last weekend at The [Salcedo ] Market

Last weekend I woke up extra early so Mama, Ate, and I could meet up with my uncles. We went to The Salcedo Weekend Market.




it was a lovely day and the trees provided shade from the hot sun.




carcinogen, anyone? i really don't like grilled/smoked food but that day I was too hungry to even care.




these plump bright orange pumpkins looked like plastic because they were too beautiful!


colorful plants. Mama bought two of these.


sign of Christmas to come!


my uncle buying a fedora hat


the fruit lady taking out meat from a jackfruit


Highlight of the visit at The Market was the Japanese pancakes! I LOVED the one with cream cheese filling. In fact, I wouldn't mind driving all the way to Makati just to get me some of those. Now I'm hungry!

on the road to following my bliss

I had an awesome day with my close friend Scelda. We met up for lunch, had coffee, and dinner. It was a long day but it didn't feel long at all because we talked and talked about everything girls could possibly talk about. What I liked most was how we talked about our chosen profession-- NURSING. You see Scelda and I, one of the things we have in common (including the fact that we both probably have TEENY TINY BLADDERS!) is that we both have nursing in our hearts. Scelda started out as a freshman in UP Manila like me. We were blockmates until sophomore year. But Scelda, you see, knew from the very start that it was Nursing that she wanted to take up. So despite being in UP Manila already she transferred to another school to follow her heart. I did the same except that I finished my first course first and soul searched for more than a year before I finally settled that it was Nursing that my heart was in. I didn't want a desk job and the corporate world is not for me. So I turned down several callbacks for job interviews (one was for JP Morgan Chase as a risk analyst).

I guess you I can say that we are both alike that way-- how we defied all odds just to get to where we want to be. My UP professor once made fun of Nursing as the no.2 export commodity of the Philippines next to bananas. BANANAS! I used to laugh at this joke but now that I'm on the other side of the fence I realized that NOT ALL nursing students got into the profession just to find greener pastures. I won't be a hypocrite by saying that I WILL NEVER follow suit but it's just that it's not on top of my priorities right now. I want to work here first.

One thing's for sure, wherever I become a nurse, this is my passion and I'm glad to offer my life to God and mankind TO SERVE because a wise person once said that a life of service is a life well-lived.

Everyday one of the reasons why I am happy to wake up is the fact that I'm happy where I am. I know that one day I will be proud because I took that leap of faith. Everyday I am also inspired to be the best person I can be because this is a new adventure that includes so much learning and discovering of new things. It's going to be hard, yes but I have PASSION and I think if one is equipt with passion, you can go through anything.

I saw this quote from Facebook:

Follow your own path. Follow your own truth. Follow your own heart. Follow your own inner bliss, and allow each person to follow theirs, whatever it may be. Look for the good in everyone and everything, and let your love and joy radiate to the world every day. (The Secret Daily Teachings)

night owl turns early bird

I have a very broken school schedule. Other days I'd have class everyday for five days a week, some days I'll have just two classes in one week or just clinicals. This is the reason why I became a night owl. I'd have the luxury of time to be up all night and sleep just before the crack of dawn. I'd wake up with a throbbing headache around noon and when this cycle goes on, it becomes a very bad habit to break. This bad sleeping habit took a toll on me on clinical day. On early morning clinicals, I wake up at 3AM to be at the hospital at 6AM. One day I had a really hard time going to sleep early so come 3AM, I was still wide awake. Since I'd be running late if I tried to sleep, I got ready and headed straight to the hospital running on zero sleep. I got dizzy that morning and my skin was cold and clammy despite eating breakfast that morning. That was when I had a wake up call that I have to get sleep no matter what especially for clinicals because I have to stay alert.

But lately I've been sleeping well because I go to bed earlier than I used to and I wake up no later than 9am. It actually feels good to start the day early because I feel more productive that way. Plus, helping my mother run errands and driving her around makes me feel that I'm not being useless anymore while I wait to finish with my second degree. I enjoy waking up to the chirping of birds outside my bedroom window, I enjoy feeling cold as I wake up and thinking about breakfast, and most of all, I enjoy sipping a mug of hot coffee as I check my emails.

I've always known that I am a morning person, a morning person with a whacked out body clock. But now it may have already been fixed unintentionally. Although the hardest part of mornings is waking up, the welcoming of a new day is always the best part.

car troubles

I had the longest day yesterday and it had to happen when i FORGOT to take multivitamins. Multivitamins can get me going all day without fatigue. I usually take it whenever I have clinicals.

So yesterday morning I woke up at 4AM and because I got ready too early, I wanted to kill time by going online before leaving but decided to leave anyway. I took the regular EDSA route because it was faster to get to the National Institute of Mental Health that way. The sky was still dark outside, it was cold inside the car, and it was raining. I turned off the A/C because I already shivering and while I was nearing Shaw Boulevard in front of Starmall, EDSA, the inevitable happened. SMOKE WAS COMING OUT FROM MY HOOD! I was praying it was from the buses that were trying to squish their way in front of me but when I looked at the car's temp, it was me! The car was overheating. I thought about stopping immediately in fear that the car engine might die on me right smack in the middle of a bus lane in EDSA but I made up my mind to try to get to the hospital for safety.

I got their about less than ten minutes later all the way praying the car would still go on. When I got to the hospital, a friendly security guard offered to help me with my car woes but clearly, he didn't know what he was doing. He helped by splashing water on the machine and pouring water into the tank but it didn't help because the car wouldn't stop. Then he told me that I couldn't leave the car where it was parked because that isn't a parking space. I argued with him because how in the hell was I going to move the car into the parking lot??!

Sandra and Bojo came lateron and Bojo tried to help me start the car. It wouldn't! So I decided to go to the pavilion where I have clinicals because it was only 10 mins til 7AM. Gahh 45mins of car trouble. Lateron my groupmate Bojo and I went back to the car to try to start the engine but it still didn't work. So Bojo offered to try to push it to the parking lot. IT WORKED! What a trooper he is for pushing the car alone all the way. At 11AM Alej came to the hospital to help me. He found out that the radiator was leaking so he took the whole thing out and we looked for a shop to have it repaired. After going around and asking a mechanic friend, he said it was better to buy a brand new radiator than just having it patched up. So we bought a new one and left the car in the hospital. When we bought the radiator, Kuya John and Egy came with us and we all went to the mental hospital again together. Less than an hour later the radiator was installed and the car was up and running again. PHEWWW!

But my day didn't end there. Kuya John drove the car to Buff N Grime while Alej and I picked up Angela from CSB. We then went to Buff together so I could pick the car up after it was checked by the mechanic. He said it was okay already so I went home alone from there at 7PM. I got home at 8PM after being awake for almost 20 hours. I had to chug down a bottle of Sting Energy Drink before I drove alone on the way home. I WAS SOOOO TIRED.



SUPER KADUPER amazed by Alej for taking the whole radiator out and installing the new one all on his own. =/ i wouldn't know what to do without him. =/ gahh girls and their car troubles. i hate being a girl for being helpless sometimes haha!


kuya john found a cheaper radiator because the first one we asked was 7100 bucks!


kuya john and egy helping alej.

I saw God in these people's eyes yesterday: Alej, Bojo, Kuya John, and Egy because they came to my rescue. WHOPEE! I'm so blessed.

Got home an hour ago from the market, grocery shopping, and dinner with my sister and my mother. We left the house around 3PM. I already bought a lab coat for clinicals. Now I'm so sleepy because I'm tired. Traffic was also horrible along EDSA and because it was raining, the flow of cars on the road was sluggish. Weather is also being uncooperative lately-- it's raining because of the Low Pressure Area in the country. I hope tomorrow the weather will be better but according to the news, it's still going to rain especially around afternoon to evening. UGH.

Clinicals at the National Center for Mental Health starts tomorrow. I'm psyched! But this also means that I have to be in bed any time now because I have to wake up at 4am so I can leave the house at 5am. Again, weather..PLEASE BE GENTLE!

I'm actually really sleepy now but I'm still full from handpulled Chinese noodles. I think I'm going to frolick around the intarnets for a while before I hit the sack.