kids are at the opera which means i'm left to my own devices for a couple of hours... going to go to exploring the city on my own.

in new york, mom and pop stores are the norm while in california most have already been removed by corporate america. you can tell the who the tourist are because they like to stay on the sidewalk and wait for the signal to walk while new yorkers stand on the street while taxis zip by and walk across when there is a lull in traffic. can't describe how wonderful it is to be in new york with phil and mayrin... just like being back home only the scenery has changed.

nyc

here i am in glorious new york city... i had a quick layover in san francisco and then it was a 6 hour flight next to a frumpy old man and behind a little boy who insisted on reclining his seat during the whole entire flight... i ended up holding my pee all the way across the united states. =P although united is going bankrupt i realized that i liked their service so much more than southwest. assigned seating is nice and getting a whole can of apple juice is much nicer than having to sip from the tiny clear airline cup... anywho, today i'm off to see lea solonga in flower drum song rewritten by david henry hwang...

although temperature wise it isn't too bad, the wind chill factor makes it unbearably cold. and here 2st century is not only a real estate agency it's also a cheap designer clothing store... i think i'm going to stop by and buy a couple more nautica socks...

didn't receive much in the way of material gifts this christmas beyond the expected cash and clothes from the family... enjoyed more of the intangible aspects of this holiday than anything else. my dad's family has finally arrived from the philippines which means he has all of his brothers and sisters here in the united states. it took nearly 15 years to petition all of them over and to have them all here is just a wonderful feeling. too bad my dad is still in atlanta... =P since junior high school me, sonnier, and hazel have had our annual christmas gift exchange. this year was no exception. funny to think that we are all still friends despite the varied paths we all decided to take. nice to know you can always come back home. going to the malls around the holidays i'm always on the look out for old high school heads and this week i managed to bump into my old best friend from elementary school and then two days later bumped into his girlfriend.

tomorrow i'm off on a plane to the cold and snowy east coast to be with my kids like a good father. too bad their mother will be spending her new years in tahoe getting plastered... hahahaha j/p... looks to be a very fun and eventful way to end and ring in the new year. guess i should start packing now.

yeah i said it a while back, but this time it's really true... i sat down and finished my last secondary... although in all honesty i think i did a pretty half-assed job.. only because i had to use an old fashioned typewriter and the space they gave me to write my responses was so limited. I felt like i was writing stuff, but didn't have enough room to justify what i was saying. most of it was a rehash of previous applications only this time the extremely condensed version. i literally could only fit 5 sentences into each response. for instance one question asked to what is the role i play within my immediate family? how the heck to describe such a complex family dynamic within the constraints of only two lines? i don't understand it. half way through the application my patience was wearing thin as it was getting harder and harder to limit my answers to the seemingly complex questions. ehhh... no matter... done and done...

exhanged gifts with hai and sonnier today... did a little shopping in the rain and managed to realize how lucky i am to have such wonderful friends in both of them. looking forward to nyc, although i feel like i don't have enough warm clothes to keep me alive. shopping at jcrew proved unfruitful... i should have ordered the sweaters i saw on-line about a week ago... ehhh... maybe i'll end up buying more clothes in new york despite the promise i made to my mom and grandmother that i wouldn't spend money on clothes in new york.

the apartment is slowly getting messier and with everyone about to leave for the holidays i doubt it'll get cleaned... i tried using the dishwasher today only to find out that it's broken... the inside is now a total mess with liquid soap and hot steamy water filling the bottom of the dishwashing machine. so much for making my clean up job any easier... =T the agenda for tomorrow and monday is simple, clean up and pack up... i'm leaving for christmas!

in my boredom i returned to my old high school haunts. IRC... internet relay chat. it's lost most of its appeal to me now. being that it's 4 in the morning there is an understandable lull in activity. when i was in high school it was a rush to dial in and stay logged on till morning talking to people i considered my "internet" friends. keeping up with the lives of people i knew not only via their nicks, but personal webpages with pictures and shout outs to their friends. this was before the age of blogging and drag n' drop webpublishing... where ppl were admired for their grasp of html and using frames was novel. funny how now everyone and their mama has a blog. the proverbial soapbox of the 21st century.

took a nap this afternoon and i'm still wide awake. tonight i tried once again to get lost and then find myself on the internet. i think it's become some sort of addiction. reading through other people's webpages and blogs has become my equivalent to reading a good book. each page is like a different chapter. some more like reading textbooks than great pieces of literature. some blogs i find incredibly fascinating, while others are merely a place for the author to bitch and moan about his/her life. not enough can be said for a blog that's written well... there is a definite beauty to well written internet prose.

officially done with christmas shopping and found a beanie i can live with! came to terms with my poverty and decided a regular ol' cotton beanie from jcrew would be good enough for nyc. speaking of which, already have plans to watch lea salonga in the new flower drum song with mayrin... looks to be a fun vacation although i know phil will probably be extremely busy with work... =T

with the onset of vacation i told the research clinic that i'd put in some "full time" hours when i could... unfortunately, my full time hours seems to have translated into i'll come in at 10 and leave at 4... my supervisor hasn't really said much and only today made a small remark about the last lab assistant trying to grab as many hours as he could. i think i've reached that critical mark where i could go either way now, either i like it or i leave it...(sidenote: i've never held a job for more than 6 months, either because i decided i didn't like it at this critical point or it was simply the end of my contract...) today i came to the realization that although i find what i'm doing serves a very useful service, in fact my parking permit says "i'm proud to save lives!", i can't really say i'm passionate about it because i really have no idea what i'm really doing. my daily duties are to input specimen data into the computer, label the specimens, pack them, and ship them whenever they need to go out. in between that i do a bunch of smaller duties. but really i have no connection to the patients, doctors, or even the problem being addressed by the study. i guess tomorrow i'll try to figure out what each of the studies i'm working on is all about. made me realize that wanting to know the answers is one of the reasons i want to become a physician. i just like to have all the answers.

almost ready for christmas and my trip to nyc!
christmas presents.... check
plane ticket.... check
winter coat..... check
leather gloves.... check
beanie.... not quite

my search for a beanie that fits has sent me far and wide across san diego... i'm really particular about what goes on my head since i usually don't wear hats... i think my head is shaped funny or it's that my ears stick out way too much. plus i don't like it when the beanie makes that pointy this on top of your head... makes me look like an elf... anywho, i did happen to find one beanie which i particularly liked... only bad thing is that it's from Banana Republic and ridiculously over priced... we'll see if i eventually break down and buy it...

"chinese for crap"
i should know better... in fact, of all people i should know this... why the hell do i always fall for it? i'm the freaking iron chef for goodness sake... i guess it's because i always think that this time around it'll be different, but it's never different... it's always the same. today for lunch i went to panda express... chinese for crap... on top of being ridiculously priced their food doesn't taste like anything... their orange chicken tastes almost like their broccoli beef... i always go with the hope that it'll be better than the time before... i guess cuz i hadn't had rice in while i was in need of something asian... argh, such a dumbass, can't believe i've gone there 4 times already and not once have i left satisfied... in fact, i always feel stupid eating there, surrounded by all the non-asians who take it as great chinese food... if my lunch break was just a little bit longer i'd head over to convoy...

okie, so the prospect of snowboarding this weekend is upon me... do i go? actually the question is how can i get the money to go? i really wish i had worked extra hours last week... that least then i'd be able to pay for it... too many expenses are looming over me, mainly bills and my trip to nyc. speaking of which i can't wait to see philip and mayrin on the east coast! just need to find myself a beanie and i'm set.

yesterday was "yellow" elephant for all the 5th year APSA heads... it was such a great night, with awesome friends and good food. we all left completely stuffed. when i got home i was thinking to myself about how fate was able to bring me into contact with so many great people... it's amazing to think how one little fork in the road could have meant the difference between being friends and acquaintances... it's amazing when you think of all the friends you have and being able to trace the point at which it could have all been different...
i left the party with an umbrella i could use in NY and angeline left with the 5 liter box of wine i had bought as my yellow elephant gift. the best present of all besides the cheap porno that chris happened to choose was the hands-free cell phone holder. in essence it was just a giant rubberband that you put around your head to keep the cell phone in place. the picture on the packaging was funny enough, but perhaps even more so was the person to receive that as their gift... none other than Bob, who is adamently refuses to buy a cell phone. as mindy would say she got what she deserved since the gift she brought was a half drunken box of cheap wine left over from last year's bday bash... it was definitely better to give than receive in her case.

cty

my johns hopkins internship every summer since my 2nd year has always been something i've been very proud of... after my second year i thought i was done, but once again it was calling me, beckoning me to return once more for another fun filled summer... well, the summer i decided to return wasn't quite like the summers i remember from previous years, i was completely stressed and scared about my kids dying of allergic reactions and hardly got to leave campus for anything fun, but in all, a very good learning experience for med school... today i checked my e-mail and see that they've put up an on-line newsletter... first thing i read after the page loads "a new older student site at Kaneohe, Hawaii"... yup, can't seem to separate myself from this program no matter how hard my resolve is... once again i'm applying for another summer to be the health assistant, this time in lovely hawaii... =) wish me luck!

packing it up

like clockwork i opened up my big box of school stuff and added to it my notes and textbooks from the quarter... my way of physically putting an end to the quarter... i did however remember to keep my bio stats notes as those are going to get burned in my Christmas fire... amazing how fast and slow it went... if i had to do it over again the answer would be an immediate no. i'm ready to move on with my life... move on to med school.

i think i've become more jaded because of this shitty quarter... very much like the responses i'm giving on my applications, i've said them so many times it feels as if they've lost meaning...

our lease on the apartment runs out in may. should i stay another month or just pick up a leave? it all depends... my relationship with one roommate has been strained beyond the point at which i don't even care. sad and at the same time numb to it. i want closure, but holding on to that indifference keeps me in control. i think fate is trying to tell me something...

Q&A with Me

Full Name: Reggie Tiong Saldivar
Age: 21 +1... i refuse to get any older than 21
Sign: Libra and Monkey
Blood type: unknown

1. WHAT TIME DO YOU WAKE UP IN THE MORNING?
it all depends, work days i wake up at 10, school days i wake up at 7... either way i'm tired

2. IF YOU COULD EAT LUNCH WITH ONE FAMOUS PERSON, WHO WOULD IT BE?
Akio Morita, founder of Sony

3. GOLD OR SILVER?
gold. don't really wear either all to often... i have a gold chain and charm from my dad at home which is too small for me to wear now

4. WHAT WAS THE LAST FILM YOU SAW AT THE CINEMA?
real women have curves, i'm slowly becoming a hollywood film nazi

5. FAVORITE TV SHOW?
friends, simpsons, aurthur, and trauma: life in the ER

WHAT DO YOU HAVE FOR BREAKFAST?
nothing, i don't eat breakfast,,,


7. WHAT WOULD YOU HATE TO BE LEFT IN A ROOM WITH?
a psychotic clown

8. CAN YOU TOUCH YOUR NOSE WITH YOUR TONGUE?
no, it doesn't reach out that far

9. WHAT INSPIRES YOU?
people with confidence and determination, watching shows about doctors always gets me inspired

10. WHAT'S YOUR MIDDLE NAME?
Tiong, yup, chinese middle name and filipino last... my grandpa was chinese

11. BEACH, CITY, Or COUNTRY?
the city... more culture and less likelihood of getting skin cancer

12. SUMMER OR WINTER?
the summer, i love being able to swim laps at night

13. FAVORITE ICE CREAM?
green tea and ube

14. BUTTERED, PLAIN, OR SALTED POPCORN?
salted and buttered

15. FAVORITE COLOR?
gray

17. FAVORITE SANDWICH FILLING?
turkey and avacado


18. DO YOU BELIEVE IN TRUE LOVE?
yes, just a matter of finding it

19. WHAT CHARACTERISTICS DO YOU DESPISE?
immaturity, apathy, and laziness

20.FAVORITE FLOWER?
orchids

21. IF YOU HAD A BIG WIN IN THE LOTTERY, HOW LONG
WOULD YOU WAIT TO TELL PEOPLE?
the very next weekend... they'd all find out at my "I Won the Lottery Party"

23. WHAT COLOR IS YOUR BATHROOM?
aqua

25. WHERE WOULD YOU RETIRE?
in a great big house in pasadena

26. CAN YOU JUGGLE?
no,

27. FAVORITE DAY OF THE WEEK?
friday


28. RED OR WHITE WINE?
white, the less it tastes like alcohol the better

29. WHAT DID YOU DO FOR YOUR LAST BIRTHDAY?
went to chuck e' cheeses and before that had dinner at LIPS

30. DO YOU CARRY A DONOR CARD?
no, but i should...

3 blogs in one sitting... definitely must be finals week...

went through a review of all the concepts that will be on my final for bio stats... bleh... still have that feeling when the final comes i'm going to blank out... in times like this i find solace in the fact that ppl are probably just as confused as i am... time for a jack in the crack break...

in less than 12 hours i'll be done... i hate bio stats... even more so than i hated ochem... at the very least that subject was related to medicine... this on the other hand has nothing to do with it... ehh... well, maybe if i wanted to do clinical trials on a new drug and test its affects... but that's beyond the point... at 3 pm december 12th i'm going to take my bio stats notebook and exact some punishment on it, office space style...

midnight @ CLICS

one of my professors said while going through med school he thought he was suffering from every disease he studied about... i think i'm going through the same thing... today i noticed pain in my lower back and i immediately thought it was my kidneys... i remember reading about glomeronephritis and how your kidneys get clogged with antibody-antigen complexes after a bacterial infection which eventually leads to kidney failure and possible death... prolly not that, but for a sec thought how it would be if i didn't have to take the final for my bio stats class because i was rushed to the ER... okie, enough damn daydreaming... must study bio stats!

i slayed my immunology final with the type of exacting and swift vengence that's reserved normally for 007... the time spent studying was quite worth that feeling of accomplishment... during which i was questioning whether or not i could really handle it as a med student since now the material i was learning can be directly applied to the practice of medicine. in fact my medical microbiology is a textbook for med students... needless to say, i actually understood it and demonstrated that i understood it...

now for the weird side effects of not sleeping.. i'm a bit cranky now and because i have to study for my most hated class i'm even more so... i'm so over staturated with this material i'm not even fully absorbing that my brain refuses to make any more new connections because it would be a waste of a neuron connection... interestingly during the review i noticed that my whole body was going numb... the type of weak numbness you feel while you're asleep... i would pinch myself and it wouldn't hurt and at one point i did think i was dreaming and tried to think of myself floating above the room... i guess this is what happens when you've become sleep deprived...

here i sit at my desk trying desperately to hammer out another application during the middle of finals week. maybe this blog will help stimulate some creative writing out of me. some of the questions are different from other applications, but as a whole most are all really asking the same things. at this point i think i've divulged every little tid bit of information about my passion for medicine, my family life, APSA, and the need and desire to serve underserved communities top every school that i'll applied to. the more questions i answer the more hollow they seem or at the very least because i've repeated myself so many times it's like a favorite song you overplay. now i want to change the track. one of the hardest things to write about is how to describe the hardships in your life without seeming that you want pity or trying to write a sob story. i have this picture in my head of medical school committee members reading through tons of applications and being totally jaded to the accomplishments and struggles of their applicants.... as a whole pre-med students are quite accomplished and so i guess after seeing about 1 milion 4.0s i would think it loses it's impact... i guess this just reflects my mentality on the whole situation... i was once aspiring and thought i could do it... now i fear i've just become old and jaded... i remember reading on mikey k.'s journal about being in love with the process as much the final product... i'll take that as my mantra for this week. need to push it through my thick skull that my 4 years of work went into this one moment, don't fuck it up....

final #1 is done... three more to go...

went to the APSA stress relief and surprisingly it was just that... had a great time not thinking about studying at all... played a little volleyball and taboo and had a chance to just kick it with the rest of the 5 year crew... one more week of finals and application madness and i'll be done... it'll be nice to just work and not have to worry about anything, school (both undergrad and med) related...

i'm not normally a breakfast person... when my mom stopped cooking breakfast for me back in middle school that's pretty much when i learned to wait till lunch to eat... it's very rarely will i get up and the first thing i do is eat... in fact, eating right after i get up gets me all sick and squirtly... however, when i do manage to have breakfast I don't usually have pancakes... growing up i was always fascinating at tv commercials that had families at the breakfast table with huge stacks of pancakes... for me eating about half a pancake was enough to put me into a sugary coma... it wasn't until recently that i came to the conclusion that it's not pancakes all together i don't like, it's my mom's pancakes... now don't get me wrong, my mom is a great cook and i love her food... but those bisquick pancakes are just way too rich for me to swallow... even those mcdonald's pancakes i think taste and look gross... i had yet to find a pancake recipe which i liked, up until today... this morning, since i didn't have work, i decided to make blueberry pancakes for me and my roomie with the Jiffy blueberry muffin mix... anywho to make this mundane story come to an end i really liked the pancakes! with bacon... i love bacon and blueberry pancakes... going to go out and buy 5 boxes of Jimmy blueberry muffin mix... and at only 89 cents a box i can have pancakes every morning =)

dvided my time for studying.. two days for each test starting today... i hate school i hate school i hate school....

anywho, enough biznitching... i started housesitting for my boss last night... it's in a nice pocket of north park, yes they do exist!... the house is pretty tiny wih only two bedrooms and it's just surrounded by plants. i told my co-workers that if i was trapped in the house no one from the street would be able to tell... decided i would spend the night since work would only be a 5 hour commute from his place. a lot of times i really relish my time alone, esp in the apartment... but this around it wasn't all to comfortable... it was just a surreal feeling to have my boss's house at my command... i even slept in the master bedroom... seriously, i was pushing the uncomfortable envelope that night. exploring the house only took about 5 mins and after that there was this uneasiness of what i should do next... watch tv, study, play with the dog? it was just all too weird to be in someone else's house... plus on top of that it's was colder than a marble nipple... decided that i won't be spending the night anymore...just feed the dog and study for a bit...

10th week

thanksgiving break is officially done... in my opinion a horrible place to put a 4 day weekend... puts everybody into a false sense of vacation when we haven't even tackled finals yet.

my weekend was actually time well spent. had dinners with friends and family and even got caught up with all my homework. on top of that i finished off the neon genesis movies. i watched them in japanese, in english, and with the director's commentary... reminds me of the time i sat down and watched nearly 6 hours of fight club. if you've never seen this anime series i highly recommend it. it's so detailed and with so much to analyze it sucks not having anyone to discuss it with.

anywho, back to the business at hand, it's 10th week. i always say this at the close of every quarter, but i can't believe how fast it went. two more secondaries to complete then it's up to the committees to make their decisions. got word back from ucsd. they don't want me. ehhh... i figured as much. it's all about numbers with that school...provides me with even more proof that i belong somewhere other than san diego. serendipitous how ucsd doesn't want me, but ucla does and how the situation was reversed when i was applying to undergrad... but at least now i can concentrate on my other prospects... my parents took the news well considering the fact that no matter where i go to med school i won't be a simple 15 minute drive away...

1 in 100

just read a statistic that 1 in 100 people between the ages of 15 to 45 are infected with HIV... that's a pretty scary statistic considering the fact we have limited venues in treatment... makes my work with the research clinic seem all that more important...

Happy Thankgiving

Our annual apartment thanksgiving eve party was quite fun... in fact, i was down right overwhelmed with how many people came. so glad i decided to make a pot roast in addition to the turkey although admittedly i think i may have overcooked both... better safe than salmonella... after tonight it's hardcore studying and application churning... have two more to crank out by the end of next week. one more week and i'm done. =) heading back home for a great thanksgiving filipino style...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PHILIP =)
it's official... HAPPY 23rd BIRTHDAY PHILIP!!!!!!!! my east coast partner in crime turns 23 today... really miss you and sorry i couldn't celebrate it with you in person. just know i'm always with you in spirit, plus now you have a video of all us to watch while you blow out your birthday candles =) in dedication of this momentous occasion present a partial list of philip li moments, quotes, and random ass ideas....

10) MANTIES!
9) surviving the canadian/us border with an apple named mayrin
8) the SAAC restaurant
7) buying $15 price club "kirkland" shoes
6) buying $30 worth of cookies and candy just for the hell of it
5) cell phone that only worked in the boonies and when thrown on the ground
4) [insert dirty comment] "you know what i'm saying" [insert dap here]
3) "hmmmmm... moonkies..."
2) philip dancing
1) "you hungry?"

my roomie steph a. is finally back home... it was so unbelievably nice to see and hug her again... right now i'm very happy that she's home =) this saturday was high school conference... despite what could have gone wrong the day, it went by smoothly... so smoothly in fact we were all shocked we were running on time... i do have a couple of points to bring up at the debriefing, but aside from that i think the event went off well... went to dim sum with the family, minus phil plus terence, today which was good and then afterwards went christmas shopping with mayrin... one gift down and a million others to go... i think all the stress of this week has finally caught up with me... i have that scratchy feeling in my throat. the one you get right before you get a cold... feeling not so good... only 2 more weeks and this quarter will be done! can't believe it's gone by that quickly... can't wait for vacation...

i wouldn't consider myself a hateful person or even one to keep a grudge... in fact, when i'm mad over something i'll bitch for about a day and then forget about it the next, but in this case i've held in my anger so long it's burnt a whole through my compassion... i've never felt this way towards anyone before and i can't make a conserted effort whether this emotion feels good or not, because honestly having such distaste and irreverence for this indidual feels fine, down right good in that evil, malevolent sort of way... it's that cool and heartless distaste that i have i think that keeps me from getting hurt again. will this feeling go away anytime soon? probably not. do i intend to tell this individual about it? probably not. isn't writing about this on-line versus telling the person a childish way of dealing with your emotions? yes. but it's my blog and i can do whatever i please....

i took that midterm and gave it a good hardy beating! wasn't as hard as i thought it was going to be... had a little power nap and then went to breakfast at keaiths. i was thinking about i was going to order even before i went to bed that night. good thing rachel decided to meet me for breakfast otherwise i probably wouldn't have gotten up. now i was take a short breather, finish my secondaries and start prepping for those finals. just found out today at the bio department that i took an extra elective class... =/ it's all good though since the extra one is required for ucla med and not really for my major. life has gotten to be pretty mundane... been writing about school and homework for the part 3 days. yep, no social life whatsoever...

back to my familiar haunts... sitting here at a computer at CLICS, doing almost the same exact thing i was doing a year ago. i have a midterm tomorrow in my bio statistics course and right now i'm about to fall asleep... haven't had a chance to take a nap today even though it was on my list of things to do. maybe i'll head over to keiths for some late night coffee and dessert. i need more time to study.

sitting at my desk i was listening as two first years talked about the classes they were going to take and how soon registration for the next quarter was coming. made me feel old considering i had registered for my classes around the beginning of the month. one was talking about how the other did horribly in his chemistry midterm and the other talked about the horrible GE requirements for revelle. for a while seeing all the new first years made me want to return to the days when everything was new and fresh... after listening to these two talk i made the conclusion i'm quite happy where i am now. went through all the struggles of getting where i am and now i just want to reap the rewards... med school being one of them. time for a quick power nap and then it's back to bio stats...

well, half of my prayer was answered today... one letter of rec... just one more and i'll be much happier... let's see if this works... please please please please please ucla give me an interview...

aiya! why the hell is the mail so slow? still waiting for letters of rec to come in that were mailed about a week ago. please please please please please please come in by tomorrow...

to my faithful readers, all 6 of you... t's 3 am... 2 hours after posting the away msg i was off to bed... the nap i took around 7 o'clock tonight has left me sleepless in san diego.

came to a couple of unsettling realizations today about my current situation... i currently have no friends, at least within physical range, and i lack any semblance of a social life. my determination to get into med school has taken on some sort of guise to hide the fact that i'm so miserable with my life right now. i'm in a rut. writing about my life experiences only makes me realize the life i considered normal is anything but... however, it's that difference that sets me apart from the multitude of applicants. today in the library i saw a girl walk past me holding a big fat red book with "kaplan" emblazened on the spine of the book. i strained to see what test she was studying for, the MCAT... of course! i wanted to pull her aside and talk to her. applying for med school is like being in a secret club. you want to share your secret knowledge with other members. there is all this secret jargon too... primaries, secondaries, LORs, 45T, etc, etc, etc... one show i never watch on a regular basis but love whenever i watch it is ER... so damn exciting! although i've volunteered in a real ER and usually it's stomach aches, stitches, and alcohol poisoning...

while working on my biometry (biological stats for you ppl who didn't know) lab i came upon the crazy realization that i had no fucking clue what i was doing... it was that same paralyzing fear that comes over you when you reach a midterm/final question you just don't know how to answer... so you just do whatever and trick yourself into thinking you answered the question... hadn't felt that unprepared in a while... which means i'll be in the library all this weekend trying to teach myself this shit... argh, i really really hate anything that requires math. esp this class becuase i doubt it'll ever come into play as a doctor... i consider it my challenging class... in that if i can just grit abd bear it and get an A it'll be all good...

well, it's official. i'm set to graduate this winter. this time last year i wasn't ready to leave. i felt like i had so much more i needed to do before i left, but now i'm more than willing to leave my place here at ucsd. time for me to move on. i've told a couple of ppl already i need a drastic change in my life...

i'm praying that my letters of rec get into the career office by tomorrow... i really want to send them out already. plus it takes almost 5 days for them to send them out after i request them. in terms of application usc is done. ucla is about 49%, and loma linda is at 80%... only ucdavis is left. still praying everyday for ucla... in all honestly ucla is my dream school. the school i wanted to go to back in high school. if i could go back and change things would i? ask me in may when i find out which med school i'll be attending and then i'll tell you. =)

everything happens for a reason....

when i thought my options for med school were slim, i'm once again surprised, delighted, and confident.. it's strange, when i first started college i was more than confident in my abilities... i was down right cocky... by my second year i had picked out my top choices for med school and it was all a matter of picking which acceptance letter to send back. flash forward to today where now the work of 4 long years finally pays off... i'm still in disbelief that it's all really happening... crossing my fingers and hoping for interviews now... pray for me ppl...

the drastic change in weather has put my allergies into overdrive... my eyes were watery and itchy all day and my nose would not stop running... and i think i've developed a tolerance to benedryl, took it about a half hour ago and still not feeling sleepy and my symptoms are still there... i shouldn't have bought the cheapy vons brand medicine... too bad claritin isn't over the counter... just thinking back to my summer in la when i was a health assistant.... i remember having my favorite pills... no, i didn't take any... just had my favorites because some were asethetically pleasing... like the green claritins that looked like skittles or the concertas that looked like mini vienna sausages... okie... my nose is raw and i want some sleep...

random realization

i think the drag queen that yelled at me for "cheating" at bingo may have been the same one the yelled at mayrin over the phone when she tried to make reservations for 20 the day of her birthday....

from 1 in 5,500 to 1 in 3,000...

now hopefully 1 in 600 to 1 in 124...

at the edge
i've come to the point in my undergraduate career where i know it'll all soon be over. up until now i wasn't ready to leave ucsd. i'm not saying that i'm 100% ready, but more prepared.

props to my buddies phil and the stephanies (both a. and n.) who are as much my premed advisors as that bastard in the career service center who made me cry is. for a while i was unsure of myself and doubted in my abilities. for me failure, rejection, and disappoint are strong deciding factors in my life. i would much rather not try at all than to try and fail. this type of thinking as effected almost every aspect of my decision making... i've always grown up with the mentality that if i can't get it right the first time don't bother trying at all. after receiving my secondaries i slowly begin to think about whether or not i could make it. the task at hand seemed almost impossible. i started to think of plans B, C, and D as a way of lessening the blow should rejection come. at one point i was going to move out of the country. but after talking to them I've come to realize that if i put my 100% effort into everything i do then there should be no need for disappointment. sometimes a guy needs a little bitch slap once in a while.

could it be that i'm technologically satiated? i went to Best Buy today with the full intention of buying myself a gaming system, but after talking to phil i nixed the gaming system. with that i decided to look around to see if there was anything else i could possibly want or need. a new palm pilot would be nice i thought, but have one already and it works just fine. a new mp3 player? eh. none of them have yet to pass my style test which is the first one i apply to anything i buy. if it looks good then i'll see if it actually works. thought about getting a new laptop but Best Buy doesn't have the best selection in terms of what i want. something small, thin, with wireless web. nothing. decided to look for a new phone. the lady couldn't really answer any of my questions. felt guilty later for asking questions i knew this poor old lady couldn't answer. which begged the question... what the heck was this women who undoubtedly was older then my mother doing selling cell phones?!? i walked out of Best Buy empty handed, but didn't feel like i missed out on anything. shocked is the word. for once there wasn't something there that i just had to have. maybe i should go to tokyo....

they both just stared up at me with that look. the one where you know you did something wrong, but they see from your face that you're refusing to acknowledge it. i've been busy i replied. one of them shot back that i had ditched class twice already this week and the other said my midterms were already over. yeah i know i should have spent more time with you. i'm sorry... they both said that their patience was wearing thin and that if i didn't do something about it my opprotunity would be gone. since it's a long weekend i promised them i'd have more time to spend with them.

damn, secondary applications are sons of bitches.

secondary reaction

in the world of immunology a secondary response refers to the immune system's ability to mount a faster and increased intensity to a repeated antigen. in essence, your body has learned to fight an infection more effectively. i think i've reached that point with my classes. in order to spare myself from another infection of mind numbing classes i've decided to implement a series of treatments which include sleeping through class, ditching class, and watching tv at home... thus far it's been working...

it's 6th week and senioritis has gotten the best of me... i'm tired of school and i'm tired of taking classes i don't care about. the good news is that a 3 day weekend is coming up.. the bad news... my stupid paycheck hasn't arrived yet... =/... that's not good... looks like i'm going to need to pull out a loan from the bank of mom and dad, although i think i'm already overdrawn there... my procrastination has also gotten to the point where i've been revamping everything in my life... from away messages to closet... also have taken up to taking random pictures everywhere i go... alright off to my last class of the day...

with the expansion of the internet, wireless networks, voicemail, and texting (which i don't think is a real verb) you would think it would be easier to get a hold of your friends... it's not... =P


MouseNg22: hi honey!

Auto response from mochicamry: coffee run...

MouseNg22: poo
------------------------------------------------------
mochicamry: are you back yet?

Auto response from MouseNg22: heep heep-hop heep-hop-anonomous??

mochicamry: the internet equivalent of phone-tag....

after finishing my immunology midterm i started walking back to the cross for the APSA officer meeting... as my mind usually does while i'm walking, i started to day dream... i remembered when i was a little kid there was this cartoon called the city of gold or the lost city of gold... anywho, what i do remember was that the protagonists could call this huge mechanical golden condor whenever they needed help. watching that show made me wish, i too had a golden condor... fast foward to today... why the heck would i want a condor? just realized that condors aren't actually as cool looking as i remembered, not like a bald eagle or a falcon... in fact, they are done right ugly birds... no hair on their necks and head because the they're carnivores so it's just bald and pink... looking for like vultures than anything else... you can golden condor to the list of weird things i wanted as a kid... in that list these is also a motor home, snoopy ice cone maker, and pool with a killer whale...

night time came and once again i was calling it a night... i could have sworn it was light out when i went into the library a couple of hours early... did you know japan is one of the only industrialized nations that doesn't have daylight savings time? as i stepped into the elevator i shuffled through the mail seeing if anything was for me. bill, wallstreet journal, politcal propaganda, and then two envelopes from UCLA School of Medicine. hmmm... earlier that i day i was wondering if i was going to get word from any of the med schools i had applied to. like divine intervention i had my answer in my hands. i eyed the envelopes trying to figure out what each could be. most likely one was that they had received my application, but the other i couldn't figure out what it was. either a "thank you for applying, but no thanks.." or "you've been selected to submit additional material".... i figured the it was most likely the first of the two as to not disappoint myself. i grabbed the letter opener from my desk and opened each piece of mail saving the UCLA letters for last. i thought delay the bad news as long as possible. i opened each envelope and selected one to read. my eyes scanned the document for any key phrases thanking me or wishing me luck with my other school choices... instead, it was a letter pleased to inform me that my application was moving furthur in the process and that i can get started on my secondary materials! woo hoo... so thus far i've received secondaries from my top med school choices... at least with the UC schools i know they really want to see what i have to offer versus USC which may just want me for my $90 application fee... i could definitely see myself as a bruin... i'm actually quite revealed, for the past week i was thinking about my possible contingency plans in case things with med school didn't work out and whether or not i should change the heading of my blog... at least now i can send off some my letter's of rec which i think are very strong and should help to get me noticed...

tonight i'm going to restart something i used to do back in high school. back then i remember having extremely vivid dreams. dreams so real in fact once i woke up pissed off at a friend because we had argued in the dream and i thought it was real. because i kept a journal back then i can still recall some of my favorite ones. i guess now the lightpen my roomies bought me will come in handy when i need to jot down my dreams in the middle of the night... my movie project has become stagnant has the idea of producing a documentary has lost it's appeal. a short work of fiction perhaps? really need to hold a brainstorming session...

did i mention how wonderful this crisp, cold weather is? just puts me in a happy christmasy mood. although some people hate to go christmas shopping i for one love it. it's just so much fun to go out on my own to find gifts for the people i care about. and this cold weather always brings up images of me bundled in my jacket while wandering around fashion valley and utc trying to find the perfect gifts. although, it is kinda crazy that halloween hasn't even come and the christmas decorations are already out.

anywho, two midterms tomorrow... i'll be a much happier person 24 hours from now...

weekednds are usually reserved for sleeping in and chilling... this weekend was the exception... non-stop work both school and apsa wise...

got up early to study at this cool coffee shop in pb that was once a house. too bad it rained because it would have been cool to sit out in the sun and study. the best part of the day was coming back to yummy maki to have dinner. it wasn't so much the dinner that made my day, but the weather. i love it when it gets chilly and dark at nights. always reminds me of christmas/winter time. funny thing, when i put my playlist on rnadom it happened to select a couple of christmas songs in a row... all of them reminded me of when me and roomie stef cooked thanksgiving dinner... we downloaded the songs and played them as i cooked the rest of the dinner. we even got dressed up and waited for our guests like a married couple. the human mind is amazing in the fact that one short blip of stimulation (ie. scent, sound, sight) can cause a whole cascade of memories and emotions.

mentor mentee program is off the grown and although there are some points i wish i could have improved upon i'm quite happy with the result. two midterms this week and one next... on top of that ucs secondary application... don't expect to see me until december... =P

now is the time i ask for a little break... with 3 classes, apsa, and work i hardly have the time to actually sit and study, let alone get a decent amount of sleep... i miss philip, for some odd reason school was much easier with him around... even while i studying hardcore for the mcat there was always the family to come home to... not anymore... anywho, in good news i just received my secondary application for usc! woo hoo... my number one choice for med school although it's also the most expensive one. keep your fingers crossed that i get invited for an interview! =)

auditioned for nsu's diversity... talk to me personally if you want to know how it went. on top of everything i just realized that i'm still trying to get the mentor mentee program off the ground... and two midterms are just around the corner... this blog blows...

woo hoo! go trojans!

my stress level at this moment has literally fell through the floor... got my first letter of recommendation and my professor even said that from my letter i sound like a very interesting person and that this letter would be something the committee would really like to read. it's nice to get a little affirmation once in a while... esp considering the fact i was really doubting in my abilities... after that i was literally on cloud 9... so happy i didn't even mind going to section right after even though i wasn't in the mood initially... although i think i may be suffering from senioritis i'm still as busy, if not more so, as ever. i'm hardly ever home as phil duly noted today... tomorrow though the plans are simple... round up one more letter of rec, go shopping, and then chill for the rest of the night. no work tomorrow and for once i can really sleep in... definitely going to enjoy this little reprise i've gotten.

during class today i started thinking about the film project i want to pursure... decided instead to change up the subject matter... instead of mahjong going to try and make a documentary on boba... still have yet to decide what my catch will be, but this seems at least an easier place to start at... i mean, should be enough people on campus who are crazy about boba to make a real entertaining documentary or at least a mockumentary... for some odd reason armando came to my mind as someone who i would want as my central character...

so glad i went to clics tonight... always feel so accomplished when i finish all my homework. =)

because one of my former professors dope he's letting me write my own letter of rec. at first when i followed the outline he gave me i was bit a disappointed, it was sparse and didn't contain anything new that i didn't write about in my personal statement or included in my application. after tinkering with it and adding what i felt would be compelling points of interest for the admissions committees i think i sound like a very well rounded and overall good candidate for medical school if i do say so myself.

note to self: once i learn to drive a manual correctly my new car will be a 2 door BMW 3-series, in either metallic blue or red...

3rd week now... time to buckle down... have only been to clics 3 times this quarter... way below my average considering i have far less to distract me... tonight i studied for only one class and then spent the rest of the night bathed the soft glow of the television with jeff and richard watching a very brady sequel... something is definitely wrong... i think i may have contracted something... it was envitable given the position i'm in... only two more quarters left and i'm done with UCSD... yup, i think i have senioritis... didn't know i was a carrier of the illness...

finally 22 years old... or as i like to say 21 + 1... cuz 22 just sounds so old... did so many fun things this week and just would like to extend my thanks to all my friends who celebrated with me =) wednesday night went to Lips with Mayrin and met some interesting characters. i was even bitched out by a drag queen... guess i can check that off my list of life experiences... if you've ever watched Sex And The City, there's this one episode with street trannys which is closely reminiscent of what happened between me and the drag queen... to quote mayrin "the worst part about it was i didn't know if i was being yelled at by a man or a woman!"... puahaha...

friday night played at chuck e cheese and celebrated duel parties with lizelle... thanks in large part to sonnier and angeline who planned it. =) my roomie even played a bunch of games to win me a little disco light... cost about 1000 tickets to win that baby! thanks bobo head...

and then just last night went to culture shock's choreographers showcase... can i say the show was freakin awesome?!? it was well worth the money spent. the teams that exhibitioned were great. including this one group of 7 and 9 year olds who dedicated their performance to the Sponge Bob Squarepants.

should i take a nap or work some more on my big to-do pile? fuck it... it's 3rd week, i'm a senior and i'm tired... i'll nap then work... =)

dayam... didn't realize that the usc application deadline is this tuesday.... which means that secondaries should be around the corner... cross your fingers people...

weekend over

my whirlwind weekend of auditions and asian film festival have finally come to an end... after attending the festival i've been inspired to finish my long awaited movie project... after about 2 years of saying i want to make a movie i think that I'll finally get up and do it... can't seem to find that book that lizelle bought me about screenwriting... wish i could find it. =/ no real plans yet, definitely want to do a documentary on some aspect of my life. anywho, all my close friends be on the watch i may ask you to take part in my little project. funny thing, when i was thinking about making a movie with my friends 2 years ago, i sent out an e-mail to all my peeps telling them what i had planned... i guess inadvertently i had e-mailed this guy in hawaii i had interviewed about taiko drumming... anywho, fast forward three weeks after i sent out that original e-mail... i get this e-mail reply saying he can't wait to see my new film project and wants to know when it will be released in hawaii... funny? okie, maybe only to me...

anywho, tonight marked the last audition of my undergrad career... sad and disappointed... mainly because i'm spoiled and used to getting what i want... although, it's not like i wanted them to just give me a position... when i want something bad enough I'll work my ass off for it... just sucks that it didn't happen this time around. totally busted it tonight... props to david reyes who tried out with me... you totally rocked with your harlem shake down... hahahaha... anywho, when you work hard for a goal and someone says no, it's always disappointing... i'm sure by 3rd week of school it'll be long forgotten... just hope this doesn't follow me to med school...

just watched first episode of the bachelor with roomie jasmine... as predicted he kept the "exotic" asian women... besides that though, watching the show made me think... were these women in it because they truly believe in love at first sight or because they're all just desperate to get hitched? perhaps a combination of both. seriously, almost half the women said that they've dated before and have yet to find mister right and that they hoped they would get picked. tonight the group of 25 was chopped down to 15. of the 10 that were eliminated one women actually was about to cry because she wasn't going to get married on the show. come on now!

sidenote to self: find the point at which i became so vengeful...

just got back from an evening of studying... made myself a sandwich from leftover chicken adobo... it was pretty darm good with lettuce and some hot sauce... beginning to miss rice everyday. hopefully with this school routine in place i can start cooking on a regular basis.

this bit is for people in the know. looks like me and steph will easily win goldifsh gladiators... of the three fish remaining the two left in the "small" group have developed an infection either from stress or bacteria, but either way they don't stand to last for too long. our little black goldfish that could has a high probability of winning us the jackpot of $2.50 each! is he does it, i'll take him out of the tank and give him a spot on my desk. Go Blackie!

got my celica bit char-g the other day and a black "got adobo?" apron today... hahahaha life is definitely sweet.

it's zero hour baby! first day of school starts tomorrow and boy i can't wait. =)

talking to steph earlier todayabout some of my plans for the coming year and mentioned how i felt like one of those retirees who starts taking up new activities... started going back to the gym, enrolled in a gymnastics class with my little bro, and entertaining the idea of returning to kendo... today also marked the day i finally put all my uc med school applications into their respective envelopes. no longer going to fuss over it. going to the post office tomorrow to send them out. one less thing to worry about.

finally found the time to sit down and type. been away from the apartment for about two days and yet it feels like more.

APSA is starting up again. we had out very first officer meeting of the year. it was long as usual, but it was nice to be back with a group of familiar faces. although, honestly, i don't know if i feel the same way i did about 3 months. i soon found myself tapping away at my palm pilot when i found the meeting heading a standstill...

structure is a good thing. i think it's something i've been missing these past couple of quarters. i'm one of those strange individuals that strives off of structure and finds ambiguity to be scary... although i do know that the world is not divided into strictly black and white i still find comfort in having boundaries and rules. maybe this is why i find people who are spontaneous so entrancing. it's the fact they don't seem to be limited by rules or constraints. as this quarter starts i can already tell it's going to be almost like return to my freshman year. school, work, studying, and then a sprinkling of social time... dude, i'm a nerd. =P

got to drive my dad's benz around the other day and it has clutchless shift... didn't really know what the heck i was doing... just shifted the car whenever i felt the need... looks so much more fun to shift a car on tv or while watching other people do it... to remedy this adam has graciously offered his services in teaching me how to drive stick. =) hope i don't ruin his transmission...

with the start of the new school year comes the anticipation and hope that this year will be great. plus i always have extra cash to buy new clothes and toys. check out my latest toy! since most of you can't read japanese I'll tell you about it. it's called bit char-g (pronounced bit charge) and it's a tiny, only 2 inches, RC car modelled after realworld cars. steph first told me about it when terence told her that he wanted one. i was bored today looking for a new toy and happened to remember steph mentioning it. what could i say? i love toys. =D

it took me nearly 3 months to complete, but it's done. finally and absolutely done. that's right, both my uc and amcas applications are complete and ready to send out. just need to do a little photocopying and grab a little extra cash from my parents and my applications will be sent with the hope that at least one school will find me desireable. once i finish with the letter of recs my stress level will definitely be a notch lower.

went home today to check up on my family, drive my dad's benz, and to wash my car... afterwards i looked through the coat closet in the hopes of finding something cool. earlier i had found my dad's old scrubs and decided that i would take those back to my apartment. while opening up old garment bags i came upon something. my dad's government issue navy peacoat!!! i took it out from the garment bag and examined it with the same glee children save for opening christmas presents. the wool made the coat incredibly heavy and the statin lining was made the coat feel "oh so" good against my skin. i thought to myself, this coat will definitely come in handy during those freak san diego rainy days... only problem was the sleeves were too short. dayam... =/ should have figured it before... i'm about a couple of inches taller than my dad now. but that coat would've have looked awesome on me.

p.s. no matter how many times i try to organize my desk it always ends up getting trashed a couple of hours later... case in point... i spent 2 hours reorganizing all my papers and books into a managable pile this morning and now it's just crammed with crap again... big blue bowl, my mickey mouse cup, and a half eaten moon cake have taken up the remaining space which was supposed to be my work area... maybe if i didn't eat at my desk this wouldn't happen as often.

"I don't feel like there's 3000 miles separating me from SD. I feel like I'm just on a short vacation and I'll be back in a couple weeks. It doesn't feel like I'm so far from everyone in SD." my sentiments exactly philip...

tongiht we unofficially celebrated jed's 22nd bday at margarita rocks in pb... funny thing, i think we were the youngest people at that place... i think the median age was about 40... at first we noticed a guy with a terrible receding hairline and then shortly made the realization that everyone else at this dance club/bar was old... not that there's anything wrong with it... old people need places to hangout too... just got me thinking how sad it is to see single 40 somethings trying desperately to find someone to hook-up with... made me dowright scared... i mean by this age you should have already found that special someone and settled down.... or so i say in accordance to convention... call me a helpless romantic or old fashioned, but i think by 30 everyone should be married or at least at point in their lives where they're ready to commit... either that or have a back-up plan, right steph? =)

i popped a couple of skittles into my mouth as i was typing and realized i had just brushed my teeth already so i spit them out... they left trails of orange, red, and green on the tissue paper as they slid down to the bottom of the waste basket...

fun boy #1 hits new york...

so it's official... philip will be leaving for new york tomorrow morning around 6... the feeling is definitely one i'll slowly have to get used to... not going to write a lot about how much i'm going to miss him or the things i will miss, because it's never really goodbye with phil... more like i'll see you later..

top ten phil moments/memories/adventures:

10) learning to throw a football
9) playing in the APSA office/SAAC lounge
8) learning how to surf
7) phil's c-walk
6)Triple K and the PERMzookie
5) worms and perfect dark
4) playing on-line while mayrin is away
3) QT with the Family
2) Spring Break '01 - West Coast!!!
and my number one memory of phil...
1) "what are you doing?... where do you want to eat?"

the picture of the day is dedicated to my partner in crime, the original fun boy, philip

finished at last! finished writing the most important part of my med school application, the personal statement... needs one last revision to remove the fluff and i'm done... now for the easy part or so i say...

decided i needed to hammer out my personal statement and application once and for all... closed the door to my room and vowed not to come out until i had finished everything... unfortunately it was a bit counterproductive to lock myself in my room because i ended up just taking a nap. although I did wake up 15 mins later, like i had planned, I ended up going back to sleep for about 1.5 hours... not good... and now i'm sitting at my desk blogging away instead of working on my statement... i'm halfway through the much needed revisions and then i'll work on my extra-curricular activity stuff... feels like it's finals week. not in the sense that i have tests to worry about, but in that sense i have more free time than i'm used to and I'm wasting it playing on the internet (chat, e-mail, playing games) take for instance this game i like to play. i'll randomly go to a personal website and try to see if i can make my way back to my blog or at least back to someone's blog i know of. so far i've only been slightly successful. however, i have managed to find a couple of interesting personal websites via this little hansel and gretel game i play. it's the whole voyeuristic pleasure i guess which makes looking through other blogs and personal pages so interesting. you can look through all you want and only if you want them to know you can let them know you had paid them a visit. i really admire the people that write well... you can tell who those people are... these are the ones when you read one blog you want to read through more. getting to know them through their thought processes and how well they can communicate them... almost as if by reading their blogs you've made a connection with this person.

within 2 weeks school will start up again and the beginning of the fun crew diaspora...

the more time i spend at work the more i realize how much i like it... never really liked the idea of doing research as a career, but this job has definitely opened my eyes to the possibility of doing research as a doctor...

lately the apartment has been quiet and lonely... both good and bad... good in that i get to work on my med school application which has been sadly ignored most of the summer... bad in that i'm lonely... =( usually at times like this i would call phil, mayrin, or steph... so this is what the rest of school year will be like? hmmmm... not so sure i'm ready for the change...

came to the conclusion that the turtles are indeed evil... walking past their tank i saw them fighting over the last surviving goldfish in the tank... the poor guy, i really thought it was going to last since it had grown so big and fat.. i guess being so fat it just slowed it down...the thing was i had just feed all of them; the goldfish and the perpetually hungry turtles. it was like coming across a bloodly car wreck... couldn't help but watch... call it my scientific hunger for knowledge... i just reminded of when i was younger i would go into the backyard and do my own nature documentaries... i would take the hose and flood a section of my parent's garden and watch as all the bugs would come out... so interesting to see how the different bugs tried to survive the freak rain storm i had produced... it was like watching those documentaries of when the amazon floods and it floods so high even the monkeys are looking for refuge... hahaha... can't believe i remembered that =)

today marked the last day of viewing for my grandfather alberto tiong which lasted from friday afternoon to saturday afternoon... i guess you would say that at this point in the grieving process i'm inbetween sorrow and acceptance... the past two days have been exhausting for our whole family especially my mother who has taken care of most of arrangements... as a friend put it to me in an e-mail it was time now to celebrate his life... my grandfather was a man that was greatly loved as was apparent by the showing of his friends and family... it even provided me and an opprotunity to get together with my cousins who i hardly see since i moved out of the house... sitting outside the chapel today me, my bro and my dad talked about his life and what a character he was... the hardest part was the end when we had to close his casket... beforehand me, my bro and cousins stood around him just touching his hair and his hands until it was time to really say goodbye... undoubtedly the most heartbreaking moment was when my mother was asked to close the casket lid and she told us as her voice gave out to say goodbye to our lolo one last time... for my mother she still has a couple more days to go... she'll be flying to philippines where my grandfather will be buried next to my grandmother...

for myself now i can begin to heal...

drag queens and research...together at last!

today was todd's last day... todd is the lab assistant i'll be replacing at the research clinic i'm working at... to say that the lab has a very liberal attitude towards everything would be an understatement... no surprise here that the former location of the clinic was above Lips,a drag queen restuarant/show... plus it's only a couple of blocks away from the heart of hillcrest... back to the title of this blog... turns out that todd is also a drag queen... today during his goodbye lunch he dressed up as not only one drag queen, but two! Clamydia Concubine and another name which i forget... wish i had my digi cam with me today... that would've made it as my pic of the day... hahaha... anywho, did i say that this lab is one of the most relaxed places i've worked in?

today's pic of the day

with all the beauty in the world and a digital camera to capture it all i've decided to post up pics of the day/week/month/whatever,,,

love you

after fighting the good fight my lola, alberto tiong, passed away yesterday; saturday, auguat 31st, 12:45pm... ever since he was in the hospital my family and i have been in a state of semi-mourning... he can finally rest and be with his "mrs."... we went to see him shortly after his passing... all the times i saw him there i tried to hold back the tears, but saturday i left it all out, held his hand and wept... felt good to cry... seeing his picture i can hear his voice... he always talked to me in english whereas my parents always talk to me in tagalog... he would also make up short silly songs for me and my little bro... i'm sure now if he saw me crying he would sing "anak why are you cry? cry are you why anak?" and then laugh... almost yoda-esque =)...

so many things i wanted to tell you and ask you lolo before you left... i miss you and love you very much...

should i? or shouldn't i? deciding whether or not i should consider myself disadvantaged for med school applications... i mean in a bigger picture yes i'm disadvantaged being asian american coming from an immirgant family, but then i wouldn't say i that i'm from the ghetto either... or is it more than just material wealth that i should consider? i wonder if it'll come up in an interview... hmmmm... need to discuss this some more

anywho, i'm exhuasted... spent the day at work and the afternoon back at the hospital... lolo is getting weaker and because he didn't have his dialysis treatment he's been retaining water... his whole body is just full of liquids... the wrinkles in his skin are gone and now he has a pudgy little buddha face... he's been comatose ever since he was brought to the hospital... although just thinking about losing him makes me weep like a baby, standing by his side i was comforted by the thought that he was probably reliving his life again... bringing back all his old memories and thinking about how pretty soon he'll be with his wife back home in the philippines... i was thinking about it and couldn't believe the sacrifrices he made to help raise me and my little bro... moved to the united states when i was about 5 while my lola stayed in the philippines to take care of my cousins... he would come back to be with her almost every summer until she passed away in 92... could you imagine leaving your spouse for months at a time to take care of your grandkids? i'm kicking myself right now for being the little bastard i was when i was younger... he received his last rites today and tomorrow i'll be back at the hospital again...

today was unexpectedly busy day... work, med school stuff, and more importantly i was back in the hospital... not for myself, but for my grandfather who's health has been slowly deteriorating... i got the call from my mom to get home quick so i could drive her to hospital... my dad had saved his life by giving him cpr and calling an ambulance, but the prognosis doesn't look so good... eyes not responding to light... possible sign of brain damage... had to perform cpr on him twice while in the icu...
i listened as my mom talked to the kidney specialist... it'll be touch and go, but we're expecting the worse... for a while now we've all been scared of what was going to come next... for my lolo i think he realized his time was nearing even before this incident... everytime i go i try to be strong, but my emotions get the best of me... funny how the doctor told me to take care of my mom when it's hard enough for me to deal with it... right now i'm just awash in emotions... memories running through my head and the tears only ebb and never flow cuz we all know boys shouldn't cry... tried to wash out the thoughts by swimming... almost passed out on my way back to the apartment... anywho, i'll check up on my lolo tomorrow after work...

went down to hillcrest to talk to the director of the HIV research lab for the position i had applied to... he gave me the tour and my thoughts were that i had left a pretty good impression... in fact, the language he was using seemed to suggest i had the job already... it wasn't until he mentioned that there was another candidate that i got worried... although i should mention he did say i was one of his top choices...=) he first said he'd get back to me by friday since he had one more person he wanted to interview, but as i left the office he said he'd be able to get back to me by thursday for sure... good sign, no? anywho, as i was about to leave the apartment an hour after my interview low and behold i got the call... he said he liked me so much he wanted me to start ASAP... woo hoo! looks like i start tomorrow or today depending on how you look at things... my fortune cookie was right then... something to the effect that i would soon reap the rewards i was waiting for... =) looks like it's chinese food every night!

after about a week of searching and sending out resumes i finally got a bite... come this time next week i might be working for UCSD Medicine in one of their labs in Hillcrest... let's cross our fingers...

my personal statement has finally been taking shape... it's gone through so many revisions right now and i'm still in the process of narrowing down what i want to put in it... my self-imposed deadline is to finish everything by 12pm tomorrow so i can submit it for revisions at the career center and then hopefully send out the final draft by sunday.

thursday night... no plans whatsoever... usually at a time like this i would be with phil, mayrin, and steph... this summer feels a bit different than other summers... it's the summer of change...i think i'm going through what's termed as empty nest syndrome... the kids are gone and now i have nothing to do... everyone in the apartment has been pretty busy which leaves me to my own devices... perfect opprotunity to work on my personal statement for med school... but maybe i'll work on that tomorrow... =)

no matter how much i try to clean my desk it always ends up getting messy... i organize it and papers just magically appear on it... speaking of papers... i now remember why i put off my med school application... it's the personal statement... everytime i try to work on it my mind just goes blank... i try to be eloquent and it comes off wordy... i try to be witty and it comes off sounding trite... giving myself till sunday to finish and send off my application... =/

just watched monster's ball... interesting movie although i thought the story line was a bit slow...

project headboard

when we were moving out of our last apartment i noticed that my cheap ass green sheets had left a green stain on the wall where a headboard should have been... all summer i was debating whether or not to buy a bed so that my sheets wouldn't rub up against the wall and do the same thing in our new apartment... after thinking it through i decided to scatch the idea since i could better spend the few hundred that i would spend on a new bedframe and headboard to paying off my credit card debt... armed with some inspiration and the fact i knew i could make something better than what i would find ready made at ikea, i set out to make my bed... although i didn't build it myself a new bed, i did come close...looks quite professional... plus, it all came to a total cost of $80...pretty damn good i would say.. thinking about it now i should have taken a picture of my bed before and after... anywho, my inspiration came from bamboo... take a lookie and see for yourself...

since we're on the subject of asian persuasion... just got back from margaret cho's latest film "notorious c.h.o."... think "kings of comedy".. it was pretty good and it was just screaming with overt sexual content... wanted to see the dangerous lives of alter boys, but it wasn't showing at the landmark... the one and only indie film theater in san diego... how pathetic... i think for the time being i'm foregoing hollywood movies in favor of more well thought out films... i remember from my cult classics class that my instructor would refer to good works of art as films and everything else (ie. mainstream hollywood crap) as movies... suggesting that films are studied and enjoyed where as movies are merely eye candy made for profit... the definition stuck with me... after margaret's film i went back and plopped on the couch to partake of the bounty that is digital cable... found another asian film "eat a bowl of tea" starring russel wong... it was pretty good... the thing i liked about it was that although it was about chinese ppl in the 1940's the story didn't revolve around their race, but their lives... unlike "the debut" which sought to provide a whole spectrum of filipino culture into less than 2 hours... the whole thing plays out like one long pcc/pcn...

the races proved anything but profitable... although it was overcast the weather just seemed to zapp the energy out of me... anywho... it's late/early so better get some sleep

too lazy to really go over the details of my trip... but you can see my pics here...

anywho, back in san diego and loving it... going to go to the horse races on saturday which will hopefully prove profitable... go zam zam!

seattle

time for really quick update while i have access to a computer.. while we were driving past the city in out rental car the memories and excitment of my previous trip up the coast came flooding back... took a bunch of pictures on my new digital camera =)... sonnier's place is quite small. reminds me of the apartment in "coming to america" only smaller... to quote jane "now i know what it feels like to be poor..." hahaha... seriously, the three of us have been sleeping in a room smaller than sonnier's office here at work... we try to spend as little time as possible back at his place... anywho, been quite the tourist while here in seattle... went to the space needle, international district, seattle underground, alki beach, pike's place market, and no visit to seattle would be complete without a picture in front of the lusty lady adult theater... their latest film is "the eyeful tower"... our first night we watched the new seahawks arena christening in a glow of fireworks... anywho, time to jet and partake of washington's version of in n out burger... zai jian penyuo's...

today i'm sore... my shoulders, my abs, my thighs... everything is sore. can't tell if it's from the surfing or the dancing, probably a combination of the two... had a fun beach day yesterday and was learning how to surf from my previous snowboard instructor philip... learned how to balance on the board and somewhat get the hang of catching a wave. the feeling of riding the waves was awesome and i can see why phil likes surfing so much... more than a couple of times though i'd find myself being tossed about in the waves... the feeling of being dragged under by the wave was scary, but then a second later my head would pop up since i'd be carried into shallower water... anywho, on my way back out to try again i was holding the board parallel to the shore (btw, which is something you shouldn't do) and then a wave comes and smacks the board into my face... it happened so quickly i didn't know how to react... i immediately began thinking that i had lost a tooth... luckily no teeth were lost and i only got a swollen and slightly bleeding lip... that cut my surfing lesson short to say the least...

back home

our program officially ended around 12 saturday afternoon... packing up the offices only took about a couple of hours since we had started packing the day before... that night we all got johns hopkins money's worth by eating at P.F.Chang's... yes i know it's bastardized chinese food, but hey it's good for what it is... it's like watching a porno you don't necessarily watch it for the dialogue, i simply serves it's purpose... hahaha... after a tearful goodbye with the office peeps i had grown to love i was back in la jolla in a bout 1.5 hours... there's something about being back in the apartment that makes me not want to sleep... it's incredibly strange... while i was in LA once the clock struck midnight i was out, but when i got back to the apartment although i was dead tired i just had to stay up... must be the paint or something, because this apartment turns everyone in it into insomniacs....

anywho, one week back home and then it's off to seattle with jane to visit sonnier! can't wait! =)

not so fast...

you'd think with all the drama the health assistants went through this summer that we would be able to coast to the end of the session without any problems... the CTY deities had other plans... lice. small, tiny, itch inducing lice. yup. a student here had lice and we spent literally the whole day up until midnight removing the little buggers. not to mention the fact we had to also check the student's hallmates. i just thank our site coordinator for not forcing us to call their parents. i could just imagine the responses... "what? there's a child there with lice??!?! only poor ppl get lice and with the tuition i'm paying there shouldn't be any of those around..." it's really sad but i think this summer really drained me.. when i first started out i was exhibiting classic Type A behaviors and was really anal about kids even missing their flintstone vitamins... come second session i don't even use the computer based system to log in my work... where did it all go?

time for an update

one week left in the program... then it's back to good ol' san diego... =) been the first time since i've worked with johns hopkins when i've actually wanted to go back home... LA definitely has been very fun nevertheless. esp. since some of the ppl i work with are pretty dope. plus, it helped having phil and mayrin come up about every 2 weeks... =)

this friday i got my car back from the body shop and now you'd never know that my roomie put a big gash in the front or that some jackass hit my right fender... friday was also the day i went to look and examine cadavers... there were 16 students on the trip with about 11 staff members going... as you tell this field trip was one of the more popular ones with the staff... for many ppl this would be their only opprotunity to look at and examine a cadaver which was the reason for such a large staff turn out... for me, ian, and leigh it was a lithmus test of whether or not our respective careers in medicine and homicide were really for us. i think we passed. many of the students were really interested and pretty much wanted to know everything... most would go for the heart first... picking it up and examining it and putting there index finger into the aorta... one of the cadavers, we had discovered, has a pace maker... you could see the wires that were used to close her breast bone after to procedure and her heart that the wire still embedded in her heart... for lots of people on the trip i think the sight of cadavers was quite shocking. after talking to a couple of staff members a lot of people were expecting to see something very different. most of them, me included, were expecting to see cadavers that were neatly cut open at the torso and one could look instead... not quite though... for the most part the bodies of the deceased were merely bodies in the general sense. since we had arrived at the school toward the end of their dissections the cadavers were pretty much very well dissected... the heads had been removed, the brains removed, and everything in general was exposed. last session when the biomed students went to see the cadavers they still hadn't dissected the legs or the head... when we had arrived everything was done... i've done a dissection with a cat before but to actually have a person to look at was quite, obviously, very different. i would like to say the trip was fun, but considering the topic is cadavers i would have to change my wording and just say that the trip was interesting. definitely learned a lot...

fun moment: leigh and i wanted to see what ovaries looked like and we went to 2 female cadavers with no luck... so on the third one we were almost positive we would find one... the instructor for the biomed class asks us what we were looking for and after telling him he calmly remarks "ummm.. i don't think you'll find ovaries on this person... it's a man" hehehe... opps... score one for animal physio majors... hahahaha

the score now: animal physiology 4, sociology:65... j/p

kinda sad, funny, and bittersweet to think that i only have 14 days left here in LA...

most of the office staff are counting down the days... there has been a lot of good and bad karma going around the office and undoubtly we're all looking for a little reprise in bad energy... my shift today wasn't as hellish as i had remembered them to be... maybe it's because my night shift was broken down by a little outting to ktown with jerry and ethel... in fact, i felt like i did no work whatsoever this weekend... kinda nice... although today marks the seond day i've waken up late for breakfast meds...aiyo...

the shortage in my time here in LA has made me realize i'm sooooo behind in my med school applications... today i sat my ass down and put in all my grades... not as bad as i was thinking it was going to be... afterwards i just looked at the screen and smiled. smiled because i finally finished putting them in and smiled because my GPA isn't as retarded as i had previously thought it to be... maybe i will apply to UCSF... hmmmm... maybe...

the plan this week is rebirth... time to get a haircut, wash my clothes, finish my personal statements, and get my car fixed... speaking of which i'm head down to OC to have a little late night dinner with the roomie and get the cash to get my car fixed... the place i'm going to is supposedly very good per terence's adivce...note to self: call manuel and haggle an even lower price... after getting the quote i ditched saturday's activites at LMU and headed to downtown LA and santa monica with ter and mikey to look for snowboard equipment... i was so close to getting one, but decided more research was needed... plus need to weigh out what i really want to buy with my summer money; new video cam, digital cam, mp3 player, snowboard equipment, new palm, or a new phone? i'm such a technohead...

break time

just got back from an awesome day off... started out with phil and mayrin arriving in LA thursday night and us making our way to ktown where we met mikey kim for some bulgogi, boba, and kareoke... while at the kareoke place, ding dang dong, we managed to find the korean song "Money"... for those of you familiar with the song you can share in the excitement and joy of us actually finding it... but perhaps even better than finding it was all four of us singing it and getting the highest score of the night... really wish i had my videocamera to record the event. it would've been Money-Part II.... =)

spent the next day having dim sum and exploring the getty museum with the kids, jane and her friend darren... the getty reminds me of those pamphlets that jehovah's witnesses pass out... they always have pictures of what the world could look like if everyone was a jehovah's witness... beautiful gardens, people of all races intermingling, wild animals roaming free... well besides the wild animals part the getty center does look like an interpertation of what heaven would be like if on earth... the places is quite beautiful... i guess the way to describe it would be modern and organic... later that night we taught ter how to play mah jong... getting quite good... he won the last game of the night... so how bout it steph? when are you going to learn? =P

back in the groove (remix)

end of the 1st full day with the students... nothing much to report... no emergencies today *crossing my fingers*... not feeling as stressed as i did back 4 weeks ago... i've learned to relax a bit thanks to the other health assistant, evan... dropping my Type A tendencies for the rest of the session... =) the first weekend with the 2 emergency room visits really made me paranoid... now i'm a bit more relaxed and willing to leave the office to rest and relax...

HAPPY 21st BIRTHDAY JAZZ!

unfortunately i was stuck in the health office working so i wasn't able to celebrate with her =( with all the roomies 21 now i think it's time for a weekend in Vegas... Ocean's 11 style... well, maybe without the stealing... looking forward to seeing phil and mayrin this thursday... so happy they always come up to visit. =)

LA update

friday and saturday was intercession for CTY... the time inbetween batches of new kids... didn't have much on my agenda for my free time... just wanted to get back to SD and hang out with family and friends... rented a bunch of movies with my family and stayed up late friday night... rented mostly crap... watched 13 ghosts, not another teen movie and the anime version of Meteropolis... the two previous movies blew but i'm not complaining... should try everything at least once and now i can say that i've watched those crappy movies... the anime version of Meteropolis definitely took ques from the Fritz Lang version... although i can't say either were extremely interesting... both however were well made... funny thing... i actually met someone who has seen some of the weird indie films i've watched and enjoyed...

didn't get to see any of my SD peeps while i was down... sorry friends... didn't even head back to the apartment which is what i usually do before heading home... it's was nice though to just hang out with family and finally get my car washed... =) it no longer looks like it's sick... what to do with the 2 months i have left of summer break when i get back to SD? hmmm... so many different options... i could go to seattle to visit sonnier, i could find another job and kill off the rest of my credit card debt, i could workout everyday and get a hardbody, i could buy a gamecube and veg in the apt, i could enroll in summer session, i could fly to beijing to visit steffie, i could finish my summer movie... hmmm... yes, many options =)

since i'm in LA and hardly get a chance to converse with my friends in person or over the phone you can consider this blog as my indirect way of talking to you all... =) feel like i've been on duty forever... it's true actually... i came on duty 3pm tuesday, was on duty the whole day today, and i'll be on duty till 7pm tonight...don't know if i can say that i'm enjoying my time here in LA as much as i did the last 2 summers... but i'm also not going to say it's horrible... the reason being is that i'm not as free as i was back last summer... when i leave campus there is always the fear in the back of my head that a medical emergency will pop up and i'll need to rush back to fix it... of course there's evan who is always there to deal with emergencies too, but of course when one of us is out the other needs to be on duty... i think in our case the health assistants need to be paid more...need to get back to chinatown one of these days and buy more air fresheners... i'm planning on stocking up this summer =) if you haven't seen momento go rent it tonight... it is one fucking brilliant film... just watch it and you'll understand why. bleh, my legs are tired and my breathe stinks... time to brush my teef and get some rest...

beautiful day here in LA... it's not too hot and not too cold and there's a wonderful breeze coming from the ocean... the kids are all in class and the closing of session 1 is close at hand...it's been both a long and short 4 weeks here in LA... compared to last year perhaps not as fun and carefree, but rewarding. i kinda miss being in the ER late at night and watching Dr. Morikado do stitches... the closest i get is cleaning up and bandaging cuts. one of my favorite things to do actually. hahaha... my experiment to get lost and find my way back on the web was unexpectedly cut short... the web browser i had open crashed and was shutdown... maybe i'll try again... mayhaps...

what to do over intercession? should i go home, play with phil and mayrin, visit the roomies? on the top of my list is washing my car... whenever my car is dirty i feel like it's sick... ever since david scratched it i haven't wanted to really wash my car... by the end of the summer though little red should be all fixed...

besides med school i think this coming school year needs a set goals... i work best with goals. ambiguity scares me. here's my partial list of things to do for self improvement...

To Do List
1) work out everyday
2) speak more tagalog
3) relearn chinese
4) head back to kendo
5) take more pictures

me not sleeping

i knew i shouldn't have taken that nap around 8pm... =/... now it's 3am in the morning and i have work,... good thing i don't have to come in till 3pm =) anywho, tonight i tried to get lost amongst a sea of blogs. i jumped into a blogger webring and just started reading random ppls blogs. i wanted to see if it was really possible to connect from a random spot on the internet back to a page of mine or at least a friend's. so far i've tried 2 nights in a row and for two nights in a row i've still been "lost"... for a while i just kept hitting up blogs of little teeny boppers who were just learning to drive or were more concerned with their azn pryde than anything else... eventually i stumbled upon some blogs of ppl around my age (21+)... very interesting...i think maybe i'm a little closer to finding my way home...

i remember having a conversation with a friend and one of the things he regrets was that there are so many people in this world and that he would only get to know but a few of them... just reading through these blogs of random ppl made me kind of sad. the fact that i would never get to be a part of their lives and they would never know of my existence... we would never get to share stories or have inside jokes... made me wonder what if instead of the small close knit group of friends i have now it was the bigger... much bigger... so big in fact that every asian college student knew me and considered me one of their closest friends... but then again is there such a thing as having too many friends? like, with so many ppl does your friendship become diluted? interesting proposition... in the end though i'm even more grateful to have been blessed with such awesome friends... i just consider myself very lucky to have these people in my life... and that given the millions of possible paths i could have taken i was granted the opprotunity to have these people come along for the journey... i think it's pretty amazing. g'nite =)

day off

for the past four days my life has revolved around hospitals... on my day off i was hoping to escape it for a bit...

after having lunch with the roomie and then lunch with the family minus steffie it was time to head back home home... after calling home i found out that my lolo was in the hospital, but my cousin didn't know why. i rushed over to the hospital only to be directed to 3 different departments and when i finally got there i was told i'd have to wait since they were doing a change in shifts... anywho, around 9 last night i went in to see my lolo with my mom... for most of my life this man has been with me... he's taken care of me while both my parents worked and he was my personal chauffer for a couple of years. he was also my playmate when none of my friends were availble... we used to play nintendo together and sit together on the cough watching bugs bunny on rainy afternoons... i'm convinced i got some of my sense of humor from him, for a grandpa he has one silly sense of humor... now, i've seen my lolo in the hospital before, but usually he's well enough to speak... after his dialysis treatment apparently he had a seizure and before i got there he was moved from one of the nursing floors to the ICU... he's being monitered 24 hours a day. before i walked in my mom told me that he's been confused and that he may not recognize me. my mom in tagalog asked if he knew who i was... no response... she told me to talk to him but honestly i couldn't get the words out... all i could do was stare and cry... i cried by his bedside till it was time to go.. every once in a while he would start singing one of his made up songs and we would laugh a bit... i looked into his eyes hoping he would recognize me and say "hello my apo the doctor..." nothing.

real life trauma

it's been about 2 weeks since i've arrived in LA and a week since the kids have arrived and pretty much both me and the other health assitant evan have been working in 24 hour shifts to cover all the medical needs of the students... for the most part i would say this job is as rewarding as it is demanding. today was the first real emergency case we've encountered and to say i felt unprepared would be an understatement. honestly, i felt useless... luckily, evan was called in to to help take control of the situation... to just stand there helpless while a life hangs in the balance is a terrifying feeling... in the end there was really nothing me and evan could do but be support for the paramedics that arrived, but it was at that point i felt like i could've done more or at least made my pressence felt. to a lot of the staff members we are already viewed as doctors. in fact, a handful like to call me and evan just that... "good morning doctors!" "how are the doctors doing today?" =/ don't know if i feel comfortable being addressed like that... the title alone assumes i know a great deal about medicine which isn't the case... today though, i did what i could and i assured the parents of the student that he was in good hands and that we were doing all in our power to make sure he was fine. extremely frustrating to know that i didn't really handle the situation the way i would have liked to...

anywho, today we celebrate ethel's 23rd birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY ETHEL!!! jerry came up and they both cooked a little something for dinner... she even found some food for our vegan friend who hardly gets enough to eat in the cafeteria... can't wait for my day off... going back to san diego to deal with some business and replenish my spending money... =)

decision time

i'm awaiting the arrival of my mcat scores... yup people these 3 little numbers will decide for me what the game plan is... do i go for another round of mcat madness? or do send out my applications with a smile? hmmm... tough decisions... thinking more and more about my back up plans for grad school... although i really think my parents are eagerly awaiting for me to get into and out of med school so they can quit working.. which translates into grad school is okay, but med school is better... and then of course there are the people who are not only looking forward to the day they can call me Dr. Saldivar, but are expecting it, not that i'm not looking forward to it myself...... expectations i think are one of the hardest things in life to face up to when you can't meet them... right now seriously feeling like i may come up short this time around... =/
right now i really don't know what i should be doing.. i've spent nearly four years of my life perparing for this day of reckoning and yet as i draw closer to point where i sign my name on the little dotted line i can't seem to lift my pen... i've never really looked beyond what i could do besides becoming a doctor... i rememebr when my pre-med advisor asked me if i thought of doing anything else besides going into medicine and i told him flat out no... but now it's scary to think that maybe i wasn't cut out for this.. yes, now i'm second guessing myself...