And so I couldn't write...

I was half way on my reading Shutter Island when this urge to just write something came. I don't know how, don't know what but I just felt that I have to close the book and start pounding on the keyboard of my netbook. So I did. I haven't done so in ages. For whatever reason, I just don't. Perhaps I lost track of my creative streak. Perhaps I lack inspiration or desperation for that matter. I am just rambling. So be it. I might stumble into something that I could write on.

But I couldn't. I just couldn't. And it scares the hell out of me. Am I losing it?

A nice conversation on death

...from the novel The Hummingbird's Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea

Huila: Will I die now?
Teresita: Yes.
Huila: I don't want to die.
Teresita: I know.
Huila: Does it hurt?
Teresita: No.
Huila: Will I be afraid?
Teresita: Oh no.
Teresita: Do you know how it is when a child needs to go to sleep? How a child fights and bargains. Asks for a story, or cries, or suddenly needs water to drink because she won't go to sleep?
Huila: Yes.
Teresita: But you know it is time. For whatever reason - it is time for the child to sleep. It's late, or she needs to get up early in the morning, or she is ill. You have to make her go to sleep, sometimes against her will.
Huila: Yes.
Teresita: This is how it is with God and us. God has to put us to bed, and we don't want to sleep yet.
Huila: Will I like being dead?
Teresita: Did you enjoy being alive?
Huila: Yes.
Teresita: Then, you will enjoy your death. I wish you could stay. I will miss you.

Time for Android

I got an Android phone the other day. It's not brand new but for $50, I got what I bargained for plus a 2nd hand Pink Motorola RAZR. Not bad huh? I was tinkering with it and couldn't get the hang of it so I switched back to my reliable BlackBerry Pearl. All of my contacts are in the BB anyway.

Tonight, for lack of better things to do (and to free my mind of whatever negative thoughts I am having) I tried to Google how to synchronize my BB contacts and export in to my G1. I was able to get my contacts from my BB and saved it as .CSV but I couldn't manage to sign in to my gmail account in my G1 as yet.

Darn! I better try it again later. Maybe I really should change my data plan from BB Unlimited Web and Messaging to the G1 Unlimited Wed and messaging.

Sigh..

Bike mode

Gadget for Misis Tikboy's iPod Touch

My stop at the San Bruno Postal Office

At the San Bruno Bart Bay

Yesterday I went out to ride my bike. It was a beautiful day. There was a heat wave alert but I didn't feel it. I got out of the house at 11:30 in the morning and the temperature was still manageable. Went to BestBuy to get a gadget for Misis Tikboy and then strolled around the mall. I was looking for a blood pressure monitor for my Mom and Dad. I wasn't able to get it from Target so I went to Walgreens. Good thing it's on sale. Hehehehe!

My Dad's been sick for more than a month now. Ang tigas pa ng ulo! Hay naku! I called Mom last night to check up on him and was glad to hear that he's now walking. He also stopped being grouchy. I worry for my Mom because Dad is a difficult patient. Sabi ko nga painumin na lang kaya namin ng Lorazepam para kumalma? Ehek!

I am now back on duty. Next week, another bike mode for one day. I need to exercise!

Updates

Office kuno. Hehehe! Parang internet shop ah.

Bike sa parking ng Tanforan Mall. Pansinin di ba?

Ako 'yan, di halatang mataba na.

Bike sa parking ng Target

Bed ng bata. Hahahaha! Saka si Acer 11.6 sa may ulunan.

I know I haven't posted in a while. Busy kasi eh. Saan? Sa Farm Town at sa kung anu-ano pa! Hehehe.. will start posting again soon. For now, pictures muna.

BB and Facebook

I downloaded the Facebook for Blackberry Smartphones v1.6 application for my Pearl when I was at the bus this afternoon. I tinkered with it and was satisfied since I can check updates on my social networks even while I'm on the go. I tried to use it as much as I can to test if my phone could handle the application. I was satisfied with my phones performance until I got a message an hour ago that said

"Uncaught exception: java.lang.NullPointerException"

being the tekkie person that I am, I tried to turn off the phone and then turn it on again hoping that it's just some glitch in the system. But I have done it thrice and still the results were the same. I tried another one that usually works - taking out the battery while the phone is still on and then letting it stand for 30 seconds before putting the battery back on. Still won't work.

So, I opened my laptop and tried to search the error. It's usually associated with downloaded applications. Tried to go to the application details of my BB and then changed the default settings which hopefully would take care of the uncaught error. Still, nothing happened.

Hmmm.. so, if it doesn't work that way, the only thing for me to do is uninstall the application and reinstall it again. Which is what I did.

Now I can view my message inbox again. All I have to do is reinstall the application again and hope that it works well this time.

All by Myself

How can one be more correct than that? Spent the whole day in bed. Tried to read but I just don't have the concentration I need to go through it. Tried to sleep it out but the meds that I took seem to have no effect on me. So, as the day closed to an end, I got out of bed, prepared medications and then gave the evening pills to Helen. She looked at me straight in the eye and then just blurted out, "You're all by yourself huh?" Looked at her and tried to manage a smile as I said, "Yeah, I practically am."

Come to think of it, what she just said is true. I am all by myself. I should not even be surprised. It's just that I haven't thought of it that much. Until today.

All by myself. Yeah, I am.

When people talk, I listen..

And that's what just happened today.

I don't know why people seem to be very open to me about their private life, sometimes including secrets they wouldn't even tell their closest friends, but they do tell me that. I don't know if this is a gift or a curse but I do have it - whatever it is.

The wife of my patient came to me after dinner tonight and said that she needed to talk to me. I thought it was one of those things that she and her family, especially her youngest son, would complain about - how he finds fault at every little thing that the staff do in taking care of his father. I was surprised it wasn't about that. She just needed someone to talk to because she's been keeping something to herself for over a month now and she just couldn't stand it anymore. She's depressed, told me that she just started taking Prozac today and that she's really upset because she is being urged to lie to her husband. She told me she's got the big C a couple of months ago and that she's been having chemo for the past months. She doesn't have plans on telling his husband about this. And she hates that feeling.

The fact that her husband nearly got thrown out from the facility because of how his youngest son's been treating the staff, threw her off. The son is very rude, shouts a lot and finds fault in everything. She didn't tell her sons that the owner of the facility gave her a 30-day notice to find another RFC for her husband. So, she decided to talk to me and asked if his youngest son is really out of line. I told her that I understand that his son is very protective of his father and that he wants what's best for him. But I also made her understand that the caregivers of her husband is from a different culture that he has to respect. That he could talk to the caregivers in a nice way. She promised to talk to his son about it and apologized to me for his son's behavior. I told her she doesn't have to apologize to me, his son should apologize to the caregivers that he disrespected. Now, I don't believe that he could do that otherwise the mother wouldn't have to apologize for him. Oh well..

She then told me some other things that made me shake my head in disgust. It never struck me that the green eyed monster could take over this lady's demeanor. But what the hell, I just listened intently and tried to understand where she's coming from.

Ah.. just another day at work.

Bed

Heto na ngayon ang bed ko.. hehehe! Pagkatapos kong makulimbat 'yung cabinet, inayos ko na agad.. hehehe!

Finders keepers

Look at what I found, an under the bed cabinet. Hehehe!

Just thought of taking my picture to get my mind of being bored waiting for the bus to arrive.

Hah! Now that's more like it, a smile.

Things that I do to avoid being depressed. Weird huh? Nahawa na ata ko sa mga puti na konting bagay lang, depressed na. Ngek!

My reading list

Got these books checked out from the library today. Hmmm.. after reading The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, I learned something about Afghan culture. I've had enough of those for now and I wanted something more along the lines of Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code hence Raymond Khoury's The Sanctuary and The Last Templar.

Hmmm... I wonder how long it's gonna take me to finish these books. I finished reading A Thousand Splendid Suns in a day. I hope this is a better read than that one. We'll see...

So true...

“Some day, in years to come, you will be wrestling with the great temptation, or trembling under the great sorrow of your life. But the real struggle is here, now, in these quiet weeks. Now it is being decided whether, in the day of your supreme sorrow or temptation, you shall miserably fail or gloriously conquer. Character cannot be made except by a steady, long continued process.”

- Phillips Brooks

Monster in me

Just trying to clear my head off when I found this original song.. monotonous but you'll eventually find yourself humming it.



LYRICS

VERSE 1
Walking through this forest of Broken Dreams
My Life Is Changing or so it seems.
A Stream of water beneath my feet
An Empty Cabin with a lonely seat

CHORUS
Through the whispers in the night, hiding my face from light, my shadow still there. Through the whispers in the night, can't face the light, the monster in me

VERSE 2
Past the chair, was an open door, a rotting corpse laid on the floor, the works of my hands, before my eyes, the attempts of truth, is choked by lies

BRIDGE
Now that truth is gone, I can't find my way out, Mystery wrapping before me, All that's there is my past

Mga batang Jollibee

My brother sent me these videos today. He knows how much I love kids, mang-inggit daw ba! Palibhasa puro matanda ang kasama ko ngayon!

Updates

Been busy these past few weeks. After a four-day trip to Vegas with my wife I got back to work and been on a six-day work week. I was off today but I got so much things to do that I haven't got time to relax. I went to have my fingerprint taken early in the morning and then went straight to my lawyer. More things to do, more bills to pay. -sigh-

Got to pack my things and transfer them to my permanent house but I could not do it today so I plan to do it next week during my two-day rest period, if I could call it as my rest day. Whew! More responsibilities.

I better get some rest now. I am on duty for the next four days.

Vegas trip

Freaking HOT in Vegas!

Tried out the Las Vegas Monorail

Feeling lost.. where are you Misis Tikboy?

Vegas at daytime is boring

Just thought of taking a picture of the plane

Grad Pix from Tam

Is that a medal Janna Marie? Hehehe...

Lolo Res with Janna and Ethan

Clear your mind Tikboy

Whatever an enemy might do
to an enemy,
or a foe to a foe,
the ill-directed mind
can do to you
even worse.

Whatever a mother, father
or other kinsman
might do for you,
the well-directed mind
can do for you
even better.

-Dhammapada, 3, translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

I feel like walking in the rain tonight.

The rhythm of the falling rain
is like a hum of a certain sadness
lurking from the dark
methodically killing me
attacking the recesses of my being.

Let me walk in the dark as the rain drops
let me drip in water to cover the pain
and the endless haunting caused by the past
let me stay out in the cold to numb the pain.

Tonight, unlike any other night
let me walk in the dark.

It is not that anger and desire are inherently evil or that we should feel ashamed when they arise. It is a matter of seeing them as the delusions that they are: distorted conceptions that paint a false picture of reality. They are negative because they lead to unhappiness and confusion.

- Kathleen McDonald, "How to Meditate"