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.