If you would ever have a plan of torturing me, all you got to do is to bring me an audio player and make me listen to all your boy band songs.

I absolutely mean no offense to the die-hard fans of these boy groups. Times have changed. Okay, so once upon a time in my boring existence I had been a sucker for these cuties. But this time I'd certainly die of hypovolemic shock from barfing out all of my body fluids.

She was indeed the most miserable thing that happened in my college life. I thought that the Tondo incident was the last time my group would ever meet someone like her but the bad vibes probably went too powerful to oppose that last Saturday we had to see her again for the evaluation exam - it's some sort of cumulative test about whatever you did in the lying-in clinic. Everything in it was total garbage. Why in the world should my group have an evaluation exam about the lying-in clinic when we never had the chance to work there since 1. our first CI's pregnant and could not accommodate us and 2. this proxy for our pregnant CI stood us up the last time?

So anyway on the day before the exam, she told my group again (via phone patch - thanks to Sun Cellular, phone calls are without limit. But I hate Sun's network and I'm not sure why) that the test starts at 9a the next day. I had a gut feel that this 9a meeting the next day would never happen because I have always believed in Aesop's fable about that idle, hypocritical boy who cried wolf. The moral of which is to always mean what you say or people would mistrust you, hate you.

And I was right when she did not show up at 9a the next day but we got an information from her that the exam would be moved at 1p. And when we came back at the said schedule, we found out she was somewhere else and she moved the exam at 5p! Ang gulo niya talaga! Ang sarap i-ostracize! My group mates and I had nothing to do in school and we didn't want to wait forever for the crappy test, more so the teacher.

We moved to a fun place - a billiard hall (that charges per game) located in one of the streets of Intramuros. It's been a year since I played billiards with friends. During our four-hour stay there I won two games out of so many and I felt pleased about it nevertheless.

Back in school, the miserable-thing came at long, long last. She was so not a happy sight to see. I woke up very early for that lousy test only to take it at six in the evening. I surmised she did not even feel like making a good piece of exam because she brought us a sixty-item test full of enumerations. No multiple choices, mahibang ka. Nasa'n ang comprehension dito? Asan ang problems and the tricky questions? What's the use of my review? What did she think would we get out of her exam?

Wala.

Nothing follows.

Nothing really exciting happened to me during the times when I didn't feel like updating my blog. Well, except that class is finally over. Meaning to say, next week will be finals week and I'm going crazy about reviewing for everything.

The whole week was spent on eternal make up classes by teachers who always never seemed to finish discussing the entire syllabi on time probably because of one or both of these reasons 1. the entire semester is just not enough to tackle everything in the syllabus and/or 2. these teachers slacked off during the first half of the semester that's why all of us are suffering this second half. My instructors in all my subjects are all okay. I believe my block has the nicest and most lenient teachers among the other blocks. I was really appalled when the midterm grades of my friends (from other blocks) in Pathophysiology plummeted to a line of six. Eh ang passing grade ay 75. It turned out that their instructor in Patho passed only 17 students from the 3 blocks he's handling. Aysos.

I know a clinical instructor who holds the title for being the most irresponsible nurse in the world. My gulay, it perplexes me why she even got qualified to be a nurse and a teacher in the college. Two weeks ago, she asked her student, friend Jek, to tell my group that we'll be having a make up duty with her at some lying-in clinic somewhere in Tondo the next morning. Unfortunately, she was the substitute for our pregnant clinical instructor who filed an LOA earlier. According to my friend who told us about the make up, the duty would start at 8a. So at 8a we went there. My trip to Tondo was terribly nauseating because I had to pass by Divisoria first before I could get to the lying-in clinic. The mud, the garbage, the wet market, the smoke coming from jeepneys, and other random things you see in there that were probably introduced to this earth by spontaneous generation - they have all developed a wonderfully reeking stench which is unbearable to everybody who has not yet developed anosmia. If I had extrinsic asthma, I would have lost my consciousness and died easily on the grubby road.

So anyway, I still reached the place on time despite the heavy traffic. My group mates were pretty much excited about assisting in the delivery room again as it's been a long while since we did that. It wasn't surprising at all when we didn't find our CI when we got to the clinic. Everybody who knows this lady knows that she's a tomadora and a latecomer. While there is a policy that students cannot work in any health establishments unless there is a CI with them, we are left with no choice except to wait for her to arrive. By the clinic's staircase, we sat on a plastic bench that could barely accommodate five people. My four other group mates had to stand.

Three hours had passed and she still hasn't arrived. The five of us who sat on the bench were having ischemia of the butt while the other four who remained standing produced varicosities on their legs. We tried to contact her through her cell phone but in vain. She would not answer our calls. Our heads heated up, we left the clinic with fury. In-injan kami. Ang kapal talaga ng mukha.

Finally, one of our classmates at home was able to talk to her. Nasa bahay pala sya, kagigising lang. My classmate told her how looong we'd waited for her in the clinic. Then she said something like this: Hindi ko alam na may duty sila. Sana man lang in-inform nila ko.

That was a real good slap to our faces. I wanted to shove her papular face up to her ass orifice. I ask myself, tao ba talaga 'tong kausap namin?

End of part one.

Luke 15:3-6 Then Jesus told them this parable: "Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.'"

Nicole, one of our cats, has been missing for three days. She has not come home to drink water and eat her Friskies, or to play with Paris and the rest of the house pets. And I have no soft fur to stroke at before I sleep.

Over a kitten. We've just had her for roughly three months and I have never cried this much for an animal.

Above all, I am deeply concerned about her health and vulnerability. Had she only been a little braver like Paris, I would not have worried tremendously about her. I just could not imagine how such a helpless little cat would be able to look for food outside her home. I'm afraid she'd be bitten by rabid dogs in the village, or be maltreated by some assholes around, or be filched by an enamored homeowner.

This is really something to reflect on. If it must feel very terrible for someone to lose a pet, how much more would it be to a mother who has lost her child? By whatever means, however harsh the hurdles may turn out, my Nicole must be found.

It's been a long while, I know. And so much things have happened these past two weeks. I would so much be pleased to write all about them but I have very poor memory about events.

Half of this ordinary day was spent in a diagnostic center at Pedro Gil along Taft Avenue. Heidi and I went to have our regular medical exam. It was exhausting enough going up and down the office (from consultation room to the cashier to the x-ray room to the john to the laboratory room...) so we had to eat at Burger King across PGH for lunch. This fast food restaurant is among the most memorable places to me. During periodic exams in high school, MaScians gather inside BK to review (and eat) with friends hours before their test schedule. I used to go there with my friends and classmates who are especially genius in Calculus and Physics and AdChem and Com Sci and Linear Algebra and Analytic Geometry and many other subjects related to Math. I am quite a bonehead when it comes to numbers that's why I'm glad there are no math subjects in my course.

Just this week I had a first sincere talk with a good friend whom I have been classmates with for about two years. From our quiet conversation at the corner of the library he made me become conscious about the thing I call a crisis which I'm having unfortunately. I did not want to believe it at first but he had witty and justifiable proofs to this so I sort of gave in anyway. So the entire discussion boiled down to egocentricity. I did not care whether I caused people offense from trying to save my ego. Long story, people. With the 90/10 principle and other psychological theories as his basis, he said I have changed recently. Aside from telling me that my compensatory mechanisms toward all sorts of distresses are so lame, he also said that I'm now being selfish and apathetic and all that jazz. He could not understand me. Nor could I myself.

On Rhetoric class yesterday my teacher talked about communication. There's something in what she said about verbal and non-verbal communication that made me reflect on some personal issues. And then I discovered that the only way that I could be relieved of this 'crisis' is to make up for my faults (through actions or in words, I really don't know yet) as there is no way undoing them. (3 III 2005)