Urbandub at Royale Concourse

Urbandub will be playing tomorrow at the Club Royale Concourse in Gorordo, along with Faspitch and the Ambassadors.

Ticket price is Php150. It will be available at the entrance. The show will start 7:30 PM.

Caffeine, jolt, jazz

A cup of coffee and the music of Paulo Santos: hopefully these will stimulate my mind and jolt me to start reading my Pharmacology notes. I've been very weak, mentally, these past few days. I don't know why. I just feel so numb and weak. Wala na ko'y gana magtuon. As a consequence my MS exam this afternoon was terrible. And days before that I tried to read my notes but I couldn't absorb the information. So I didn't study at all, I just flipped through the pages of my notebook, without understanding what I was reading.

Mura ko'g zombie. I need to feel alive, hence the music and the coffee. And I'll have more cups pa tonight. But the thing is the more coffee I drink the more nervous I become, the more worried I get about the exam, and the more I won't be able to concentrate...

I think ingun ani lang jud ni basta finals na. My brain is telling me, "I'm tired. I'll just go on ahead with my vacation. Bahala naka diha."

Another thing that I do when I study (or at least try to) is play some music in the background. I tune in to "mellow" radio stations. Love songs. Yikes! The trouble with it is that I often end up singing along with the song...

Maghimo ko'g playlist hehe... Nina Simone, Natalie Cole, Norah Jones, Alicia Keys... Jazz, baby.

On fasting

"Our Lord knew that to draw strength and efficacy from fasting, something more than abstinence from prohibited food is necessary. Thus He instructed His disciples and, consequently, disposed them to gather the fruits proper to fasting. Among many others are these four: fasting fortifies the spirit, mortifying the flesh and its sensuality; it raises the spirit to God; it fights concupiscence and gives power to conquer and deaden its passions; in short, it disposes the heart to seek to please only God with great purity of heart." (St. Francis de Sales)

Unexcusable

I'm watching the live coverage of the hostage-taking in Manila. It's crazy. Maybe Ducat's intention IS noble (the media tells us of his background; and he is even the owner of the day care center?), but putting those children's lives in danger so he can air his message??? It's unexcusable. Maybe he just mentally snapped, or something. Basin tinuod naa siya'y problema sa panghuna2x...

(And what the heck is Chavit Singson doing there???)

Usa Ka Dapit Sa Atong Kagahapon

There's a great program over at DYAB (1512 in your AM dial) that airs every Sunday (7:30-9:30AM):

Usa Ka Dapit Sa Atong Kagahapon

It plays Classic Cebuano songs from the best Cebuano composers from decades past. What's great about this program is that in addition to featuring rare Cebuano songs (songs most people, or at least folks from my generation, haven't heard of before), it also provides a bit of background information on these songs (when they were written, by whom, and some information on the other works of these composers, what happened to their careers, where they are now, etc).

Baguio-bound

I'll be going to Baguio with my family the week after the finals exam. I guess I ought to be excited, considering that it will be my first time ever to visit the place. I had a chance to visit it a long, long time ago (when I was still in Grade 4 hehe), but I traded my ticket for a betamax! (My father made my brother and I choose between a trip to Baguio or a betamax; of course, considering how things were then - movie rental shops have just sprouted all over the city, and we were hungry for movies - we chose the latter). But I really don't know what to expect. Everybody says Baguio is a beautiful place, but really I can't picture how it'll look like. I wonder if it's still cold there the way it was when my family went there.

Will be bringing of course the essentials for a long trip: digicam, a book, and some audiobooks for that long, long bus ride to Baguio from Manila.

You are my joy!

How long has it been since
I last heard your voice?
How many weeks?

I take delight in our
conversation.
You bring
forth from me
so much joy.

My heart, wearied
by the daily routines of life,
finds relief
in the soothing familiarity
of your voice and
laughter.

I listen with an open
ear.
I trace the paths
to which your words
lead me,
and I'm amazed,
at your mind.
It is a world
made beautiful by the
color of your words
and intellect.
In this world,
I am close to you,
in this world
I'm at rest.

A Man For All Seasons

I really love and enjoyed this book. I read it a long time ago, but I just listened to a BBC radio adaptation of it. Brilliant!

I think it's required reading for all the politicos out there who are running for office. Rare na lang kaayo these days ang mga taw nga nag-hold og some sort of political power nga unshakable ug integrity og faithful sa iyang conscience (and therefore to God's law). Thomas More is one man all politicians, statesmen, lawyers, civil servants, etc., can emulate. In fact, he is someone all of us should look up to as our role model. A man of great intellect, morality and character!

A "thank you" goes a long way

I really liked my patient this week. She's a very kind old lady. She had choledocholilithiasis and she had a surgery last Monday. I monitored her condition after she was transferred from the recovery room. At first I thought she's kind of emotionally distant, because she had this expressionless look on her face every time I talked to her. But later I realized she's actually very kind and warm. She thanked me tonight before I left the ward.

Well, she didn't exactly say "thank you". She said it differently. She asked if it was already the end of our shift, then she said she was glad for our help, and she nodded and smiled with the warmest kind of smile. It really touched me. I really felt happy. Suddenly this whole pursuit of wanting to become a nurse had meaning, had purpose. You know (for me at least, this is true), nursing can become quite empty and tedious. It can sometimes get depressing. But once in a while you encounter experiences like that, moments when you are able to connect with your patient in a deeper and meaningful way (times when you understand the patient's condition and you are able to communicate your concern for him or her, and that person responds to you), that the meaninglessness of the whole thing goes away. This is the spirit of nursing after all, service and love for our fellow human beings.

Maayo unta ingun ani pirme hehehe.

Death is the road to awe

I went to see The Fountain this afternoon. (Yup, I usually see movies alone). The story was confusing at first (I got inside the theater halfway through the movie). I almost regretted not choosing Curse of the Golden Flower or Ghost Rider instead. But I risked it, thinking that I wanted something that is more than purely entertaining. And boy was I rewarded.

The movie is actually beautiful, with many layers of meanings, about love primarily, but also life and death. (Spoilers ahead).

There are three narratives in the story. The first takes the 21st century as its setting. Tommy (Hugh Jackman) is a doctor and scientist who is on a (desperate) quest to find the cure to brain tumor. His wife (Rachel Weisz) is dying of the disease. Throughout the movie one could see how much he loved his wife, to the point wherein he is almost obsessed with his research. The irony is that he ends up not being totally "present" at his wife's side (he is still distracted by his goal of saving her life). He still cannot accept the reality of his wife's impending death. But Izzi (Weisz) is already at peace with her fate. She helps Tommy accept this and realize that death is not the end of everything, but the beginning of something eternal.

Izzi is writing a fairy-tale book called "The Fountain", and this is the second narrative of the movie. Tommy is Izzi's hero, and here Jackman plays the part of Tomas, the conquistador, ever loyal to his queen, Elizabeth (Weisz), and on a mission to save her and Spain. He is on a quest to find the Tree of Life at the middle of the Mayan jungle. He seeks immortality, but most of all he wants to be united forever with his queen.

But Izzi leaves the final chapter/s of the book unfinished. She wanted her husband to finish it for her. She gave him the freedom to decide how the story was going to end. The story helps Izzi express to Tommy how she understands the sacrifices he's doing for her, but she is also leading him to realize an immortality beyond the physical kind.

In the third narrative, Jackman is a sort of Zen buddhist, travelling far into space towards a nebula, enveloped in a huge bubble with the Tree of Life. This is actually far, far into the future. Here he is still on a quest for immortality, with the memory of his wife still haunting him. The Tree of Life is actually part of Izzi, since it has grown beside her grave. So he considers it as she, loving it with the same love he has shown her. It, too, is dying, like Izzi, centuries ago, was dying. He wants to bring the bubble to the nebula because Izzi believed that rebirth lies at the death of a star. While on their journey Tommy finds sustainance at the life-giving properties of the tree's bark. "You give me life," he murmurs to his tree. "We're almost there," he assures her. Such is his love for Izzi. Here we see that Izzi is truly the fountain of his life! Isn't that such an amazing and beautiful way of looking at love? (In addition to the idea that a man can treat his spouse as a queen, to whom he has wholly submitted himself in loyalty and to whom he is ready to sacrifice his whole self, including his life, to be truly united with her forever!)

You have to see this movie to understand it. Or you may perhaps get different interpretations from mine.

I met up with my bro afterwards and saw another movie, An Inconvenient Truth. This is really one movie everyone should see.