Last April, Gim and his classmates (they’re taking up Medicine) went to Dapitan to immerse themselves in the community life of a greatly underprivileged area. They were sent to Barangay Linabo, where they witnessed families so poor that they (some up to 50) shared a single dilapidated toilet with no sewage sytem (and the human waste accumulated, unhidden, on the ground).

Gim’s mission is to solve as many of Linabo’s problems as he can. Through, of course, a concerted group effort. For the next three years, Gim and his team will be visiting Linabo intermittently for the implementation of their devised community health plan.

As part of their awareness project, Gim contracted me for video editing a month ago. He gave me his team’s raw footage last week. This morning, they presented their video and data to the School of Medicine.

Here is the finished video.

Thursday night the Jesuit priests of the Ateneo de Zamboanga, dressed in simple white shirts and pajamas, determinedly marched up the aisle in Mindpro Theater to watch the Da Vinci Code.

As they entered, the packed moviehouse stared in pleasant surprise and grinned. In an instant, the crowd got livelier and more animated – perhaps discussing the Jesuits, perhaps anticipating the movie.

None relinquished their expensive seat up to a priest but many were a friendly greeting, and many pointed out the vacant slots. The priests settled themselves in the center of the theaterhouse, and gradually we all quieted down as the movie began.

As Gim and I observed from time to time from our vantage point, Fr. Kreutz gestured and discussed animatedly with his fellow priests throughout the whole movie.

(Many questions burned in my mind: Was watching movies in a public theater a regular thing for Jesuit priests? Why was Fr. Bill so interested in watching this movie? Were they rooting for a negative portrayal of the Opus Dei, their archnemesis, or not? Had they all read the book already? What were their opinions on the relationship of Jesus and Mary Magdalene?)

We noticed, too, a lot of familiar people in the audience. I saw Brian and the SACSI people, Ma’am Ivy (the Asst. Senior Dean) and the CSIT bunch, my former highschool classmates turned new Nursing graduates, businesswomen in power suits, college kids and their friends / partners, whole families and all. I’m sure the lower moviehouse housed a host of Ateneans as well.

But enough about the crowd. What about the movie? All I have to say is: Good movie. I recommend everyone to watch it. But read the book first.

Usually whenever a book is made into a movie (or vice versa), the first question always is: Which is better? For the Da Vinci Code, the answer is: neither is better, both are terrific, for their own aims anyways.

Read the book to appreciate the plot in detail (which the movie couldn’t possibly capture in only an hour), watch the movie to appreciate the setting (which the book ably described, but still, a picture paints a thousand words).

If you are, however, going to watch this movie with high expectations, don’t bother. It won’t move you, it won’t discuss Jesus’ divinity in-depth, it won’t stir up discussion about Christianity or the Crusade, it won’t address everything that made the Da Vinci Code book controversial.

But it’s a good movie – the perfect visual supplement to the novel.

Just remember – don’t believe everything you read. :-)

March was supposed to be National Fire Prevention Month for the Philippines. I even saw a banner in front of the Zambo Fil-Chinese Volunteer Fire Brigade heralding the event.

Thus, it is painfully ironic that Zamboanga’s worst fire in history happened last month.

This is the aftermath of a huge fire that razed almost ten hectares of residential land in Camino Nuevo, Zamboanga City barely two weeks ago. More than a thousand families were displaced and some lives (including a child who was barbecued on the spot by a burning wooden post that fell on top of him and a guy who volunteered to help others stuck in their burning houses) were lost.

The fire began at around 7pm, a bit after rush hour. (Gim and I usually go home around this time but on that particular day we went home early, at half past 5, so we didn’t know about the fire until late in the evening) Firefighters rushed to the scene but the fire was blazing in the center of Barangay Camino Nuevo and all the roads inside it were too narrow for the trucks to reach. And when I say the roads were narrow, think of a Bichu-bichu (a very compact minivan) occupying the entire width of the road all by itself. The fire was put out by 1am but, by then, Barangay Camino Nuevo had been all but wiped out.

The official report on the origins of the fire cite a boy who left a lighted candle in the altar of their house, which began the horrifying blaze when the candle fell and burned the house to the ground. Rumors abound, though, that the fire was actually arson, to drive squatters away and to be able to build a road in the center of the affected area. I hope, though, that these rumors are false. Though it’s plausible, I hope no one in my city is evil enough to want to destroy a thousand lives for a single road. At the same time, I wonder whether the official report is true. The house mentioned was too close to the main road for the fire to not have been put out quickly and efficiently. I remember, two years ago, there was a big fire (though nowhere as big as this one, and that one, I was witness to) in the exact same spot. They said the fire began from faulty electric wiring or something like that. A boarding house was affected, but no one was killed, to my knowledge. And the fire was contained quite speedily, which makes me wonder why this recent fire was allowed to burn for so long and actually reach the center of the barangay, which firetrucks could not have access to.

But anyways, what’s done is done. I only hope that Zamboanga City learns from this tragic mistake. Hopefully we will finally have a fire hotline implemented instead of a landline number that is hard to memorize. And hopefully the city’s infrastructure will be improved (read: less squatters, wider roads)

For the kind hearted, donations are welcome. Cash and cheque donations may be forwarded to the Ateneo Grade School Principal’s Office. Please make all checks payable to Ateneo de Zamboanga University.

More pictures of the remains of Camino Nuevo below. (All pictures were taken from the fourth floor of the LRC Building in Ateneo.)

Best Adjudicator, Yay! Well, OK, to be very honest it was a tie with a guy from Davao. Urgh, it was my personal achievement moment and I had to share it with an ugly earthling. Nonetheless, it was fulfilling after my last MPDC’s fiasco, that is, when Gimmi my darling boyfriend slash best debater of them all, was almost brutally murdered by unworthy of calling themselves debaters “debaters” who, unfortunately, were pathetically eliminated from the breaks at the fateful hand of yours truly, best adjudicator of them all. ‘Course, last time, they nearly wished me dead.

Crazily, my bad deed was an indirect effect of my good deed. It all began when I chaired the first round of debates. Of course I chaired, having aced the adjudication exam, no sweat (sorry, the MPDC turns me cocky, though I don’t have one). Two debaters paneled with me, and feeling quite sweet and generous, I recommended one of them as a chair for the next round. Who knows how they recommended me, though, since in the next round, my previous panelist did chair while I was demoted to a panelist status! Ack! My dignity! Demolished. And so it persisted in the next few rounds that I kept on paneling and never chairing, having lost my edge.

Finally, in the last round, I paneled with my fellow ADZU adjudicator and a chair from a school I forgot. I had failed in my duty to my debaters, I felt, since now it was a moot point to think that I would in any way belong to the top ten adjudicators. This was crucial, since it would mean that I would eventually help adjudicate the finals round. The only way I could contribute was by eliminating the competition. And I did just that. Threw my average reasonable mind off the building and wore the vengeance-help-me-do-this-dirty-deed cap on my head. Long story short, I influenced my student adjudicator to bow down to my wishes and made the chair want to take me by the neck and strangle me till I acceded to an average reasonable decision. I didn’t, my student adj didn’t and neither of us made it to the breaks.

Breaks night came and I didn’t go, leaving the outraged debaters to gang up on my baby boyfriend demanding him to hand me over so they could skin me alive. Six to one, my poor baby. They beat him up to a pulp and left him for dead.

Just kidding! The other ADZU debaters saw his plight and came to his rescue, and the average reasonable mind enforced peace on earth. For that brief moment, anyways. Finals came and no ADZU adjudicator paneled, woe was us. Ultimately, the enemy won. All my fault.

That was a year ago, the 10th MPDC. I haven’t gone since. Well, until now. The 13th MPDC. I was forced by our contingent to adjudicate since no one else could. Of course, the free trip and registration helped.

Anyways, this year everything happened differently. I put my average reasonable mind to use and didn’t go berserk when our best debater slash ‘I know I’m a god but even gods can have an insecurity complex’ stated at the end of his speech: “Walking does make people win, perhaps not now, but maybe next time.” in reference to the enemy’s quip on our contingent’s habit of parading ’round the stage while speaking. A betrayal of trust, that was, the worst thing a debater could do in a debate – to concede.

Still, even though, again, the debate cup came so close yet still stayed out of our reach, our accolades speak for themselves. Best Debater, Best Speaker and Best Adjudicator. Helps wash away the sour taste of First Runner-Up.

Today I woke up and there was no light nor water. It was a city blackout! Of course, the absence of water shouldn’t follow the absence of light, but it seems, in Zamboanga City, living a mere 5 kilometers away from the city proper necessitates the use of a water booster since without it, water would barely make it to your faucet.

As disgruntled as I was at the pesky nuisance of not having any water in the bathroom, I was more worried I couldn’t get to school, since after all, it IS the start of the Ateneo Fiesta, and furthermore, it’s the Feast of St. John Berchmans!

Aside from Christmas, Valentine’s and my birthday, one of my most favorite holidays is November 26, feast day of St. John Berchmans. Most people, even Catholics in the Philippines, don’t randomly celebrate saints’ memorial days unless it’s their town’s patron saint’s feast day, ‘coz that translates into their very own Barangay Fiesta, which is always a cause for a splashy celebration.

The reason that I celebrate November 26 is because St. John Berchmans is the name of my high school class (batch ’99). And ever since my HS freshman year, my classmates and I have viewed this day as one of the highlights of every year, since it means we get together and have a celebration, be it a picnic at La Vista, a mass at the Sacred Heart Chapel or a visit to the local orphanage.

Whenever I think of our feast day, though, I remember one thing. My best friend Christopher handing me a love letter to give to one of our classmates, whose birthday would fall on the following day. Back then I had a gigantic crush on my best friend, unfortunately, it was not to be… for the love letter was to be given to a boy. Yes, it broke my little teenaged heart. I had denied it for the longest time, my crush on him, and yes, his crush on boys.

Ironically, my best friend’s crush rejected the letter I had given to him from my best friend, leaving me to have to return it back to Chris. My only revenge was that that day, we both nursed bruised egos (but, thankfully, our hearts eventually mended!).

Anyways, if you’re wondering how the heck I was able to get to school without water, let me just declare that I did not come without bathing!!! (Eww, you’ve a filthy mind for even thinking it!)

I washed my hair outside in our backyard (the water only spurts out of the faucet when it’s close to the ground) and then I filled a whole bidon with water (took me 30 minutes!!!) and then, veins almost bursting with the effort, I half-hauled and half-pushed the very heavy bidon up to our bathroom in the house and washed my body!

St. John Berchmans, pray for us.

“You are the resident on duty at the ER and an eleven year old boy is wheeled in. He was stung by a bee fifteen minutes ago, and is now in severe respiratory distress. His blood pressure is 40/50, pulse rate is 140 beats/minute, and has a respiratory rate of 34 breaths/minute. His capillaries refill in about 5 seconds and his nail beds as well as his lips are starting to turn blue. What will you do?”*

As my mind raced to think of how this patient was to be managed, I felt the familiar rush of adrenaline such as I get during debates. The above scenario was just one of the 108 questions I had to contend with a couple of hours ago during my exam in emergency medicine. The last few weeks rocked! It was a sharp contrast from our first few months in medical school. For the first time, we touched on topics ranging from syncope (fainting) to anaphylactic shock, which is a severe, life threatening allergic reaction. These were real medical issues based from real emergency cases, unlike the *yawns* how-to-prepare-a-good-acetate-slide module of the last month.

Last sunday was my first ER (emergency room) exposure and boy, was it thrilling! We were on duty from 11 in the morning to 4 in the afternoon. The first two hours were uneventful. There was nothing to do but watch the Manny Paquiao versus Hector Velazquez super featherweight bout (Paquiao won by knock out on the 6th round! =P) shown on TV in the doctor’s quarters. They started coming in just after lunch. Our first trauma patient was a 20 something construction worker who came all the way from Olutanga in Zamboanga del Sur province. Two fingers of his left hand were missing and bits of skin and muscle were the only thing that kept a third digit from completely being severed from the rest of his hand. It turned out that he had boasted to his drinking buddies that a quitis (a type of firework-rocket) wouldn’t explode if he gripped it tighty (he reasoned out that since oxygen was needed for combustion, gripping the explosive tightly would prevent oxygen from entering thus preventing combustion). So much for poorly tested theories.

As the afternoon wore on, more patients streamed in. Most of them were MVA’s (motor vehicular accident victims). One elementary school teacher was hit by a motorcycle as she was crossing the street. She sustained a nasty cut on her head and a possible skull fracture. The intern in charge showed us how his gloved finger easily slid through the gaping wound and into the skull. As we were huddled around the school teacher, a middle aged man was rushed in with a bleeding ulcer. One of our instructors, who was on duty at the time, showed us how to perform a rectal exam and insert a nasogastric tube. My sympathies went out to the patient as he struggled to swallow the tube, gagging and choking along the way.

I guess the highlight of the day was when one of the interns let me handle a patient. Well ok, I didn’t exactly admit the patient but she let me take the history, do a complete physical and take the vitals. She even asked me what diagnostic tests I was to run and how I was to manage the patient. The best thing about this was that she agreed with what I thought should be done and that the patient was managed based on my suggestions. Haha! I went home that day feeling MD (murag doctor! hehe.)

The practical exams were fun!** I felt like Superman as I snatched a woman from the jaws of death, like McGuyver as I carefully threaded an improvised urinary catheter up a woman’s vagina. hehe. What was funny was my buddy Marvin’s reply after I asked him why he flunked the urinary catheter station. He said and I quote Cosa man yo sabe? Ya planta lang sila puki adelante kumigo kabar ya spera cosa yo ase! (What do I know they just placed a vagina in front of me and asked me what I should do with it!) Now that elicited a few laughs.

Feel the speed of thought. The words of my debate trainor echoed in my mind as I thought of what to do with an 11 year old boy in anaphylactic shock. Hmmm, maybe a dose of epinephrine would do. 0.1 mg/kg, 1:1000 dilution, IV. Or perhaps dyphenhydramine would do the trick? I opted for epinephrine followed by diphenhydramine. Here’s hoping I got it right! ;P

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*The actual exam question was changed to protect the writer from any exam leakage charges.

**The emergency medicine module culminated in an Objective Structural Clinical Exam (OSCE) which was held yesterday at the Ateneo de Zamboanga University School of Medicine. The OSCE’s involved simulated scenarios with simulated patients and rescusitation dummies.

When we’re in school, teachers always warn us about “the real world.” In school, we train ourselved to be prepared for “reality.” For sixteen years (or more, who’s counting?) I was in school and craved to go “outside.”

For two years I’ve seen the real world. I’ve come to the conclusion that the real world sucks. Enough. I’m going back to school! Not as a student, though.

Last week was my first six days on the job. Being back in the private workplace again is refreshing, having survived a whole year in government (and hated every single second of it but stuck on only for the money).

Initially I craved the post of web/graphic designer, but since that job was already taken, I was assigned the task of programming. And to add a bit to my meager salary (which I shall not divulge but let me just say it is half of what I used to get *but I am not complaining merely describing*), I am taking on 3 units of classes, equivalent to one subject. (Hopefully, also, I will be accepted for the part-time job of website manager).

There are 14 of us in the department, but two are leaving for their Master’s degrees. Three of us are newbies, three are my batchmates, four were my instructors and two are my new acquantances, soon-to-be-friends-I-hope.

I love my new job, though my officemates might not see it yet. See, I’m so quiet in the office ‘coz I’m shy. Hahaha. Shy daw o. But I’m warming up real quick. It’s hard not to warm up to your officemates when they’re all so kalog.

Prime example. It’s 6:00 PM and we’re in the office waiting for our respective classes (mine starts at 7:30PM unfortunately). There’s some slight chatter but mostly we’re on our PCs preparing lectures or surfing or what. R, at the end of the isle, is playing a PC game. Suddenly we hear a thudding sound coming from his computer, but he ignores it so it just keeps thudding. I surmise it is probably the game’s sound effects.

L, however, looks over and assesses the situation, then he blurts out in a really really loud voice, “Huy, R, tigilan mo daw yan. Nakakahiya!” Some of us muffle our giggles. (See, the thudding kinda sounds, um, bastos.) R ignores him and goes on playing. The sounds eventually get faster and faster, and L comments that R is nearing his “climax.” Then the sound stops. L says, “Masarap, bai?” Some of us break out in laughter. The the sound returns back with full force and L says, “Ay, hindi pa pala tapos. Grabe si R. Excited talaga.” He then looks at M, and tells her, “M, ikaw kasi nag-skirt ka pa, tingnan mo na-e-excite na talaga si R!” M blushes and tells off L, then hides in her cubicle. The rest of us try to contain our laughter.

L is pretty much like that all the time, riling up the rest of us, but most especially poor M. I think they kinda like each other but they’re denying it. Hmm, office affairs, yum! I can tell that relationship will develop in time.

Aside from liking my co-workers, I also love the new time flexibility I have. In government, you HAVE to be in office at 8AM sharp and 1AM sharp. You can leave only at 12NN sharp and 5PM sharp. If you need to leave at any other time, you must fill out a pass slip and if it’s approved, you can only leave for a maximum of 30 minutes. Otherwise you will counted as a absent. No wonder government employees start packing their things at 4:30PM!

Now, I can come and go as I please, though of course I make sure I keep at least 8 hours a day in office. On MWFs, I have to stay until 8:30PM due to my one and only class. I’m hoping I can change its schedule, though.

My class (the one and only) is a very fun class. They’re also kalog. I have one student who is very obssessed about his hometown. Every meeting he never fails to mention that he comes from Mercedes. His classmates tease him about it, but I think he does it on purpose to crack up the class.

Lots more to report but I have to rest. 11-hour days take their toll. Zzzz….

Wow, I am dead tired. My legs feel like jelly and the muscles in my body are aching — a good kind of ache. The dull kind of ache that lingers to remind you of the exhausting yet tremendously enjoyable experience you had just recently.

Today I went caving with my best buddy and boyfriend, my baby Gimmi. Along with us were Gim’s thesis partner Marvin and the Ateneo Research Center staff Liezl and Lot and selected ARC student assistants. This event was funded by the ARC since they wanted to personally survey the caves in Gim’s and Marvin’s thesis, so we had a free ride and a free lunch. Yay!

Last time I went caving with Gim and Marvin was a year ago! Back then I knew how to climb up a flight of stairs. Today I can barely comprehend walking from Ateneo to City Hall (ya all know we gov people sit on our bums all day!). So you could just imagine the humongous effort it took for me to climb a mountain!!! I had to make frequent stops along the way to catch my breath (and regain feeling in my lower limbs). Poor Gim had to worry about me and stay beside me as the rest of the pack went forward, which resulted in us getting *lost* from the pack. Yes, Gimmi and I ended up in another cave. Fortunately, the cave we were supposed to visit wasn’t too far from where we had landed, and after trying out a few alternative routes (without a guide, mind you, since the locals were with the main group) we finally chanced upon them eating lunch at the entrance of the cave… whereupon we greeted them with relief and joined them for lunch. Unfortunately they were just finishing up, and dismayed were we, because, um, the utensils were with us!!! Our fellow spelunkers were forced to eat with their dirtied hands!!! Sheepishly we asked if anyone needed any napkins.

Oh well! It was good for their immunity anyway.

We haven’t developed the film yet so I’ll just post pics from last year’s escapades. (These are the same caves we visited today.)

The only difference is that Gim and Marvin have graduated and I’m much fatter. Sigh.