as promised...

You have been warned, this is going to be a trip down memory lane. Especially dedicated to my widening (ang katawan) and wrinkling (ang mukha) yet steadfastly beloved classmates. This movie was painstakingly made by A.C., the teenage daughter of, Jojo G. and his wife, Zeny, who all live in far away Tracy, California.


Painstaking because we were the biggest batch in the history of Silliman University High School, (or so we claim). We were the only batch with six sections (approximately 40 students per section), all the way from A to F. This was always a source of constant jest for us, because those in section F were those who kept Failing in one subject or another. But looking back, 30 years into the future, we're glad we don't go by "sections" anymore, we're just one big happy class.

A little lesson here: being nerdy and "bright" (characterized as being focused on studies and intellectual pursuits, epitomized by being in Section A or B) or being in the "lower sections" (that would be anything other than Section A or B, with special focus on beauty and personality, love lives, brawls and such) in high school was not very predictive of what we have become after three decades. Meaning, the proportion of "successful" and "messed-up" classmates is evenly distributed all throughout. But then again, there would be the factor of How Is Success Defined And How Is Messed Up A Mess Up? And the follow up question of How To Shift Between Success And Super Mess Up And Vice Versa.

But never mind the answers to those questions. The most beautiful thing about Batch '78 is that no matter what section we belonged to before, today and these past years, we have embraced and stood by each other, Successed or Messed, irregardless. So if you're a batchmate and you're hesitant to come because you're thinking "maulaw ko..." Phooeey. Have no more second thoughts. The "official" celebration begins on August 23, Saturday. The unofficial ones will begin anytime you contact us. You know our numbers, right?

The above movie is already Part III, actually. A.C. had made Part I and Part II a few months ago.

Daghang salamat, A.C.!

new growth

New growth. Does it sound like a band? Or a groupie thing like new age something?

The medical term for new growth is neoplasm, meaning the growth of new tissue which shouldn't have been there in the first place. A euphemism for tumor.

How long does it take to remove a new growth the size of an egg?

The answer is Location Location Location.

If it's on an extremity, maybe thirty minutes to a couple of hours. Longer if it is inside the body cavity and attached to some other organs.

But if it is inside the brain, then twelve hours is about it.

Having said that, I will go to sleep now.

pasaylu-a

Pasaylu-a ko is a Visayan term which means "pardon me" or "forgive me" and this early I would like to apologize if in the coming weeks my posts will be full of phrases like "I remember when..." or "Once upon a time..." or "Dati-rati..." or "We used to..." and other such goo.

The reasons for this are the following:

1. I'm really old enough to have lots of subjects where the above lines are very useful.

2. It's almost August and that means it's going to be Silliman University's Founder's Day.

3. It's the 30th reunion year of my high school batch.

Number one is undebatable and needs no further explanation.

Number two is something that perhaps only Sillimanians and those married to or are very closely related to Sillimanians can fully understand. It's called the Silliman Spirit. Hard to define but truly palpable nonetheless.

And number three, my beloved classmates are coming home for a weeklong celebration of our 30th reunion. We are all so like looking forward to this, would you believe we've been planning this for five years already?! Yes, ever since our 25th. And of course, every year, actually many times during the year, in Dumaguete/Manila/America we would have our little tapoks (gatherings) and always the topics would include, "What are we going to do on our 30th?!" Oh, we know the answers to that already but we just love to talk and discuss and argue and talk some more about it. Ees such fun, it is.

So let me just begin this "Once-upon-a-time" posting series with this antique photograph of my Auntie Mary, me (way before my high school years), and goodness gracious, you young people, do you know what that behemoth behind us is?

It's the iPod of the 60's!

Yeah, music was not very mobile then. This music storer and player was as big as a ref. And we had it right in the porch of my lolo and lola's house, where I grew up. Since nobody could lug around a full sized jukebox, music lovers flocked to my grandparents house to put coins into the slots and actually dance to the music! I can't remember any of the songs right now but I surely remember this young man who wore boots and a hat, and who would go to lolo and lola's house early in the morning to put coins in the jukebox and do this really lively cowboy dance! What a treat for me, who was not going to kindergarten yet. I was as smitten as any five year old could be. I can't remember his name though.

But here's someone whose name I know and have known for more than 30 years already. Avant-garde and a man of the modern world, he dreams of someday having his very own life-sized jukebox at home.

Morito and Kesa

After all that sugar and sun the past days, it's time for some sinister gloom and darkness. Reading "Gates of Hell" by Ryunosuke Akutagawa leaves me depressed and oppressed, as if the title is very apt, I feel like I've been to the gates of hell indeed. I don't know if it's because of the intense emotional turmoil in the story itself or because its author committed suicide.

Ryunosuke is considered as one of the finest Japanese short story writers and he is famous for Rashomon. His stories are replete with Japanese culture and traditions which are decidedly alien to us Filipinos (for example, honor is a big thing with the Japanese, something which many Filipinos do not care about, sorry to say).

And who are Morito and Kesa? They are the doomed lovers in the story. Maybe I'll tell you more about them after our lit class tomorrow.

sun day

It's been a sunny Sunday here. Reminiscent of one sunny Sunday afternoon when my friends and I did some tile mosaic crafts.

sunning themselves to dryness

The Mexican-inspired colorful mirror on the left was made by Jinjun while the solid blue one was my project. These were done several months ago and our mirrors got sold immediately, as amateurish as they were. I don't know if they were sold at a very cheap price or if it was our friends who bought them. It does not matter though. The fun and bonding we had making these mosaic projects were priceless.

let the sun shine

Some days are good and some days are not so. If in case this week you find yourself with some extra time and some little bit of sadness, then I highly recommend this 2006 movie: Little Miss Sunshine. Don't be put off by the saccharine title, it's really laugh out loud hilarious at some points.

Starring Greg Kinnear, Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Paul Dano, Abigail Breslin and Alan Arkin, this film has won several academy awards in 2007 including best writing of an original screenplay, by Michael Arndt, who by the way is not related to, though the namesake of, my high school penpal Arndt!

Pray tell,

Oh, here she is! Little Miss Sunshine herself.

Abigail Breslin as Olive

*the above pictures were taken from google images

at the back of my head

This is from my classmate, Jojo G, dedicated to all our other classmates, with whom we will soon be celebrating our 30th reunion from high school graduation. And this is also dedicated to all other men who "can relate."



Click on the image to see what's going on at the back of this guy's head...

On the other hand, or rather, on the other head, here's another guy, who has lots of hair and who is not my high school classmate, but was my seatmate in literary pursuits last summer. Tan-awa, na -feymous na siya.

fidgeting about feedjit

Once upon a time I said that on my weblog, I'll never put one of those thingamajigs that show who's been here and what they clicked on. But each time I went to Doc Remo's or Doc Mel's blogs I got more and more curious about their feedjit widgets. And so finally, yesterday, I decided to give it a try, maybe just for a couple of days or so.

So far, it's been fun looking at all those icons, flags, arrows, data, etc. Nakakaaliw. It reminded me of high school days when we all had pen pals because we liked to collect exotic stamps from exotic places. I still remember my penpal, his name was Arndt Reidl from Germany. We were corresponding for several months already and my friends and I were very enthusiastic because the stamps from his country were big and colorful. Then one day he sent a picture and I was horrified because he looked like a giant. Abrupt end of letter writing and stamp collecting.

the tales of many heroes

The Blog Rounds 16th edition is up at Doc Gigi’s Beyond Borders!

Who needs heroes? We all do. Here are the heroes in the eyes and lives of the Filipino Doctors who Write Weblogs:

At home:
Doc Brian - mom
Doc Remo - mom
Doc Gaya - fathers
Doc Che – parents

In school:
Doc Martin – grade school and high school teachers
Doc Clairebear – med school teacher
Doc Ian – physics teacher
Doc JA – homeroom adviser
Doc Gigi – high school teacher

In the hospital:
Doc Gaya - co-intern
Doc Ness – male aide
Doc Manggy - nurses
Doc Joey – bantays
Doc Em Dy – hospital setting (blood donors, hospital workers)

Doc Megamom - patients, dead and alive

Common people:
Doc Che - farmers, barangay health workers, the youth, the OFW
Doc Mel – taxi driver
Doc Emer – newspaper vendor

How about you? Who is your hero? And as Doc Em Dy thoughtfully asks, When does the job end and heroism begin?

orange wax flowers

Made by Maika, grade 5

description of the contrarious passions

- by Sir Thomas Wyatt

I find no peace, and all my war is done;
I fear and hope, I burn and freeze like ice;
I fly aloft yet can I not arise;
And nought I have, and all the world I seize on,
That locks nor looseth, holdeth me in prison,
And holds me not, yet can I 'scape no wise:
Nor letteth me live, nor die at my devise,
And yet of death it giveth me occasion.
Without eye I see; without tongue I plain:
I wish to perish yet I ask for health;
I love another, and I hate myself;
I feed me in sorrow, and laugh in all my pain.
Lo, thus displeaseth me both death and life;
And my delight is causer of this strife.

going japanese

Whenever I'm in Manila, I want to eat something that's not available in Dumaguete. Here it is:

Ok, this is just a table napkin. I did take cellphone shots of my California maki and ebi tempura, ala Manggy's and Em Dy's beautiful food pictures, but alas, I discovered that it takes some skill to make a good composition especially of food images. Or maybe it was that my hands were shaking from hunger that's why my photos were kinda blurry. ;-)

So anyway, except for the refreshing red iced tea, the food was a bit of a disappointment. It was a far cry from Saisaki's where I can eat a dozen of their shrimp tempura. And my friend Erlyn and I were racking our middle-aged brains for the name of that Japanese restaurant on Wilson St. in Greenhills, our very favorite one, where we used to binge on their buffet. Our barkada would go there at the very start of buffet time and eat very slowly, sampling all of their delicacies on display, and talk and talk and talk UNTIL closing time. The waiters would indulgently remove our numerous plates and their hooded eyes seemed to say, "Madames, we salute you. You truly are getting your money's worth."

We never did get to remember the name of that awesome Japanese place, as it had closed shop, we later found out. What a shame. Maybe it has resurrected under another name, I sure do hope, as their food was infinitely exquisite.

my manong, my hero

This is Manong Cardo, our male aide at the Operating Room. Among his many OR duties is to position the patient properly while I do my regional blocks. After all these years, Nong Cardo has got this patient positioning down pat, it's already instinctive. He holds the patient at just the right angulation, inclination and tension so that my work is made so much easier. In spinal or epidural anesthesia, where we deal with spaces and places only micromillimeters in width, the correct patient positioning is of utmost importance.

In the OR we all know when Nong Cardo is having a nice day because he sings the refrains or oneliners from these really old songs. He is my hero because irregardless of what kind of day he's having, he still holds the patient in perfect alignment.

remembering typhoons

Saying hello from Metro Manila!

I'm in Manila for a day and am so thankful that it did not rain and flood as it did earlier this week because of another typhoon named Helen.

One particularly horrible memory of a Manila flood comes to mind. Many, many years back, I was walking somewhere along Espana, right across UST, and the water was knee deep and there were rats, dead and alive, floating/swimming around and I could not do anything about it. Just had to continue wading through the rodent infested murky, yukky water.

::shudder:: major shudder::

santol alert

When I was a child somebody told me that if I swallowed a seed, deliberately or accidentally, it will grow inside my body and soon leaves and branches will be coming out of my ears, nose and mouth. Scary thought but not true.

This one, however, is true. Swallowing santol seeds can be very, very dangerous to one's health. You see, santol seeds are distinctive in that they have a sharp edge that can literally cut through the intestinal wall.

We had a patient who presented as appendicitis but on opening up what greeted us was a lot of pus, not coming from the appendix, but from a gaping hole in the large intestine. I had posted a nice picture of said intestine here, with hole and all (meaning all the blood and gore) but I decided to take it down, fearing that some readers might find it offensive or stomach turning.

Here instead are the seeds when they were taken away from the intestines already.

Above the two santol seeds is the skin stapler used to put together the edges of the long abdominal wound of the patient.

And finally, to reiterate how dangerous swallowed seeds can be, check these out:

Help! I've been swallowing santol seeds since I was 16...

A mortality from swallowed santol seeds