ER: S15e14 A long Strange Trip

I just stopped crying. The 14th episode of the 15th season of ER made me start bawling like a baby but inspired me to work harder for my medical career and other stuff in general. That writer is amazing. The story starts with an old man stumbling into the ER, supposedly a victim of a mugging. He sees flashes of the ER in the past. Later on, he grabs the attention of one of the residents because the patient next to him was being diagnosed with terminal cancer when she was actually showing symptoms of Tuberculosis (TB is a rare occurrence in the states). They later found out that he was one of the pioneers of ER medicine and he was the one who actually made that particular ER the way it was because he worked there for 35 years. He later died after happily seeing all the fruits of his labors in action as patients were being treated all around him.

I guess im in the stage where i aim to start making a difference in the world and these older accomplished men are inspiring me to do just the same. Sensei Okazaki, a 77 year old karate master and founder of the ISKF, inspired me to understand my martial art better and i was able to (at least i hope i did) inspire my current students to do the same. This guy from the ER episode was just as inspiring albeit his being a fictional character. My 95 year old grandfather, the father of 7, the grandfather of 20 and the great grandfather of 5, started out as a carpenter. He married my grandmother, worked to finish school and become an engineer, built his own house with his own hands, bought land which he used to get my mother and her siblings through college, and lived comfortably well after working hard with my dearly departed grandmother. He now has land enough that he transferred all to his children and all the first born grandchildren and the female grandchildren just so that it wont go under land reform.

I want to do that. Look at the fruits of my labor later on in life and smile knowing that i have made a difference in the world.

Why do i let myself get this busy?!

For the past few weeks, i was one of the guests on sports tv. I guested on sports radio last night. I was being awakened at 2 to 5am just to coordinate with delegates from other countries and our visitor from the US. I paid for plane fares which i needed to plan. Im now setting up hotels, preparing an itinerary. Writing and layouting for a souvenir program finding out who will print our program. preparing for the Okazaki karate cup tournament, wishing that people will volunteer. So toxic. I still have my business on the side and the dojo to maintain.

The fact that im still sane and actually getting jobs done is a miracle. Im learning to delegate pretty well :)

Just had to get it off my chest!

Further Adventures in the village of song - the rapper

If you remember last time, l kinda live in a village that is centered around a common activity which is to "sing". Im in charge of the village clubhouse. We all generally sing the same songs because it was passed on to us by those masters who came before us. One day there was this former singer who came back, lets call him by the name, Schubert. He used to sing our traditional songs but decided that rap is better. He left the village while it was still in the old location.When he got back, he was basically preaching rap and doesnt really remember the old songs anymore. He is such a cunning talker, one who would do well if he sold pyramid scams. Anyway, he started talking to everyone in the village . He said that the village would earn more money if they started to include rap in their repertoire of songs.He particularly enticed the village chipmunk, the one in charge of the village's nut storage, and the village handyman, Rolf. He also targetted one of the village elders, Rawly, but im not sure if he is affected or just riding along his blather. I hope he's not affected. Anyway, he enticed these important people and a few others by saying that they will be particularly rewarded extra if they themselves learned some rap and helped him teach rap to others. They started practicing how to rap and he even convinced the chipmunk to use the village's nuts to trade for some sound equipment.

One day, they said that they were ready for a series of rap concerts. They wanted to use the clubhouse for it. They reserved a 5:30-7:30pm slot which was free at that time. It was reserved for them and all was going ok. 5 days before the concert, they decided that they wanted to start at 6pm because they wanted to take advantage of those villagers who was coming back from work at the forest. This was a problem because there was a regular choir concert from 7:30 to 9pm. I told them that i would ask the choir if they would like to move or, as the chipmunk offered, transfer to join the rap group. When asked, the choir said that they refuse to switch to rap. They poured their heart out to learn the old traditional songs and they like it. They are giving their share of nuts to the clubhouse just for the privilege and that is their right to keep singing what they want.

The rapper was furious when he heard that the singers wont give way. He sent me a message full of hate and fury. I thought he was just being silly and blind to the entire picture of the village as a whole so i wrote back to him and posted it on the village elders' hut since some of the things were stuff that they needed to know as they concern the good name of the village. I thought that it was all well since the rapper called me to apologise soon after. Later, things began to change. The chipmunk started acting weird and so did Rolf the handyman. It may be that the rapper was pulling their strings and poisoning their hearts with his incendiary words. He stopped trying to get his concert going. He couldnt admit that 3 days before his concert, he still didnt know what rap songs to sing and he only had 1 customer coming to listen. ONE! After all his hype and work, he had only one listener and that one listener was even one from my choir. He decided to hide his failure by saying that i doomed his concert because i wont move mine.

Last night, the village elders met because the little Chipmunk was preaching that the clubhouse was losing so much money that the village will starve! I brought with me a list of the number of nuts i gave the chipmunk and explained to the village elders that based on this, we werent really going to starve. He even said that the international federation of villages was using up a lot of the nuts only to find out that the effort of the choirs brought in so much nuts that it was not really losing money there either. Then, after losing the battle of facts, he brought in the rapper and the mind-poisoned handyman. The rapper just rapped gibberish and hate that he didnt really get to prove anything. He said that my reply to him was full of hate but just shut up when the message was brought out and he read it. The handyman had previous issues which popped up. I really hope that he comes back to work with the village because he was a really good man who just got poisoned by the rapper's crap. The chipmunk, too, was a good member of the village before the rapper trashed his mind and poisoned his heart.

The village chief tried to patch things up. I dont really know their sentiments. Im sure that the rapper still talks crap. The lessons of the story is that one should never listen to people who sounds like he will give you something impossible because he probably will. Be wary of people like this rapper who will sow the seeds of discord in your village. Trust that the truth will always come out and slap the liars in their faces. Stand your ground if you know that what you did is right and what you said is truthful.

Till next time :)

Bones S04e09

I just watched the 9th episode of season 4 of bones. In it, Seely Booth gave up his chance for glory to get his brother out of getting arrested. Later on, his friends told him to not step in too much because it keeps them from learning to take care of themselves. The brother, when told that he wont help out anymore if he gets into trouble from drinking too much took offense. It felt strange watching it because i made sacrifices for family too. When i said i would stop and take care of myself for a change, i got a bunch of crap for it. Demands for my time and energy kept coming. When i said no, people got offended and some people even thought that i was a loser for not being able to do things. They didnt know that i failed because i had more important things to do. Luckily i didnt mind because as far as i was concerned, i did what i had to do and i did it pretty well. Ultimately, i know if i did good or not. Sometimes, it just feels bad when people judge you with what little information they have.

DBP Roro Inter-island Adventure Race - Day 7 final

There was about 1800 pesos on the clue envelope. We ran to the first jeep and headed on to the central terminal to get a bus to manila. On the way, i saw a bus with "cubao" on it. I told the group to be ready to go down. The next bus on the road, we flagged down and got on. Bad trip yung bus driver. He was deliberately taking his time and was commenting that if anything happened, he would lose his job so just took his darned time getting to manila. As we got on nga pala, team sikatuna who was strangely behind us ran into the bus too so we were sharing it on the way to manila. They were in the back talking to the conductor the whole time. We were concerned about the stops and the other two teams in front. We saw a bus that was faster and will saw a camera man in it. Now we know that there was at least a team ahead of us. It was a nervous 4 hours on the way to manila. I tried to relax as much as i can. Will got reprimanded by the marshal because he took out his phone to check some info. He didnt really have time to do anything since the marshal was fast but it was really stubborn of him to do so.

We were being told by the conductor to get off mantrade and then take the ayala bus and then get off there to take another bus. That was nasty advice. Luckily i remembered the times that i commute to makati. At mantrade the two teams were off and running. I didnt mind them anymore and just told my team to follow me. I flagged the first bus and got in. The other team didnt go with us this time. (They decided to go up the MRT and take the train to buendia station) The bus was faster :) We got off the MRT station in buendia, ran up the stairs and then down the other side to go to the jeepney stop. There was a jeep just leaving as we arrived. I flagged it down but it only slowed since it was full. I took into consideration that we were 5 so i decided to move on just as we saw the light blue team grab the back of the jeep and hung on. Will wanted to join but i told him to get off. I saw another jeep, empty, moving along. He was on his way home but was heading towards the direction of makati ave. We said we'd pay him just to get there. We managed to talk him into overtaking the other jeep and drop us off near the DBP building. At the intersection, we ran across the street and headed towards the waiting tables where we got the 2nd to the last clue.

We were to arrange the tokens we got from each leg of the race and write them down. Ryza and will struggled with the written thing. I opened my bag and since i was the token keeper, i arranged it in order quickly and they just copied it. We got cleared and was given the last clue. The task was to climb up to the top of the DBP building in makati, get on our harnesses and rappel down the side of the building!! Ive never done that. Ryza is ok with heights but have not done that. Will said he rappeled before. So it was a foot race up the stairs. Yes, no elevator. We got to the top to see the blue team getting on their harnesses. The light blue team was just steps behind us. Ryza said she cant go but i managed to convince her that it was just down the building and a quick run to the pitstop down below to take the win. I dont know why but the "leader" insisted that the most inexperienced and height scared guy should go first (thats me) then ryza then him. Labo since it would have given us confidence to see it done first but i didnt have time to argue. I got down to the cheers of friends. Then Ryza was racing Zaira side by side and then will came down. We then ran around the path around the building and finished... second.

It was an amazing week. I will remember it forever. There was a series of parties with the other teams after and a christmas party on Dec.1. We bonded in our bus and roro trips despite the competition. I miss those guys and im glad we were chosen to be among the 10 out of over 500 teams who applied.

DBP Roro Inter-island Adventure Race - Day 7 part 1

We traveled to Camarines Sur and had late dinner in Lucban, Quezon.We werent told what time to get ready so we were all on edge. We slept after dumping the clothes that we didnt need and after getting the hotel staff to dry our shoes.In the morning, the last day, we were given breakfast and then brought to this chemical plant. After going into the depths of the area, we were released for the last elimination leg. We were third to leave. The task was to grab one of the available vans and run to the market. At the market, our task was to grate out 3 kilos of coconut. Mind you, we need to get 3 kilos of shredded coconut meat and not just grate out 3 kilos of coconuts. It was slow going at first since we didnt know how to do this. I had to keep going since ryza could grate out at a slower rate and williamson was even slower than she was. After a while, through my faucet like sweating, i managed to get the right technique and finished the 3 kilos. We were then supposed to run to the DBP office nearby and finish. We were still third. The last team got eliminated and we were among the final four to compete for the million. Ryza was feeling bad i think because only Randy of team sikatuna was there for her to help her get her bearings and breath. I only got to check up on her after i myself recovered. Siguro naman i deserved to rest since i did most of the backbreaking grating. Gulo na yung team namin. I was afraid that Ryza would throw in the towel. Will was messing with the cameras again and just having his own fun. I was so tired that i could barely eat and drink. I just slept and slept until the next and final task.

After some time, the other people and other eliminated teams were sent ahead to manila via a bus. We were isolated on the grounds and had guards on us. We werent supposed to talk to anyone or call anyone. Then we were given our 3rd to the last task. Prior to that, we were assigned a 5th member of the team aside from the camera man. The guy was to make sure we didnt get lost or use our phones or use any money other than what we were given. The task was to commute to manila via jeep, bus or tricycle only.

Third to leave and then we were off to head home :)

DBP Roro Inter-island Adventure Race - Day 6

We arrived at Camarines Sur in the middle of the night. We went straight to the CamSur Watersports Complex. We had a good buffet dinner there. It was all good except when Will and i talked, he started shouting again about how he doesnt care about Ryza and I after the race. The other teams noticed. Hay nako. I was telling him to calm down and that it was just a request to tone down on the orders. Anyway,we got our keys and headed off to our room. I was so tired but the luxury of a nice warm bath beckoned me to the bathroom.

The call time in the morning was 6:30am. It was a drizzling day. Dismal time to race. We were given some snacks and then it was race time. We left 3rd. The task was to run to the dragon boat area and then two will paddle as one beats a rhythm. On the way, we ran across Jai from team Agila who was berating himself for going the wrong direction. We overtook them and ended up first. I took the position in the middle, will near the front. He kept shouting to steer and was stopping his paddling every so often which pissed me off a lot but i just had to do my best. We sped ahead of the other teams and landed first. We were then supposed to run to the water sports lake and grab some life vests. I hated all the running!! After getting the vests on, we were supposed to swim across the lake to the pitstop in the middle island. William went ahead as usual. I had to deal with Ryza who didnt know how to swim. I forgot the life saving technique of just letting her get on her back. She grabbed my neck as i struggled to swim across. In the middle, which was soooo deep, i asked her to lie on her back and relax. Luckily she followed and we back stroked to the end. Team Sikatuna overtook us since they were really strong swimmers and the blue team of the twins and Zaira came before us too. We retained our third place.

Irritating thing was that each time a camera points at will, he starts blabbering about this and that. He started talking to the camera about how his team mates were all full of drama and that if it werent up to him , we wouldnt be where we were. Kapal right? Worse was that Ryza and i were a few feet away and we heard it. Thats me in the picture after the leg. We were given free few hours to wakeboard but i was too exhausted. We managed to arrange for a massage and just recovered from that race. Will went wakeboarding which was fine with me. I didnt want to see him for some time.

DBP Roro Inter-island Adventure Race - Day 5

From Sorsogon, we took the roro west to Masbate. Come morning, we landed and was herded in pickups and SUVs to this small resort where we got to eat, wash up, do toilet stuff and change. Some swam. More photos were taken and since we were warned of getting dirty during the next challenge, i didnt shower na muna. I took a bath in the roro anyway.

Soon after, we were in the trucks again and brought to the Masbate Rodeo Pilipinas Paddock. There was a crazy bull tied at the corner so things were a little nerve wracking. After being organized, we were asked to go to the center of the fenced off area and the cowboys taught us how to hold a rope and how to throw a lasso. Another guy did whipping but after hitting myself in the body and head a few times, i stopped na and focused on the lasso. After being given a few minutes to practice, we were asked to go outside the fence so that the cowboys can do a demo of how to lasso. They let loose a young bull. Three cowboys were around. The lasso guy caught the bull around the neck who then ran after him with a hornless head. The other guy ran behind, grabbed the tail, looped it under the crotch and held the bull in place. The lasso guy grabbed the bull by the head and turned the neck so that the bull was forced to go lie on its side. We were so nervous since it looked dangerous. I told will to do the tail which he gladly accepted and i prepared myself to wrestle the bull. Ryza was to just stand aside.

Again teams were released in order. The good news was that we were to just lasso a bull from outside the fence while the cowboys drove them around the paddock. I got it in 3 tries and was then given my pass to the next clue. The next task was to get this sack of gravel across the other field to the marshal. I grabbed the sack and threw it across my shoulder. Ok lang. It was really heavy but i could handle it. Kaya lang when i was in the field, there was a pothole that twisted my ankle. I couldnt carry the sack anymore. I grabbed some rope in my pack and tied it around the sack so we each carried a line. We got it to the marshal who let us go to the next task. We were worried that it would rip but it didnt. It only ripped when the marshal lifted it from the other end. Swerte! We were then to race to the Municipal building on foot. The other teams were heading back to where we entered. I saw a small gate and the street beyond it and when we asked two teacher looking women for directions, they pointed us to the street and left. We ran through the short cut and straight to the pit stop. We gained a spot to 3rd. A shower and bandages on my ankle followed at the DBP office nearby.

We were then brought back to the port to go back to Sorsogon via Roro and then from sorsogon, a long bus ride through the night to Camarines Sur. We could see the Mayon volcano from the distance. :)

DBP Roro Inter-island Adventure Race - Day 4

Leyte leyte leyte.

This place will forever be quite memorable to me. There was a 4 hour or so bus ride from the cebu port of leyte to the city. We settled at the DBP Office of leyte and was released there after some photo sessions. We were again released according to rank so we left the place 2 minutes after the first team.

I got the clue and read it. "What is the connection between Leyte and Samar?" I just thought of a bridge and the tricycle driver said San Juanico bridge. Our "leader" (since he said he wanted to be the leader.. go figure) asked the tricycle driver the fastest way to get to the bridge. The driver said to take the jeep while trying to get lots of money from us. We wasted time going to the jeep when what we should have done is gave the 100 peso transport budget to the tricycle driver to bring us directly to the foot of the bridge. It was a crazy time at the jeep. First, we had to push the jeep to start. Second, Ryza charmed the driver to letting us ride for free and the passengers to give us more money because we thought we would need more. Third, we were shouting at people at the intersections to let us through. When we got to the checkpoint, we got our clue. Run across the bridge from the leyte end to the samar end. I didnt even know that the bridge connected those two provinces. Anyway, i didnt know how long that bridge was. All i saw was that there was an uphill climb to the top. Our spirits were buoyed by the fact that we saw some people in the organizer yellow shirts at the top of the climb. Just a few meters more to the pitstop!!!... not. It was just a bunch of medics doling out water. At that point, we saw what lies ahead, another 2 km of bridge. It was a really beautiful bridge with an amazing view but since we have to run the stretch and seeing the 3 other teams ahead of us with another team behind, we didnt have time to look at the sights. Peaches said she saw whirlpools in the water. All i saw was that nice tree lined island :) Near the middle, Ryza was saying she cant continue anymore so i told her to ride on my back. For short stretch, i ran with her on my back until i cant anymore. Williamson just kept running ahead and shouting at us to hurry. Great leadership skills. Anyway, Ryza ran some more until she asked for another "lift" which i did but only for a short distance. I looked back to see that the team after us was far so i told her to walk instead of run. I knew that it would suck if she gave up. A team is only as fast and strong as the weakest member. We got to the samar end where the pitstop was after a grueling run. We didnt catch up to the others. Nobody caught up to us also so its ok. We were 4th to finish. The awarding night video showed me running a bottle under Ryza's calves. Elyza saw it and it started a long time of trying to reassure her that it was just work since i am a doctor and if this teammate succummed to pains and stuff,were dead. During the run, Will was telling.. shouting at Ryza a bunch of stuff like how to breathe and to push and stuff. That was when Ryza stopped talking to Will. She would only tell me stuff and i have to tell Will. During the bus stop, i asked Will to try to be more diplomatic and he started raising his voice na which other people saw. Sigh. Can you imagine how much harder the race is from that point on? My two teammates wont talk to each other and i was stuck in between. Good thing was that most of the other teams had aches and pains, my charges were pain free and still in top fighting condition.

Another long bus ride (about 7-8 hours) brought us to Sorsogon where we were to head off to Masbate through a roro ride.

DBP Roro Inter-island Adventure Race - Day 3DBP Roro Inter-island Adventure Race - Day 3

Day three started really early. After the relatively short (around 2 hours. relatively short compared to the 7 hour ones we had) bus ride to the Bohol port. We went to this restaurant where we had a late dinner. The mayor spoke to us about Bohol after dinner while waiting for the midnight roro trip to cebu. Ian has this imitation of the mayor where he discusses all the little islands in the area which the mayor did haha. There were a lot of people waiting to see the celebs we were with. Ryza's pack was still quite heavy so she took out 3 of her shirts and 3 sandos, signed it and went to town giving it away.

After dinner, we went aboard our first roro ride headed for Cebu. Long stop over at the terminal since we were waiting for the roro to arrive. Then we loaded up and at around 1am, we had our first elimination. We were tied around the waist and then asked released according to the ranking of the last leg. Due to a penalty, we became the second team to be released instead of third. Two minutes after the first team was released, we were given our clue. The task was to solve a slide number puzzle. It would have been harder if it was a picture puzzle but since it was just to arrange the numbers, i quickly solved it so it was then time to look for the marshal. We ran out just in time to see Bea's team go down from the upper floor with a lost look on their face so we decided not to go up yet. We saw the marshal in a narrow walkway behind the engine room. We got the clue to proceed to the pitstop at the Captain's deck and so we headed up and forward. We found it and jumped onto the pitstop mat. Strangely, the race director, Ige, and Mitch, the host kept looking at us weirdly and was asking us "what else are you going to do?" We reread the clues and since they didnt declare our rank, we went off to find the captain. The other teams started arriving and was following our lead. We checked out the captain's room and stuff for more clues. We even talked to the captain and looked under his chair. Crazy captain talked to us as if he was about to give a clue pero wala naman. Later on, we found out that we already did what we were supposed to do and they declared us the winner of that leg.

We arrived at Cebu near dawn. Just as the sun was peeping out, we were released into cebu. As leader, we were released first. Our clue was that our next destination is at the back of the "50 peso bill" which we were supplied with. We were to commute there for our next clue. The picture of the place we were supposed to go to was included. Will and i asked around for what the picture was and where to find it. We grabbed a jeep and headed off to Puente. At puente, we ran to get our next clue from the marshal there. He said to commute to Colon St. and have a slogan translated into Cebuano. We grabbed the next jeep with the right number headed for colon st. We asked a scholarly looking lady in the jeep to help translate. Since she missed her stop, we asked her to accompany us to the pitstop. She messed up the translation of one word. We had to keep trying until we got it. The blue team overtook us in the foot race to the pit stop at the DBP Cebu office. We finished second this time just as the rain began to pour. Charee's team with Chad and Roxy got eliminated because they got misled by the 50 peso clue and failed to note the picture.

After breakfast,we were herded off to a waiting bus and went straight to the port headed to Leyte. Since there was a storm, the coast guard didnt clear us to leave so we got to spend a few hours at this brand spanking new luxury roro. That boat rocked! We got to shower and lounge around. There was a crazy challenge that day. We were tied wrist to wrist and then released one after the other. We were supposed to find the tables and then eat what was in the packs. Those darned cebu corn delicacies were hard to swallow!!! Daya ni Williamson because he barely ate any since he gorged on some before the challenge. Then, once done, we grabbed the clue which was to paint our faces like the indian in the picture included. Then we were to look for this guy in the roro who will give us our final clue. We couldnt find the guy until Bea pointed him out to us. We finished last but luckily, it was a non elimination round and non-bearing, too. We kept our 2nd place but i think that was when Williamson's bossiness peaked haha. Too much stress got to him. Still,we were still in the race and we headed out to leyte in the middle of the night.

DBP Roro Inter-island Adventure Race - Day 2

Ryza woke up at around 5am. I woke up soon after and Williamson woke up last. We dressed up in our jerseys (which i had to sew up because it was too big) and headed out to look for breakfast. We were the first out again. Excited talaga. Soon after, Roxy, Chad and Charee came out and then Peaches and Derek. The others came soon after.

Breakfast was a simple affair. The photo shoot after was not. It was hard to figure out where to look with all the cameras pointed at us. The different colored jerseys were cool though.

We then got herded off to the waiting but with our Oakley packs and brought to the first stop in our race, the DBP Office in Bohol. We were asked to wait inside the building after a short photo shoot at the foyer. Bea told people via radio through a phone link and the celebs visited the DBP officers. Soon after, each team was given little flags and we were placed in a mini-cab vehicle to be paraded around the area and around the plaza where people waited. After some tinikling and other dances, the DBP president gave a speech and then we were introduced. More pictures were taken then our first clues were given.

After Mitch said "Ready, set, Roro!" We were off. We had to figure out where our bags were (i figured out where ours were since i took note of it after they started arranging our bags near the monument) and catch a tricycle to get to the DBP Office. We were the first to arrive. We got confused by the marshall who asked us to go around. Team Sikatuna just went straight for the waiting mini-cabs as we ran towards ours. It was then a race to get to Alona Kew Beach in Panglao Island for our next clue. It was crazy as we had to ask people to move out of our way in the narrow streets of bohol. Once we got there, we had to run into the resort and straight onto the beach. There were 3 teams there at practically the same time. Jen Rosendahl was leaving her teammates as she sped ahead of them.

Our next task was to dig-swim-kayak. Each member must perform one of the tasks. Ahead of time, Ryza said she cant swim and Williamson said he wasnt a good swimmer, too. That left the swim part to me. I assigned Ryza to dig and Williamson to kayak but for some strange reason, Will asked Ryza if she knew how to kayak and when she said yes, he said he will just do the digging. Big mistake. The dig was easy. The swim was more a walk because they told us to wear booties due to some sea urchins in the area. The water was too shallow so i decided to just wade. Ryza did the kayak but since she was light and the winds were strong, she had some difficulty. Nonetheless, she tried and succeeded and we then got our next clue which was to head on to the place indicated on the picture we just pieced together from the bags we got from doing the task. It was in Bool, Bohol and it was the place where the Blood compact was done. We had another race and then the rush to the pitstop and voila, we ended up four.... third. Third because the first team forgot their clue and had to go back. Luckily, it was a non-elimination leg and all teams just had a taste of the pressure and thrill.

Another mini-cab ride brought us back to Alona Kew Beach resort where we ate, swam a bit and freshened up before a long bus ride to the port where we were to ride the roro to Cebu.