the perils of

Yesterday was Shiny Teeth and Me , a dental health seminar thing organized by my Super Thesis Group (AKA two thesis groups combined). The texts about the bomb threat didn't do much to alter our plans for that day, since our seminar was held in 15th Avenue School, somewhere near Gateway. Ehhh I'm too lazy to run through the details of what happened but here are a couple of pictures. Pancit malabon contributed a lot to my thesis (AKA it seems to really please the barangay workers) so I bought a bilao for the seminar.  Corn baby. Kindred spirit.  "What the hell is this stuff"  It's rare finding kids who aren't camera-shy.  She and the other boy (pictured above) were excitedly pointing at  some construction workers on cranes before I snapped this shot.  Straightening up after the event. The team.   For some reason, Anton wrote this on his hand and started showing it to peopl...

"The third year of a relationship is the most challenging. A lot of people told me that. Didn't believe them. Turns out it's true." Last night I was talking to my friend about the end of (what I thought was) her great relationship with her boyfriend. Considering that the two of them were like gold together, their breakup was pretty worrying. Like my friend, I have always just dismissed the warnings surrounding Year Three as pure fiction, but their recent breakup in their third year freaked me out. There must be something about Year Three that causes even the strongest of relationships to falter. So what is it? What is it about Year Three that causes couples to break up? I didn't know, and the thought deeply troubled me. So of course I turned to Rap to voice out my concerns. And our conversation went something like this:       I'm worried.        Why?           Because they say the third year of a relationship i...

Oh no. Looks like I'm beginning to fall short on my promise to update regularly. I am regressing into a state of blogging coma. But as much as I'd like to return to the regularity of my blogging back in first year, I guess that I've realized since then that there actually are far more important things on this earth than my blog. Like thesis. Or a social life. Or white chocolate macadamia cookies. Mmm. Anyway, I'll make this quick since it's 12 AM now and I have made an appointment with Rap to go jogging at 6. Ugh. Last Friday was ARSAfest (AKA Sinulog in Ateneo)! A much-needed break from all the work we had to do that week. And yes, that is water I'm holding. Leo vlogged about the party  here . Last Saturday after our Physio exams, Anton, Rap, and I drove to the Yuchengco Museum in Makati to pick up some photos from Jacob Maentz , a photographer dedicated to documenting the lives of indigenous peoples in the Philippines. He's a really nice p...

I had to put my blogging spree on hold because of today's Physiology exam. The exam covered the respiratory and renal systems. In short, I've spent the past three days holed up in my condo and the past three nights in Matteo Ricci trying to cram all the information I can into my decreasing supply of brain cells. I've been eating a lot of junk food too, which is what I tend to do when I study Physio, and I try to rationalize this by telling myself that I'll burn off all the calories anyway because of all the brainwork I'll be doing. But nope. Three days ago I went to Rustan's to buy myself some study food. After a long debate with myself about the best type of chocolate to purchase (nuts or no nuts? milk or dark?) In the end, the winner proved to be a bar of hazeulnut Lindt. It was pretty big (and, at P98, was kind of expensive) so I thought it would last me a week or two. Who the hell was I trying to kid? I finished it in a day. Mmmm. . . . Monday was m...

Three days ago, I took the train to UERM for my very first med school interview. I was not as nervous as I thought I'd be. My hands weren't shaking, my heart wasn't racing, and I wasn't sweating like a bag of ice cubes in the summer sun. Perhaps it was because I had spent a good amount of time that morning reading up on med school interview tips (link here ) and watching videos (click here ). I even dressed up in my best interpretation of a corporate outfit: a crisp polo , a black pencil skirt, and my old pair of flats. Other people didn't come in as formal-looking as I did. The girl who came before me in the interviews was wearing a blouse, khaki jeans, and closed shoes. I feel the need to point out these details because even though UERM didn't specify a dress code for the interviews, I feel like dressing up was a good idea. I learned from this YouTube video that interviewers actually like it when you look more formal. Also, I was dressed the same way as ...

I almost didn't graduate today. I woke up at 6:30 AM and hit the snooze button, only to remember when I woke up hours later the reason why I set my alarm so early in the first place: I hadn't studied for my Theo orals yet. That's okay, I thought. Even though I woke up much later than I should have, I still had four hours left to study. Four hours to internalize seven theses statements.  At 11:30, after having learned only two theses and doing a lot of non-studying, my phone beeped. It was a scheduled reminder that I had put in, reminding me about my orals at 12:00. My world stopped. 12? But my orals weren't until 1! I read and I re-read that damn reminder five times before it really sunk in. My orals weren't in two hours, they were in 20 minutes. And I wasn't ready. So I forsook a shower, yanked on the first things I saw in my closet, and made a mad dash to the Theo department. Waiting for my turn outside Ray's office, I was a nervous wreck. I tried...

I climbed Mt. Pico de Loro the other day, and it was my first time to climb a mountain of that magnitude. To put this into context, my previous experiences with mountains solely involved driving a car up there and then walking around. Oh don't worry, this isn't going to be one of those lame, self-gratifying "It was so difficult but in the end I made it" posts. This is going to be one of those "I just climbed a mountain and check out the pictures I took" posts. Hopefully. Backtracking a little: This climb is a series of many open climbs organized by the Loyola Mountaineers (LM for short). If organizations were people, this one would probably be Rap's other girlfriend. Or boyfriend, depending on whether it's a girl org or a boy org. Anyway, bottom line is that Rap super freaking loves mountains, and he loves this org. (You can check out his blog and see that most of what he posts is mountains and LM [which actually is not saying much, because he...