...Friends only.


I want to be a little more discreet about the things I post, and to be generally more organized. :D Don't worry, the more public-friendly entries will stay public. :D For the rest of you, get an LJ now!


Want to be added? Comment~! :)

What can I say. Med school, med school related activities, and Facebook eat up basically all my time.

Metro Manila is still in a state of calamity after Ondoy, and with a supertyphoon on the way, it's enough to send a person into full blown panic. Still, a lot of things to be thankful for:

My family is 100% okay!
The sheer bayanihan spirit that's been inspired in pinoys everywhere! (and even non-pinoys) Nothing warms the heart like compassion :)
Many friends and relatives were affected, with some witnessing all their furniture washed away, but none of my loved ones actually got hurt!
No school til monday, so plenty of time to rest (I have the flu), recharge, and volunteer! (Not to mention I can actually go to my cousin's wedding at 3pm, which I wouldn't be able to do if there was class)

(And finally, no one probably cares but me, but I made a secret that's on fandomsecrets 's 1000th post. :D It's a happy secret, so it made other people happy too, haha!)

Last night was easily one of the most fucking scary and awesome nights (and mornings) of my life.

( Read more... )

Good lord.

Oh and Happy Valentines all! ♥

HAPPY BIRTHDAY runturtlerun !!!

Or at least in this timezone it is.

I miss you more than an LJ entry can say. I never get used to you being no more than a phone call away. Half of the time I can't understand anything you blog about... which is ironic, given you're the simplest, most grounded, most understanding person I know. I can't even find any pictures of us together (we were never big camwhores when we hung out, and anyway I'm losing a lot of files). I keep thinking: you need to come home SOON... so we can take lots and lots pictures together at last, like proper BFFs.

♥

Because I can only look at these for so long without melting my brain:


Figure 1. 10 mm pig embryo, geniculate ganglion

( Gossip Girl: Carnal Knowledge )

Also, gosh I need to start watching House again. I keep hearing "Damn Foreman is a lucky bastard!" everywhere I go.

If I could tell a story in words, I wouldn't need to lug a camera.

- Lewis Hine, American Photographer (1874-1940)

Learn about

Photos That Moved the World

and 

How to Take Them

An Alternative Classroom Learning Experience

by the UP Photography Society (UP OPTICS) :)

February 4, Wednesday

1 - 5 PM

AS 410

Speaker: Dan Cercado, photographer extraordinaire

http://www.dcercado.tk/

For more info, contact Cori (0905-294-45-48)

Register online at http://acres. ph.tc/

Fuck

There are people who will tell you
that using the word fuck in a poem
indicates a serious lapse
of taste, or imagination,

or both. It's vulgar,
indecorous, an obscenity
that crashes down like an anvil
falling through a skylight

to land on a restaurant table,
on the white linen, the cut-glass vase of lilacs.
But if you were sitting
over coffee when the metal

hit your saucer like a missile,
wouldn't that be the first thing
you'd say? Wouldn't you leap back
shouting, or at least thinking it,

over and over, bell-note riotously clanging
in the church of your brain
while the solicitous waiter
led you away, wouldn't you prop

your shaking elbows on the bar
and order your first drink in months,
telling yourself you were lucky
to be alive? And if you wouldn't

say anything but Mercy or Oh my
or Land sakes, well then
I don't want to know you anyway
and I don't give a fuck what you think

of my poem. The world is divided
into those whose opinions matter
and those who will never have
a clue, and if you knew

which one you were I could talk
to you, and tell you that sometimes
there's only one word that means
what you need it to mean, the way

there's only one person
when you first fall in love,
or one infant's cry that calls forth
the burning milk, one name

that you pray to when prayer
is what's left to you. I'm saying
in the beginning was the word
and it was good, it meant one human

entering another and it's still
what I love, the word made
flesh. Fuck me, I say to the one
whose lovely body I want close,

and as we fuck I know it's holy,
a psalm, a hymn, a hammer
ringing down on an anvil,
forging a whole new world.

~ Kim Addonizio

Watch this ad! Haha! I love you Cristiano!

Yet it's already late Tuesday morning in the Philippines, and there is no decent download for GG episode 15 "Gone With The Will" on XTVI.

Aaahhh it's only just returned from holiday hiatus, and I'm on withdrawal all over again. :((

I never thought I would have to take a personality quiz in order to get into med school. When we were informed that we had to take an exam yesterday, I assumed it would be some sort of IQ test. Or at worst, another GRE. But no.

Question: (something like) You would want to be:
a. successful
b. efficient
c. friendly

Me: Ummm....

I don't like these things because I become inconsistent. For example, a question asked whether I would want to be, in an American football team, the coach, the star quarterback, or the elected team captain. I can automatically see that coach = someone who likes to plan things, be in the background, team captain = leader, take-charge, sociable and star quarterback = someone who likes attention. IRL i would probably be the coach, or maybe the team captain. But if I had a chance to pick? Damn straight I'd be the quarterback. :))

It gets funnier in the second part of the exam, which involved a slideshow of black and white pictures, and we had 5 minutes each to "write a story and be as dramatic as possible".

A picture of a little boy with his head in his hands, looking at a violin.

My story: Boy is the son of servants in some rich lord's house, who's always wanted this expensive Stradivarius violin in the store window. one day he steals money from his master's house, the rich lord flips and blames his parents, the family is turned out into the street, and eventually his mother gets sick and dies. He was too much of a wuss to admit that it was all his fault and stares at the violin, the cause of all his greed and his downfall. (shut up, we had five minutes)

Scott's story: Boy has always wanted to play the violin, but was never allowed. One day he is invited to a party at his friend's house where he sees the violin and is torn between obeying his parents and playing the violin. He eventually obeys his parents. (Omg Scotty)

But not one of us could beat...

Erik's story: Boy was a JEWISH VIOLINIST DURING WW2. He was very skilled and loved to play, but couldn't get a break. He was looking at the violin feeling torn because he was invited to play for a NAZI PARTY. Should he refuse, or should he play the violin FOR HITLER? Eventually he  agreed and his music "healed the warring hearts of all those who heard him" or some other such flowery bullshit FTW.

Can all exams be like this?


 

So far ito ang draft ng lalabas sa yearbook for our batch! I need comments! Or if you can give me something better, please please do!


Not every batch of Biology undergraduate students is legendary. A batch can be like a poorly made cocktail: no matter how great the ingredients, the end result is nothing if the mix is bad. 

This batch of soon-to-be graduates, however, is one that is destined for greatness (if we may say so ourselves). And we’re not just talking about that genius of geniuses, Scott Ong. The Bio seniors of 2009 are a diverse and talented lot; filled with artists, photographers, musicians, varsity athletes, muses. We can master cat muscular systems and invertebrate phyla after one night of cramming. We know how to plan a party. We even have a certain knack for dodgeball. :)

 
Perhaps most importantly, we are united. In a world which seeks to turn us all into rivals and competitors, we see ourselves as comrades-in-arms.  Ours is a synergistic relationship; our batch has formed so much more than the sums of our parts. We have gone farther than we could have, were we not in this together. We will take this bond with us when we leave the hallowed halls of IB, and into the real world.

I saw this post on fandomsecrets from a few days ago. (fandomsecrets is a community on LJ where you send in images containing a secret pertaining to fandom in general, ala Postsecret)



And nothing made me happier than to read this comment to it:

I sprained my ankle during Mt Makiling Fieldwork last week. When we were reasonably close to Peak 2. Yes, getting down was kind of insane, and I had to spend the rest of our stay indoors like some kind of bored housewife. Waiting constantly for the breadwinner(s) to get home so something would actually happen.

I could whine about how I'm stuck on crutches for a while, and how it has completely messed up my schedule for this month (ICC D:) There are about 3 things I do like about being crippled though.

1. You see what your friends are really like.
Real friends help you down mountainsides, steady you even if you don't ask, carry your bags, wait for you when it takes 2301237429 years for you to actually get anywhere, buy you food, drive you to class, even cheer you on when you're struggling down stairs.... And I'm really glad I've got some. <3

2. People open up to you
Maybe it's schadenfreude? But people around me seem happier when I'm pilay :)) Especially random strangers, like the janitresses and storekeepers who all sympathize with my pain, and give me tips on how to cure it. (I have heard "IHILOT MO YAN" many many times) And many, like Kuya Obet and Ate Sonia, cannot seem to resist telling me their own "pilay" story. :)

3. Crutches can be fun
I hate using them after a while, but crutches make great props/toys/weapons/sporting equipment/instruments/etc. They even got broken because I still do more walking than I ought to, and people keep borrowing them so they can pretend to be lame or have "disabled races".

..... Although no matter the benefits of having a bad foot? It still can't make up for the fact that I can't dance. :(

And when I happened across the Wiki entry for it, it seems to have been vandalized by some troll. I'm posting it here because someone will fix it eventually, and yeah it is kinda funny:

Plot

Smellabella "Smella" Swan moves from sunny Phoenix, Arizona to rainy Forks, Washington to live with her father, Betrayer-of-man-kind. She chooses to do this so that her mother, AlsoaBetrayer, can travel with her new husband, Phil Dwyer, who is a minor league baseball player. What she doesn't know is they are traveling because those poor people need a break from her scent. Even though Smella never had many friends in Phoenix due to her overwhelming scent, she attracts much attention at her new school in Forks, and is quickly befriended by several students, who, unbeknown to her often spray deodorant after her when she leaves. Much to her delight, several boys in the school compete for shy Smella's attention as a cruel joke.

When Smella sits next to Joseph Stalin in biology class on her first day of school, Joseph seems utterly repulsed by her. He even attempts to change his schedule to avoid her, leaving Smella completely puzzled about his attitude towards her. After tricking a family friend, Adolf Hitler of the Quileute tribe, into telling her the local tribal legends, Smella concludes that Joseph and his family are fairies. Although she was inexplicably attracted to him even when she thought Joseph drank menstrual blood, she is much relieved to learn that the Stalins choose to abstain from drinking human blood, and drink animal's menstrual blood instead. Over time, Joseph and Smella fall in love. Their foremost problem is that to Joseph, Smella's scent is a hundred times more repugnant than any other human's, making Joseph struggle to resist his desire to kill her very difficult. Throughout the Twilight saga, we learn how Joseph is a murderous homosexual. Unfortunately, despite this Smella manages to stay alive because she is so speshul.

The seemingly perfect state of their relationship is thrown into chaos when another flock of fairies sweep into Forks and James, a tracker fairy, decides that he wants to hunt Smella down and bathe her for the lulz. The Stalins plan to distract the tracker by collecting Smella's socks and cannon balling them at the poor fairies. To protect Smella, she is sent to hide in a hotel in Phoenix. Smella then gets a phone call from James in which he says that he has her mother, and Smella is forced to give herself up to James at her old dance studio, where he attacks her with duck toilet cleanser. Joseph, along with the rest of the Stalin family, rescue Bella before James can bathe her. Once they realize that James has scrubbed Smella's hand, Joseph sucks the sparkles out of her system before it can spread and change her into a fairy. Upon returning to Forks, Smella and Joseph attend their prom and Smella expresses her desire to become a fairy, which Joseph is more than happy to comply to. He waves his magic wand,however there was a terrible mistake, and instead Smella is turned into the pumpkin carriage from Cinderella, forced to drive around all the people she complained about the entire book for all eternity. Hey, at least she sparkles.

Of all days, my USB modem decides to go conk out right before our 4-day Ecology Fieldwork, at Mt. Makiling. There is no wi-fi there.

It goes without saying that I'll be suffering internet withdrawal until Monday.

Also my brother Raph has had some kind of malady involving his right leg. Now he walks with a cane. (Indefinitely, until we figure out exactly what's wrong with him) Let the House M.D. jokes come pouring in. The cane itself is actually rather awesome. He can fold it up, like a tripod. Now all we need to do is spray paint some flames onto it, and he's set.

Things left to do:
- finish packing
- study 116.1
- finish laundering bird bags
- study bird calls
- try not to sleep (even though, clearly, there'll be no sleep on the bus)

Finally, today is Hazel's birthday! :) Sorry I couldn't come to your birthday party, hon! I'd much rather be here, trying to cram a hundred specimens worth of Mollusc taxo while packing.

What a difference one summer makes.

APPARENTLY, when I am bored with work and can't sleep, I make spaghetti sauce. As in, I wanted spaghetti, but I couldn't find the can opener so I go some of Mom's huge monster tomatoes and chopped them really fine and put olive oil and sour cream and stuff and made sauce. Then I microwave-boiled some noodles.

My petix spaghetti is actually pretty good, if I may say so myself. I'm thinking of packing it for lunch today.

Org and batch pictorials were today, in between thesis-ing and other business. I realize that I've injected a dozen or more baby mice with MSG by now, and I haven't killed any yet. (Although female mice like to eat their own young like you wouldn't believe) Yay for steady hands. In a month or so, I'm going to have to sacrifice some of those mice though, and dissect their livers. Yes the word is sacrifice. Yes, though I enjoy thesising in a weird "I feel like a real scientist!" kind of way, I really don't look forward to it.

Quotable quotes from today:

Lyndon: (to Jen, Mae, Abby and I, makes sort of motion to car) So punta na ba tayo?
Me: (dense, assumes that maybe he wants to save gas) Maglalakad na ba tayo?
Lyndon: (snorts) Magdadala ako ng kotse. Bahala kayo kung gusto niyo maglakad!
JenFaye: (mildly) Napaka-gentleman naman ni Lyndon.

Hazel: (spots me) Moms! Wait!
(Hazel is wearing this strapless red cocktail dress with killer black pumps. She picks up a pair of long gloves and waves them at me)
Me: ANG BAKLA MO!
Hazel: (puts on the black gloves) Ok ba? (strikes ANTM-ish poses)
Me: AAAHH! (pretends to run from the sheer gayness)

Later...

Hazel: (motions to face after putting on makeup for batch pictorials) How do I look?
Me: (looks. She has dark cat's eye makeup, and really red lipstick) You look like a slut. But that's ok, I think that's the point.
Hazel: Yeah.

(For some reason, Demi has put dark eyeliner on Rich. Like any eyeliner, it doesn't come off easily)
Me: (spots Rich, squees) RICH ANG CUTE MO~!
Rich: Noooo
Me: Wait! Kailangan kitang ipakita kina Mae! (drags Rich to Animal House 1, where Mae, JenFaye, and Ate Lerrie (Ma'am Herrerra's RA and Rich et al's sort-of boss) are working.
Mae: (bursts out laughing)
JenFaye: (deadpan) Mukha kang bading.
Me: Pero cute na bading! (Rich groans)
Ate Lerrie: (calls him) Rich, kailangan mo gumawa ng..... (stops, notices makeup, voice of concern) Anong nangyari sa yo?!
Everyone else: (uncontrollable laughter)

A day when I have plenty of silly dialogue to reflect on is a good day. :)

Am I the only one who doesn't care about the Olympics?

Not that I HATE the Olympics, or anything like that. I just... can't bring myself to watch. On tv, or on Youtube. Or look up anything. Or care.

For most of the day, my brother hogged this computer playing DOTA. And now that it's mine again, I can't get anything done. Le sigh.

And because I don't have an instant cure to writer's block, I'm going to take a bath and a nap, and hope my braincells work in the morning.

Join na! :)

 AWESOME AS FUCK.

EASILY ONE OF THE BEST MOVIES I HAVE EVER WATCHED, EVER.

And now I'm too hungover to sleep.