Friday Foto – Random Bloody Thoughts

Blood coagulation experiment at Physiology Lab class

Blood coagulates when non-compatible types are mixed together. We (unnecessarily) proved this one day in our little experiment.

Blood is also the most vital fluid. It cannot be artificially synthesized. There is no other substitute.

Imagine if it could be, though. Hospitals will never run out of stock. Dengue patients and accident victims will never have to wait for compatible donors. More lives could be saved.

So now you see why those blood donation drives matter.

I used to be anemic, and I used to be less than 110 pounds. Both are excuses este legitimate reasons as to why I have never donated blood. I think I’m ready to volunteer already, the next chance I get.

Tips From Our Boracay Experience

I feel compelled to share this list with you. Learn from it!

1. Prepare for flight and boat transfer delays. Bring a water jug, and fill it with water. (We didn’t.) Bring snacks, and don’t leave them with the checked-in baggage. (We did.)

Flying in via Kalibo with Philippine Airlines

2. There’s really no need to pre-arrange van and boat transfers. Everything you need is there once you land. But book a hotel ahead of time. We were lucky to get discounted rates at the fancy-schmancy Tawhay Resort. But it was at the far end of Station 1, hence we had to take the tricycle a lot of times. (Walking is good too, though.)

3. We went during the Labor Day Weekend, meaning the island was PACKED with happy college kids, including us. (hashtag YOLO!! … che) Happy hour was at 8 pm.. and 6 pm, and 1 pm. And…. 11 am.

3 beers for P100, anyone?

4. The sand is still the finest and whitest sand I have ever seen. The shores have algae, though. I urge you to find out why.

5. A lot of my friends also got sick. It could be the food, or possibly the algae-infested waters where they swam. Again the algae is clean, but the water may be not. [Read: E. coli: More fun in Boracay!] Good things we drank Yakult to protect our tummies with good bacteria. It’s true. Yakult will be one of my travel essentials from now on. Make it yours too!

6. We experienced wallets and cellphones being dropped on the street, stolen while dancing and thrown into the ocean while drunk. Protect your valuables by not bringing them when you go out at night.

7. Skip the 10-minute water sports. Spend the day cliff diving, kayaking, snorkelling and eating at Ariel’s Point instead. We all found the day-trip to be worth our P1,500. It was my first time to go cliff diving! It’s good because there were built-in stairs that lead to the platforms of varying heights. The highest one was 15 meters, but I already got injured after my 8-meter jump. It’s all about body awareness, they said. I lost my mind for only half a second, and my chest ached for weeks. WORTH IT!!

Barbeque buffet and unlimited beer and other drinks! Really, really good

6. Try sailing towards the famed Boracay sunset instead of just watching it from the shore. We paid P200 per person, which was expensive considering we were 18 in the boat and we only sailed for about an hour.  But again, it’s always worth it to invest on experiences.  (And it’s the locals’ source of income.)

7. Our flight back home was scheduled to leave Kalibo at 8 am. It was the cheapest flight, so we instantly booked seats. We also instantly regretted it! We realized later on that we might have to make private boat and van arrangements so we won’t miss our flight. In fact, when we arrived on the first night, this was what the van operator at the Kalibo airport told us. “Nako patay! Hindi kayo aabot!” They even advised us to spend the last night in Kalibo. NO WAY. Good thing we also asked the Caticlan seaport guard. He said that the first boat leaves Boracay at 5 am. He did his own mental estimations, and positively concluded that we can arrive at the airport by 7 am. We held on to that statement for the rest of the weekend.

On our last night, we didn’t sleep. We were back at the Boracay seaport by around 4:00 am. We were so relieved because everyone moved double time! It seems that they were all aware that the passengers had early flights to catch. The boat left before 5 am, the vans quickly filled, and we were at the airport by 6:30 am! We only paid P175 each. Not bad!!!

8. If you want to food-trip, try the burrito place beside Jonah’s shake along the shore. Tell me what you think of the malunggay and chili ice cream too. (It wasn’t available when we got to this Persian restaurant that had a big banner outside.) The midnight chori burger took forever to cook, maybe because a lot of people were buying. We also bought beef shawarma a couple of times. But mostly we feasted on cup noodles inside the hotel.

9. It doesn’t matter how many times you’ve been to Boracay. The experience is always worth repeating, especially when you’re with a different set of people.

2006 – with family. 2009 – with Zobel batch. 2012 – with DLSU batch.

10. So make sure you go with your favorite people.

With Ogie and Peach

Self Portrait #1

Lo and behold, found among my old college handouts and files – my first ever self-portrait.

This was created by my friend Madel Cimatu for one of our Art classes. I refuse to believe the flower was my idea.

We even attempted to explain the work with this feeling-sophisticated description.

This portrait is representative of the subject’s personality – unconventional and lively. It was expressed very well by the artist’s choice of colors and additional elements like the flower, shades and zebra vase. These ideas came as the artist progressed with her work – showing her creative imagination, but not compromising her skills.

Note from the professor, whom we almost outwitted – “Very good drawing, but insufficient explanation.”

Why Boracay Waters Are Green

Boracay Island – a tropical paradise that boasts of fine white sand and clear blue waters like no other. This summer season, it’s the place to see (and be seen in, in my honest opinion. Not the point).

Teka teka, clear blue waters?

The beach usually serves as a beautiful backdrop for turista pictures. Not in our case.

For a better view of what I am talking about, check out this photo.

Our hotel was at the far end of Station 1, where the beach was supposed to be nicer and cleaner. Nope. It was the same gunky green on the whole stretch of White Beach when we visited.

It’s not moss or seaweed. It’s algae. I believe there is a collective Filipino term for all these three – lumot.

Sorry that I make it sound so yucky. I know they are natural, living microorganisms. But you must agree that they affect the aesthetic value of the island, be it positively or negatively. We all have our own preferences. I guess I made it sound yucky for a reason.

Anyway, locals say it’s seasonal. The waters have always been like that during the summer months because there are less waves to wash the algae off the shore. This has been true even before Boracay was overpopulated and commercialized.

You can just stop here and mentally note to book a ticket during the off-peak season next time, or you can ask further – why?

Why is there a lot of algae in the first place? I was with my fellow Biology majors on that trip. We all agreed that the algal bloom could be associated with eutrophication, based on what we learned from our Ecology class. Yehess. The waters seem to be nutrient rich, otherwise the microorganisms won’t grow. They need “good food” too, parang Nido ni Jun Jun. The high amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus in the water plus the hot summer sun result to what we call an algal bloom.

So where did the all those nutrients come from? I found out that it is mostly because of the poor sewage system in the island. [Source: Global Coral Reef Alliance] Due to poor planning and development, or maybe even because financial profitability ranked higher than environmental safety in the priority list, the sewage from the residents and tourists are simply dumped into the ocean. That has been the practice ever since. Today, the currents can obviously no longer dilute the nutrients to harmless levels for free.

I’m not writing this to downgrade our very own island paradise. I just want to share my understanding that in the ecosystem, everything is interrelated. I can go on and on about other related topics such as how the sensitive coral reefs are directly affected by the nutrients, or how the sewage could contain disease-causing bacteria that have become tolerant of the salt.

Boracay Island – overdeveloped on the surface, poorly developed below. I hope it doesn’t remain that way.

PS. I heard that a loan has already been given to improve the wastewater management in the island. Good! [Source - ABSCBN News]

 

Friday Foto – Bantayan Stars

The goal is to write at least 10 entries per month. That’s going to be a challenge considering I’m going to med school pretty soon.

It’s time I help myself. The scheduled posts feature was invented for a reason.

Friday Fotos it is.

Taken on Jan. 7, 2012 at Bantayan Island, Cebu

As I learned from my Zoology classes, we ought to call these “sea stars”, not starfish.

Salikneta Farm Practicum

Sharing with you the video I made of our second week of summer practicum at Salikneta Farm. I shot lots of random clips of my classmates using my camera and monopod. (… este my sister’s camera and Ogie’s monopod hehe)

Keri lang. While our friends interned at coolio magazines and New York hotels, we Biology majors got sent off in a farm where there were trees to count, insects to identify, worms to breed and kids to teach.

I loved every part of it.

P.S. The food was the best part.

What Would Donkey Do?

When was the last time I looked at my troubles as a stepping stone? Sharing this read I found from Facebook.

One day a farmer’s donkey fell down into a well. The animal cried piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do. Finally, he decided the animal was old, and the well needed to be covered up anyway; it just wasn’t worth it to retrieve the donkey.

He invited all his neighbors to come over and help him. They all grabbed a shovel and began to shovel dirt into the well. At first, the donkey realized what was happening and cried horribly. Then, to everyone’s amazement he quieted down.

A few shovel loads later, the farmer finally looked down the well. He was astonished at what he saw. With each shovel of dirt that hit his back, the donkey was doing something amazing. He would shake it off and take a step up.

As the farmer’s neighbors continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal, he would shake it off and take a step up. Pretty soon, everyone was amazed as the donkey stepped up over the edge of the well and happily trotted off!

MORAL :
Life is going to shovel dirt on you, all kinds of dirt. The trick to getting out of the well is to shake it off and take a step up. Each of our troubles is a steppingstone. We can get out of the deepest wells just by not stopping, never giving up! Shake it off and take a step up.

What happens to our trash?

The search for the winning line to convince my sister to stop buying sachets of shampoo and conditioner every week is still on.

I don’t care that sachets are cheaper than the bottled variants. What happens to the shitload of waste our household produces per day? No one seems to care as long as the garbage collector comes in every morning. Out of sight, out of mind – it’s the common consumerist point of view and I hate it. I hate it.

The Day I Turned Twenty

Here I am, exhausting my wits to come up with a noble reason for hosting birthday parties (almost) every year of my teenage life. My siblings think it’s bratty. As much as I want to deny that, I can’t. Everyone remembers how I had a fit on my Supposed Sweet Sixteen because I didn’t have any party or plans.

This year was different. I just turned twenty!

Dr. Claveria made sure I got a cake and a birthday song!

The night before, I slept way before the clock ticked twelve. I woke up with a smile on my face, not caring for a minute that the rest of the girls in the dorm were already dressed and ready for breakfast. I got up, received handpicked flowers while brushing my teeth, and got a few pats on the back from the sausage fest as a birthday greeting. Then we were off for the day’s work.

I spent most of that day getting lost in a forest, counting trees near and far, and getting stung by wild amorseco seeds. I’m a graduating Biology major, and I have no choice but to spend my birthday doing my summer internship.

I used to tell people that birthdays are special because that’s when the people who love you celebrate the day you came to be. (Yes, that’s my noble reason for hosting birthday parties – so people who love me can be happy!) This year, I was confined in a remote area that didn’t even allow the supposed SMS greetings to come through.

I guess this was simply a chance for me to see how blessed I have been this whole year, without the need for fancy gifts and trippy celebrations. God answered my prayers in the most unexpected yet wisest ways. That’s all I can say for now, as I believe that what I am dying to write are worthy of individual blog posts themselves.

The hypocrisy of the oath

Came across this comment from a doctor while researching for my bioethics final paper.

As a senior medical student about to move on to residency, the overwhelming emotion I have at this time is one of disillusionment. At the heart of the Hippocratic Oath, both classical and modern, is the vow to avoid doing harm and to help when appropriate and necessary. Yet medical education, both undergraduate and graduate, brutalizes its students.

Sleep deprivation is the norm—I have seen residents working up to 120 hours a week. With such inhuman work hours for so many years, alienation from one’s family, health, and peace of mind is often the result. Falling asleep at the wheel is common, and deaths of both residents and medical students have been noted in the press. Medical mistakes are inevitable when people are so exhausted. The medical literature clearly and unequivocally states the risk to health and even life when people are sleep deprived, but medical educators seem to believe that somehow, magically, doctors can rise above their own physiology. Physical and psychological abuse from attending physicians are common complaints of both residents and students.

To quote from the Annals of Internal Medicine, “For many residents, fatigue cultivates anger, resentment, and bitterness rather than kindness, compassion, or empathy” (Annals of Internal Medicine 123(1995):512-517). How are we to provide compassionate care to others when our own educational system is the model of abuse? Primum non nocere indeed—the hypocrisy of this oath is that we can’t even manage to muster nonmaleficence to practitioners of our own profession, let alone our patients.

—Anonymous

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/doctors/oath_doctors.html