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...