Thursday, December 22, 2005

SHAN Xmas party

This is a late post since the party was held last December 10, 2005 at Loqui's bar. It's nice to see old classmates. We all came from this obscure little school in Novaliches and I guess we were the last batch to be under the best batch of teachers in the school. Lucky us. We turned out to be, well, accomplished in our respective fields.
A REUNITED BARKADA. L to R: Moises and Amanda, Sam (Emmylou's biba daughter), Laudel, Cor and Michelle. Seated: Annie and me. Moi and Amands came from Qatar and was wed here in PI last Dec 17. Isn't Sam cute? But she can be a wreck sometimes. She's my inaanak.
My closest friend during grade 6, Astaire, who now lives in NJ. She just visited PI for her beauty regimen and yes, to visit friends. Az, see you in NJ ulit! Let's pig out again in Minado!
L to R: Michelle (fresh from Australia, single, mapera...hehe), Laudel (who topped all her board exams--yes, she took both nursing and PT boards and placed in the top 5 on both boards) and me (unattached, barely passed the boards, no money to boot, but honestly, I don't care...hehehe).
L to R: Me, Dr. Emmylou delos Santos, Mazie Almontero and Astaire Villanueva. In a rare photograph. I haven't seen these gals for 11 years. Emmylou, Mazie and I have been classmates since grade 4 until 3rd year highschool. Mazie until senior year. We use to go to each other's houses as "gimmick". We were not allowed then to go to the nearest mall in our area, which is, ehem, SM North EDSA. But we had great, clean fun during high school. I guess that's where all the repression came from. Har har.

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

I miss singing

It's Christmas time and I miss the choir. Since 2nd year high school, I was with our parish choir and then I got busy with UP Med Choir during med school. Now I am unaffiliated and I really miss singing, especially during this Christmas season. It's my 2nd out-of-a-choir year after spending 18 years of Christmas in a choir. That includes the endless carolling nights, gigs and parties. I guess anyone could understand my anxiety.

At least I had some larynx action when I was in New York last year. I sang with the choir in the Philippine Consulate for simbang gabi. Most of them are members of the DLSU and I must say, they are really good. One of the members of the choir is a broadway chorus girl. She invited me to audition for their choir at St. Malachy the Actor Church. They were mostly broadway performers and this one is a pinoy. Golf claps. Anyway, now I am swamped with work and I could not find time for virtually anything. I have an article due two days ago and I've been pounding on the keyboard for the last 2 hours. Haay.

Last night I went to my first simbang gabi for the season. I told myself that it would be nice to check on my old parish choir again. They are the 4th generation of our parish choir and somehow I know most of them. I spent 4-5 years as choirmaster and somehow these kids are part of my ancient group. I was the choir master for the youth choir and these kids who used to be 9 and 10 year olds are now in college. Now I feel REALLY old.

I felt really, really old when I noticed this: There was no organist in the choir. Glen, my younger--albeit 20x better--protege wasn't there and I am sure that the orchestration was his style. I was surprised that the accompanying music was from a iPOD Nano! I saw it when one of sopranos lifted it to change the accompaniment. Whoa! I was really amazed with the technology at present and the ingenuity of the younger generation to use it. I thought MedChoir was technologically advanced for using NoteWorthy to study music pieces. We used to transcribe pieces via NoteWorthy and posting it in our egroups, where any member can download it. The piece can be played as a whole or in separate parts. I can isolate my part (I am a bass 2) so i can SERIOUSLY study it. Well, playing the choir accompaniment with an iPOD was waaay too cool for me. I guess that's the best use of technology I have came across this year.

Thursday, December 15, 2005

Swamped with work

I haven't been posting for the longest time, sorry about that. I just learned that I have a lot of readers of my blog. Wow, man, that's great. It inspired me to write a lot more. As of now, I have a dec 20 deadline of an ICON article, which, I haven't started. My editor was giving me THE EYE last night at the ICON christmas party, so I better sit down--soon--and give it a whack. But before everthing else...blog maintenance day.

Christmas season has been great for me. During the first week of December, I had no work. I ran out of hospitals to moonlight to. Thinking of our boracay trip this December, I was pretty anxious where to get the money for the trip. Our projected budget is a 5-digit amount and at that time, I could barely make it to a 4. Haha. That's how poor I can get. But God was really good to me. But before everything else, I went to charity free clinic at the start of the month. I guess that made the knocking on heaven's door. And God heard my plea: I need a job. 5 days after, I was given a set of duties in a hospital in Sta Rosa.

Yeah, I know. It's a good 200km distance from home but the trip was really worth it. The money is good and the duty is not that toxic. I am the only resident in the hospital and I take care of all ER patients. I admit patients when needed. Its also a trauma center so I am forced to unearth my buried-six-feet-under-the-ground surgical skills. So far the most wretched thing I did was to attempt to place a chest tube in a DOA (dead on arrival) patient. This patient had 8 stab wounds: 3 in the chest, 3 in the abdomen and 2 defense wounds on the arm. In the course of resuscitation, I acted on impulse and inserted a chest tube on the side where his injuries are. All throughout, the patient had no blood pressure and no heart rate. I figured a chest tube will help him out. But when I inserted the tube, there was minimal output...well, too scant to cause sudden death. And then I realized that the stab injury to the sternum most probably have caused a hemopericardium (blood in the heart sac) or more seriously, a ruptured heart. At point, I can't do anything. I just have to surrender him to God's hands.

Well for a few minutes, I was deep in thought if I really did everything to save this patient. But, I guess 8 stab wounds will really kill you.

So, that's my latest heroic effort so far. Well, heroic ATTEMPT. As for my other jobs, I was given a slot in OsMun as an OB resident, which is actually better than pediatrics because there's two of us per duty. Pedia residency in that hospital can kill, man. I lost 5 pounds in a week after going on duty twice.

Aside from duties, I am still contributing to ICON magazine. Then, I have a job interview tomorrow at CMPMedica for a writing project. Our wedding coordinating business is doing good also. We have a lot of wedding projects next year. Three major ones to be exact. And I am still waiting for a confirmation from a friend.

Regarding my US application, I still want to try to apply for another tourist visa. I need to take the Step 3 exam because the shit is non-refundable. I can extend it, though. If I fail in my second attempt, there's still scramble on March. If everything goes to trash after that, I'll probably do my residency here and attempt to do fellowship in the States.

For all concerned, I do feel good. Happy, but still incomplete. You know what I mean. It's great if I have someone as I go through this life. *big sigh*

Happy holidays everyone!