A few days back, while doing reliever duties as a doctor at a BPO in Paranaque, two meical representatives paid me a visit and I immediately noticed their beautiful nail art. I was told they used cracking nail polish they bought at Divisoria to create their pretty nails. Short of going to Divisoria, I remembered I’ve read about The Face Shop’s cracking nail polish somewhere but never got the chance to grab one for myself. Then, just the other day, I was strolling at Ever Gotesco when a set of nail polishes caught my eye at one of the kiosks. It was cracking nail polish at a budget-friendly price of 50 pesos! Short of having an Aldelo System, the saleslady wrote my receipt and I was a happy owner of a cracking nail polish just 5 minutes later. I’ll be posting a review of the cracking nail polish I bought soon so stay tuned!

I am a believer of signs and divine intervention. For how can one explain why I got high grades in that board exam subject I honestly thought I’d flunk? Or how could anyone explain why I suddenly had the urge to look at the side mirror and see (to my surprise) how my car’s just a few inches away from another parked vehicle while carelessly driving in reverse this evening? I could even cite how my cousin ended up with ” The One” after she received the sign she had been praying for. Truth be told, at those certain moments when we’re unsure of what to do next, we always, always wish or pray for a sign as an assurance that our next step is the right one.

So, imagine my confusion when I realized this evening that I’m missing a heavy, huge, hardbound, thousand-pages book from my library. I’ve already searched high and low… even called up my mom to look for the book in my room just in case it decided to go home on its own. I even had to ask my former housemates if they had unintentionally brought it with them when they moved out months ago. But so far, hours after I began a frantic search for “The Book”, I’m as clueless as I had been three hours ago. I’m now even considering the idea on how we have a naughty house elf hiding our stuff every now and then.

Or perhaps, just maybe, this is one of those not-so-subtle signs from God telling me that the road I am to take is not the best road out there for me.

Should I seriously take this as a sign then?

I hope playing with new wii games would clear my mind a bit. Anyway, here’s John Lloyd Cruz and Solenn Heussaff in a short vid about signs and sign seekers. Enjoy! (‘coz I did)

More than two months after I discovered that my blog’s bandwidth was being eaten up by spambots and after getting more than 40,000 spam comments and filling my inbox with comment notifications of those spams, I’m struggling to clean up the mess left by unscrupulous people running those spambots. I can’t believe this! My blog comments and email notifications are still in the 30,000 mark despite all my efforts. Actually, I cannot focus all 100% of my time just cleaning up what needs to be cleaned up because of the coming board exams. But I sure promised myself I’ll get back to doing the “dirty” business of tidying up once August is over. Gah. I sure hope I had gotten an rv insurance quote for my blog. Hehe. Does that even exist? =P

You know what’s the downside of being too updated with your friends’ and acquaintances’ lives thanks to Twitter and Facebook? It’s the constant and nagging reminder of how your life seems to be on pause mode when everyone else’s lives are on the fast track. I just knew that when I clicked that photo of one of diamond engagement rings from Reeds(?) in my facebook news feed that another high school batchmate is getting hitched. Haha. They’re starting to pour down like monsoon rain – the pretty brides, I mean. Sometimes it make me think twice, thrice if going into medicine was really a smart move on my part.

But you know, looking back at the happy faces of all the patients I’ve encountered through the last two years… I get that fuzzy feeling inside telling me that I did make the right choice. :’)

Trivia: The Philippines is home to earthquakes, typhoons and volcanic eruptions save for one place in this country. Do you know where?

Did I hear you say Palawan? Great guess! According to our van driver-slash-tour guide, the only place in the Philippines that’s safe from these natural calamities is the province of Palawan. Hearing this statement, the idea of moving to Palawan in the future has become more likely. I recently visited Puerto Princesa and immediately fell in love with the beauty and cleanliness of the place. Who wouldn’t fall in love with a city within a forest?

Frankly, I wasn’t expecting to travel to Palawan this year if not for the invite Bee got from one of his old high school buddies last January. The next thing we know, we were already booking our tickets to Puerto Princesa and has been looking forward to the vacation since then. But the road to Palawan was not a smooth and easy one – figuratively and literally. I’m saving the stories for next time though after I finish transferring all the pictures I took with my digicam (nope not with htc incredible s virgin, though I wish I had one. Hehe.)

My community and preventive medicine rotation for the month of February brought me to various places within Quezon City. For the first two weeks, I helped the health center physician, Dr. Annie Lynn Antalan at the Kalayaan Health Center in Brgy. Dona Imelda. Most of the patients I encountered were children. It may be tiring but when you love kids, I realized you’ll have patience to even the most stubborn ones (especially the toddlers!). The youngest patient I saw at the Health Center was a few days old neonate who was brought in because of “halak”. In the layman’s terms, “halak” equals phlegm causing noisy breathing. Fortunately, I didn’t see anything wrong with the baby who was sleeping peacefuly at that time despite the maneuvers I was doing on her. Sadly though, her mom claimed she does not breastfeed her anymore at just one week old. I couldn’t imagine why.

I always encounter mothers who complain of not having enough breastmilk. It’s a misconception. They ask me on ways how to produce more breast milk. I always tell them the same thing. Milk production is there once you get pregnant and give birth. Not a lot of people know that the baby’s sucking on the mother’s nipple stimulates milk letdown or the release of milk from the ducts. That’s why some mothers are having a hard time pumping milk using those artificial pumps because they rely on them solely. Ask them and they tell you they rarely let their babies suck milk from them. No wonder there’s no milk coming out. Back when I was rotating in Pedia-Nursery last year, I always get this certain thrill when I see babies nursing on their mothers for the first time especially when the baby does it succesfully after just a few tries. You see, it is our goal to facilitate and encourage the formation of a strong bond between the mother and her baby. The best time for bonding seems to be the first hour from birth. That’s why early nursing is practiced in (I hope) all hospitals in the Philippines nowadays. Gone are the days when well-babies are being held in the nursery before being brought to the mother. At the institution where I trained, we room-in the babies with the mother as soon as she’s stable after giving birth. Some parents don’t like having the baby around after the tiring “labor” but most of them want their babies with them as soon as possible. Great right?