workers need to chill and have some R and R!

So tomorrow, the OR people are going on an OUTing! To Robinsons Place, Dumaguete, to eat Kentucky Fried Chicken and anagon and then to watch Avatar. Yoohoo!

8 years

It's been eight years today since our dear Lola Agre passed on.

hand, full of flowers

This new morning of this new year of this new decade, I find my hands full. Of flowers. From our yard. From the the manicurista who painstakingly drew tiny white petals with a pink center dot on each and every nail of my middle-aged hands.

Such delicate skill. Such intricate artistry, from the human and the heavenly. Such is the mystery of the precious moments we hold in the palms of our hands.

a Merry Christmas...

is hard to have when...

a mother of ten suddenly finds that the new growth in her belly is not baby number eleven but a vicious, monstrous tumor.

a ten year old boy collapses and goes into coma when a blood vessel ruptures in his brain.

a newly-wed couple learns that what was originally thought to be a benign cyst in the wife's ovary turns out to be malignant.

the brother of my dear classmate passes away on the day after Christmas.

the two-year-old baby of a dear friend is diagnosed to have nephrotic syndrome.

the relatives of a middle aged man sign a do-not-resuscitate order for their beloved who is suffering from terminal illness.

the list goes on and on..

year ending

The year is almost ending and incredibly there's a tremendous backlog of things that need-to-be-done-but-have-not-been. Foremost of which is writing, as there have been a handful of things I really wanted to write about-but-haven't.

Secondmost of which is to really, really clean up my room (and house, why not?).

Thirdmost of which is to finish wrapping the gifts scattered in my bedroom. I've been pretty lazy this season in terms of gift-wrapping and gift-giving, being preoccupied with other stuff and all.

Down the list of -most to do is to ponder why my attitude towards Christmas has drastically changed these past couple of years. Getting too old perhaps? I am secretly dreading having to say Merry Christmas to anyone, feeling it to be such a shallow and false greeting, but I actually hear myself saying it without meaning it. Hmmm.

Merry Christmas?

It's kinda hard to be jolly when somebody filched my precious Nokia phone this afternoon at Lee Plaza. It's not just that the phone was expensive, I had pictures and important text messages there.

Bummer.

And Patrick lost his wallet, with all his IDs and ATM cards, perhaps in the bus, on his way from Cebu to Dumaguete tonight.

Arrgghh.

Then my car's thermostat went way, way up with matching smoke coming out of the hood.

-_-

finally, the grassy pics!

here we are!
i'm in the apple green grass skirt, Agong is wearing a blue g.s. while Nini has an orange g.s. Behind Nini, is Connie, in a darker orange g.s.
wheeee!!!


ito pa.
di ba bongga?!
heehee

(more later)

grass on grass

When I was a child, I secretly envied my cousins and friends who went to dancing lessons, mostly because I wanted to wear the fancy dance costumes. But such luxuries were way out of budget for us so I buried my nose in reading free books instead.

Fast forward many years later, when one December afternoon Dr. GCA tells me, "We're going to practice our Hawaiian dance at 5 pm, why don't you join us? Hawaiian is the theme for our hospital Christmas party this year." Huh was the only word I got in before GCA said the magic word, "We're going to wear grass skirts." It didn't take two seconds for me to jump right in. "Ay, moapil ko ana! I want to wear a grass skirt."

And so for the last two weeks, every evening after work, the second floor female consultants have been sweating it out at the Cunningham Hall, "perfecting" our Tahitian/Hawaii-Five-O, as well as our 'exit' steps. Even if our middle-aged bodies are a tad too stiff for the rigors of Tahitian shivers, we went at 'em with gusto and determination befitting our status as consultants and therefore leaders in things noble, healthful, not-naughty and nice.

I have to express my admiration for Dr. Anne Bernadas, our creative instructor and patient integrator of all the suggestions/critiques/bright ideas of her feisty dancers who are so used to giving orders they cannot help but want to "co-manage" the choreography as well.

This here below is My Grass Skirt, laid out on the grass on our front yard, hence the title of this post.

my very own! Aloha!

We are so excited to do our dance number at the SUMCFI Christmas Party at the SU Gym tomorrow. Now... if I can only remember exactly when to shake, bump, turn and pose!

in memoriam

by Alfred Lord Tennyson

I hold it true, whate'er befall;

I feel it when I sorrow most;

'Tis better to have loved and lost

Than never to have loved at all.

Who trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation's final law
Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shriek'd against his creed

So runs my dream, but what am I?

An infant crying in the night

An infant crying for the light

And with no language but a cry.

Are God and Nature then at strife,
That Nature lends such evil dreams?
So careful of the type she seems,
So careless of the single life;

That I, considering everywhere

Her secret meaning in her deeds,

And finding that of fifty seeds

She often brings but one to bear,

I falter where I firmly trod,

And falling with my weight of cares

Upon the great world's altar-stairs

That slope thro' darkness up to God,

I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,

And gather dust and chaff, and call

To what I feel is Lord of all,

And faintly trust the larger hope.

____________________



Remembering one of our own...

Concepcion Jayme-Brizuela,
a Sillimanian (Creative Writing and Journalism, 1975),
one of the victims of the unspeakably heinous Maguindanao massacre.

Atty. Connie Jayme- Brizuela,
Women's rights advocate

duh?!

Reason Number 463 why I've not been writing here a lot:



Ahehehe! Saw this shirt at SM North Edsa last week and just had to take a snapshot of it. Boohoo!