I’m moving!

We’ve recently transferred to our new, insanely huge, insanely equipped, and insanely expensive hospital.  I like that it’s insane, but whoa, I am not kidding when I say “huge”.  It’s like one gigantic complex made up of three buildings.  The hallways go on forever.  And I mean FOREVER.  I’ve only been inside one of the three buildings, and I haven’t even seen all the floors yet.  I should’ve expected that though, since the whole place is located in GC, about 3 cities away from where I live.  The way I see it, a block in GC would be equal to 2 or 3 “normal” blocks.

Anyway, I’ve been taking the MRT to GC for the past week.  Commuting to GC isn’t much of a problem (even if I lose sleep waking up veeery early to beat the morning crowd), it’s getting home that drives me crazy!  You can’t help but want to kill.  Riding the train from Ayala/Guadalupe to Cubao during the rush hour is like going to war.  The MRT’s a battlefield.  Or a trash compactor.  You’d feel way more comfortable in a sardines can.

I don’t think I can take commuting to GC once we start on shifting schedules, so I spent about two months looking for a nearer place to rent.  I was lucky enough to find a room (at one of my friends’ house, oh yeah).  I love that her unit’s number is 133, same as the number of my house.  I’m moving out next weekend so I guess I have to start packing as early as now.

Bye bye family and San Juan.  I’ll be home on weekends maybe.  I hope I don’t get separation anxiety.

Night duty is toxic. Stress, burn out, yeah give me all the negatives.

I’ve been awake for almost 24 hours.  I was on night duty and I got home around 3:00pm- a full 8 hours after the time I should have gone home which is supposed to be at around 7:00 or 8:00AM.  I am so tired.  My shift during that night was hell.  Toxic, hectic, one big headache.  And then on the very last hour of my duty, something happens.  Something incredibly, massively stupid, unnecessary and unexpected.

I couldn’t concentrate on the work I had left to do.  I was actually crying in the nurses’ station because everything was going horribly horribly wrong.  All the little things just kept adding up, from non-answering doctors, non-infusing IV lines, blood transfusion problems, less than 40cc of urine output from a kidney patient (that’s roughly 2 tablespoons), freaking needles, and angry co-workers.  If I mentioned them all I’m sure it’ll take up several paragraphs.  No wonder a lot of the other nurses I knew wanted to quit. I got dumped with a garbage bag full of things-that-can-possibly-go-wrong-during-your-shift.  I tried really hard to keep myself from crying but I couldn’t help it.  It was so embarrassing having to cry like that.  Thank God I didn’t do it in front of my patients.

It took me until 10AM to finish everything for the unit, then I had to go down to the ER which took up so much time processing because I literally had to go around the hospital wards looking for forms, which my own and about half of all the units didn’t have.  Freaking forms!  I finished all that, along with filing an incident report.  That had me going back and forth from 1st to 2nd to 5th floor.  So much paperwork.  I didn’t eat breakfast or lunch anymore (who the hell could eat in a condition like that anyway).  It took so long that I actually saw the nurses for the afternoon shift.  Shit.  I never want to have to go through another incident report again, or work on another night shift.

That’s it.  That’s pretty much the latest thing in my life.

“If I was a smile would you turn me upside down?”

This always makes my day!  Buskers in NYC.  I love the music, the WORDS, the people.  Everything in the video goes together so well!  Happy, happy, happy.  I could watch it all day.  I could listen to the song aallll day long.

This is random, but does anyone remember the band that used to always play in Greenhills years ago?  Each of the band members were blind and they all wore white shirts and dark, dark sunglasses.  They had this white wooden box where people could put in some change or whatever they had to donate to them.  They’ve been there ever since I was a kid and my mom always gave me coins to put in the box because she said it was the only way they made their living.

I started seeing less and less of them ever since Greenhills went under new management and they moved the band to a spot outside the malls where not a lot of people passed by, until eventually they were gone.  I wonder what happened to them?

Video found via colormekatie.  I recommend looking through the other entries on the site. 

My sketchbook was stolen!

Someone stole my sketchbook and I am not happy. My brother brought it to Vigan and left it in their hotel room. Someone forgot to lock it and poof! All gone, along with a few cellphones and random gadgets. This coming from a reputable hotel (>_<) why oh why? I bet it was an inside job.

Thankfully it was just my sketchbook and a few notebooks that my brother lost (too bad for the others) but still, I want my sketchbook back! You can't replace the drawings I had in there. Grrrr.

I love cicadas.

There are cicadas in the trees around the mini-park/garden walkway at Virramall Greenhills. Yup, that part that used to be a rectangular pond where you could go fishing for a fee (I really miss the old Virramall, Greenhills just isn’t as fun to visit anymore). I stayed there for awhile to hear the mass at the chapel nearby. I wasn’t aware there were cicadas at all because they kept quiet during mass, but when the priest said the whole “Go in peace” bit at the end, they just started chirping as the people dispersed. So cool, it was like they waited for the mass to end. It just really made my day. Reminds me of mornings in high school- never complete without their deafening sound hahaha.

How…

Just now I received word that the father of one of my friends passed away. It was sudden. I can’t imagine how she must feel. She was just telling me a story about him a few hours ago.

I prayed together on the phone with her for her dad’s quick rescue and they retrieved him not more than an hour after, but they were too late… This is the third time in such a short time that a friend’s parent died, all of them only a week or so apart. We actually talked about that a few days ago, about how other people’s relatives died at this time of the year…

Come to think of it, my friend has been talking about her dad a lot during the past days. I don’t know if that meant something. Like a sign maybe.

I think people know it when they or someone close to them will die. Most of the time, no matter how sudden it is, people won’t die without warning. They’ll leave signs. They’ll tell you they love you. They’ll do something they usually don’t do. That’s all I have to say for now.

St. Nicholas

Sometimes people are unreachable on purpose.
Sometimes you just need to get away,
You need to look away from the things
that remind you of what you’ve lost
and of what you could lose.

Close your eyes for awhile.
They’re everywhere- the white uniforms, the sighs of pain,
those helpless eyes…
We haven’t lost anyone yet
but it somehow feels that way, doesn’t it?
I don’t know who suffers more, you or the man on the bed
How can I help you? Tell me how I can help you…

Dream Anatomy on my sneakers

I haven’t posted any shoe photos in awhile, so here’s some of the sneakers that I drew on with a paint marker. They’ve got vertebrae all over. I did these months ago when I had too much time on my hands, and they’re part of the very few productive things that I’ve done as a bum hahaha. Messed up my desk in the process, too. Oh wait, it’s always been messy.

posterior view + early bird

sneaker tongue

Inspired by the Dream Anatomy Exhibit and handouts from my zoology and anatomy classes. The half-man, half-bird skeleton is Barry Cleavin’s For the true anatomy – Early Bird.

I’m starting real “hospital duty” on Thursday. Looks like I’ve been assigned to the VIP unit. Waaa.

Music for the long weekend

Possibly the longest one ever. No training on Monday makes that a 5-day vacation. Yay! The bad news is that my evil stomach is acting up again and I’m stuck at home waiting it out. I feel like a bum all over again. The stomach has to get in tiptop shape soon because my cousin’s debut is coming up (read: tomorrow) and I’m part of the 18 shots. Perfect timing, Mr. Stomach. Behave because I have to at least tolerate one shot without vomiting.

Anyway, there was nothing better to do but watch youtube videos, and I found the acoustic version of Lady Gaga’s Poker Face. Since I don’t watch MTV or listen to the radio, I didn’t know any of her songs until Julie and Liz used Poker Face in our group presentation. Her music isn’t normally the kind that I would listen to (and it probably never will be), but I’d reconsider if she did more songs like this. This version really took me by surprise. She can sing. Really. I like it better than the original one. I’m playing it right now :-p

Here’s a video of a revised version of Vampire Weekend’s Walcott. Live strings! Compare and contrast with the original one.

And here’s another one from the same performance because I love Ezra Koenig’s eyebrows. That, and M79 is so good I could rave about it for days.

Hooray for long weekends.

Gentlemen on trains: giving up seats

It seems like chivalry still exists, even if it’s mostly confined within the cars of the speedy caterpillars known as LRT and MRT trains. I’ve never been comfortable with taking another person’s seat, especially if the person is only offering it because he’s male and that’s what society expects him to do. Still, commuting is nice if everyone acted like a gentleman would.

Out of curiosity, I decided to conduct my own little experiment. It’s a very unscientific one. I tried to refuse whenever someone offered me his seat on the train. I had about 6 commuters as my subjects, all on different rides on Lines 1 and 2 of the LRT. Most of them insisted on me sitting, and I kept refusing. I expected them to just sit back down, but not a lot of them did. Most just remained standing, or walked to the opposite side of the train until I was forced to take the empty seat. One of them even argued with me! It’s funny.

Out of my 6 subjects, only one sat back down on his seat. He didn’t seem too happy about it; the look on his face was annoyed and bordering on being offended. I stopped my experiment because of that.

Anyway, I gathered enough information to theorize that refusing help from a guy does something to his ego, and I bet that guy won’t be offering his seat again to anyone at any time soon. I really feel bad for discouraging one of the few gentlemen we have left in the world. It’s important that women show their appreciation and thus encourage chivalry more. I’m not a feminist (though I do have a few feministic beliefs). I think that we women shouldn’t always expect men to offer us their seats, but let’s not refuse unless we have a good reason to. (^_^)’

Oh, and we can’t just leave all the seat-offering to guys. As one of the commuters told me, good deeds equal good karma. If someone needs the seat more than you do, by all means, give it up.