Till Our Next Meeting

A transplant has specific criteria or requires comprehensive compatibility usually gauged by repeated crossmatching and other tests. And even then, there is that possibility that the recipient rejects the donated/ transplanted organ. The same goes for migration or transplanting oneself to a new country, sometimes a newer environment, culture and life altogether. I always saw it as a big move, a bold undertaking hence one need not only be equipped with a certain set of skills but also undergo rigorous preparation. After all, moving means, leaving something behind while learning something new. And after 6 months of living in Australia, Ive picked up a few things. As to whether it makes me a more well-rounded person, Im not sure. I am certain however that these skills or lessons have assured me not only of survival and sustenance but also sweetness. :)  1. How to make a great cup of coffee and tea. Here in Australia, especially in Melbourne, coffee is sacred. There are sta...

(for December 2) CKD stands for Center for Kidney Diseases. It’s a specific area in the hospital where patients undergo dialysis which means their blood is drained from them, mobilized to a machine which filters it since their kidney can no longer do the job properly. After the blood has been filtered and cleaned, it is returned to the body through another large bore needle. It was in CKD where I met Leonilda, the most adorable old woman with pink cheeks and her husband. As a nurse on duty in the special area, it was my responsibility to assist the staff nurses and to take the clients’ blood pressures every half an hour. I was slowly approaching Leonilda who was lying on her lazy boy type of couch. She looked very comfortable and happy despite two humongous needles piercing her body as if vampire teeth sucking the blood out of her. No wonder she was so white and somewhat pale. However, her paleness was masked by her ultra pink lipstick and matching blush on which was somewhat out of pl...

I realize my inadequacy and tardiness. I have been tempted more than once to abolish this blog, after all, it’s been a little over four weeks and yet I still have no assurance that someone actually reads this. Yet I choose to think that you are there, you are reading this and you have come to a decision to read this regularly. And so I must not stop. Today is a Monday and it is a holiday. That means no classes for me and the rest of the student population. All thanks to the heroism of Andres Bonifacio. I have decided to allot this day for three major tasks: research, writing and cleaning. And therefore, I begin on my second task. The other day I met a professor who looked very much like a student. We talked but then I have to be completely honest that I was under the influence of alcohol. This developed to my inebriation and inevitable loss of my brain capacity to retain and recover the things we talked about. And so I cannot write about him. Instead I shall discuss Jansen. He owns a t...

(for November 28) Yesterday I met one of my heroes. I say this because he amazed me with his success. Penetrating the US music industry isn’t easy; I understood this at a young age. And yet he not only landed several record deals but he became part of one of the hottest, most popular RnB groups of our time, the Black Eyed Peas. He is a Filipino and a proud one at that. I really shouldn’t be including him as an entry here because I’m writing an article about him for a magazine I contribute to. But I can’t help it. I was a sophomore in high school when the Black Eyed Peas visited the Philippines to do a concert. As a gift from my bestest best friend KC, I got silver tickets to the concert. The ticket cost her around 2000 pesos each. But because of our tardiness, natural luck or perhaps divine intervention, and uncanny ability to get away with things, we ended up watching the concert in the VIP section. Mind you, tickets to that area cost something like 15000 pesos. Anyway, I didn’t get t...

(for November 26) I had difficulty meeting someone the past two days. I was so caught up in preparation for our group thesis defense: re-reading our thesis and checking for typographical errors, inconsistencies and incoherencies. Wow I just typed that word hoping that a read zigzag line won’t form beneath it and thus indicating that there is actually such word. And apparently there is.  *shout for joy* I was also busy for another reason, yesterday being my father’s birthday. Another reason to shout for joy  But I made it a point to meet someone today so after our group defense and after the much enjoyed lunch at Congo Grille and the not so enjoyed movie ‘A Christmas Carol,’ I took a walk at the nearby streets of my apartment, still no sign of someone I could come up to and chat with without being mugged. I sometimes wonder why ever did I decide to live in a street so close to dangerous alleys. Anyway the hours passed and the sky was already dark when I realized I had to visit my bloc...

im super delayed again. Darn this asthma. And this lamentation. Im actually wearing black tomorrow as a sign of it. to immerse in that darkness so I could eventually fully detach myself from it.

this project turns out to be actually harder than i estimated. I guess I suck at math in general. shit. It's hard to be a full time student, part time writer and manage 2 blogs. even harder when youre stuck with one lazyass roommate who refuses to clean the dorm even though she knows its her turn to do the chores and the place is filthy already. oops wrong blog, i shouldnt be writing this here. I was thinking a week ago, Florence seems much farther now than it used to be. It almost appeared to be within reach 2 years ago because I actually was supposed to go there for my 18th birthday. Yet instead, I chose to celebrate my birthday with a big debut complete with all the candles, big dress and shiny escort. I also realized recently that I had never actually met someone who's been there. Well except for Jared, my dad's colossaly kind of a boss who told us wonderful stories about the place. He's the person whom I almost deem responsible for my being enamored with Florence. ...

(for November 22) I dont usually converse through text with people I don't know or haven't met but for this particular person I made an exception. Honestly I felt weird replying to a person who was a somewhat stranger. I mean, sure he's the best friend of one of my good friends, but still, I don't like operating on those terms. But he made sense and surprisingly enough he didn't bore me and drove me off to sleep. By the time we'd been talking for over a week, I felt like I had a bogus friend, a figment of my imagination that resulted as a way for compensating my lack of college guy friends I could talk to on a regular basis. And I don't know. there's just this certain thrill spilling information to a pseudo stranger, or someone whom you haven't met. I mean, what harm could it possibly bring right. He was, i mean is, taking up psychology as his pre-medicine course. He told me that he had a 10hour week schedule. Upon learning this I felt like questioni...

(for November 20, 2009) "Hello my name is Mr. Pagsanhan but everyone calls me Pagsi. I'm 82 years old and still a high school teacher like i have been for the past 50+ years." Here was the cutest man I had ever laid eyes on. His cuteness and jolliness instantly formed a huge smile on my face and yet by the end of his talk, my eyes were filled with tears. His talk by the way spanned for almost an hour and a half, like most movies. But no movie has ever made me tear up that many times in just one showing. It's like my eyes were turned into a faucet that was constantly being tilted to produce water. Only a few minutes after the faucet was shut closed, it would loosen again and let the water flow. I bet the people from the other side of the room were thinking, "What is wrong with this girl? The speakers keeps cracking jokes and telling funny stories and yet her reaction is the opposite of what is usually elicited after humor." Or maybe not since I bet more than ...

(for November 18 2009) Inhale. Exhale. Full lotus flower position. Inhale. exhale. Most people only know yoga as this leisure activity where you get your body into these bendy twisty positions, the activity which makes you do sometimes awkward positions but eventually will make you so flexible that you'll be as bendy and twisty like a pretzel. Can I just say for the record that I initiated practicing yoga not because I wanted to become like a contortionist and do all sorts of flexing extending with my body. It was only lately that I learned to see yoga in a deeper, more spiritual way. I've come to learn what I now know about yoga because of three people, Liz Gilbert, my Asian Civilation professor and someone I met recently, Dada C. Yep that's how I prefer to call him, although he doesn't know this. That's also how his name appears on my phonebook. He doesn't know about that either. Dada C is a monk. For their special sect a monk is referred to as a Dada while a ...