after two incredibly stressful all nighters i'm completely done with midterms week... not one of the hardest midterm weeks or easiest, but still memorable in that im done with it. meaning, i'm done... only 5 more weeks and my undergraduate career is complete... how do i feel? it's surreal... i've become the academic equivalent of the middle child... i didn't quite finish in 4 years, but i didn't take a whole 5 years... i didn't graduate with some of my friends last year, but i'm finishing ahead of my friends who are graduating in june... still, it'll be nice to not have to worry about school for a bit before the stress of medical school hits... i'm still stressing about those interviews... it's all a waiting game and i can't stand it... please please please just give me interviews!

i finished a design for the talent show program cover... hopefully it's the one they pick... =)

the first time in a long time where i've actually had to stay up all night and study... i don't particularly like it... in the beginning it was fun and exciting... now it's just a chore to cram into my head as much as possible. i'm still waiting to hear back from johns hopkins and my med schools... everytime i check the mail i get a spike in my blood pressure... the silver lining behind all of this stressing out? by the end of this week i'll be half down with my quarter, which means only a few more weeks left of undergraduate life. strange and exciting... going to be a very nice 6 month vacation. =)

the weekend definitely flew by... only sorry i didn't get my homework done... now it's nearly 2am monday morning and i still have 2 labs reports to finish and reading for a midterm on tuesday... my eyes have been staring at computers and tvs for the past weekend... funny how i can simply pour over lines and lines of blogging, but when it comes to writing about the physiological changes in a frog's sciatic nerve i go blank... what gets me the most is that this should be easy... i should know all this stuff by heart... it should pour from my mind and fingers like water... when the hell did i get to be so lazy?

can't wait till veterens day weekend! going up to the bay to visit steph. seriously cannot wait to hang out with her... it'll be me, mayrin, and steph... only person missing is phil... that's the problem with phil being on the east coast, it's going to be tough to get the family together for dim sum... speaking of which, with the coming of chinese new year i'm kinda sad i won't be able to celebrate it with all of us together... i already miss having to wake up the kids to get ready for dim sum while me and steph are already dressed and the huge production it takes just to get us out of the door...

incidently, the weather right now has been close to amazing.. where else in the united states, besides hawaii, can you find 81 degree weather in the middle of january? kinda sad that the rest of the nation is freezing their collective butts off while the people in san diego are complaining that it's so hot...

60% of violent crimes committed against asians in america are committed by other asians... i seriously don't understand it...

name numerology

Your Heart Number is 9
Gives you a strong desire to help and to serve others. Generous and compassionate, you would probably make a good teacher or care-giver. Your desire to aid other people is your paramount concern.
wow, that was so on the ball... definitely one of the many reasons for me waiting to become a doctor is because of my desire to help others

Your Personality Number is 4
And you probably seem to be a very honest and dependable person to those around you. Even if you appear to be a bit stodgy or reserved at times, people do know that they can count on you
i don't like the fact it says i "seem" to be honest and dependable... yes, i can be reserved at times, but it makes no mention that i'm also loud and cocky at times too...i'm freakin smart!

Your Image Number is 4
And others probably view you as being fairly hard-working and dependable. You like to be seen as a very stable and secure, family-oriented individual. And you're more than willing to work hard to achieve the security you desire.
this one is also very true... unlike most guys around my age i'm already thinking about my future family... can't want to have babies! gotta love babies and their cute little feet and hands... you better believe i'm going to work my ass off to get what i want in life...

birthdate numerology

Your Life-Path Number is 1
Those around you look to you for guidance. Because of this, you may often find yourself taking on roles of leadership. Curious and enthusiastic, you are not afraid of new ideas and may even consider yourself a bit of a pioneer. You have a lot of big dreams and would like to find a way of leaving your own unique mark on the world!
ding, ding, ding!

Your Forecast Number is 5
Now's the time to take a little break and enjoy life. Since you'll be feeling restless and curious, it's a good time for travel, adventure and anything that serves to broaden your horizons. Don't be afraid to experience new things and enjoy yourself a bit.
did it know i was going through senioritis? plus with me finishing this quarter i have a 6 month summer break...

the concept of time has lost all meaning... an hour seems like mere seconds and before i realize it, it's time to go to bed... where the heck does all the time go? i suppose it's all fine and dandy when the day goes by so fast, but when i don't have any time to do stuff for myself it fuckin' sucks...

when my days get like this my senioritis tends to flare up... on the way to school from work i decided to pick up lunch from 99 ranch and ended up playing hookie from class. i'm dreading writing up that lab report for my physiology lab even though i know it's not due for another 2 weeks... that thing is going to be a bitch to get finished... i'm ready to graduate i've decided... ready to move on with my life...

just remembered what i was originally going to blog about... still concerning the 3-day weekend...

saturday was amazing... it's the middle of january when the rest of the country is freezing, i'm enjoying an iced blended coffee outside, basking in the sunlight with my friend hai. afterwards it's still so warm i decided to take a couple of laps in the pool. the smell of sunscreen always reminds me of summers has a little kid. every summer during elementary school my parents would shuttle me and my little bro to swimming leasons on base. we'd wake up every morning at 7, gather outside with all my other swimming mates, and wait for our instructors to call out our names and take us to the pool. anywho, i digress...

during the summer i decided to start swimming laps again. my motivation for it was more has an escape mechanism than for the obvious health benefits. it was during that time my grandfather was in the hospital. the first of two visits that he would be making during the summer. i came home from the hospital numb. he was comatose and couldn't speak... decided to release my pent up anger/frustration/sadness in the form of night swimming... the first couple of times i would do laps till i would literally have to drag myself out of the pool, otherwise i probably would have drowned from exhaustion... the other times that followed i would do a couple of laps and then just float... it was my own form of self therapy... i would usually think about my grandfather's mortality and my own. floating on my back the water would cover my ears and mute out the sounds of surrounding la jolla. i thought maybe this was what death was like. floating in a sea of stars, knowing the world was still revolving, but that you are no longer a part of that world. as morbid as it sounds, just about every nighttime swim ended with me dying in the pool and then reemerging... my own form of teen angst reconciliation. when school started back up again in the fall i stopped swimming simply because i couldn't find the time to do it anymore. with the incredibly warm weather i took it as a sign to swim a couple of laps...

this past saturday i died, it was wonderfully theraputic... i left my sorrows and pain from the past year to float in a sea of stars... can start the new year with a clean slate.

back to reality

the 3 day weekend is officially over. got a bit of everything done this weekend except my laundry. i have a pile of dress shirts that have been waiting to be ironed and pressed for about a week now. it's my own fault for liking oxfords so much...

the game plan for this week is just to keep up with all my work... i think i've lulled myself into a false sense of completion by taking only two classes. incidently, i think my palm pilot has disappeared...

thus far it's been a great 3 day weekend... was able to spend time with my extended family who i only see on rare occassions...

whenever the saldivar and julaton family get together for a party you can be assured of two things... kareoke and games... the parents sing kareoke while the kids becoming incredibly competitive playing board games... last night we played cranium with my team cinching the gold... we renamed our team the flying butresses since that was the word that won us the game... definitely a had to be there moment... also got to finally met my cousin's wife, amanda... pretty surreal to see that he's married considering we're just a couple of months apart in age. i always thought married people were different from the rest of us folk... they were somehow more mature than rest of the single population... in actuality there doesn't seem to be a difference between married jason versus single jason with the exception that now we're added a permanent member to our board game bunch... also came to realize last night that me and my cousins get very attached to each other's significant others... when you date someone in our family you end up dating everyone else too...

3 day weekend has officially arrived... i'm again feeding my on-line addiction instead of going to bed at a reasonable hour... finished watching "y tu mama tambien"... dirty, but good film. almost like a dirty amelie... both directors seemed to have motifs based on the the continuum of life... interesting... was finally able to afford a haircut after visiting home to get my weekly handouts from the relatives... finally gave into my curiosity and bought some hairwax. had been wanting to try it for about 6 months now... it actually styles my hair pretty nicely and the best part about it is that i don't need to wet my hair to do it... unfortunately, the wax cost more than the haircut... =T two weeks of abs and a consistent work out regime i think are starting to pay off... my little belly has begun to receede and i'm starting to see a little definition... hopefully by the time beach weather comes back i'll have a sexy body... hahahaha

my alarm tried to wake me up for an hour before i just shut it off... i called into work to tell my boss that i would come into the clinic in the afternoon to do my hours... instead of getting through to her within a minute i was put on hold and had to call back again because i was disconnected. needless to say after waiting about 5 minutes on the phone and talking to my boss i turned from near dead zombie to being wide awake. instead of the an extra two hour nap i decided to take only an hour and head back to work earlier than expected only because guilt was eating me up. today both of our interim plebotomist never showed up to work and my boss had to leave early for a funeral, leaving only one person to work in the lab.

having so little work academically i feel a bit disconnected from my purpose in life. for almost 5 years i've spent a good amount of time focused at the task at hand, medical school. now only having 2 classes and with one pass/fail and the other being a lab i feel like i've lost my purpose in life. i no longer have the excuse i can't hang out with friends because of schoolwork... i'm no longer getting more pastey because of constant hours inside of clics... without the tension of applications i'm left to stew and wait for interview requests. this week i just got word from charles drew that they were now doing a full review of my application and that they would get back to me. that school is perhaps the scariest to get work from just cuz i know what they'll be sending me. it's a postcard which simply states... yes, we're giving you and interview or no, goodluck with your other choices... it's one thing to not get an inteview it's another for everyone who handles the mail to find out about your failures. more and more i'm questioning whether or not becoming a physician is really what i want to do... yeah, i know, really late to be doubting myself... maybe it's because of that fear of failure. i have always had the mentality, if i can't succeed then don't try at all or at least switch to something you know you'll do well in. self doubt is one big bitch...

thinking i should start going back to the ER to volunteer my time and start going back to hip hop class... next week i made the resolution to attend culture shock's dance workshop and to crash rimac's hip hop classes like i did 3rd year cuz my dancing sucks... decided to add another resolution to my two... going to learn to snowboard well...

it's amazing at with only 2 classes in my arsenal i'm still desperately looking for time. lab eats up most of my day on MW and in between classes tues and thursday i'm working at the clinic. even on my completely free fridays i work full time... all of which makes me glad that i have weekends because unlike my fellow working class college students i never have to give up my free saturdays and sundays to work... i can remain blissfully comatose for as long as i want.

this week i find out if i'll be given that health assistant position in Kaneohe, HI... hence a partial reason behind my new year's resolution to get "beach fit"... wanna look good if i do end up working in paradise.

the day that would not end...

after going against my better judgement i decided to stay up late and watch Bravo's latest reality series: The Fire Within, Cirque du Soleil... incidently i now want to runaway and join the circus... knowing full well i would have to get up at 7am to go to work i still stayed up to watch it... undoubtedly my body has aged and it now takes more than 5 hours to refuel my sleep tank... work went by slowly as i hurriedly tried to get out on time so i would have enough time for lunch before class... unforetunately that wasn't the case and i ended up rushing from work to class and then going back down to work afterwards to finish up some leftover paper work... i ended up staying at work later than expected and didn't get home till 5 which left me about 15 minutes to eat before heading off to plan the APSA general body meeting. went about 10 hours before i had a bite to eat... to say that my head was pounding would be an understatement. after the glucose and alleve kicked in i was back to normal and now here i am at 1am thursday thinking about how i didn't get any homework done.

related topic..this is the dream i had right before i woke up for work... i was back in new york... i was walking through a non-descript part of the financial district when i spied a small jet flying low across the skyline. i got scared as immediate thoughts of 9/11 came rushing back... suddenly the small plane changed direction and started to crash toward me... it crash landed in front of me at a four way intersection. i've never seen someone die in front of me so the sight of watching that happen was a shocking one... the plane's hull had opened up on contact and the pilot stood up in the middle of the wreakage... he was bloodied and obviously hurt...surprisingly he co-pilot was fine and he sat on the wing as his partner in crime slowly died... the co-pilot mockingly laughed at me, which scared me, and then looked at me as the pilot collapsed. he was dead. i immediately picked up my phone and begin to walk away from the scene... while walking and talking to phil on the phone, he asked what street i was on and i looked up to read the street signs... i was at the corner of wall st. and seasame st.

the new yorker vs. the tourist

my first time to new york i really felt like a tourist... my second time around i didn't want to feel that way. although i wanted to explore the city, i wanted to be able to ride the subways without having to refer to a map and to navigate the streets without looking like the average tourist... in essence i wanted to be a new yorker or at least look the part. my standard issue new yorker clothes included a gray campus coat, vintage washed jeans, jcrew sweaters and shirts, and black leather euro shoes... according to phil i dressed more like a new yorker than he did. =)

most tourists in the city are easy to spot. they tend to wait for the crosswalk andif they do jaywalk they wait patiently on the sidewalk while the natives ready themselves on the street as taxis whiz by. tourist also apologize for bumping into you. according to my data, as a whole new yorkers are rude. i can see why though... having to share the city with everyone else and then having to share it with the myriad of tourists that flood the streets. i'd be pretty impatient too.

only tourists flock times square. that part of the city is amazing though. it's almost entirely run by disney, but the neon lights, the bigger-than-life signs, and the vibe are things you can't find in san diego. my first adventure by out by myself found me exploring most of the city. perhaps the one thing that made me feel like a new yorker was the fact that phil's place was also my place. it was home for a week. as corny as it sounds, having my own set of keys i think really tied me to new york. while riding the subway i would look around and see the tourists and think "hey, while you're going back to your overpriced hotel room... i'm going home to brooklyn..."

first day of school

i'll continue with my new york adventures in another posting... today was the official start of my last quarter at UCSD... had my animal physiology lab today which ran from 11-4... to say i was lost would be an understatement... i'm hopeful that once we start up with "real" physiology material it'll all come back to me. so weird to be back in the APSA loop... no longer have applications to worry about. just worrying now whether or not these schools will grant me interviews... i've decided to let fate take over in terms of my career path. if med school was meant to happen, it will... just have to trust that.

my left shoulder is killing me... dunno if it was from wrestling with my little bro on sunday or from working out today... i think maybe it's a combination of the two... i'm dreading coming back to work... in addition to the 10 other tasks that will need my attention i can just imagine the large pile of paperwork waiting for me.as well... sometimes i wonder what would happen if i decided i wanted to give them my 2 weeks notice...

for christmas i got the sims on-line. i'm still undecided about whether or not i like it... even on-line i seem to be introverted... to me it seems more like a glorified chat room than an alternate universe to play in. people seem to drag in their personal lives into the role they're playing... funny thing, today i found a whore house and gay fight club in the city my sim lives in... maybe i'll pay both a visit.

happy new year

chinatown and sago tea
after literally a week of playing in the big city i'm back home in temperate san diego. so many experiences i want to talk about... in hindsight i should have taken more snapshots. using the new york subway system wasn't as daunting as i thought it would be and on my first night by myself i did a pretty good job of covering major ground. started off around nyu, had myself a slice of pizza, walked around the crowded streets of time square, and then had a late night dinner in chinatown with phil and mayrin. although new york seems to lack the type of asian population similar to southern california, their chinatown definitely beats san diego's convoy... actually any chinatown can beat convoy. in addition to being close to phil's apartment by subway, you get an awesome view of the manhattan skyline everytime you go. day or night the city looks great from the manhattan bridge. my first day i wanted to grab a boba, but in new york it's called sago... (which is funny since that's the tagalog word for boba) i was confused and had to ask to the lady if they served pearl milk tea... the boba market in new york hasn't experienced the type of saturation that plaques/blesses southern california... interestingly though there is a boba shop in the famous new york macy*s...

there's another chinatown in flushing, queens that we went to... we went into bakery/boba shop that had your common tea menu... you had your regular milk teas, shakes, snow bubbles, etc, etc, etc... sad thing was whenever mayrin ordered, they were somehow out of it... after two failed attempts at ordering the lady behind the counter finally told her that they only had coffee and tea...

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.