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.