Friday, December 29, 2006

One mention of Jerry Springer....

I'm working at an outpatient office with a doc who is originally from Cincinati, OH. I had mentioned to him yesterday that I was going to see the Dancing with the Stars on tour at the Staples center. This morning he asked me how it was and asked who was there. The subject eventually found its way to Jerry Springer. He proceeded to tell me about how sleezy he was. He used to be the mayor of Cincinati until he was caught with a prostitute. Apparently the mayor of Cincinati is more like a "for looks" kind of thing and he really just does PR for the city and the city manager does everything. According to my doc, Jerry freqented a nearby Kentucky city that had all kinds of strip clubs and the like.

Ironically enough, in the next door office that he shares with a family physician, a fight ensued between the MA secretary(pink girl) and the other MA(blue girl). I guess blue girl attacked pink girl and they started going at it...AT WORK! My doc says the girls never liked each other. At any rate, someone's gonna get fired. Their doc isn't in the office, but my doc is going to call him and let him know of the situation.

JERRY! JERRY! JERRY!

Thursday, December 21, 2006

Random Events

1. I have a sty that I've been trying to get rid of since Tuesday. Warm compresses are only keeping it down, but I dunno what to do to make it go away. GO AWAY!!

2. I love Target, I do. But the photo department at my neighborhood Target SUCKS ASS. The guy that runs the photo center is really nice, but he doesn't really know anything, so he gets the brunt of my frustrations. I waited FOREVER to use the Kodak machine because the girl in front of me had like a bajillion pictures and the 2nd machine was broken. When I get to the machine it doesn't recognize my USB drive. WTF. I ask the guy and he's like, "Oh, yeah that machine doesn't work with USB. The one that's broken does." Fack post a sign or something!

3. I am currently doing 7 loads of laundry. I'm at 4/7. I want to finish tonight. I wonder if that will happen.

4. I need to wrap the presents. Maybe I'll do that tomorrow morning.

5. I'm looking forward to this weekend. Friday I'm going out with some friends and my cousin to Fullerton to do some eating, dancing and drinking for them. Saturday is an undisclosed function because it is a surprise function. Sunday is the family Christmas party. Good food, good company. Sounds like the makings of an awesome Christmas weekend!

Saturday, December 16, 2006

smart/success is in the eye of the beholder

My friend from med school had her annual Christmas party today. The party consisted of, physical therapy students, medical students, one doctor, one lawyer, one business owner(?), a marine, one bioengineer, one PR type person and 2 other people I don't know what they did. So the PR person, the lawyer, the bioengineer and I were having a conversation about what we did for a living. It was kind of interesting that each of us were so impressed with each other's profession.

I was blown away at what the bioengineer had accomplished. Undergrad was Berkeley(Bioengineer major), Master's in Mechanical Engineering at Cambridge(?) and now she's getting a pHD in Bioengineering at Stanford(?). Engineering is freakin' hard. We all felt really stupid compared to her hehe. The lawyer was saying that she didn't think law school was hard and in my head I'm thinking, medical school isn't as hard as people think. But there's no way I could go to law school and read all that crap and write all those papers. That's smart! You get the gist.

So, it got me thinking at how I admire so many people who have various careers that I couldn't fathom myself doing. Teachers for example. I have a few teacher friends and when they tell stories about work, I just sit there baffled thinking, "What would I do in that situation?" I wouldn't be able to handle. Same thing goes for my friends who are housewives. It's insane what they do! And forget about the people who deal with money, computers and spreadsheets; there's no way I could do what they do. It all really makes me feel like I'm a lazy person even though people see me and say, "Wow you're in medical school!!!"

I guess if you think about it, your accomplishments in life don't seem that hard once you've accomplished them. But you just have to remember that it IS an accomplishment. You HAVE acheived something. You ARE smart and successful; if you don't see it yourself, someone else is bound to see it for you.

Monday, December 11, 2006

"Are BlackBerry users the new smokers?"

I read this article and found it quite interesting and true. While second hand texting won't kill you, someone texting in a car might, so I will welcome the parallel. More importantly, I've felt what the author has felt with certain people who text/answer phones during a dinner out. I understand answering a phone call if it's "important" or if it's someone you really haven't heard from in a long time, but as courtesy, one should excuse themselves and walk away from the table if the conversation is going to last more than a few seconds. Furthermore, I think it's rude to text back and forth with someone while you're eating dinner with another person. My mom does this ALLLLL the time. I feel like the parent(which isn't a new thing) wanting to just make the rule of no cell phones or gadgets at the dinner table.

Here's an example of improper use of cell phone etiquette. I was at an interview today and during the noon conference(where a member of the faculty or a guest lecturer gives a talk) one of my fellow interviewee's phone goes off. It takes her about a good minute to find her phone in her purse as it continues to ring, not even bothering to apologize. I give her the benefit of the doubt and maybe she forgot to turn off her phone ringer. It goes off AGAIN a minute later. You know what she does? SHE ANSWERS THE PHONE! Tells the caller, "I'm not done yet. I'll call you back." Doesn't apologize again and really pretends like nothing happened. What's wrong with people? You're interviewing at this place!! Why are you so blatantly rude? I was beside myself.
The highlight of my day...

I got home from a tiring and frustrating day on the interview trail and checked my real mail. There was an envelope from some random person in Chino Hills. Puzzled, I proceeded to open the envelope. Inside was a check I had made out to my dad for a hefty sum of money when he left on Thanksgiving and subsequently lost, and a note which read:

"I found this check at the airport(LAX) and I'm sending it back to you guys. Any question, you can write to me at the address in front. Thanks, God bless you."

How freakin' great is that? It's good to know that there are still people out there who care like that; Care enough to take time out of their day to write a note, put a stamp on an envelope and send it back.

Why my day was so frustrating...

1. I triple checked when I set my alarm, if the time was right, if the alarms were on. I even set TWO alarms. I had to get up at 4:45 which would allow me ample time (2 hours) to get to Long Beach for my interview. What time did I wake up? 6am!!!

2. Traffic up the ass on my way there....Traffic up the ass on my way back.

3. The interview (I felt) did not go well and not just because I was late. It really didn't even seem like a big deal that I was late. I mean I felt all flustered for the first hour or so, but I calmed down. I just didn't feel like I was wanted there. I guess I'm a high maintenance interviewee eh?

Saturday, December 09, 2006

Random Things

1. I'm scaring myself right now hehe. I'm sitting at home with my sister. It's pouring outside. The wind is howling and blowing through a draft in my front door which has a windchime attached to it. So every now and then the windchime jingles. It's freaking me out. So, I say to myself, "Ok, you just need music." I go to my cousin's site to play her playlist. ERROR. dammit! I try a couple of more times; still nothing. Help! I got to my myspace to listen to my song...it says it was deleted by artist. Fack! Right now I'm listening to Nancy's myspace song and I will move on to my friend Melissa's song and so on and so forth. I can still hear that damned chime. I'm too scared to go downstairs to take it off the door. I know I'm lame.

2. I just finished making a Skor cake(although it should be called a Heath cake cuz I used Heath chips instead of Skor chips) for the post Loma Linda Holiday Classic Party at Nancy's house. I wonder if the walk/run will be cancelled since it's raining and all. Hopefully the party won't be. I'm a wuss. I backed out for a lame reason. I can't be in the sun because of my meds. Lol. But I made those who will participate a really delicious cake! I'm supporting. :) Anyway, that cake took forever, but it's not hard to make. There's just a lot of components that go into it. It's yummy.

3. What's up with crappy drivers especially around the holidays. It seems like the inner a-hole driver comes out in a lot of us eh? I guess people are in a rush. Calm down people.

4. I think I'm getting rid of my bangs. Not that there's much bangs left. I have been slowly phasing them out for the past few months, but this month they're hardly noticeable. I like it better. I think it makes my face looks skinnier and it'll be easier to manage. I'll keep the layers, as always. :)

5. My friend's going to Europe for Christmas break. I want to go to Europe. She's bringing her little 5(?) year old nephew; how freakin lucky is he? Guess what I'm doing on my week-long Christmas break. Interviewing. Now, doesn't that just sound like a blast?

6. Alright now I'm just rambling. Have a good rest of the weekend everyone!

Thursday, December 07, 2006


Get your own countdown at BlingyBlob.com

Match Day: I can't believe it's 3 months away.

Match Day is when 4th year medical students find out which residency program they matched with. Next year, that day is March 15. On March 13, two days before, you find out IF you matched or not. If you don't match, then you have two days to "scramble" into a program, ANY program that wishes to take you. This means you could end up doing a residency you didn't plan on doing(i.e. a person who wanted to do Surgery must now do Internal Medicine) or in a residency program that is not the most ideal for you. This also involves a lot of phone calls, faxes and pulling-your-hair-out moments. We do NOT want this to happen. BASICALLY, Match Day is when I find out what I'll be doing for the next three years of my life.

So what is this "Match" business anyway? The match is what determines the residency program medical students will be accepted into. How this works is, fourth year medical students apply to their programs of choice during late summer/early fall. Programs choose which students to interview and the interview season lasts from Oct-Jan-ish. The programs then rank their interviewees. The students rank the programs they want. These two rank lists are put into a computer where an algorithm figures out what is the perfect match.

In my head, here's how I think it works. Let's say a program accepts 9 residents and they 30 applicants from 1-30. The top 9 are automatically "in." But if any of those top 9 fail to rank that program as number 1 on their list, then number 10 moves up to 9 and the rest follow. Same goes for the student. Let's say a student ranks 3 programs. But their number 1 program doesn't rank the student. Then their number 2 slot moves to number 1 and they will match at that program. Who's bored and confused? So the computer figures that out and comes up with a "match" which is released on...wait for it, MATCH DAY!

You can all thank Nancy for that wonderful blog since she asked me. I figured I'd enlighten those of you who didn't know. Hell, I'm going through it and I'm STILL confused.

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Christina = Stupid

Anyone wondering why I have NO comments? My omnipotent(no, not impotent) friend Brad, asked me today, "Why don't any of our comments show up on your blog?" Hmmm maybe cuz I didn't know I had to moderate comments on my blogger. Usually they send me an email saying someone left me a comment. But now you have to go to "Moderate comments" and then approve all the comments. WHO KNEW?! Anyway this blog isn't as interesting as I thought it was going to be. Also, I had something else I wanted to blog about, but have since forgot secondary to my food coma from McDonalds.

Monday, December 04, 2006

My Heritage


I heard about this from my friend who heard about it on Kevin and Bean on KROQ this morning. You can make your own, just click on the link above. It basically finds what celeb you look like the most. Hehe I don't even know who the asian girls are, but it's weird that I'd look like some white people. Just thought it was interesting...

Saturday, December 02, 2006

No Pain No Gain
Ack so I went to the gym today. I wanted to catch the "Dancer's Workout" aerobics class. I was 2 minutes late but that's fine. I was expecting an easy hip hop class but what I got was a weird ballet/yoga class. It was a good workout but not what I was expecting.

After the 30 minute class I decided to run a mile. I was doing great. The BEP's song "Pump It" came on my iPod and I was jammin'. I got to about 3/4 of the way when I started to feel funny. I had felt this feeling before in Philadelphia, when I almost passed out. GREAAAT. I was getting dizzy and nauseous. I tried to slow down and regulate my heart rate but I could see I was fading fast. I stopped the treadmill, grabbed my stuff and sat down on the side of the treadmill. I was there for a bit until I had access to the water fountain. I got a drink of water, rushed my way to the benches and laid out on the bench. I was fine after a few minutes. I went home.

I think I have been dehydrated and that's what caused the episode. I also drank coffee before and I think that made it worse. So, that was fun. It felt good for those 3 minutes I was running to "Pump It" though. I will probably be sore tomorrow because that class made me do things that my body wasn't used to. Oh well at least I got back on that horse. I still haven't lost any weight, but I guess that's fine. At least I haven't gained any.

Thursday, November 30, 2006

Movies I am interested in seeing....
1. Pursuit of Happiness
2. The Holiday
3. The Nativity Story
4. Eragon(I dunno why...)
5. The Departed(I'm sure I'll catch this on video)
6. Stranger Than Fiction

So it's the last day of November and I actually managed to blog everyday; and I only forgot to blog once. I will, however, be continuing the daily blogs, as long as I actually have something to blog about. No more of these "sorry for the crappy blog" blogs. I have gotten into the habit so it shouldn't be too hard now. Happy December everyone!

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Random Thoughts:
1. Today I walked around my cousin's neighborhood in Glendale and I realized how cute the neighborhood was. They have really cute houses. I wish it weren't so cold, I'd run more often now.
2. Why do my ears start hurting if I do any physical activity outside and if it's cold? Do other people feel this when they are out in the cold. It's not that my ears FEEL like they're cold, they're just painful. *shrug*
3. I'm watching the Heroes marathon and I'm actually not paying that much attention. I should. I'll get the DVD when it comes out and review the whole season I guess. I'm gonna pop in a Charmed DVD in a minute so I can send back the movies.
4. I'm going to a taping of this filipino TV game show called Wowowee at the LA sports arena. We'll be sitting in the 4th row. Should be good times.
5. I got a Dominoe's Brooklyn style pizza today. It was not that great. I think I hyped it up too much. I wonder if there's a good NY style pizza place out here in CA.

Tuesday, November 28, 2006


Can I just say how awesome this show is? It's the best thing since the first season of Lost, in that Sci-fi/Comic book category of course. Every episode we learn something new....seriously! Anyway for those of you who have missed it and are fortunate enough to have cable, they are showing a marathon tomorrow November 29 starting at 6pm of the first 6 episodes. :) The fall finale is next week and it looks gooood.

Changing the subject....
My dad and I were talking about how airlines don't serve food anymore. Ironically enough, on his way back to Hawaii, Continental Airlines DID serve food in the form of a hot pocket omelette wrap thing. The next day....he had food poisoning. Be careful what you ask for....hehe.

Sunday, November 26, 2006

I had a better blog originally planned, but I'm feeling too lazy now. I will do it tomorrow. This weekend was pretty tiring. Back to work tomorrow. Sorry for the crappy blog.
Thanksgiving Pictures
Ok ok they're not REALLY Thanksgiving pictures, but my camera ran out of batteries on Thanksgiving Day so I really just have pictures of my sister and I and how the weekend progressed once I got batteries.


This is how we started out. Nice, pretty and happy. We made our way out to LA for some fun, family and fooood. Unfortunately, there was no turkey, but then again there never is. We are Filipino after all. I am going to see if I can make a turkey dinner next year. Good luck to me!


This is one of the only pics I took of anyone other than my sister and I. It is of my lovely mom and aunt. The night wore on and my sister got a little grumpy and bratty. She has this obsession with paper. You can tell by the frustration on both our faces that a. she wanted paper really badly and b. I did not want to give her any.


The rest of the pictures are of my sister and I being silly at my dad's friends house cuz we had some time to kill.

We're friends again....we can pout....and we can be silly.



Don't look now...we're singing karaoke......

Shhhh we're huntin' wabbit! Yeeaaaah!!!!!

Ok uploading all those pictures took forever and just sucked the fun out of the blog haha. We had lots of fun taking the pictures tho. Can you tell?

Saturday, November 25, 2006

Short and sweet

NOW I will write about what I'm thankful for.
1. Friends. I have gotten the opportunity to reunite with some very old friends who I had lost in touch with and for that I am thankful. I'm also thankful for the wonderful friends I have gained throughout the years especially those from medical school and college. I feel fortunate to have such great people around me
2. Family. My family is great. Every year we get together and I always look forward to it. There's no real drama, we stick together, and help each other out.
3. The fact that I'm almost "done" with school. It really is surreal that I have gotten to this point. Thanks to everyone for supporting me these 20 some years that I've been in school.
4. My life in general. As you can see from numbers 1, 2, and 3 I have been very fortunate to have all of them in my life. I know I complain alot throughout the year, but looking at the big picture, I realize I have a wonderful life filled with special people. So I say a big "Thank you" to God for making that possible and guiding me along my merry way. :)

Friday, November 24, 2006

I would just like to curse blogger for a minute because I wrote this whole blog 5 minutes ago, but it errored and I LOST IT. So here is another version of my lost blog:

Black Friday = Crappy Customer Service Day

My dad comes to visit me and my sis every Thanksgiving and the day after we usually go shopping for random things we need around the house and/or his birthday present. This year we had our fair share of runins with incompetent sales representatives.

Encounter 1: Sears
We decided to make this our first stop since it would be the biggest purchase(a refridgerator). We were able to narrow our choices down to 2. The sales representative that helped us out was nice enough, but he didn't know anything about the refridgerators. When asked what the difference was between to identical refridgerators that were priced $200 apart, he just looked at the cards in front of the product(we had already done this) and finally attributed it to the fact that one was priced for the "white" model and one the "stainless steel" model, which was untrue since they were both priced for the white model. When checking us out he had to ring us up twice because he forgot the first register had a malfunction. All I'm saying is know you're product before you actually talk to customers. Nothings worse than knowing more than the salesman who's getting paid to "sell" products to you.

Encounter 2: Circuit City
Before I go saying negative things about our service here, I will say that one of the sales reps did find us the 1 GB Sandisk SD Memory card for 2.99 which I was sure would be sold out. And in the end the manager was able to fix whatever went wrong. Upon checking out, the phone that was advertised as 69.99 rang up as 79.99. The cashier said that there would be a $10 rebate and I shrugged it off. The total came out to be aroudn 130 for the $79 phone, a $14 CD and the memory card. I questioned her about the price and she said that there should be a $27 rebate. Puzzled, I paid and walked away. My dad and I rechecked the receipt and found that the rebate was for the memory card with no rebate for the phone. Luckily we found a manager-type person who was probably already so irritated and busy that he gave us our $10 back.

Encounter 3: Macy's, Lancome and Estee Lauder counters
This by far was the worst I have ever seen. My mom had asked me to pick up her perfume for her at Macy's. I went to Lancome first since I got to it first. I had to ask the sales rep three times with three different intonations for Oui, pronounced "we." She then brought out and Eu de toillete, which is not what I wanted since I asked her for perfume. She then proceeds to open the box to show me the bottle. I don't care what the bottle looks like, it's not perfume! COME ON!

Moving on, we approached the Estee Lauder counter. I waited for 5 minutes for someone, ANYONE to acknowledge that I existed. The two sales reps just kept walking around and helping other customers who didn't even look like they were gonna buy anything. I even made eyecontact with both of them and I didn't even get so much as a, "I'll be with you shortly." I finally cornered the less intimidating one since the other one had nearly ran me over a few seconds before and asked for Beyond Paradise. She points to the samples in the counter in front of me and says, "They're over there." I give her this incredulous look and say, "Yeah, I actually want to buy one so can you show me the actual boxes?" What's wrong with these people? I'm sure they get a commission right?

Encounter 4: Hollywood Video
This wasn't nearly as bad as Macy's and wouldn't have been anything except it was just the cherry on top of a Black Friday sundae. My dad and I got 3 DVDs for 5 bucks and rented a movie. The total came out sort of high so I questioned it. The lady said something about there being this many DVDs blah blah blah. I was like ok. She ended up charging us for an extra DVD. She was very apologetic but if she had just double checked when I asked her in the first place, we wouldn't have had to wait for her to refund our money back. As we walked to the car, my dad exclaimed, "Wow we could have lost $15 today!"(See Encounter 1)

HAPPY BLACK FRIDAY EVERYONE!

Thursday, November 23, 2006

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!

I WAS going to blog about what I'm thankful for but then I got really annoyed at some headlines about OJ. It wasn't just today; it's been slowly building up this week and now it's just ridiculous. "Why OJ's book got cancelled" and "Simpson: I deserve criticism for the book" DUH!

Why this book even got picked up is beyond me and why Fox even CONSIDERED people would be interested in watching an exclusive interview is beyond me. Did they ever consider that they got the EXCLUSIVE because no other station was stupid enough to think this would be a good idea. "If I did it"; give me a break! Do people have absolutely no tact and morals these days that they would disregard two families who have gone through enough heartache. Did someone in the board room say, "Hey, it's been 12 years, they should be over it by now."? It's really the last thing I want to read about on Thanksgiving. I can't believe that book cracked the top 20 on Amazon. For shame!

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

TRAFFIC!!!

I have realized and now must accept that traffic is constant in Southern California. It's gotten worse over the last couple of years, especially in the Inland Empire because of all the growth and construction in the area. I am currently living in Glendale and having to take the I-5 everyday to work.
Realization #1: there is always traffic on the I-5 regardless of time. I've been on the 5 at 7am, 830am, 12pm, 530pm, 7pm and my average speed was about 15-30 mph. Doesn't that sound like fun?
Realization #2: This isn't so much a realization as solidification of a previous fact. The I-10 is pure crap. It's very similar to the I-5 in that there is always traffic but I am likely to be on it more often and for a longer period of time than I ever would the 5. Time rules are similar to the 5 but not as bad.
Realization #3: It has started to invade the 210. The 210 was built a few years ago, maybe more and it was my refuge from the 10 or the 60 for a while. Today I was saddened at how similar it looked to the 10--and this was at 2pm!
Realization #4: Both sides of the freeway (especially the 10 and the 5) now have rush hour. There is no "against the traffic" here.

There's nowhere to run. All the freeways in So Cal are plagued by traffic. It's all pretty depressing. One last bit of advice for people who don't already know....avoid the 91 at all cost!

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

I forced myself to go to the gym after work today and I'm glad. At the gym the treadmill only lets your run 20 minutes and it takes me about 13 minutes to run a mile. Luckily today I had to tie my shoelace and so I stopped the count and reset it. I was able to run for a lil over 30 minutes with cooldown and thus run two miles! I was so proud of myself. My goal is to be able to run 3 miles. I am very tired tho. :(

Monday, November 20, 2006

Random thoughts:
1.I have a dilemma. I want to work out but at my cousins house the parking sucks. So I can't very well go to the gym after work. That leaves me with working out before work, which is feasable since I don't go in until 9. However, we all know that I am no morning person. I could get up at 7, work out for 30 min, come home, shower and eat. I SHOULD be ok. We'll see tho. Stupid being fit and healthy.

2. I started my cardiology rotation today at this hospital and I had a really good lunch(of course I would blog about the food and not what I learned haha). They had gourmet type sandwiches so I had a mozarella, basil and tomato sandwich with pesto mayo. I also had a mixed green salad with balsamic vinagrette, fruit and a diet coke. I refrained from the "desserts." So I'm proud of myself for that haha.

3. Electronic charting here I come. All the notes at the clinic are electronic which is AWESOME. I was watching the docs hunt and peck at their keyboard all the while thinking, "Move over, just tell me what you want to type." It will totally cut down my charting by half. So looking forward to it.

4. In addition to #3, the docs at this clinic have a picture of their patient right on the electronic chart. How cool is that?? If I ever run my own clinic that's going to be the number one priority...haha.

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Greetings from Glendale

So I am now at my cousins house, which has.....CABLE! This might be a bad thing in that I may not get much "work" done. However, who cares? haha. At this very moment I'm watching the E True Hollywood Story of "Friends." How awesome is that? I did not know that Lisa Kudrow(Phoebe)'s father was a neurologist and that she was planning on becoming a medical researcher. I did not know that Matt LeBlanc(Joey) was going to be a carpenter before he discovered acting. There's many more cool things about it, but I can't remember. I'm tired. It's only 9. I gotta get up at 645. I could sleep. I could read my EKG book and fall asleep haha. I'll just watch this FRIENDS thing.

Follow up on my Playstation post(see below)

This is an article on Marketwatch.com. Disturbing really...


PlayStation 3 sells for $9,100
By Frank Barnako
Last Update: 3:58 PM ET Nov 16, 2006
A PlayStation 3 system sold on EBay at about 1 p.m. eastern this afternoon for $2,861.53. A "completed item" record also shows many other systems have already been sold, including one a week ago for $9,100 with 42 bids. That price did, however, include free shipping.

As many as 2,200 Sony (SNE: news) PlayStations were listed for sale on EBay Thursday afternoon, despite efforts to restrict what has become a free-for-all to cash in on preordered units and long waits at electronics stores for the game consoles which go on sale at midnight.


Reports have EBay prohibiting offers of PS3 systems from anyone who hasn't already done a goodly amount of business on the site already and have very positive ratings from buyers. Listings are also required supposed to include a photo of a receipt.

Saturday, November 18, 2006

OH AND

A follow up on my Dancing with the Stars post. So Emmitt Smith and Cheryl Burke won. Apparently it was an "upset" since people thought Mario was a more deserving contestant. However, I think Emmitt had a better following which included, straight men, older women, African Americans, Filipinos(Cheryl Burke is flip, PLUS you know all those Filipinos are obsessed with DWTS because they're obsessed with ballroom dancing, and well, we ARE taking over the world slowly)....and I think that's it. Mario had the younger women and Latino's. That's just my humble opinion.

Have I more than made up for my forgotten post?
Grade: B-
I went to see this movie for 2 reasons:
1. The Harry Potter trailer for Order of the Phoenix premiered with this movie.
2. Those penguins just look so darned cute.

And they WERE cute. For the first half of this movie I laughed and gushed often at these singing, dancing penguins. The mix of their cute voices, appearance and funky covers of classic songs were very entertaining. The story dwindled in the second half. It seemed like the writers couldn't really figure out where to go from there. I understand the message they were trying to convey, but it really just seemed like there were two different stories in one movie. The ending was kind of bleh hence the minus.

As far as the HP trailer, I only caught the last half which looked AWESOME! I might be a bit biased cuz I'm a potterhead but it did look cool. I'm so dumb. I went into the theater early while my mom waited in line for popcorn, and then I LEFT briefly to see if she was ok and to get my sister. We walked into the theater....and it was playing! Drat! I was kind of grumpy but the movie cheered me up. I'm sure I'll be able to watch it on youtube soon.
dammit i forgot to post. seriously in my head i thought i posted. grrr. that's disappointing. i was doing so well. this weekend i'm getting ready to move to glendale for a month. i really hate living out of a suitcase if it's not for travel. i suck i forgot to blog. :(

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Playstation 3
Release Date: 11/17/06
Retail Price: $499(Basic), $599(Premium)

I knew that the Playstation 3 was supposed to be released tomorrow and I had heard on the radio about people lining up to buy it. I did not expect to see this happen at my neighborhood Target. There were about 30 or so people lined up outside of Target camped out for the release tomorrow. As I shopped I thought, these people are a) willing to stand in line over night and b) pay that sh*tload of money for a video game system. Now don't get my wrong, I have shelled out some cash for my iPod, but I did not, nor will I ever stand in line overnight for...really anything. Then, I started thinking about how people don't go to the doctor regularly because they don't need to, or that it's too expensive; and how people complain about how expensive medicine is, but they are willing to pay $600 bucks for something that will probably worsen their health overall. They will pay 100 something bucks for cable each month, but think it's too much to pay 100 bucks+ a month for their healthcare. It really irks me. It's your health people!!!

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Random random blog.

Favorite characters of shows I watch(ed) and why:

Friends: Phoebe Buffay because she's so free and she says random things that are most of the time hilarious.

Lost: Tie between Sayid and Hurley. These two characters have managed not to annoy me in the 3 seasons Lost has been on. I like Sayid because he's a genius and has integrity. Hurley provides great comic relief and he's just a sweet guy.

Grey's Anatomy: Christina Yang because she fronts like she's all hard core and sarcastic but she is really all warm and fuzzy inside.

Heroes: Hiro hands down. I love the pun on his name. I love his childlike idealism. He's the glue that holds the show together.

Those are really all the shows I can think of. I'm very tired and have other stuff to do....Who's your favorite character from the shows listed or other shows?

Tuesday, November 14, 2006



FINALLY. My mom and sister are going to watch the Finale of Dancing with the Stars tomorrow. EVERYDAY she bugs me and asks if the show wrote and if I had tickets. And I'm like, "I check my email everyday mom."

So she's rooting for Emmitt Smith and Cheryl Burke, mostly becuase, I think, Cheryl is Filipino. However I've seen them dance and they're pretty darned good. I think both partners dance well so I am kind of indifferent at this point. Actually I've been indifferent all season. And this is why I'm not going; besides the fact that I have to work haha.

Monday, November 13, 2006

Why my brother is so cool.

So I wrote lyrics to a song a while back and he put it to music in an acoustic version. He recently has been working on an electric guitar/rock version and has finished it. Here's the original version.

FORGET IT I CAN'T GET THE FILE ONTO A PLAYER I QUIT!

You can find the rock version on his myspace: Hernan Co

Sunday, November 12, 2006

Grade: B+
This is one of the movies I watched this weekend. I was pleasantly surprised by this film. It had all the aspects I was expecting: girl who grows up in a tough neighborhood, really good at spelling, dysfunctional family, the bee is her way out. What I did not expect was for Keke Palmer to be so charming and the story so heartwarming. The ending is what really got me, but again it could just be me being emotional.

Saturday, November 11, 2006

sorry this is gonna be a crappy blog. i am feeling very blah today and am heading out for dinner and drinks. hope everyone has a fun safe night.

Friday, November 10, 2006

A little 'me' time.

I joined 24 hour fitness a couple of weeks ago. I try to make it a point to work out at least 3 times a week. In the beginning it was hard to find time/energy to do it. This week I was really busy and I got lazy on Monday. I went yesterday and forced myself to go today and I realized that going to the gym is great. I get a little 'alone' time amongst all those strangers working out. It's just me and my workout. I can think about whatever is troubling me in the day and run the shit out of my frustrations or, I can just check out and groove to my music. It felt really good to be able to do that today because once you get home, reality is sitting you in the face and you realize you have shit to do. I highly recommend it!

Thursday, November 09, 2006

I am running out of things to blog about so I pulled out my "Book of Questions" and if I don't have anything interesting in particular to blog about, I will answer a question from the book.

Would you rather be overdressed or underdressed at a party?

I think I'd rather be underdressed. I have gone overdressed and usually that means I'm uncomfortable. There's always this balance between fashion and comfort. It's really great when you have a good mix but most of the time you sacrifice one or the other. Most of the time when I have dressed up, I just feel uncomfortable and probably don't look as attractive because of it.

My favorite things to wear:
1. Scrubs for comfort...they're so comfy, but not the cutest things in the world.
2. Dresses when I want to look cute, given the fact that the weather is good and the dress is comfortable.
3. Those gaucho pants/capris or long skirts.

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

hello my faithful reader(s)....are you out there? i know there's probably a handful of you out there read this blog but this is my cry for help. if you do read and have something to say about what i write; if you think it's amusing, if you think it's crap, anything...i would appreciate it if you leave me a comment. it's kind of hard to keep blogging everyday and knowing that you guys are out there, reading and supporting me it'll make it that much easier. i know it's kind of retarded, but i'd appreciate it. :)

sorry for the crap blogs lately, i have been tired and on the go.

random events that have made me go hmmmm in the past few days.

1. britney filing for divorce from k-fed....he's f-ked.
2. we...well not we cuz i didn't vote(i feel so bad).... but california re-elected the governator.
3. why does joey lawrence scare me so much? he just looks weird....

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

It's been a long long day. I just got home, which means I've been out since 7am.

I'm in SD now because I have an interview at UCSD in the morning. Interviewing is kind of fun because you get to meet all these new people and talk to random people, but it's also very tiring...and I'm not even flying anywhere for interviews. Alot of my friends are flying across the country multiple times. That's insane. Anyway I gotta take a shower, dry hair and pass out. Have a good night everyone. Sorry for the crap blog.

Monday, November 06, 2006

i·ro·ny (r-n, r-) Pronunciation Key n. pl. i·ro·nies
1. The use of words to express something different from and often opposite to their literal meaning.
2. Incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs:
An occurrence, result, or circumstance notable for such incongruity.

For confidentiality I will refer to the person I am speaking of as Phyllis. Phyllis was really tired and didn't want to go into work tonight. She also has a doctors appointment in the morning and will be watching a taping of Dancing with the Stars. She mulled over in her head ways to call in sick. She picked one and went with it. The following is the conversation. Marsha in the conversation is the staffing person on the phone.

Marsha: Hello?
Phyllis: Hi, you know what I can't go into work today. I'm not feeling well.
Marsha: But....Phyllis....you're not scheduled to work today.
Phyllis: I'm not? Why not? *puzzled look*
Marsha: You're not scheduled to come in until Sunday.
Phyllis: Really?
Marsha: Yes.
Phyllis: Oh...ok. Thanks.

Irony.

Sunday, November 05, 2006

Blog #5 (Nov. 5)

I've done it! I have 5 posts in one day and am now all caught up with the rest of the NaBloPoMo people! I thought it was going to be hard but it turns out it wasn't THAT bad. I thought of topics as the day went on. Blog 3 took a long time and in the end I kinda forgot why I was writing about it, but I've been wanting to blog about that forever. Blog 1, 2 and this one are kinda "cheating" but they have substance!!! At least I didn't write about what I did today.....wait....umm.
Blog # 4 (Nov 4) -- Hmm I'm starting to regret this idea haha.

ma·ni·a (mn-, mny) Pronunciation Key n.
An excessively intense enthusiasm, interest, or desire; a craze: a mania for neatness.
Psychiatry. A manifestation of bipolar disorder, characterized by profuse and rapidly changing ideas, gaiety, or irritability, and decreased sleep.

As I had mentioned before, I believe I'm hypomanic. I'm not full blown and grandiose like, I dunno, changing careers or anything, but I have started various things in the past month or so and spent a lot of money doing so. I did most of these partly because I kinda needed to, but also partly because I was feeling down and I needed a pick me up.

1. I bought an 80 gig iPod for my trip to Philly and Detroit.
2. Bought a new phone.
3. Joined the gym because I wasn't motivated to work out at home. Exercise = endorphins = happy.
4. I started this blogging thing EVEN THOUGH I really am busy and should be doing other things.

Ok so it's not THAT many things but I still feel like I should slow down on the money. Numbers 1, 2 and 3 have given me satisfaction, but 4 is kind of stressing me out. Either way, I always have things in my head I want to blog about, but I get lazy. This is supposed to help me not be lazy. Uh hmm.
Blog #3 (Nov. 3)

Pinoy Ako(I am Filipino)

My mother has been an avid TFC(The Filipino Channel) watcher for a little over a year now. So I have been exposed, some might say over-exposed to the Filipino culture. I think I may know more about Filipino news than American news, which is just sad. At any rate, here is what I learned. If you have ANY kind of Filipino in you, and you reach minor stardom in the U.S., you will be worshiped 50 thousand times more in the Philippines. This is why I think Emmit Smith will win Dancing with the Stars and a large reason why Drew Lachey won last year.


Cheryl Burke

Now don't get me wrong. I don't think they won simply because she's Filipino. She knows how to cater to the crowd and she was lucky enough to get a partner who could actually dance. If she had gotten Master P it would be all over haha. So the crazy thing is that she was in this little snippet on TFC talking about how she's Pinoy and how that helped her get to where she's at blah blah blah. I couldn't find a clip but it was really cheesy hehe.




Manny Pacquiao

This man has risen to stardom in the past few years. I've never actually seen him fight, but I've heard he's a great boxer. The INSANE thing is he's a mega superstar back in the Philippines. He has....wait for it---and album and I think they're making a movie about his life. Below is the video to his hit song, "Para Sa 'Yo, and Laban Na 'To"(This Fight is for You).




Jasmine Trias

Jasmine Trias' story is by far was the most entertaining. She did relatively well on American Idol(3rd place), but the Philippines had much more in store for her. My mom was watching TFC one day and I see Jasmine on TV on some show or movie. The hilarious thing was that she was speaking English while all the characters around her spoke Tagalog. It was super cheese. She's a total flip celeb now.

Other notable flips:
Batista(halfie), Rufio(Dante Basco)(full), Phoebe Cates(1/4 flip), Enrique Iglesias - (part Filipino mother), Nicole Scherzinger - lead singer for the Pussycat Dolls (halfie), Vanessa Minnillo - model, host MTV's TRL(halfie)....that should be enough. I love Wikepedia. Here's a full list if you really want to know....Fil-Ams.
Blog #2 (Nov. 2)

Right now at 5:18 pm it is 80 degrees outside. What the heck is going on? It's November. I blame the weird weather for why I have no idea what season we are in or what month it is. A few days ago a friend of mine was talking about going snowboarding soon. I was thinking, but all the snow's gone. It's spring. NOPE!!! It's not spring but sure as hell feels like spring.

I guess I shouldn't complain. I don't really have any cute winter clothes to wear. Hmm....maybe I should go shopping.

Blog # 1 (Nov. 1)
Happy National Blog Posting Month!! I decided to join this a little late so I have some blogs to make up. The idea comes from THIS WEBSITE and the goal is to post one blog a day for the month of November. As you can see this is blog #1.

So someone may ask why I would even attempt this with all the crap I have to do and worry about. I just wanted to dedicate myself to something, for the lack of a better word, "creative." I think I'm in a hypomanic state which I will explain in later blogs since it IS another topic unrelated to this one haha. Hope you guys enjoy the month. There will be 4 more blogs coming today. I've got a long ways to go! Time for church....

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

My Left Foot

It all began one afternoon at home in 2003. I was running to the garage for some reason and I slipped on our tile and jammed my left big toe into the wall. After cursing and fighting back the tears I moved on. During the next few weeks my toenail started looking and feeling weirder. Two days before I started medical school I was cleaning my new apartment and jammed my left big toe AGAIN into the vaccuum. This time because of the previous trauma it uprooted the nail. Great. I wrapped my half attached toenail with tissue and tape, made my way to Kaiser and had it removed. Problem solved? NOPE.

Three years later my toenail was ingrown, painful and infected. I had been to the doctor twice for the problem. Both told me they didn't think it was an infection and it was just from the trauma. And neither wanted to prescribe oral antifungals for some reason. I finally got a referral to a podiatrist who suggested that we either leave it alone and continue the home remedies(soaking in water/bleach), extract the toenail again and see how it grows back, or extract the toenail and make it so it never grows back. I tried option number one for a few months but the toe just got so painful. So I scheduled a toenail extraction for my left foot on October 17.

October 7th was my cousin Grace's wedding. I was in the bridal party, as was my other cousin Novette.
We were taking piictures before the ceremony. The last set of pictures were to be taken with the golf carts. Like this:


Since the bridesmaids got there first, we had to drive the golf carts to the site. In order to get to the site however, we had to hop a sidewalk onto the street and hop the sidewalk to get back onto the green. I watched as the bride and her maid of honor successfully made it across. It didn't seem so hard.


So I took the wheel

with Novette next to me and followed their path. As we reached the green I heard cries of "No!" and "Watch out!." Before I knew it the whole golf cart was toppling over into this ditch. Miraculously, we escaped dresses unstained, hair and makeup intact except for some water on our dresses and some injuries on our---you guessed it left feet. We both had some abrasions and bruising, but Novette's foot was by far the worst. We were able to walk down the isle and party
it up.

By the next day Novette's foot had swelled up and she was unable to walk.

Fortunately, neither of us had fractured our left feet. The radiologist I was working with was nice enough to provide these lovely x-rays of my left foot.

Novette has to wear a brace to immobilize her foot in addition to keeping it elevated.

On October 17th, I had my surgery to get my left big toenail removed. It hurt like hell because the local anesthetic hadn't fully taken effect but I'm glad it's out. They gave me good aftercare instructions so hopefully my nail will grow back normal. But for now I gotta keep my left foot elevated. :)

(Who knew I could write so much about my left foot huh?)

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

The reason for my trip to Philadelphia was the clincial portion of my Step 2 Boards.  I arrived in the city around 7am after a red-eye flight during which I had trouble sleeping.  My old roommate Amy was going to meet me later on in the day.  We stayed at the Travelodge in Center City.

Unfortunately the hotel room wasn't ready when I got there so I had hours to kill.  Double unfortunately my phone was not working.  It was on permanent roaming which would have been fine but it wasn't connecting at all.  So I decided to wander around the city visiting the old familiar places, which I came to find out were not so familiar anymore, while also looking for a Sprint store.

First stop was my favorite streets/alleys in the city.   It sits right across the street from.....a car wash


After that I headed towards my old apartment when I passed the corner market that is now....a Quiznos? 

Then I see my old apartment which used to sit above a Cash Today store which I also used to work at.  Turns out Cash Today bought the whole building, taking out St. Georges bar downstairs and knocking the building down next to it.

That's my old room on the third floor in the middle picture.  It's good to know that some things don't change tho:

 Good old Jakes Pizza

 Chinese Food Cart!!!!  Lemon Chicken please.

 Green Village Market next to Olgas Pizza(1.25 for a slice!

 And last but not least the cart on 15th street that serves THE BEST meatball sub for 2 bucks!

I then passed by the LOVE sign and the fountain which was PINK! for breast cancer awareness. 

At around 9am I finally got to Liberty Place Shops which has a Sprint Store in it, but it was closed til 930.  So I decided to study in the rotunda and hang out with my ipod.

 (view as i look up from studying).  As I studied I decided to look through my pictures.  My camera then flashes..."error with memory card" and then "no images."  NOOOOO.  Luckily I had brought my Dell Pocket PC which had a compatible memory card.  SAVED!

The Sprint Store finally opened, but it didn't matter because my phone started working. Yay!  My spirits brightened I bopped my way to Rittenhouse Square in search of a Cosi and a perfectly heated mint mocha.

I found a Cosi, however, they ran out of mint and I burned my tongue.  Ha!

Luckily my ipod was there to keep me company.  After I finished my coffee, I shopped at the H&M I found across the street and another store I can't remember.  I ventured into the park and people watched.  I REALLY just wanted to sleep.  I called the hotel and the lady told me yet again that the room was not ready.  Sad.  But, again, my ipod was there to comfort me...in addition to the random bird.

When Amy arrived at around noon, our room still wasn't available.  We ate lunch at Reading Terminal where I ate the meatball sub I had bought earlier.  Afterwards we got green tea boba from the chinese bakery.  Our friend Wylie met up with us there.  Dinner was held at Penang's where I ate MANGO TOFU!  yum.

The next day Amy and I had Pho and bbq pork at the Vietnam Restaurant and headed to this little thing called CPE Step 2 of the boards.  That went well I think.  Nothing really much to say since they prohibit me from discussing the exam with others haha.  Afterwards we met Wylie at Westy's for Karaoke and Wings!

And even tho I only got a slight buzz, the best part was that our bill only came out to $50.50!  Four beers, 3 black russians, 2 shots of buttery nipples, 2 jagger shots, 2 captain and cokes, one vodka tonic and an order of wings!  Awesome.

The next morning I headed out at 6:30am to fly to Detroit for my cousins wedding.  It was raining and I was tired....but luckily I had my trusty ipod.  :)