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. :’)

Less than a month left and I still have to read pages and pages of review materials. Talk about cramming? Hehe. I’ve been losing weight – again – despite NOT being on a diet. I’ve been asked if I had been taking apidexin because I look a lot thinner these days. I say it’s the 1-2-punch combo of board exam stress and regular gym workouts. Speaking of which, are there other good gyms within the Las Pinas area aside from MySpa Fitness and Fitness First?

This is how Marty’s home screen looks like now. Pardon my sickeningly cute wallpaper. I have developed fondness for black and white creatures which included certain kinds of cows and pandas, you see. I recently upgraded my HTC Desire Marty to Gingerbread after running on Froyo for a good number of months now. Before you ask me how I was able to upgrade to Gingerbread despite news that the development of the platform for the HTC Desire is still in the running, my beloved Marty is rooted. Thank goodness for geniuses over at XDA Developers forum! I don’t have to wait my entire life for the official Gingerbread release for my beloved HTC Desire. *thumbs up*

I did not root the phone myself. I bought it at two-weeks old from another tech-savvy friend who rooted the phone before it landed on my hands. When I first tried my hands on flashing a custom ROM some time back, I was really nervous; afraid of bricking my phone and turning a good piece of technology into a very expensive paperweight. The experiment was a success. Months later, I attempted to do another upgrade to the much-talked about platform. To my dismay, I discovered that most of the experts at XDA forums are advising against using ROM Manager to upgrade your phone. Oh crap. Now, I had to do it the old-fashioned way. Much like any noobs at this flashing thing, I wasted almost an hour trying to figure out how to get past that cellphone-with-a-red-exclamation-mark-inside-a-triangle screen. I was nervous and frustrated at the same time. I followed every bit of instruction there was: Press the volume key while turning on the phone, choose hboot from the menu and another menu will come up. Alas. I always end up stuck on that screen. With nowhere else to go I ended up removing my batteries and starting all over again. That went on for almost an hour (I’m so thankful that I didn’t mess up my old software!) – until I got so frustrated that I pressed on the up volume button while on that screen. Voila! There it was. The boot-up screen that I had been looking for! Turns out that I had to press the up volume to load the correct hboot screen to proceed to the next steps. Haha! If only I had the patience to scour through the threads!

Marty is running on AdamG’s Oxygen Custom ROM (Version 2.1.5) which I like very much except that there’s too few bundled apps included that I even had to download facebook and twitter apps from the market (I believe that unlike dental supplies, which are totally random btw, facebook and twitter are two of the must-have Android apps nowadays.) AdamG’s Oxygen ROM is consistently being updated. I’ve had my phone running on Oxygen for two days and there has been two updated versions already since I first installed it. No worries though ‘coz it also comes bundled with its own Oxygen menu where you can upgrade from one version to another with just a single click. Don’t you just love it? It’s so hassle-free! (and noob-friendly too!) Hehe.

Davao Day 3! It’s our last day in Davao and we had the whole day devoted to sight-seeing and exploring what the city has to offer. Still part of our Davao Adventour Package, we went to visit the Davao Crocodile Park, Butterfly Farm, Tribu K’ Mindanawan Cultural Village and Zip City.

We had to checkout early from the hotel and just left our baggages at the concierge. We were then dropped off at the Davao Crocodile Park and we were on our own from there since the trip back to the hotel and to the airport was no longer covered by Crown Regency. We took time taking loads of pictures of the animals at the park before we headed to the cultural village where there’s not much to see and to the Butterfly Farm which was a long walk from where these two places were. The Davao Crocodile Park is rather small and aside from the numerous crocs and a number of colorful birds, nothing’s too exciting at the park in the morning. We decided to just return in the afternoon for the shows after we have had lunch and had our turn at the zipline. As I said earlier, there’s nothing much to see at the cultural village save for the tribal houses which were in not-so-good condition anyway. There was also a cultural dance show in the afternoon but we decided to skip it since we were supposed to be at the airport early ‘coz we don’t want to miss our flight. The butterfly farm is a sight because of the numerous butterflies hovering around your head. Back in Cebu, Bryan and I went to visit this unenclosed butterfly farm which showcases butterflies from the mountains which the keeper managed to naturally attract by growing a variety of flowers to which these colorful insects are attracted to. This butterfly farm in Davao is just like any other butterfly farms where the insects are kept inside with a net. I forgot to wear perfume at that time so I wasn’t swarmed by butterflies unlike in Cebu where a number of butterflies clung unto me because of the perfume I had worn that day. What I liked most about Davao City is that the city is tourist-friendly. In all tourist spots within the city, there’s a list of phone numbers of taxi companies if you need to be picked up. We ended up hiring a taxi who waited for us while we had lunch at Dencio’s Hilltop to bring us to Zip City and back to Davao Crocodile Park in time for the afternoon shows. After lunch, despite being so full, we headed to Zip City which was a stone’s throw away from Dencio’s. It was a fun ride as always. Compared to the zipline experience at Ugong Rock in Palawan, this was harmless. =) We also met again our rafting photographer and another raft guide from the previous day who were manning the zip line on our third day. Afterwhich, we headed back to the Davao Crocodile Park for the animal shows. If you’re going to visit the park, make sure you don’t miss the animal shows which showcases crocodiles, the friendly chimpanzee Carlo and the colorful trained birds who’ll showcase a trick or two. They also feature a tightrope walker who’ll breathlessly cross a crocodile pen filled with wild crocodiles! Alas, we were not able to appreciate the tightrope act because we were too far away to see clearly what was going on and we didn’t have ncstar binoculars on hand. After the shows, it started to rain and we then rushed to call a taxi before the rain starts to pour harder. We then headed to the airport and tearfully left Davao to face the realities in Manila. =P

All in all, I realized that the promo package was worth it. The white water rafting alone already costs 2,000 per head and the villa we stayed in was beyond my expectations. We might have saved a lot more if only we were able to get discounted flights to Davao beforehand but hey. The experience wasn’t too bad for a last-minute out-of-town trip. I really can’t wait to go back soon to explore the beaches in Samal Island. Next year perhaps? =D

The Day 2 of our Davao Adventour was the day we’d be dealing with the rapids. I honestly didn’t have a clue on what was to go on but I had this image of a raft bravely going with the flow of a raging river with the passengers hanging on for their dear life in any case the raft capsizes. Just to illustrate how unprepared we were for our white water rafting adventure, I came dressed in a spaghetti-strapped blouse, a pair of shorts and my Havaianas. Oh yes. I wore Havaianas to do white water rafting in Davao! Bee and my brothers didn’t have a clue as well. Bee even brought a bag with him, which, luckily was small enough to fit inside the locker they lent us. Our rafting trip was courtesy of Davao Wild Water Adventures who had the most amusing lineup of guides/lifeguards. We were dropped off at the Davao Crocodile Park by the hotel and I thought there was some misunderstanding until I realized that the Davao Wild Water Adventure office was located inside the park. Silly me! Anyway, we were then asked to sign this waiver (to protect themselves from a harassing Texas Business Lawyers!) and were led to pick our gadgets: a life vest and a helmet for protection. I didn’t realize until later on that the helmet I got was that for a child! Haha! Looks like I still am a child after all. =P Then, a short briefing followed before we embarked on an hour ride to the river. The place was absolutely beautiful and picture-perfect. Too bad, we didn’t have our own camera at that time. When we got at the drop-off point, a second briefing followed on how to properly wear the life jacket and the helmet, then, we were ushered to our respective rafts.

There were four groups of rafts on this trip and we had the least number of passengers in our raft: me, Bee and my two brothers plus our boatman Loloy. We were then taught on how to paddle properly and were instructed on how to do defensive swimming (orient yourself and make sure you’re riding down the river flow and not against it, lean back, hold your paddle against your chest and go with the flow ). When it was my turn to jump off the raft for simulation/practice, I inadvertently swallowed some water and got a real scare. Gah. If I almost panicked during a staged capsizing of the raft, what more if it was the real thing?!?!?! It was then that I started silently praying that our boat would not capsize.

As if I was being played with, just a few minutes after we started paddling down the river, we watched in horror (this is an exaggeration haha), how one of the rafts capsized after they rode down a huge wave. When it was already our turn, we luckily survived the first stop: “kiss the wall”, so named because rafts literally kiss the wall of the river when they ride the raging waters. After surviving our second, third and a number of wild waters, I had become more comfortable riding the waves. The trip down the river totaled four hours of paddling and praying. =P There was a stop in the middle of the trip where the gang had our packed lunch also courtesy of the rafting company. Around this time, the rain started to pour so all of us had to endure paddling against a now more swollen and more raging river. About three stops after, our raft unexpectedly capsized and everyone was thrown off. I found the raft right on top of my head as soon as had my first gasp of fresh air so I panicked. I was already holding on to the rope attached on the side of the raft but I knew I had to let go and find my way out of the raft. If you think the boatman will immediately grab you, think again. YOU’RE NOT THE FIRST PRIORITY OF THE BOATMAN. I repeat. You’re not the priority and it’s for a good reason. You see, the boatman has to turn the raft right side up and climb on top of it before he starts plucking the rest of the gang from the water. I dunno how long I was in the water but it was perhaps the longest one or two minutes of my life. For a moment, I felt like I was being dragged deeper into the river bottom despite the life jacket. I was almost about to cry when I felt a tug on my hand. It was Bee and he was floating right beside me!!!! It was a movie-worthy moment. There he was, my knight-in-shining-armor, holding on to me lest the river sweeps me farther away. We were the first two passengers to be rescued. One of my brothers ended up being “saved” by another raft while we tried hard to catch up with my other brother to save him. After that horrifying moment, we were just all laughing and sharing stories on that moment. Loloy even shared that he didn’t expect our raft to capsize at that moment especially since that area wasn’t notorious for capsizing rafts. But then, a large rock and a huge wave aren’t exactly the best combination so we ended up losing our raft. =P Luckily for us, we didn’t capsize during the rest of the trip. After four long hours, we finally reached our destination. My brothers sustained minor bruises from scratching against rocks while they were submerged in the water but nevertheless, we survived the rapids in one piece. Unfortunately, my eyeglasses didn’t survive the trip. I lost one of the lens when it suddenly snapped out of place. I’m sure by this time it’s somewhere at the bottom of the ocean already. =( We were all asleep on our journey back to Davao Crocodile Park. That night we shared a sumptuous dinner at Ahfat Seafood Plaza and had a wonderful massage at the hotel before retiring to another good day in Davao. =)