I was supposed to get the prescription glasses I had made for myself last weekend but halfway through the journey to the mall, I realized that it was a Tuesday today and that my car’s not supposed to be seen out driving in the Metro - not until 7 pm at least. I panicked! Good thing I was able to return home safely without being flagged down by any MMDA. The first (and hopefully the last) time I had ever received a ticket was early this year - I remember that date vividly because that was the day after Bee and I got together. The violation wasn’t really serious but the experience I had to undergo to claim my driver’s license was so stressful that I vowed I’d never again experience the same thing. (I ended up walking a lot that afternoon! My feet were screaming!)

Anyway, it’s my cousin’s wedding on Sunday already. She sent me a message earlier last week to remind me that I’d be the one in charge of the guestbook. I’m supposed to have all the guests sign the book before anyone leaves the reception. I ain’t exactly very sociable when it comes to such formal events. After all, I hardly know anyone from her husband-to-be’s side of the family. Sounds like hard work for me. I just hope they won’t assign me to distribute the giveaways. I don’t care if those would come in custom boxes or not. For sure it’s gonna be crazy.

I haven’t started with the six papers I’m due to submit next week. I had spent the whole day yesterday on a date with Bee with my intention of finishing at least one paper when I get home. Of course, I failed. I ended up sleeping at around 12 am, only to wake up quite a few times throughout the night.

We already started seeing patients as soon as we finished the exams and got back to business. There’s no time for us to relax a bit and unwind. Our exam finished on a Tuesday and right the next day we were scheduled to see a patient for Gynecology. I was wrong for having concluded that we weren’t going to see any patient for that sensitive subject. Just because the subject involved a lot vaginal exposures and examinations, a whole lot of privacy to be breached and awkwardness to deal with didn’t mean that we were exempt from getting our hands dirty. In fact, I had my hands fingers devirginized that same day by I performing the first IE of my career on a 44-year old patient complaining of reddish vaginal discharge. The feeling was… weird… and that funny search term that ended up in my other blog suddenly crossed my mind. Probably that person who had the nerve to search for that “fingering” term in Google was just curious to know how it felt like to the one doing the act. LOL.

The funny part of the experience, however, ends there. I don’t see any reason why we should be happier when our patient, as we would later on conclude, only has a few more months to live. She has cancer of the cervix - a lesion that was left undiscovered and untreated earlier because she never went to see a gynecologist and have a pap smear taken.

A lot of women die of cervical cancer because the disease is discovered only when it is already in its late stages - when things are already messier and harder to treat. However, this can be prevented by having a pap smear taken regularly especially for women who are considered high risk. These are women with positive family history of cancer, women who started having sex at an early age and women who has had multiple sexual partners. Exposure to the human papilloma virus (HPV) also increases the risk of a woman from developing cervical cancer much like how exposure to asbestos predisposes an individual from having mesothelioma later in life.

This patient of ours never had her pap smear taken. I know this is not exactly the most comfortable thing to have inside you in the world, but ladies, what’s a few minutes of discomfort if it meant our life?

I love pampering myself. After a long week’s worth of lectures, patients and papers galore, I always look forward to the weekend and what pampering treatment I’d get for myself. I am a self-confessed spa fanatic. I love getting a nice, long massage to relax my tired muscles. For me, the very first sign that I am under stress is when my upper back (the Trapezius to be more precise) starts to get really sore and hard. And when it does, I go straight to one of the spas that litter the metro.

Last night, I was supposed to be at the Cinemalaya with my blog friends but Bee decided it was a night that the two of us should be spending together. He bribed me with a dinner date and a free spa. It was actually the third time he brought me in to get a nice massage. We were supposed to go to Spa 168 where I’m a regular client (I brought him to the place a few weeks ago) but there were no parking spaces available so off we went to Excelsior Spa just across the street. I’ve tried that place once and the massage that I got there on that first time still tops my list (but that was last year and I forgot to note who gave me the best massage of my life). The price for their Swedish massage had increased from 380 to 400 but I don’t really mind because the staff were very accommodating anyway unlike in some spas that I’ve been to that literally would leave you clueless and alone (I’ll blog about them some time soon). The massage was relaxing but I thought there was nothing much special about it. I wonder though if it was because I wasn’t as super stressed out unlike my usual trips to the spa or the masseuse wasn’t as good as the others.

The place is a lot smaller than the other spas I’ve been to and I feel it was rather cramped. The ladies’ area consists of two showers, one toilet and a small sauna. The common massage room is located upstairs. I don’t really recommend the place for first-timers or for the more conservative types because you share one big room with three other clients and there’s really no privacy at all. No divisions to hide you from the other clients. Not even a curtain! When the place is fully booked, it gets a little cramped - what with 8 people inside the room. The toiletries, towels and robes were clean and fairly new and the locker room lady is really accommodating and would assist you with your needs. Having someone to assist you is a MUST in every spa. Especially since not every client knows what to do and how things go about inside the spa.

The verdict for this trip?

I’m giving an extra because it’s free.

The US remains as the number one country that people would want to migrate to - at least partly true here in my country. Unfortunately, going to the US for good is not as easy as 1-2-3 but perhaps even if most of us won’t be lucky enough to live the American Dream, at least we can go backpacking in the US and visit both wonders of man and nature that the North America has to offer.

The best and perhaps most inexpensive way to discover America is to ask a friend or family for temporary shelter. Let’s admit though that most races aren’t as hospitable as Filipinos are. Even so, there are a handful of my countrymen who don’t think having guests in their home is a grandiose idea. Foremost, most of them live in pads that are not spacious enough to accommodate guests, and if only for this, they’re exempt from the prying and sadly, sometimes judgemental eyes of their countrymen. Thus, to prevent family and friendship fallouts, I guess getting a booking in one of those clean, comfortable and affordable United States Hotels that literally litter the country is the best way to go. Booking for one is like a choose-your-own-adventure book. At least, you get to travel from the East Coast to the West Coast at your fancy.

Speaking of the west coast, the state of California is one of the most popular places to go to. You haven’t been to California if you haven’t even seen the famous Golden Gate that overlooks the majestic bay. Thus, going to San Francisco, must be in your itinerary. You don’t have to fret much with your lodging woes because booking an accommodation in one of those beautiful San Francisco Hotels is easy especially with the advent of the internet. One can book online even at the last minute. After San Francisco, the city of Angels (Los Angeles) also should be on that vacation list. Los Angeles, the largest city in California is also peppered with Los Angeles Hotels, from 3-star hotels to 5-star hotels that you can call your temporary home as you visit famous tourist attractions like:

Disneyland (featuring Sleeping Beauty’s Castle) in Anaheim

Appreciate art at the Getty Center, Los Angeles

and of course…

Bump into your favorite stars in Hollywood

After spending some time in the East Coast, move your booties to the West, search for affordable New York City Hotels by booking hassle-free online and take a glimpse of what the fast-paced life of New York City has to offer.

Yes, you may not have been lucky enough to live the American Dream, but there’s no reason why you can’t at least experience it, is there?

…my hair that is!

I’ve been pretty much annoyed by my hair lately because it seemed as if it has a life of its own. The right side is flying away no matter how short or long it is. It hasn’t always been this miserable though. I remember how Pauee and I once were the luckier girls in class for having long, silky and beautiful hair without even trying. Those days, it was our good friend Cathy who had major problems with her hair. Yes, the beauty-title holder and environmental advocate was once teased for having hair that’s flying towards just one side. Now, it seems like my karma has finally found its way to me. The sad part is, I can’t have my hair cut until two weeks from now when my cousin finally weds her legal husband in church. The gown she had made for me would look really perfect with long, curly hair and so I must stop myself from itching to the salon in the next few days. However, being such a sissy, I know that with that wedding aside, I’d think twice about having my bra-length hair chopped off to something as short as this:

That’s Yoon Eun Hye looking great in a short ‘do.

Anyway, I still have a couple of weeks to decide whether I’ll have the guts to have my much-awaited make over. My boyfriend had his long hair cut short recently and he looked a whole lot younger again! If I don’t want to look like a an old manang right next to him, I should be getting my butt out and heading to the salon soon. Yes. As I’ve been saying over and over again, judgement day comes when the wedding’s done and over with. After all, there’s no more stopping it anyway. The party invitations are out.

So, think I can sport this look with ease?

This morning wasn’t like the ordinary mornings I am so used to waking up to. The rain was lashing like crazy outside my window and the cool weather was coaxing me back to sleep. My tummy, which had been empty since 11 pm last night started grumbling hungry so off I went downstairs… Behold what greeted me! A gigantic pool of flood water on the first floor!

I lost count already on how many times I had to literally get down and dirty to clean up a puddle of water since we moved here last year. The adjective “flooded” has been this house’s best description for all those times we had “wet” problems the first few months into moving in. In fact, a couple of my friends had sworn off our place already since they too had to help in clearing out the flood a couple of times when they were unfortunately caught in a watery situation. I don’t have much problem when it gets flooded because most of the stuff I own are beyond the floodwater’s reach. I pity my housemate because her furniture gets all soaked up every time there’s a mini flood at home. Just recently, her speakers got wet when the drainage at the back of our house got clogged and the first floor got flooded a couple of weeks back. We still consider ourselves lucky though our sockets have never been affected despite the numerous floods this apartment had to endure. It was a blessing that our sockets and the Cat5e Keystone jack which gives life to our phone and internet line are at least a foot above floor level.

One of my wishes for this year is to have a “dry” home - as in literally dry. But I know if I wanted that to happen, I need to extra effort to keep that stupid drainage at the back from clogging again.

Liquid sosa anyone?