Sick

I called in sick today. I woke up earlier in pain. I had cramps on my right calve muscle. So I thought it’s just a cramp and was probably due to lack of salt or an electrolyte imbalance. All I could do was try to stretch my leg but even that was painful. It eventually subsided after what seemed like an eternity of excruciating pain.

When I finally got out of bed I felt something wrong with my upper lip. It was swollen as if I had been in a fight and gotten punched on my lip. I also felt heavy and my body ached all over. It made me think, had I been in a rumble? No… After assessing my symptoms it occurred to me that I had the symptoms of flu. My eyes were kinda irritated and breathing was a bit difficult. That would explain my swollen lip. I probably nicked my face while shaving and since my immune system was not working well because of either a viral or bacterial infection, a tiny wound got infected.

I experienced something like this a long time ago. I accidentally shaved off a pimple on my chin. I was sick with the flu at that time, and just like now my chin got infected and started swelling. I didn’t mind it until my face looked as if I had plastic surgery and talking was difficult and I sounded funny. Antibiotics and a lot of other medicines didn’t seem to help. I got tired of it so I punctured my chin with a sterile lancet and drained it. An unbelievable amount of pus and some blood drained out of my chin… Yuck!

I got in touch with two doctor friends and asked for their advice. One told me to take amoxcillin every eight hours for seven to eight days the other told me to go for a checkup since it seems like a viral infection and because the swelling was in a danger area, a triangle formed by the lips and nose. Why don’t I ever get anything simple like LBM?

Talk about bad timing. Aside from the fact that its exam and submissions season in school, I am also scheduled for an interview tomorrow and it occurred to me that another SL after a spate of SLs during the height of my migraine attacks might be taken against me. Oh well, that’s life.

Odes

Odes, Book 3, Verse 29: Happy the Man

By: Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace), 65 to 8 BC.

Translated by John Dryden, 1631 to 1700 AD

Happy the man, and happy he alone,

he who can call today his own:

he who, secure within, can say,

Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.

Be fair or foul, or rain or shine

the joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine.

Not Heaven itself, upon the past has power,

but what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.

Classes and Trainings

I wish I could just close my eyes and go to sleep and wake up and the Semester is over. Procrastination has always been my weakness. I am swamped with papers with deadlines fast approaching. I still don’t have a concrete plan for my IR 222 term paper. It’s a bit complicated because I need to have some primary data and my Prof is a stickler for having a good research framework.

I am a bit better of with my IR 207.2 paper since my proposal was approved and we all have a standard topic. Were supposed to come up with a paper about Industry best practices on Labor Standards. To make things easier I chose Smart because it was chosen as the Best Employer in the Philippines in 2003. Now I just need to come up with a paper. Hah!

The Best Employers in the Philippines in 2003 (top 10)

1. Smart Communications, Inc.
2. Procter & Gamble Distributing (Phils), Inc.
3. Discovery Suites
4. Intel Technology Philippines, Incorporated
5. Philippine Pizza, Inc.
6. Development Bank of the Philippines
7. William Gothong & Aboitiz, Inc.
8. United Laboratories, Inc.
9. Mirant Philippines
10. Federal Express Corporation

Makes you think… Am I working for the right company???

On a different note, a friend of mine asked me to conduct a First Aid Lecture Demo for the applicants of her Mountaineering Org last Saturday. She asked me to do it because I could customize the training specifically to address their needs and focus the training on things that they will likely encounter.

I arrived at the venue past 8:00 am to find none of the participants there. Some things never change. To think that I barely had sleep the night before, had to skip breakfast and take a cab all the way from Valenzuela so as not to be late, and I had classes later that afternoon. I don’t know why I even bother, but I guess this is one of the things that teachers and trainers will always have to put up with. Oh well, life is like that…

Boracay in Black and White

These pictures were taken last summer... I miss Boracay, I miss going out! Plans are in the works to go diving and maybe wake boarding this coming October, but until then I guess I will just have to continue dreaming and planning…

Hike! Climb! Dive!

More Pictures

Martyrs of Beslan

The day starts out like any
The sun shines warm and bright
Children with parents in tow
Bring gifts for their teachers
Dressed in their best
They come full of expectation
Excitement and joy on their faces
It is the first day of school
The last few days for some

Faces covered with ski masks
Wearing martyr's belts
Bearing Kalashnikovs and RPGs
They come with tidings of death
Fighting for freedom
Yearning for a land of their own
With nothing to loose
They came to die
Yelling God is great
Vengeance will be mine

In this struggle appointed by God
They are patriots of a revolution
Soldiers of a just and holy cause
They bleed for God
Knowing that in the end
Paradise will be their reward

By intention or accident it began
A loud dreadful sound is heard
Gunfire erupts and bombs explode
The slaughter of the innocents begin
Chaos and confusion reign
Limbs and bodies are thrown all around
The dead lie mutilated and bloodied
Like the culling of lambs they die
Blood spilled and life wasted
Sacrificed in someone else’s war

Like ghosts the survivors emerge
Men, women, and children
Almost naked and with fear in their eyes
Three days of starvation and thirst
Sweltering heat and constant terror
They survived a meeting with death
Mind and bodies scarred forever

In the aftermath
Day light comes
But the land lay black
They march carrying crosses
Bearing pictures of the dead
With tears and bowed heads
They walk with the dead
Sorrow and grief abound
No one is left untouched
Chests heavy with anger
Overflowing with hatred
They ask how could this happen
What have we done?
In their hearts is resolve
Today we mourn
Tomorrow we fight

The land lay a ghastly red
Night comes and darkness spreads
The reaper sharpens his blade
Grim is his task
There is more coming
The Devil smiles
My work is never done
It’s not the end
It only just begun

Broken Bone

A friend of mine broke his collarbone last Saturday. It happened while they were playing a game at the Sunken Garden. The bone was protruding and seemed bent although there was no break in the skin. There was an obvious deformity but it seemed like the bone was still intact and was probably just bent. I applied an underarm sling and a binder to immobilize and support the injured part.

We brought him to the National Orthopedic Hospital. After a quick x-ray my suspicions were confirmed, it was a greenstick or incomplete fracture of the right clavicle. This means that the broken bone was not completely separated. The attending physician just applied a collarbone support strap and he was told to come back in three weeks and then sent home.

We weren’t allowed to keep the x-ray but it looked something like the picture below.

The thing about this incident was it illustrated a lot of the theories that we have been teaching during First Aid Trainings. It also showed us what the injury really looked like and how the First aid procedures and techniques we have been teaching actually works.

Not so ordinary

It was a night of pain and pleasure, a night of rekindling old friendships and ending new arrangements. It was just like any other night but it was a night to remember.

Over bottles of beer and in the company of friends we talked about pain and how it makes you feel alive. With raised glasses and bottles we toasted in tribute to pain and to life.

Talk… That’s how it usually starts. A nice conversation brings people together. Sometimes it’s so good that you don’t want it to end.

The Oracle in the film The Matrix Revolutions, said that: “everything that has a beginning must come to an end.”

That maybe true but who knows when that will be…

The Road Not Taken

by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Decisions...

I just sent an email… In it I withdrew my application for the Technical Support Engineer position for the Microsoft Business Solutions Account here in Sykes. I am actually scheduled for the final interview, this time with the client, this is scheduled later at 9:00 am in Ortigas. I will not be going because I feel that I have to put some focus in my life. I need to align my actions with my medium and long term plans even if I have to give up some things now.

And boy, am I giving up a lot! An increase in salary grade from salary grade 7 to salary grade 9, a laptop for use during support and for training, all the technical trainings you could ask for (like MCP, MCSE, CCNA), quarterly bonus of up to US $300.00, opportunity to travel abroad for training, and I heard there are a lot of pretty girls in that account. It took a lot of will power to give these up, specially the last one on the list.

I hope I made the right decision…

Chat

I had a conversation with a friend of mine. She is a nurse, and like so many of our countrymen she wants to go to England to seek greener pastures. This is how it went…

Friend: Wala ka bang balak mag abroad?

Me: Wala.

Friend: Ganun? Kuntento ka na dito?

Me: Hinde, kaya nga hinde ako aalis eh. Kung lahat na lang ng matinong tao aalis ng Pilipinas, ano na lang ang mangyayari sa bansang ito.

Friend: Bakit, matino ka ba?

At that, I paused for a while to contemplate all that was said and how it illustrates our reality. Although it was meant as a joke, it struck me as a challenge. What could I possibly do? So I asked my self… Matino nga ba ako?