Urbandub, again

Here's an article on Urbandub by The Weekly Sillimanian.

What I like about them, aside from being uber-talented, is that they're so humble.

The VSMMC Operating Room

I seldom talk about my nursing experience in this blog. How ironic for this is what I made this blog for, hehe... It's just that I feel there's really nothing special about my day to day experience. (I know, if there's nothing special about it, then I should stop doing this). But there's another purpose for this. I'm doing this mainly for myself. I'm using blogging for its barest, most basic purpose -- to log in my experiences as a nursing student. Sort of like a repository for certain things I want to remember or recall in the future.

Anyway, this week I've started my clinical duty in the Operating Room of the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center. It was a relief to know that the experience is actually not that dreadful. We heard of certain feedbacks from previous groups, not only from our school, that the OR at VSMMC is the most dreadful place a student nurse can be assigned to. We heared of tales about surgeons barking and throwing pieces of surgical instruments at absent-minded student nurses. We heared of stories about shouting staff nurses. We imagined busy OR theaters where everybody has to work quickly and where the student nurse has to think and act rapidly to attend to the surgeon's needs. That's not how I found it, so far at least. We are fortunte enough to be assigned to the night shift, so most of the cases are emergency cases, and we don't have to make a pre-operative report of our cases. I haven't gotten my case yet (tomorrow I will). One thing that surprised me is how huge the OR room really is. It is comprised of 6 OR theaters (or was it 8?). And the things that I saw that were really interesting were caesarean section procedures, cranial surgery, dilatation and currettage, and bilateral tubal ligation cases. It's fascinating to see how layers of skin are cauterized. I imagined long ago that i'd probably faint if I'd see an operation being performed in front of me. My knees used to weaken at the mere sight of blood. But now I look at surgical procedures and I don't feel anything at all, just wonder, and sometimes sympathy for the patients.

Yesterday a woman gave birth, through CS, to a baby girl with a large lesion in her cheek. Her head was somewhat disfigured too (her forehead was protruded), and her left eye couldn't open very much. I don't know if it was only temporary. Imagine a boxer at the end of a brutal fight, that is exactly how she looked like. I don't know how it happened.

One very trivial thing, my head cover really feels uncomfortable. It's so small. It hugs my head so tightly that I sometimes wonder if I'm getting enough blood supply to my brain.

Urbandub!

Urbandub played last Saturday in a gig dubbed "Bottlefest" at the Ayala Center parking grounds. They blew everyone's mind that night. They always sound awesome live.



Frailty



Endless, A Silent Whisper



First of Summer



Gone (with Faspitch)



Soul Searching

And a snippet of Junior Kilat's "Buwad, Suka, Sili"...

BoToks

My bro and I watched the BoToks concert last night. It's Bo Sanchez's special concert. The other Kerygma preachers were with him. It was a blast. Brother Bo was funny, as usual. The show sort of centers around him in that in it he talks about his life. How he came to know God early in life, how he found the love of his life, and how he was healed of his psychological and spiritual wounds to become what he is now. But the actual star of the show was really God, because he played and continues to play the major role in his life.

But I felt that the show was too short. I felt that brother Bo shared only a small portion of his life to the audience, and in a hurried manner, too, hehe...

But it was a satisfying show. Nakakataba nang puso kasi you always had to laugh. But even more importantly we were blessed for being there. Brother Bo is truly a living testament to the fact that God heals broken, imperfect persons, and uses them as instruments to spread his glory and his blessings.

Manny's wealth

I hope someone will hand Manny a copy of any of Robert Kiyosaki's books, to advice him on how more wisely he can manage his tremendous wealth. I'd hate to see him corrupted by his millions. He should get a financial adviser, someone to guide him on how best to invest his money, how to make it sustainable, so that by the time he retires from his career (and boxers only have short-lived careers), he can just sit back and earn passive income... hehe.

Awesome fight

Stunning! At only 3 rounds! Amazing!

But I really feel sorry for Morales...

"The grand finale"

I'm not really a boxing fan, but I've never been this excited for a boxing match in my life before. I'm even more excited now than last January, when Pacquiao and Morales fought for the second time. The whole country is practically as excited.

The fight promises to be an explosive one. Both fighters are very determined to win. Both are in great shape. It's funny how Pacquiao said in one interview: "I hope nobody get's seriously hurt at the end of this fight." Haha. Is he joking or he just being gentlemanly? But someone definitely will get seriously hurt. As a sports analyst said, someone will get knocked down. Whether it's going to be Pacquiao or Morales, let's just wait and see.

Go Pacquiao!!!

Human Anatomy

The second semester has finally come. Most of our clinical areas this sem will be in the operating rooms (last sem most of our assignments were in the delivery rooms because our focus then was on maternal and child nursing). This week we will be at our own hospital's special area. There's a scheduled hysterectomy tomorrow morning. I will be the circulation nurse (I think). I'm really quite anxious because it will be my first time. I need to review the different instruments, the proper gowning and gloving techniques, etc., because we had our OR lecture last sem. There's so much I need to relearn...

Anyway, here's a great podcast I discovered: General Human Anatomy Podcast. It's a series of lectures of the different systems of the human body and their functions. It's taught by Marian Diamond, a professor at the University of California in Berkeley. You can listen to it through streaming audio or you can download it as an MP3, so if you have an iPod (if you do, I envy you) you can just upload it and listen to the lectures while you commute to school, go to the gym, wash your clothes, do the dishes, or whatever you do. Anywhere, anytime, you can listen to it. Isn't that a cool way of reviewing anatomy and physiology? You can also watch the videos.

There are other interesting courses available at the main site besides anatomy, although most of them look technical.

An iPod + academic audio lectures = a great learning experience!

Glimpses of Sanke

My grandparents own a sizeable tract of land in Negros. These are taken in Sanke, their home town (courtesy of my bro) last All Saints Day.

Quote of the day

Seen in a guy's t-shirt one day:

"Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened."

Bo Sanchez' new daily "reality show" on the internet

Bo Sanchez has a wonderful new "reality show" on the internet and it's called "Preacher in Blue Jeans". Plus, he has a podcast! It's about time he makes use of that wonderful technology to reach out to more people.