Mental Notes

Whenever I have to stay in other places, I only hope for one thing: my own bathroom. I don't mind sharing spaces including the bedroom. I do mind sharing a bathroom. I'm not keen on using public bathrooms.  It's not that I'm squeamish. It's just that it is supposed to be something of your own. It's a very personal space so it's logical not to share it with just anyone. These days when the cost of living is so high in the city,  personal spaces are a luxury.  Sharing your stuff is the rule. Stuff that you are not using at the moment is not yours anymore. Well, I heard that from a nun in high school  who told us that we need to be charitable all the time. I am for charity.   Sharing what others urgently need and don't have, that is charity. Sharing a bathroom is a pet peeve. Even though the need to use the bathroom is always an urgent case,  I'd rather wait for a while to use my own at home. Thank goodness, I'm pre-menopausal and still cont...

I was in Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf after work today.  I was planning to catch up on my reading for an upcoming exam.  I was hoping for peace and quiet since it was still around noon time expecting that the coffee shop will be almost deserted.  Unfortunately, there were lots of people hanging out in the coffee shop for business, pleasure and a couple of them like me, for academics. I was trying to read my book a bit more intently and I had to give more effort than usual.  It was because two ladies were talking a bit too loudly and one of them started to sniff and cry.  The whole coffee shop was hushed for a couple of minutes, probably to listen to the ladies' conversation.  I didn't quite get what they were talking about but I'm quite sure it was about a treacherous man - wild guess. After that incident today, I realized that people need to give more effort on pulling back some of their emotions. I am sympathetic to the lady who is undergoing some terribl...

Three hundred sixty-five days is enough time to come up with something. And this year, I practically started with nothing. The year 2011 is about my career goals. But while setting them, I was able to start with a temporary one just enough to keep some money on the pocket. It had been a fun year learning a new trade and that was online teaching. I even got to South Korea just because of it. It was a fun job. Truly! For the first time since I stopped practicing my profession, my dad seemed proud of what I was doing! But because I have to grow and be what I have been trained to become, I chose the rocky much harder career climb. For the next four years, I will be committed to nothing but hospital work. I'm scared but for my daughter, I have to go through it. 2012 marks the end of a carefree life and the beginning of new responsibilities!

Three years ago, I remember driving through flood to get home and stopping by a church along our street because I wouldn't dare go forward to the raging floods along the way.  I saw a bride in front of the church sitting down and crestfallen.  There were no guests who came on her wedding day. I'm not even sure if her wedding took place.  Well, I hope it did because I saw her husband standing beside her looking afar the gates of the church compound, probably hoping that guests will come.  But of course, knowing how bad the roads were - floods almost drowning cars that passed through, I'm not sure there will be someone who's coming and celebrating such a horrendous day for most people in Manila. I'm not really talking about weddings or typhoons specifically. I'm just saying that Murphy's Law holds true in some cases.  And of course, it can happen unexpectedly especially when people have been looking forward (in this case, for a long time) for something r...

Have you ever been in a situation when you are about to enter a group who seem to already know each other? Well, it happened to me during the first day of training.  Even my co-pre-resident was already IN the group because she went through training before in the same department.  And so, the girls already knew her. That morning, everyone was excitedly talking with one another especially now that my co-pre-resident decided to take another chance in the department. And so, there I was... on the couch.... looking unto them, feeling so like the outsider (or newcomer) that I am. I thought to myself that it's going to be extra hard to fit in because it seems that I'm the only new person in the entire department.  Even the radiology technicians (RadTechs for short) knew her. And so, for the next couple of days, I was trying my best to get grope through the department and trying not to feel awkward in the presence of people who already know one another.

I am starting to believe this with regret.  It seems that it's true in its entirety.   "There are no second chances."  There's nothing as final as these words.  One chance is all what we have.  If we blew it, the moment passes and could be no more chance to see it happen again.

In my family, it has always been a practice not to make any plans.  I don't know why but most of our don't push through.  It has not been intentional though.  Fortunately, there are a lot of good things that has happened without us planning any of it. I'm the kind of person who still uses the traditional organizer or journal notebook where I list out my plans and tick them out once I complete them.  It gives me great pleasure whenever I slash out a completed tasks.  I feel that I have done something good that day. Today, we were all supposed to go out for a family dinner.  My mom made me look for a restaurant that we haven't tried before.  But then, it was way past the time we were supposed to get ready and everyone seemed to have forgotten about it until it was too late already. Whenever a plan doesn't push through, I get some kind of discomfort.  It was worse when I was younger. I would throw tantrums when what I was expecting to happen do...