2013 Week 1: Crazy Two-Day School Week…

Happy New Year! Some sweets that my sister made for the new year’s celebration.

To start things off! Happy new year! I will be posting a separate entry for some fireworks display photographs that I have taken, and I was supposed to post an entry on the settings I used most often when shooting these light shows, but was unpredictably busy preparing for the New Year’s celebration.

Anyways, I decided to try and post at least 1 entry per weekend this year to keep my blog site alive. I do hope more and more followers will join in the fun. LOL

So class resumed for us last January 3, hardly enough time to get sobered up; take note I do not drink alcoholic beverages, but the the vacation gave the same effect of being drunk… not that I know of, and I had hardly enough time to get of the vacation hangover into the real world. And the fact that I had 2 reports and an exam on the very first day of resumed classes ain’t something to sneeze about.

The next day, January 4, was a little more lax. I don’t really recite a lot in class, because I no longer love the lime light as I once did in my Pre-Med course years ago, but my playful classmates forced me to recite; which would come to no real problem for me if I knew what the question was supposed to be… Yes, before our professor even blurted out his question, he was asking a volunteer to answer, which was unfortunately me. Not knowing what question it would be, I was ready to turn the question down in that instant, thankfully, he asked me to recite the visual pathway which I knew quite well. Not too shabby a start for the new year in my opinion.

Still on that same day, the very next class, Medical Jurisprudence, was another elating experience for me, with a textbook at hand, I was answering, however not formally recite, my professors random questions.

The afternoon was so and so, and I was getting hellishly sleepy due in part by the fact I am still hungover by the vacation and what not, so I laid low the entire afternoon, except for one hiccup from my Internal Medicine professor’s laptop, that even if the problem was negligible to what I normally consider a computer problem and that anybody in my opinion may fix it, I was still called to step and fix this… “problem”.

Thus we entered Saturday, which is today. I spent most of the day typing a homework for my dad’s friend’s daughter… that almost confused me there. Anyway, to my dismay, I had to sacrifice my so-called study ahead day for someone else but being a good Samaritan ain’t a bad thing. After typing what seemed to be a never ending jargon of words, I decided to just slack off the entire afternoon.

This evening, however, after publishing this, I shall try and study Pediatrics since their exams in that department is like a huge gamble; you have notes from class which is insufficient, you have your official text book which is nearly the size of my CPU case (I have the Bitfenix Shinobi and the book I speak off is Nelson’s Textbook in Pediatrics) and you have no idea if what you read will come out of the exam (our exam can be as little as 8 questions to as much as 24 questions depending on the hours spent on the topic in class).

Ah well, I’m nearly a clerk, so there shouldn’t be any complaints now! Just fight! And Pray!

Wish me luck and I do appreciate prayers…

Peace!

What Do You Expect From a Judge Named Moriarty?

I just read an article from TekSyndicate.com (Click Here for the article) about Diane Tran, a 17 year old honor student in Willis, Texas, who was sent to prison and given a fine for missing “too much school”.

In the article written by LittleViking, it was said that Diane’s parents just recently had a divorce and they just left her and her siblings (one younger sister and one older brother) alone. Obviously, now since both her parents have gone their own ways, this left her and her siblings with no financial support.

Diane has since been scouring for jobs to just make ends meet at the of the day. With juggling 2 jobs, in order to support her younger sister and support her older brother’s college expenses, it is no surprise that she has to miss out on school. But even so! Her grades are high!

So why Judge Moriarty would even try and slap her with a sentence for imprisonment and a $100 fine is just bonkers. Have a heart! It is not like she is totally losing sight in her studies for missing some days thanks to work to support her siblings; just look at her grades! Look at her determination! In the article, her classmate and co-worker, Devin Hill, said that she stay up until 7am just to get her homework done. She is, by no means, losing focus, or disrespecting her studies. Not one bit!

It’s as LittleViking said in her article, “She has done what her parents failed to do, she is supporting her family–and she’s still maintaining an impressive work load.”; indeed she has. And to just put her in jail like that, give her a fine like that, for what she has gone through and what she is doing for her family, missing a couple of days of school seems irrelevant.

Please click the hyperlink to get redirected to the article where you can even find another link to give you some information to Judge Moriarty.

Diane deserves to know that what she is doing is valiant and very much appreciated, not just by her siblings, but all of us else. Once I find a way to digitally contact her, I will give her my praise and respect. She will also be in my prayers. Someone as strong as her… deserves to be trending online! No offense to American Idol or anything, but this deserves to be trending more.

Always Be Vigilant

Those are the words from my good buddy and mentor, Neil Castro, or how we like to call him, Red (Check his FB and his photos! HERE!). He may be younger than me, but his knowledge in the field of photography is great, thus, without the cameras in both our hands, I am obviously the older one where he must listen to me, but with cameras at hand, I must listen to him for I will learn so much just like that one photowalk we were in together (I will try and make a post about that sometime).

With those words tossing and turning within my head, every event, I try not only to shoot the actual concept of the event, for instance, a concert where the stars are the musicians, I look elsewhere (after taking enough shots of the musicians, of course) and then you will see the security guards sharing a cigarette to sully their nerves; obviously, an interesting shot outside the actual theme of the event, hence, ALWAYS BEING VIGILANT is essential.

I say this because last April 26, 2012, Angeles University Foundation School of Medicine (AUF-SOM) had a medical mission that gave out free circumcisions to any of the boys at Sapangbato, Angeles, Pampanga. Of course not ALL the boys of that town; just a small area of that town and a number of registered boys. Taking shots of the actual event (procedures, etc.) was the obvious thing to do, but there were so much going on outside the medical mission that I had to “be vigilant” enough to notice them. The last two shots in this post will show a bit of those “vigilant” shots I took.

I thought of also circumcising some boys since I want to be a surgeon later on in my med-life but I became lazy, my hands were starting to shake (something’s wrong with me!), and had my migraine bothering me thanks to the summer heat!

So I stayed as the photographer of the event.

Amidst the screams of boys and the calming voices of my fellow med students and the boys’ respective mothers, I sought my way to take photos of the event.

Here are some shots… With some photos with censors of course!

My classmate, Anne, as she calms her patient down before the procedure as our junior watches on from the far right

Again, Anne, this time doing the actual procedure; had to censor this shot as to not breach any policy

My classmate, Jason, being assisted by our classmate, Pamela, as our juniors watch on from behind

My classmates, Justin and Bianca, calming their patient down before the procedure; again censors as to not breach any policies

Not an actual shot of the procedures, but hey! I am in this photo so this has to be put up in here. From left to right, Arcee, Anne, Elaine, Olie, Riz, ME, and Chi. Booyah, I am the only guy in this photo with pretty ladies LOL

Then as you vigilance increases, out of the blue, you’d find people, not really interested in what’s going on, but you can feel a certain emotion just looking at them:

Father and Son: not really interested in the things going on around them, but I felt a strong sense of bond between them; almost just like me and my dad when I was younger and up to now (in fact, he was also into photography when he was younger! SO me and my dad has a strong bond as these two)

And if your look hard enough at the area you are shooting, you can let your creativity run wild:

There was a hole in the brick wall where we had our medical mission: after a few shots, I realized how boring it was, so I let my creativity run wild and just thought of taking a long enough exposure to blur what ever vehicle passes by. I wished the moped on the right wasn’t there to make it an even better shot.

Last two photos showed that always being vigilant, always being aware of your surroundings, and not always being limited to the theme of an event, can very well be your best shots of the event.

Always keep shooting, buddies!! Never look back!!

PEACE

And so it begins…

I should probably say “resumes”.

So, yeah, classes have resumed and that means, more of me and my bulky books that are three times the size of my puny forearm, and less of me here. I’ll try and write once or twice a week, because like my passion when it comes to guitars, Formula One, and cameras, writing is also one of my passion and “get a way from the real world” de-stressor.

Nothing about music, races, or photography in this entry. Just my regular life as of now since school came back to haunt my every night and drag me out of my bed even before I can regain half my strength.

First three days were just great; being able to meet my classmates again and hang out with some of them makes all the pain worth while.

Sure, there were exams on all three days, but what the hay! We made it through, me being bruised here and there, but we made it through nonetheless.

Tomorrow will mark the end of the first school week for 2012, and next week would be my birthday week as January 13th gets closer and closer; wallet will get thinner, but smiles will get wider as I treat my buddies and what not.

Ah well, I’m tired and hella sleepy. Will have to wake up in 4-6 hours just to read so I’ll end my lackluster entry here.

PEACE!

Food, Gifts, and Games… This can only mean…

Medicine II Christmas Party! LOL

So, what better way to celebrate freedom from classes and welcome the Christmas season (better late then never!) than to throw a classroom party!? With food, gifts, and games, I can’t think of anything better!

Its really a simple get together of friends; but the fact that it was spent with friends, you can easily overlook the simplicity of events. It can trump even the most fancy of events…

I took the liberty to take a lot of shots (mostly posted in my Facebook account) using only my prime lens, the Sigma 30mm f/1.4 and my Yong Nuo 465 TTL flash. It countered most of the different color temperature from the lights in the room, so I’m glad I used my flash because in most instances, using my prime, I don’t have the need to have more light since I shoot nearly wide open from f/2 to f/2.8.

Here are some of the shots during the event (some of the shots I’ve taken, I will be editing to have, as Jared Polin would say, the “boomified” effect, and will be posting here in the next entry):

Above, some of my classmates; simply the best!

The shot above, according to Richard (Left), you can easily draw me by adding the following: a goatee, a mustache, and glasses (the first 2 in particular are my supposed trademark among the class, LOL) to absolutely anything; this drawing is ironic, ’cause I shaved that morning!

Here, we have Anne officially writing a Merry Christmas to us all.

Above, with any party, you MUST have a special guest. Our special guest is extremely special! Our classmate Bianca’s son… I have forgotten his name though. LOL

This shot looks wrong doesn’t it?

This is a shot of Ryan Joe in one of the many games held. This game in particular, we (yes, I joined in this game) had to retrieve five straws cut into TINY pieces buried underneath flour using our mouths.

Last photo for this entry. Here, you can see me (far right) with the dudes in the aftermath of the “digging-through-the-flour-with-our-lovely-faces-to-retrieve-tiny-straws-for-a-toblerone-and-wonder-if-it-was-worth-it-all-this-time” game.

And there you have it! Some shots to give you the gist of our party; Simple as it is, it was extremely fun nonetheless!! I was even doubly fortunate to have had 2 Christmas parties last night; my class’ Christmas party and the AUFMC’s Christmas party (which will be blogged about some time later). A great way to welcome the Christmas break and an escape from the hectic schedule of being a medical student and to do away with some awful exams even for just a couple of weeks.

PEACE!

EDIT:

All these pictures have not been post processed as made evident by the lack of “boomification” and my watermark =D

Behind Those "Shower" Curtains…

Behind Those Shower Curtains…, a photo by Chan’s Bright Ideas on Flickr.

These shots were taken way back November 12, 2011, at Marquee Mall. Hanging out with my good buddy, Brian, I thought of taking some interesting shots…

It took nearly the whole day for me to hunt anything and everything to make a photo of. Not wanting to leave empty handed, I went for the “Cliche”… take a shot of the water fountains at night. I think it turned out well, considering I forgot my tripod so I am unable to take longer shutter speed shots.

This kid’s shot would’ve been great if I had a longer exposure and a tripod… but oh well, take it and learn from it as they say.

Peace!

I STEPPED ON POOP!

YES, I stepped on poop earlier this day; nearly ruined my whole day. Well, this entry isn’t about all the nutritious benefits of stepping on poop can do to your kicks. No not at all, in fact, this post has… a deeper value.

Well, not really.

Having just got back from ONA (Ospital Ning Angeles), most likely the last group of medical students to have left the scene, fresh from the showers, and waiting for dinner, I thought of writing down my experience in ONA to kill the time.

Today, my group and I were tasked to report our patients’ histories, and knowing that this is our first time interviewing a real patient, mistakes must be made… WOW! In my case, I made a lot of errors that were, in a way, common sense questions that should’ve been asked. YES, we were grilled, and that’s saying just the least, BUT, we did learn a lot today. And that is what’s it all about, right? We weren’t presenting to awe our preceptor today, its about our preceptor telling us how to BECOME BETTER “historians”. Albeit getting grilled and all, we definitely got we were after… to learn.

My groups’ patients were somehow the epitome of what Dr. House would always say, “everybody lies”. They would either twist their stories in our expense; they’d lie about the frequency they take their prescribed medications; even say that “okay lang po ako” when you can clearly see something wrong with them. Human nature? I don’t know… but everybody does lie.

Another notable event today was when our preceptor gave us the opportunity to listen to one of his patient’s heart sounds as he was suffering from heart failure; I can’t say that i can readily tell the difference between normal heart sounds and that of an abnormal one… LOL

Time for me to eat dinner since it’s finally ready and then hit the books later (sobs pharmacology).

PEACE and LOVE!