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?

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. :)

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!

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!

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!

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. :(

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.

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.

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. :(

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!!!

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?

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.

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

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.

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.

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!

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.

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....

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.

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.

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....

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?)

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.  :)

(O) Wicked (Schwartz, 2003) Grade: A+

Wicked: It's the new "RENT". Well, for me anyway. I haven't seen it yet because the Orange County Performing Arts Center sucks, but that's another story. I bought the CD for my cousin on her birthday since I couldn't take her to the actual musical. I burned a copy for myself and listened to it on the way home from SD and....I fell in love with it! The music has a pop feel to it and the story line(from what I can decipher) is pretty interesting.

Here's the synopsis from the website(sorry i'm lazy):

Long before Dorothy dropped in, two other girls meet in the Land of Oz. One, born with emerald-green skin, is smart, fiery and misunderstood. The other is beautiful, ambitious and very popular. How these two unlikely friends end up as the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good Witch makes for the most spellbinding new musical in years.

WICKED, the untold story of the witches of Oz, features music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz (Godspell, Pippin, Academy Award winner for Pocahontas and The Prince of Egypt) and book by Winnie Holzman ("My So Called Life," "Once And Again" and "thirtysomething"), and is based on the best-selling novel by Gregory Maguire. With musical staging by Tony Award winner Wayne Cilento (Aida, The Who's Tommy, How To Succeed...), WICKED is directed by 2003 and 2004 Tony Award winner Joe Mantello (Assassins, Take Me Out, Frankie & Johnny in the Clair de Lune)

So....I'm gonna get that book since the musical isn't playing here in the near future.

___________________________________________________________________

On that same note, I was browsing through YouTube looking for clips of the musical, when I discovered that people have way too much time on their hands. WAY TOO MUCH TIME! Here is a video clip of the song "What is this feeling?(Loathing)" from Wicked, the musical with 80's action figures playing the characters. She-ra plays Glinda who will become the Good Witch and Evilyn plays Elpheba who becomes the Wicked Witch of the West. Enjoy!

width="425" height="350">

It's 10:00 pm on a Saturday night and it's 100 degrees outside. It hit 113 earlier. Don't you just love the IE in the summertime.

so i wanted to instill some creativity into my life that's been conveniently sucked out by medical school and decided to write a song. my brother writes really good music so i wrote the lyrics and asked him to write the music to it. he just sang it to me over the phone and it's a surreal feeling to hear words you wrote to music. you hear it differently and the meaning changes but that's what's cool about it. it can mean anything to anyone. and even though people might not get its original meaning, as far as what it meant to me, it's still keeps the bottom line, you know? it's carazy!

AWOOOHOOOO. I'm awesome. My sister messed up my computer somehow, so I had to figure out how to fix it. The computer would just restart over and over and over again. It wouldn't even go into safe mode. I called up my dad and he suggested that I get new memory.

The next day I bought some memory, a PC2100, but it was 266 MHz and my memory is a 133 MHz. I didn't think it would matter so I tried that. I started trying to reinstall Windows XP. It failed like three times. I had to switch memory, switch slots...nothing worked. Then....it just died. I couldn't turn it on. Nothing. I needed a new power supply.

The next day after that I bought a power supply at Circuit City. I got home....and....IT DIDN'T FIT. It was too big for my tower. I knew this but I didn't think it would be SUCH a pain in the ass to try and figure out how to get it in there.

I started taking apart the tower. I unscrewed every screw, took out everything that I could and I still couldn't get it in there. Then I thought, hey I better test it out if this will work and fix my problem. It worked....I could turn on my computer, but it didn't fix my problem. I had to look online for random solutions and try each one til I got the right solution. I WAS SO HAPPY!!!!!

Is that the end? NO.

I still had to figure out how to get the power supply to fit into my tower. So I took the whole thing apart. I took out the motherboard and STUFFED the power supply in there, pushed the DVD and CD player forward and it finally worked out. HALLLELUIA!!!! Here are some pictures of the fruits of my 3 day hell.

Here is the finished product with everything cramped in the small ass HP tower.

I took apart the face and was able to just put the grey part on the tower so it doesn't look that retarded. But OH what's that I see? Is that a Windows desktop?? HELL YEAH!

*Pat on the back to me*

scarier still, I just registered for classes next year and they asked me about graduation stuff like how to phonetically say my name (Ma-ree-a Kris-tee-na Lim Toe-len-tee-no), my height for my gown and previous degrees i've gotten for the commencement program. eek!

Random Thoughts

This weekend was my uncle's graduation. He went back to school after serving in the U.S. Navy since he was 18. I was so proud of him.

Being at the graduation, I came to the realization that in one year I'll be wearing that gown and going up on that stage and getting my degree. It scared the begeezus out of me. Pretty crazy that in one year I'll be done.

I started my IM rotation at Arrowhead today. It doesn't seem like it's going to be that bad. I'll be Q4(on call every fourth night, which includes staying from 630am to 12pm the next day), but I think I can handle it. My team seems competent. Wish me luck!

Well, things are definitely better this week. I decided to change the way I approached this rotation and it's actually working. I'm having a little bit more fun and I think I look more confident. As far as the other things in my life, still the same old stuff, but I'm coping better.

Here's something disturbing

http://www.westislandchronicle.com/pages/article.php?noArticle=6063

Watching: Top Model
Looking forward to: LOST in one hour!

Ok. So today I woke up and thought, "Hey, I feel good today. Maybe I'll start feeling better from now on." I get home and got some work done. My sister and I are watching Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and I start tearing up at the most randomest parts. And, of course, I cried at the end. When I tried to let it all out...nothing came. So freaking weird. Now I'm just blah all over again and have no desire to do anything. Way to go, Harry Potter. Geez.

P.S. I have an idea why I got all emotional but I think it's stupid that my subconcious is doing this to me. It was the last movie I watched with him. How retarded is that!?!?!

Random thought of the day...Kids at Starbucks

On numerous occasions I have been at Starbucks and have seen "kids" take over the whole place. One was in Claremont and the other one near my house. It's usually around 230 when they all get out of school. I kid you not, there is a line TO THE DOOR with 6th graders clutching their 1's eagerly like ladies at a strip club. They order these Venti Mocha Frapuccino's loaded with whipped cream. Now don't get me wrong, I love Starbucks. But I couldn't help but wonder what kind of repercussions these kids are going to experience by drinking coffee loaded with sugar and fat at such an early age. And not just starting at an early age, but they are probably drinking this EVERYDAY. It's like "the hang out" because going to a Starbucks makes them feel "grown up." Diabetes, hypertension....those are the only two I could think of, but that's pretty bad.

Maybe Starbucks really is evil....

i don't like feeling this way...

ok maybe God is just trying to freak me out then haha. i think he's up there laughing and going "SIKE!!!" is that how you spell it? i think it's "psych" but that looks weird too. whatever.

i'm home not doing a damn thing. thinking about studying, but really wanting to just veg the night away. it feels like a veg night. we'll see what happens.

God must be testing me. But I'm not really in the place to be passing any of these moral tests right now. Blah!

Spring Break

When you're a medical student on rotations, you dont' really have time to get all your errands done. Now that I'm on spring break I have the opportunity to get all these things done. Unfortunately, I didn't realize just what kind of punishment I was getting myself into.

Friday into Saturday morning: I did laundry. All night laundry. Woo...hoo. I had like 6 loads to do. I kid you not. The rest of Saturday was relaxing. I went grocery shopping and rented a couple of movies to watch with my sister.

Monday: I had my appointment with my rotations coordinator to schedule my first semester rotations for fourth year. Then I decided to get my blood drawn....ouch, but for a good cause.

Tuesday: I had a dentist appointment for a cleaning. When the dentist asked me if anything was bothering me, I told him about my molar that hurts occasionally. Big mistake. He said my filling had chipped and I would have to get it redone...that day. So I had to get the local anesthetic while he drilled my tooth like no other. FUN!

Afterwards I had to get my PPD placed so I could get it read on Friday at my doctor's appointment. Another ouchie. After all that I had two needle marks on my left hand, which seriously made it look like I was a drugie hehe.















When I got home my mom had made all this good food!! But half my mouth was numb so I coudln't really enjoy the food for fear that I might accidentally bite my cheek off or have it dribble down my chin. So sad. Not to mention I looked like a retard.

This is me......













Trying to do this....














Trying to whistle...















More of spring break later. This is all for now....

the best way to feel better about something is to admit it right? I figured out two things that are bothering me:
1. I've lost a really good friend and really doubt we could ever really be "friends" again
2. I need a creative outlet.

Being that I cried after I wrote #1...I think that's what it is. Oh breakthroughs.

it's that time again ladies and gentlemen. time for me to blog....about how pathetic i feel hehe. i think i've moved into the desperate and vulnerable state of my journey to "happiness." it's not a nice place to be. doesn't really make you feel good about yourself either. what's really wack is now i feel like i'm looking for a man to make me happy, when i should be happy with myself. but what if i'm happy about everything else except for that? maybe i'm not happy with it all. but WHY? that's the million dollar question. maybe because everything is still up in the air. even tho it seems like my career is on the up and up....there's still that stress of not knowing where you're going to end up; not knowing if you'll get into a residency; not really knowing how well you are doing in your work. blah...just a life full of insecurity.

I feel alone right now. I also feel like I'm stuck in a rut. I don't know how to get out of it. Work/school is ok. It's teaching me interpersonal skills and how to adapt quickly to new situations. But my personal life is really sad to me right now. Like my school/work life IS my personal life. My fortune today said, "Your job will not teach you about life." I wonder if that's true. There's more out there than the hospital. More to experience than that. And I see everyone else "enjoying" other things.

And it's not like I don't have anything. I have my family, I have friends and I've got a career. You would think I'd be happier. I think alot of people in my class are feeling like this. I just really want to be happy.

Ok, here's me trying to be positive.

Highlights of my day:
1. Wrapping the little newborn babies like burritos. Oh how they love to be swaddled.
2. My half brother called me "sis" today.
3. "Everwood" is back! And they played 2 new episodes.

Things to look forward to this week:
1. The weekend.
2. Lost on Wed.
3. Swaddling the babies hehe.

Excerpts from Jason Mraz's "Life is Wonderful"
Man can put together some words...
It takes a thought to make a word
And it takes a word to make an action
It takes some work to make it work
It takes some good to make it hurt
It takes some bad for satisfaction

It takes no time to fall in love
But it takes you years to know what love is
It takes some fears to make you trust
It takes those tears to make it rust
It takes some dust to make it polished

I love finding things that I need on sale! Especially things I know I will use alot. There are these shoes that everyone uses in the medical field because they're comfy and fit to your feet. I have a pair but they're for pants/scrubs. So, I saw my coworker wearing a skirt with these cute shoes. When she mentioned they were Dansko's I bit. The link is below. Awesome price. Free shipping. Who could ask for more?

Dansko Bridget's

To relieve your road rage.

What a great weekend. I thought this weekend was going to be spent being lonely and feeling sorry for myself. But my cousin Novette from SD emailed me and said she wanted to drive up and visit! So she drove up Friday night and we watched Grey's Anatomy season 1 til we fell asleep.

Saturday morning we had an idea to go to Lake Arrowhead since it had just rained and it would be pretty with snow up there. However, my cousin didn't pack clothes for the snow, so we decided to go to Glendale to visit our Goddaughter and nephew. On the way we stopped by Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles because Novette had never eaten there. So good!

So we went to dinner with my cousins from Glendale only 2 hours after the chicken and waffles and were STUFFED. We came back to their house and played with the kids for a couple hours.

My other cousin, Lisa, from Woodland Hills texted me and said they were going to be in downtown pasadena(right next door to glendale) that night. Perfect! I left my sister in Glendale and we went out to Union Cattle Company. Had a few drinks and had a blast!

Sunday we vegged and watched Greys again. At night we ate dinner at Spaghetti Factory and then took my sis to Dave and Busters.

Great weekend. Last weekend was great too. Next weekend will be fun with 2 bridal showers and a bbq. If certain things happen within this week, next weekend will be AWESOME.

i was just thinking about friends tonight. how some people have a looot of friends and some people only hold a few close and keep acquaintences at a distance. i am of the latter group. not really sure why this is. maybe i'm just lazy and don't feel like wasting my time keeping in touch with people who are not necessarily all that close to me or who may not really care. or it could be that i have trust/insecurity issues when it comes to friendships; you can blame that on me moving around a lot and not having anything really stable. so it takes a lot for me to be close to someone. i dunno. sometimes i feel bad that i don't really have a lot of friends who are kind of in between. most are either really close to me, which are few, and the rest are mostly people i consider people i know through school etc. i'm trying to open up more but it's really hard for me.

i was browsing through friendster looking up my old csa peeps. funny what can happen in 5 years.

careerwise i feel like i'm doing ok and on the right track to being something great. in my personal life i feel like i'm doing crappy and on a track to being alone haha. everything's a tradeoff huh?

when did my life become a drawn out version of a show on the WB?

yay my mom went to watch the ballroom dancing show I got her for Christmas and she loved it. one point for me :) her bday is coming up. not sure what i'm going to do.

Hi all. I am post call meaning I was up for about 30 hours. I have since slept but still feel bleh. It was a pretty good call. I got to see 7 deliveries and helped in some of them.

It was really surreal to watch a baby being born for the first time. The first one I saw was a C-section. And this is even more surreal because you go in there as if it's a regular surgery. You make the incision and start cutting through the layers. Then all of a sudden there's this baby and it's crying. And it's like wtf just happened? I swear childbirth is a complete miracle. The placenta comes out and it looks like something someone made/designed and it's perfectly made. I got to help transfer the baby to the examining table. It was all warm and slimy. I was so scared I was going to drop it. So crazy. My first vaginal birth I saw was of an anencephalic baby. The parents had decided to carry the baby to term instead of terminate the pregnancy when they found out. It was so sad because you know this baby is going to die, and they still went ahead with it, went through the labor and pain just to see their baby and say good bye. It was extremely hard not to cry on either delivery. But after like the 4th one it wasn't so bad.

We had a really difficult(personality wise) patient last night. 21 year old couple, very little prenatal care and so her dates weren't good. she was around 32 weeks pregnant +/- 3 weeks. she had 2 previous c sections which increased her chance for uterine rupture if her uterus continued to contract. we wanted to give her a medicine to stop her contractions b/c the baby was too young and we didn't want her to rupture. b/c she had been given this medication b4 and had some side effects, she didn't want to take it. we tried to explain to her that the risks of the side effects outweighed the risk of her bleeding or having the baby's lungs be underdeveloped. she couldn't understand this for some reason and didn't want the drug. finally she agreed to it. she finally ended up leaving against medical advice(AMA) b/c she said her babysitter had to go home. um ok. i swear people are crazy.

that was my call night. oh and for a few hours i got to hang out with cute paramedic student. boo he didn't leave me his number haha. he was 22 anyway. lol

OBGYN rotation
holy crap i'm tired. and i didn't even have that long a day. got up at 6, worked til 530 watched some TV, read for about an hour or so. And I get 6 weeks of this. I'm on call on Thursday which entails me waking up at 430am and staying at the hospital until 8 or 9am the next day. And I heard you don't get to sleep, which sucks because LOST is on the night before. In the interest of my health and energy, I might just tape it and watch it on Friday, which is my day off. Kinda cool cuz then I get a 3 day weekend sort of because I'll be sleeping half the day Friday. Ok I'll try to keep y'all posted but I don't even know if I'll sign on tomorrow.

what is wrong with people? i wonder what i would do if those were my kids. could i get away with beating the shit out of them?

Ok i don't remember what day i wrote the following post but it was saved as a draft.....whoops:

Today was a blah day. I went to church and was all sad. Didn't do much today. Tried studying this morning and read through the cases I'm going to have for my clinical performance exams tomorrow. Lazed about and watched LOST. Tried studying again. Got bored and sad again. I will welcome the busy-ness of the next 3 months. I'm really lonely. :(

THIS is my post for today. So I started using myway.com which is where you can customize your website. I put word of the day on there and daily fortune and quote of the day right. It's funny cuz the fortunes and word of the day coincide with what i'm feeling worrying about that day. Like today's word was "lethargic." I'm sleepy and lazy as hell today. And the daily fortune was: "Stop searching forever- happiness is just next to you." Today I was wondering if I'll ever be happy in a relationship or when I'll find my next one. Yesterday's was funny, it said, "Someone wants your body." And I think I was feeling insecure that day. I hope I'm not getting sick. I may just hit the hay right now.

ETA of the Matthew Fox calendar I made: ~20 hours. woohoo

Tonight my mom's college classmate came to stay with us and that's one of the main reasons why I was cleaning. She was supposed to come at 4, called and said she was going to be 'late.' That's fine, but 5 rolls around....6 comes. I'm starting to get hungry. Then she calls and says that there was a misunderstanding with her ride. She thought their agreemente was that she was going to call him when she needed a ride. He thought he was supposed to meet her at 3pm at this place. He shows up at 3 and stays til 5 and drives home. This man does not own a cell phone. So I have to go pick her up in West Covina, which is fine. Except that when I get there, they're eating. Backstory to that is my mom got this food from the Filipino place and cooked some food as well, which I was uber looking forward to ALL day.

So they're eating. And being the Filipinos that they are they tell me, "Oh why don't you come and eat." FYI, don't ever try to refuse food from Filipinos. They will not stop until you eat something. So I'm thinking I have passed the pressure and I can just eat and be at peace. I got a small portion because I want to eat at home mind you. I get some fish, some pork. The lady of the house is like do you want fresh lumpia(eggroll). This is how the convo went:

Lady: Oh here try some fresh lumpia.
Me: Oh no thank you it's ok, I'll just have this.
(1 minute later)
Lady: Well do you want some of the soup?
Me: Oh I'm ok with this, thank you.
Lady: You know why don't you try the fresh lumpia. The sauce is very good, so and so made it. It's really good.
Me: No, I'm ok really
(1 minute later)
Lady:(has picked up the bowl of lumpia and is motioning to me) Here, do you want some??
Me: No no, it's ok I don't want any.

You get the point. I think she may have asked one more time and then gave up. On that same token, my sister came with me and I didn't want to make her a plate and feed her cuz that would have prolonged the stay. So I said she had just eaten recently and I would feed her at home. I think they tried to give her food or get me to get her food like 4 times. Why does this happen with Filipinos? Why can't they just be satisfied with a "No thank you." And why do they always make you feel guilty/wrong for not taking their damn food. C'MON! I want to eat this rice, fish and pork and NOT the fresh lumpia. Give it a rest already!

I drove home and ate my mom's cooking too :) I'm a pig, but I didn't know what else to do. If I had known how much badgering I would have gotten about my sister and the lumpia, I might as well have said I didn't want to eat.

OK SEE it happened again. The lady that's staying with us asked me 30 min ago if I was going to sleep...at 10 minute increments she asks or says that we should go to bed cuz it's late. It's funny my sister just gave her this look like "yeah ok whatever." HAHA!

I am a cleaning machine!!! I finally finished vaccuuming the whole house. And when I say "the whole house" I mean everything. The curtains, all the cobwebs and dead ants and crap. I'm so proud of myself. The house is clean....except my room haha as always. I love love love our new vaccum haha. I am really starting to sound like Monica on Friends. Ok time for me to shower cuz I feel nasty from all the dust flying about.

Peace out yo!