the perils of

I interrupt my Clerks Notes series to talk about something... happy. See, yesterday I went on a really great date with a really great person. He came dressed in a grey Ateneo shirt and a cool dark green jacket. We bought separate tumblers of popcorn, and I got cheese, and he got sour cream, and by the end of  Murder on the Orient Express both flavors had mixed into a cheesy chivesy powder on our fingertips. I loved the movie. I really liked his jacket too. So we went to the store he had bought it from, and they carried the same jacket in a lovely rose color. As I tried it on, anxiety started to creep in. Is it too soon to get matching jackets? Is he okay with matching? Will we look ridiculous? "Can we be matchy, or would that be weird?" I asked him outright. "We can be matchy," he replied with a sweet smile. And so we were matchy. And it's weird because I've never been matchy with anyone before (anyone aside from my sister that is). But it's also ...

       Just came from my first duty in VKMC, a government-owned tertiary-level hospital near where I live. For the record, VKMC is a fake name that I'm using for confidentiality purposes (I just googled it; there is no such thing as a VKMC in the Philippines [at least as far as the first page of the search results shows]).         Anyway. We'll be rotating in VKMC for three weeks under Obstetrics-Gynecology, a particularly special rotation known for making interns out of clerks. The hospital is notorious for being a "baby factory," where hordes  of pregnant women come to expel tiny humans out of their bodies. With two or three mothers sharing a single bed, you're watching over at least 30 patients at any given time, but this number differs depending on who you ask. Some will say they've done 100 patients at once. Some 200. Some 15 (which is pretty believable given the  Pseudomonas outbreak in the hospital some months ago that...

     Just ended my Rehab rotation a few days ago, and it was definitely a lot more laid-back than the other rotations I've been in. On our last day of Radiology in [private hospital]. This has nothing much to do with Rehab but I just wanted a comparison pic of what it's like to be in a private hospital. So cushy and nice. (Also I needed a nice photo for the thumbnail for Facebook.)      On our first day at [insert name of public orthopedic hospital], we got to try out the paraffin wax bath, which made our hands warm and glazed, like a Krispy Kreme doughnut.      Later on in the week I spent a whole day in the Spine Ward with my group. It was honestly... kind of gross.        Okay before you judge me as being maarte or elitista, hear me out. In this public hospital, they do not throw away gloves after using them. Because patients are too poor to afford new gloves, nurses usually wash and rewash existing ...

> Subjective       Umm... What the hell just happened.          My two months in Internal Medicine is up and I hardly got to document it. Heck, my last post was about the one day off I got. Looking back on everything that's happened between now and my last entry, I have so many regrets for not writing sooner.        I'm sorry.        I've been saying that word a lot lately, more often in these past two months than I've ever said my whole life.       I say it to almost every doctor I work with, right before saying something I shouldn't even be sorry about.  Sorry doc, may I just ask a question? Sorry doc, may I get an initial read? Sorry doc, our patient in 4A still has difficulty breathing even after nebulizing.  These are the "light" sorry's; I throw them out indiscriminately and they carry no weight. They are a mere concretization of my place in the hospital hierarc...

> Subjective Today marks the first day I haven't set foot inside a hospital since clerkship started. Seriously. Thank you to [hospital name redacted] for giving us clerkies the holiday off! Woke up at 8:30 AM today.  Felt so strange not having to get ready in a rush, not having to drag my body some place it doesn't want to go.  Literally went "mmmmmmmm" as I buried my head in my pillow and went back to sleep. Had a slice of mango cake for breakfast. Mmmm WENT CRAZY OVER THE LATEST TAYLOR SWIFT VIDEO . (Zombie Taylor is the best Taylor.) Walked to Ayala the 30th from my condo (in the blazing noontime sun. But I didn't mind because I'd spent all my afternoons on hospital floors, never knowing what the sky looked like at any given hour) Peaceful sushi lunch at Genki Sushi. Although I felt pressured to eat fast and leave because my single butt was holding up space at a table meant for 6.  Stocked up on foot deodorant :| Marathoned Orange is the New...

>SUBJECTIVE<        On Week 4 of Clerkship. Haven't been posting online much to maintain the privacy of patients, doctors, and batchmates alike. But here's what I can safely say:        In [hospital name redacted], clerks are generally not allowed to do much. On occasion, we run to Radiology to get initial reads on X-rays, do paperwork during emergencies (known as "codes"), and, if we're lucky, admit patients. Right now, because we haven't rotated yet in [name of public hospital redacted], we aren't skilled enough to be able to confidently perform procedures like blood extraction. But sometimes a nice intern or nurse will let us do these things under their supervision. Other than that, we mostly spend our days reading our patients' charts, learning their stories.         I was telling all this to one of my batchmates and he gave me a funny look and asked "If that's all you do, why do you guys always complain ab...

Today I interrupt my Baguio series to dabble in skincare reviewing! Yes yes I know most of you guys are about ready to stop reading at this point BUT YOU MUST CONTINUE READING FOR I HAVE SOMETHING VERY IMPORTANT TO SAY. And that Very Important Thing is this: Watsons' Blackhead Removing Mask sucks.    Big time . Okay so it wasn't that important but hey at least I got your attention. I am, by no means, a skincare expert. However, I am an average human being, and I can attest that by normal human being standards, everyone should just stay clear of this 139-peso waste of money. Unless given as a gift for someone you low-key despise, say for example, a certain tita who never fails to comment on your weight every single time you visit during the holidays. Moving on! I must point out that I didn't plan on doing a review on this, I just really wanted to try it out for fun but then ended up hating the product so much. Essentially I tried the mask on first and then d...