Hopefully the resume face lift thing will work.

Happy holidays! A bit late, but oh well. I’ve been busy with Christmas and family matters, and of course, being unemployed. I am getting sick of explaining myself to relatives (same old yeah-I’m-still-jobless-no-vacancies-in-the-hospitals-yeah-I-know-it’s-so-hard-to-find-a-job-here-yeah-there-are-more-opportunities-abroad-but answer). January has to be better. Honestly, it’s becoming embarrassing whenever someone asks.

And with that thought in mind, I am giving my resume a face lift. I found this article at lifeclever.
Give your résumé a face lift

It might help, it might not, but I thought I’d share it to anyone reading this who might have the same problem as I do.

Oh and more about accidents- I managed to scald my big toe (the right one).

I’ve also had a few revelations about life and love and family and perseverance and myself, like only the holidays can give to you. I guess I will talk about that another day. Happy holidays again, and a good new year for everyone.

On getting run over by a wheelchair (and four other random things)

1.  I got my left foot run over by a wheelchair.  It hurt.  Bad.  It got me singing Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer for the entire trip home.

what I was wearing when I got run over

I was in the elevator admiring a lovely violet orchid that a woman was carrying when a man pushing an older man in a wheelchair entered, swiftly running over my foot in the process.  The sad thing is that the guy didn’t notice, and neither did the man in the wheelchair.

It hurt so much I wanted to scream, but I kept quiet because I was thankful that I could walk and that I didn’t have to sit in a wheelchair with a helper to push you around, and occasionally, apologize to people because that helper is a careless idiot.  And I really didn’t want the man in the wheelchair to have to apologize to me because of something that was his helper’s fault.

So the three of us (plus my mom) ended up admiring the lovely violet orchid (in pain) that the woman was carrying until we reached the ground floor.

2.  I finished making an emergency coloring book for Timmy, whose birthday was on December 20.  A little late, but I’m giving it to her with this cute crayon pen (it’s 8 colors in one fat pen, like those multicolor pens except that it’s crayons instead of ink).

3.  I am now my family’s official gift wrapping slave.

my own version of the furoshiki wine bottle wrap

these two are best friends

octagon shaped biscuit can

used this tutorial

This tutorial, I mean.

I realized I love wrapping.  I tried being creative with each gift while conserving gift wrapping paper.  The cat and rabbit ears and the flower on the octagon can were made out of excess paper that would otherwise be thrown away.  If I had the money I’d use furoshiki on everything!

4.  There was a sale on Converse shoes at the Megatrade Hall in Megamall on Sunday and I missed it!  😦

5.  I cannot get over the whole Bush gets shoes thrown at him by an Iraqi reporter.

Bush and his mad matrix shoe-dodging skillz

You can check out some more funny bush-shoe gifs at BoingBoing

Also, I am planning to participate in this photo project, Thank You for Throwing Your Shoe.

All around town and still going nowhere.

Alright.  Lung Center application, a disappointment.  Just like the shoes I was wearing when I went there- they were a half size too big and had heels, and it it was so difficult to walk that I had to change into flip flops (thank God I had enough foresight to bring a pair with me).  There were more than four hundred people when we arrived, all waiting to be accepted as nurses-in-training.  They only accepted three hundred.  I wasn’t included, of course.

I have, however, heard from the others that they they were divided into three batches.  The third one will start their training in June 2009.  Yes, next year.  Yes, it seems that you must register 7 months beforehand so you can train in the Lung Center, after which you must pay for more training and more miscellaneous fees.  Many are willing to wait it out, and pay everything just to be able to train there- because it’s a specialty hospital that specializes in diseases related to the lungs- because it’s that special- because if you train and work there then you will be special too.  Seriously though, it is a very prestigious hospital, a good tertiary teaching one, and it is the entire nation’s center for pulmonary diseases.  I would love to work there.

I missed the review class.  My parents weren’t very happy about it.  I don’t see why they are though, with me prioritizing job and training applications over the review.  I haven’t passed my application for the exam yet, and the review class is unlimited, meaning I can choose to attend (or miss) the classes any day I want.  I can keep reviewing for as long as I want, whenever I want.

Feels like finding a job is impossible right now.

I am not giving up though.  I am looking forward to more opportunities next year.  I am going to take some risks, and every chance that comes my way.

This is my lucky star:

my inspiration

Saw this one at the Converse shop in Trinoma, taken with Gelo’s pretty camera phone after we came from the Lung Center and Red Cross.  I don’t own a pair yet, but I will when I get my first paycheck.

Met up with Bayan too.  There’s nothing like friends and Christmas (window) shopping to make up for a wasted morning.

I cannot handle coffee.

Alright.  I had about 2/3 of a cup of coffee at around 8PM last night, which caused me to stay up until 4:00AM, which in turn made me sleep through the alarm.  I am annoyed.  I missed my review class.  I recently enrolled in the hopes that I will fool myself into thinking that I’m no longer a bum (technically) and being productive (but in reality only wasting money).

By the way, that wasn’t even a full cup.  It was one of those instant ones you get from a machine, pretending to be a cappucino.  With lots of sugar and creamer.

I have a new addiction now.  Tea lattes at The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf.  African Sunrise = love.

There are so many ideas in my head right now.  More projects that I hope I both start and finish.

Been busy helping out with my brother’s transfer to another school (shifted to a multimedia arts course, lucky dog) and I haven’t done much shoegazing.

*****EDIT*****

I just got some very important news today: there will be screening for staff nurse applicants at the Lung Center tomorrow!  I hope it’s not just a rumor.  I’m going to see if they will accept my application.  Prayers, prayers, prayers!  Guess I won’t be attending the IELTS classes again.  Or maybe I’ll just be a bit late…

Slippers are very unprofessional (it’s a dog day)

I went to Megamall today to see a dog show.  It was more of an exhibition of working dogs- bomb sniffing and personal protection, mostly of the breed Belgian Malinois.  Yes, I really have nothing to do.  My dad trains and breeds dogs like those, so yeah, he’s an enthusiast, as most of us are in the family.  This is how they look like:

bax with my dad's feet

That is our monster of a dog, Bax.  We didn’t have him with us, this is just an old picture.  I didn’t take any today since I was too far, and too disappointed.

It didn’t seem like anyone prepared for the show (the dogs, the trainers, the event organizers, I could go on and on).   My dad’s friends, who were invited as the judges, took over the emceeing since there was no host (c’mon, a show with no host?  Argh).  I am also very sorry to say that the quality of training of those dog was so bad that the audience found it entertaining and I started shoegazing.  6 to 7:30PM.  That is how I found out that one of the dog handlers was wearing slippers in the ring while showing his dog.  That was funny.  Why, oh why did he have to wear slippers?  I wish I was close enough to get a shot!

I was so bored that I was able to finish drawing one of the dogs on my DS:

one of the dogs at the show

I am quite worried about those dogs.  If dogs with that kind of training are being used for bomb-sniffing in malls, hotels, and other public places (and they probably are), I won’t be surprised if the bombs went off and there would be chunks of debris and maybe, but hopefully not, human parts flying in the air (I can recall an event like that that happened one or two years ago, cause unknown, or being witheld from the public by the government and the mall owner, or something).

I’m just saying, Belgian Malinois are a great breed as working dogs, one of the best even- with the right training, that is.

Tying Shoelaces

Around 6:30PM today in the PUP campus, at age 21, I get my shoelaces tied by someone else in front of all the students going home, like I was some bratty little kid (and some of those students might have thought I was too).  I’ve never been particularly good with tying shoelaces.  They start unraveling with every step I take and I’m constantly re-tying them.  I only know of one way of tying shoelaces, and that’s the one where you make two bunny ears and knot them together.  I don’t know how to do it with one loop because I never understood where the unlooped end was supposed to go.

the pair i was wearing

And so here is the story:   as we were leaving the campus, my friend stopped to tie his shoelaces.  I noticed mine needed some tying too, and I jokingly told him to tie them for me since he was already bent down anyway.  He proceeded to do so with an “okay, sure” and wouldn’t stop even if I told him I was only kidding.  I couldn’t bend down to stop him because I was afraid of hitting his head.  Having to stand there waiting for him to finish tying one foot was embarrassing, with a lot of people passing by and looking.  Guess the joke was on me haha.  Just to make it funnier though, I was thinking of tying my left shoe while he was tying the right one.

This happened after we “finished” helping with the stage props for the forum.  Now I am beat.  One last photo below.  Good night.

our work area

People’s Day and I love walking.

white here, gray at the end of the day. bored in my seat.

It’s People’s Day today.  People’s Day is a medical mission that they hold every month at the Heart Center.  I wish I could be a nurse there.  I spent half the day as one of the volunteers.  There weren’t a lot of patients, probably because no one wants to go to the hospital during Christmas season.  Who would want to find out that he might have diabetes just 15 days before Christmas?  You’d want to postpone it until after you’ve finished all the holiday food.  My task is to record their cholesterol results (in which you have to wait three minutes for the machine to read the data from their blood samples), and it gets so tedious that a few times every three minutes, I  keep looking down at everyone’s shoes.

My friend Mia was wearing this beautiful pair of white nursing shoes that don’t make your feet like Ronald Mcdonald’s (which most of the nursing shoes we own do).  Oh and I’ve learned never to wear a pair of shoes full of holes when in a very cold room.

I’ve been walking all day again.  After volunteer work I went to the mall with my friend Bayan.  My feet hurt like hell.  I still love walking though.  I’d walk around forever if I didn’t feel like I would injure myself.  I’d walk all around town and from town to town..

Mastering the Art of Getting Lost

These past few days I’ve been doing a lot of walking (and getting lost).  Still on that job hunt with a few little errands thrown in.  I need something to remedy my sense of direction (or lack thereof).   Like a map.   Maybe it’s not just me, since I was with my friend Toku and we still ended up lost even after asking for directions.  I did warn him beforehand about me never knowing where to go.  I feel like my ankles are going to collapse on me.

like this

It was my first time boarding all three metro trains (twice) in one day.  On another day, walking from PGH to the city hall and finding out we went in the wrong direction.  Off into the rain to go get our first aid and basic life support certificates.  It was easier for Toku since he was wearing sneakers.  I was wearing my beloved jelly shoes and they didn’t keep my feet from getting wet.  They did however become very slippery to walk in (and disgusting).

Here is a view of Manila Bay before sunset.  That’s how lost we were.

mimes at eastwood- they're saying hello

I also went to Eastwood today for the Philippine Canine Club’s Christmas party (and got lost once again looking for our car).  I saw these two “power ranger” mimes (check out the white one, he looks like a white ninja/RO assassin.  That’s almost a sakkat on his head).  They wanted me to pose with them.  I should have taken a picture of their shoes.  Damn.

Oh, and they don’t have peppermint mocha at Starbucks this year. And that is a crime.  It’s deprivation.  How depressing!

Going in Circles

tired

All shoes shown here belong to me and my friends.  We were riding a jeep on our way to a hospital.  As you can see, everyone has comfy shoes (yes, those flip flops make you feel right at home… they also get you banned from entering most buildings, as my friend Gelo learned the hard way), since heels won’t work at all in our profession.  Today we were jobhunting, which is a task that should never be done alone, at least, if you’re a nursing graduate living in a country overflowing with jobless nurses and almost all the hospitals have a freeze on hiring even if they’re way understaffed.

By the way, I’m wearing a different pair of jelly shoes.  Soft and comfy and perfect for my feet.  I wear them everywhere.

We had plans and plans and plans and plans- all the talk nowadays is always about un-bumming ourselves.  This scene is familiar.  Nothing happened at the end of the day.

Endless worries.  I hate thinking about life and futures.