Mandu and kampungi... delish!

Whoa, I feel really bad for not being on my blog for the last couple of months. For that, I have to apologize… especially since this is my final year, there should be no excuse for me not documenting it!

So here’s the deal people: I’m finally a 4th year student. Been through many ups and downs, but here I am, in the final ( ::knocks on wood:: ) year that I’ll be at the University of the Philippines Los Banos.

I’m a Senior Clinician, which means that I go through rotations, just like any other student in clinics, except that this time, I’m one of the people teaching the Junior Clinicians and guiding them to become better at what they do. To me, that was a little daunting at first. I mean, when I was a Junior Clinician, I didn’t really know what I was doing then too and I had to practice and go through many trials and errors before I started getting confident in all the procedures and diagnoses that I was giving out. Of course, back then these were all checked by a supervising vet. Even though now as Seniors we still have to get everything we do checked, it seems like the resident vets at the hospital at both Los Banos and Diliman trust us a lot more. That means that whenever we diagnose something, we are pretty sure we are correct. Of course there’s the odd case where we don’t really know (but then again, usually the resident vets are sometimes unsure themselves), but for the most part we’re pretty keen on what’s going on.

I feel proud to have gotten this far. It’s been a rough journey, but I’m hoping that things will pull through.

And thus begins my final year in vet school. It might not have been the easiest ride to get through, but I’m sure finishing it will be the sweetest thing in the world.

Wish me luck guys.

It’s almost the end of the semester and I can’t believe that I have 2 weeks coming up which won’t have exams in them. I’m really happy, but I still have to read a bunch of things for my Radiology, Canine & Feline Medicine, Zoonoses and Equine Medicine Courses. As much as it seems like I have tons of time on my hands since I only have class most days for a few hours, the exams are extremely difficult. So difficult in fact, that I’m not really taking my chances with the ones coming up since it’s the last few before finals week. Gotta make it count!

This past Friday I had an amazing experience going on my Poultry junior clinic duty. I usually don’t have an affinity for poultry… I mean, I don’t mind working with them, but I don’t see myself being in the poultry business in the future, so I was kind of disinterested in going to clinics and not expecting anything. We were scheduled to go to a few gamefowl farms (farms that raise chickens for cockfighting, which is still legal here in the Philippines) and so definitely was not very enthralled at the idea.

But take a look at this!

Look at THAT!

And this!

The 1st farm we visited. Pretty different layouts, huh?

Got to see a bit of this too…

What a beautiful coc... err... rooster!

And this…

They keep the chicks on the top part of the mountain since it's cooler and so older bird fecal matter won't affect them at the top.

You can tell that I was pleasantly surprised.

I love this place! The view was amazing!

Anyway, the pictures really say a lot. The farms we went to were 12 and 7 hectacres respectively. Both in Lucban in Quezon Province which is 1 1/2 hours by car from our college. We left at around 7:30am and got back at around 5pm. It was a long day but it was totally worth it. Got to learn that poultry (especially the gamefowl industry) has a lot of things that go into it. The production, the different birds, the profits made and the raising and selling of them were all pretty intricate. I learned a lot and this trip just made me realize that I am still surprised at how fascinated I am by some things in the animal world.

Guess this is why I decided to study veterinary medicine, eh?

Artistic, isn't it?

Besides that, this weekend I got to go back to Fort Bonifacio and then was able to meet up with some friends to go salsa dancing and clubbing a bit. I’m really starting to get into salsa, and I’m thinking of taking some lessons. It’s a great way to meet people and get talking. I met some really cool people this weekend and hope that I get to do more mingling with people soon.

Anyway, that’s all I have to update for now. Let’s hope the near future has some more cool experiences in store for me!

Here’s a picture of my vet rotationmates about to dig into the food we’ve all prepared.

Lunar New Year With My Rotationmates

I made some samgyupsal (unmarinated pork belly sliced almost like canadian bacon that is simply grilled). Alongside that I made some green onion salad with sesame oil, salt and pepper.

A lot of food for Lunar New Year!

This weekend I headed to Manila–mainly in Taguig (For Bonifacio) and Makati City. I met up with my friend Kamille and we headed around to find some of those small little Korean markets and other stores along P. Burgos Street and near Jupiter Street. I would’ve never imagined that there were Korean stores around the area, but thanks to Kam we found them!

Kam eventually took me to BBQ Chicken, which is a Korean BBQ Chicken restaurant which is endorsed by the Wonder Girls (and if you didn’t already know this about me, I’m a HUGE fan of them).

This is SunYe, the leader of the Wonder Girls, giving the thumbs up along with a few of the other members.

This is SunYe of the Wonder Girls, giving a thumbs up to the food!

Had some ddeokbokki as well, which is a snack meal that’s popular in Korea. I’ve had this before in Singapore, but it was good to see how a Korean BBQ place handled it.

This is ddeokbokki, a spicy rice cake dish from Korea.

It was extremely spicy, but I was willing to endure it since it was so good! I really enjoyed it, although I was sweating a lot and drinking all the water the restaurant gave me. I actually picked up the ingredients to make this at a local market, so I will be making this soon.

Also got to try their famous fried chicken. I actually wanted to order more, but Kam and I had a lot to eat that day… we had already gone to a Japanese place for lunch and then got some Korean ice cream at the local markets around Makati. By the time we went to this place I was kinda stuffed.

Had to try their fried chicken--especially since that's what they were known for.

But I guess that just means I’ll have to come back again.

We ended the meal with some rice cakes that Kam had bought at one of the local Korean markets we visited that day. These were yummy and even had a little burst of juicy flavor inside. A good end to a good meal.

Yummy rice cakes, from a local market.

I really wanted to eat more, but I couldn’t. These last few months I’ve found that my appetite has been decreasing a bit, or that I just can’t eat as much during one sitting.

Thanks to Kam for amazing meal, but dude I was totally stuffed!

And also, we did have a lot of food previously so we decided to head to our next stop: The Myth of the Human Body exhibit in Taguig.

We weren’t allowed to take pictures there, but here’s some info for those of you near the area who wants to visit it.

The exhibit was pretty interesting. I had been to two similar exhibits in the last few years, in NY and Philadelphia, but this was one of the nicest ones. This was actually an exhibit from South Korea and will be in Taguig until April and it only costs 350Php per ticket, which is much less expensive than the ones in America. I highly recommend going there if you have the time.

I then headed to the Fort where I had to say good-bye to Kam. I then hung out and had some drinks with friends at a few bars.

Now I’m home and trying to rest up. I have to assist in an ovariohysterectomy of our goat tomorrow, so I need to read up and get some sleep.

I hope you had a great weekend guys. I sure did!

Lots of things are going on right now. About to really get started with my thesis work (which is the characterization of the heart anatomy of two native Philippine turtles by ultrasound and electrocardiogram) by trying to get people to sign up for my thesis panel. Continuing junior clinics with swine this week. Ended up winning 2nd place in CVM’s Rodeo Club Philippines Round-up quiz con last night with my friends Jae and Casey. Spending the weekends in Fort Bonifacio and Makati in Manila since I’m apartment sitting for my friend Isabelle. Got to do my first dehorning (cornuectomy) and am now preparing to be assistant surgeon for our next surgery for our ovariohysterectomy in a goat. Was approved as the first Filipino DJ on WGSpectacle to broadcast for all Asian listeners. And of course studying every now and then.

It’s just nice to breathe every once in awhile you know?

While I wind down for tonight, I’ll leave you with this picture of me performing the cornuectomy on our goat. (Don’t worry–nothing too gruesome… just a little taste).

Gonna go grab some dinner and maybe even watch a movie! I love nights alone at home.

I’m extremely tired right now.

This week has been extremely taxing, and I have three exams this week. Two of which I’ve already taken in both Large Animal Surgery and Zoonoses. Today was basically my “day off” with no exam, but I still have to finish studying for my final exam this week for Ruminant Medicine tomorrow.

Yesterday we just extremely tiring. I got up at 6am and didn’t get home until 8pm which pretty much made my day about 14 hours. Not to mention I still had to finish up some readings, edit some papers and also then had to finish my surgery protocol for my first ruminant surgery this upcoming week. I don’t think I went to bed until around 2am this morning, and then I had to get up at 6am to get started with the day.

I was basically almost falling asleep in class due to the lack of rest I’ve gotten these last few days. When I came home this afternoon from my classes, I literally dropped my bags and fell into bed for a short 3 hour nap.

Now I have to finish studying.

But I will leave you with a picture and a video from my wildlife rotation this past weekend at the Protected Areas & Wildlife Bureau in Manila. Enjoy!

Lots of snow which translates to lots of shoveling!

Okay, so not really, but it HAS been awhile since I’ve blogged and I thought that now would be a good time to update you all on what I’ve been up to.

Of course, the last time I put up a blog it was to say that it was almost Christmas time and I was about to fly back to NY. Well now I’m back in the Philippines getting back to the grind. But I thought I should summarize what I did this past break, such as:

Visiting my good ol’ high school friends.

Seeing my girlfriend.

Getting to see my brother’s show at Radio City Music Hall (he works with the Rockettes during their annual Christmas Spectacular Show).

Eating at exotic places in the city. (This picture was taken at Momofuku, known for their pork buns)

Hanging out with my cousins from Chicago (who flew in the same day I did coincidentally).

Having some much needed family time.

Celebrating New Year’s with all the people I love!

I realized that I don’t post much while I’m in New York. When I’m back there at home with my family, friends and girlfriend I tend to go out a lot and be extremely busy. And not the kind of busy that I go through here in at school at UPLB. No, it’s the kind of busy that is fun, relaxing and I guess just helps me unwind. When I’m at home I typically don’t do things that I do here in the Philippines. I was definitely not on the computer or my iTouch much at all this holiday season and I went a lot and reconnected with people I haven’t been in touch with for awhile. When I’m at school, I’m usually just focused on studying (or sometimes procrastinating) and while I do have outlets to have fun here, it’s not the same as when I’m in NY. I guess it’s the environment. The cold weather. The good food and enormous portions (which I’m not used to anymore). The people I’ve known for so long that I left about 2 1/2 years ago to start school here. Everything I’ve grown up with is in NYC, and so no matter how long I stay here in the Philippines, when I go back, I just feel… home. Subtle things happen to me that I don’t notice until I get back. Things like my face clearing up (probably due to less stress), me getting healthier, and me being happier in general.

Not that I don’t like it in the Philippines, I mean I do. There’s just something about being at home that livens me up a bit, you know? I guess it’s due to a combination of things that I mentioned above. It’s just something I’ve noticed.

Well, on another note, as I said I’m back from NYC. It’s nice to be back here. The weather isn’t so hot and it’s quite rainy nowadays. I like it. I think I like the cold weather more than I do the warm weather. I guess I’d prefer to sweat shoveling snow than sweat just walking around… haha.

Had a slew of exams this week and it will end Thursday. Just took a Diagnostic Imaging (i.e. ultrasound and radiographs) exam yesterday and today. Seeing different structures in the dog is somewhat difficult when you’re just starting. We had a practical today with only 5 minutes to identify as many organs and structures as possible. I realized that 5 minutes really isn’t a lot of time when you think about it and I was only able to identify the spleen, urinary bladder, colon, left kidney, heart, liver and such during the exam. There were definitely things I missed and next time I’ll be sure to keep on practicing since it’ll be pretty important when I start practicing. Finding the correct acoustic window isn’t hard, but it’s the manipulating of the transducer that I had trouble with.

The next part of the class will focus on radiographic imaging and I bet it will also be quite difficult. My teachers keep saying that the course requires a bit of “imagination” and I think they’re right. Just got to brush up on the orientation and anatomy of the different organs for this next part of the course.

I’ve got another exam in Large Animal Surgery this Thursday so I’m going to go hit the books now and read up a bit.

I’d like to hear what you’ve been up to this holiday break. Let me know! I’m interested in seeing how you guys spent your time.

I’ll catch you guys next time!

–JoN

P.S. — Just recently updated my desktop workstation today. Check it out!

I didn’t mention this fact in previous posts because I initially did not really want to make my birthday a big deal. The fact of turning a quarter of a century did not seem like a big milestone to me… in fact, I kind of was embarrassed since I was getting so old.

But I realized that it was still something to celebrate and that getting another year older wasn’t something to be totally sad about. Getting older just means becoming more mature and also getting to experience new things. Just like what happened during my birthday.

I was assigned veterinary junior clinics the day of my birthday. So I had clinic duty between 8am and 5pm that day. I was a little scared to start duty again since we had a large break between duties at Diliman and I was worried that I had forgot something, but it was great. We had a new supervising doctor there, Dr. Oronan which added to my worries a bit. But work turned out great! The pace of the clients coming in was steady enough so that I always had a case to take care of but also not too many clients at a time that I felt overwhelmed. I also did a lot of x-rays which was great. I saw the x-ray technician do pregnancy diagnoses, help take shots of heavily broken bones and also see quite a bit of collapsed tracheas. And Dr. Oronan happened to be a really great, understanding doctor. And it happened to be his birthday that day too! We got along really well.

After work, it was off to the Fort where I offered some of my friends dinner to celebrate my birthday. We went to Texas Roadhouse Grill for some steak and fried food (which I had been missing for awhile) and celebrated with my friends James, Kamille, Juca and Chat.

When dinner was over, James and I said good-bye to the girls and went off to celebrate in a slightly more mature way for my 25th birthday at some bars and clubs. From the Fort, we traveled to Fiamma and then Icon, both in Makati City to have a couple of drinks and celebrate with my friends Isabelle, Omar, Charlotte and many others. Here are some pictures from the party.

The next day, I had lunch with James, headed to M Cafe (the Ayala Museum Cafe) for coffee and drinks and then headed to Alabang. I arrived back here to Los Banos later Sunday night.

An overall tiring, but totally enjoyable experience, my 25th birthday was definitely memorable. I just wish I could’ve had my family, friends and girlfriend here personally to celebrate with me.

But thanks to everyone who wished me a Happy Birthday. I really had a fun time.

What’s the most fun thing you’ve done on your birthday? Let me know… I’d love to hear about it!

EDIT: Just found out that I passed the class… woohoo!

I just came back from running errands and picking up some last minute gifts for my girlfriend’s family, and now I’m working on packing the other things I need. Gosh, I’m so excited for my trip tomorrow that I can’t even think straight. I’m so happy that I’ll be able to go to Hong Kong and visit another Asian area for vacation and the best part is that I’ll be going with someone special. Awesome.

Anyway, I’m going to pack my stuff now and figure out what else I have to bring. So I shall leave you with a picture of my really crazy, messed up room. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I PACK!

My room is a mess from all the packing...

So I have the weekend coming up. I have one more final coming up and it’s going to be probably one of the hardest (if not THE hardest) final that I’ll have to take. Only one person got exempted from the final and she only just made it to the exemption line. As for the other 99% of us we have got to study. And it’s for Veterinary Medicine I. There are so many diseases and so many treatments and medications that we have to memorize. Not only that but we have to study all the alternative methods of treatment which includes acupuncture, hydrotherapy, aromatherapy and the like. I really do enjoy the course, but it’s a lot of info, and I’ll definitely be needing all of the time this weekend to prep for it.

Plus, of course I have something to look forward to. The next morning I’ll be flying out to Hong Kong to take a well needed break. I think it will be a fun time.

So it’s time for me to work hard. To leave you guys off though, here’s a picture of my cat peacefully resting on my work desk while I write this blog.

Say “hi” MoChiiro!

I spent most of the morning being anxious about the results. I was going to wait until around 10am to head to college and see the results myself, but then I cracked and then just texted one of my professors and asked her what my standing was. About an hour I got a response that said, “Hey doc amie here. you passed 143. yehey”

And then I had the biggest smile on my face.

However, I found out later that some of my friends weren’t so lucky though. But of course I won’t go into that…

Lily, why has thou forsaken me? LOL

So, in a good mood and with it still being somewhat mid-morning, I decided to go down to Alabang in Manila to get a hair-cut (my hair was crazily long because I had not had the time to cut it these last few weeks) and also to pick up some needed supplies for my trip to Hong Kong. Once I got to the mall, I got some new clothes, got a new haircut and then also picked up some things for my iPod which I’ll be needing for my flight over.

While I was at Tony & Jackey’s, the Korean salon that I usually frequent for my cuts, I found out that my favorite senior hairstylist Lily was going to be leaving soon for Korea. Lily, is the sweetest Korean stylist I have ever had and she’s always made me feel at home whenever I went to see her, even with her broken English and funny mix of Tagalog and Korean. I’ve been going to her for over a year now and everytime she sees me she always has a big smile on her face and welcomes me with open arms. She’s also very good at what she does. I have rarely come out of there less than 100% satisfied. So it basically broke my heart that I would have to say goodbye to her for the last time. When I left I gave her a slightly bigger tip than I leave her usually, and she gracefully bowed and handed me a parting gift which is seen below.

Lily's parting gift... some Korean hair gel! Awesome!

Last night, after my final we celebrated my friend Pam’s 21st birthday. I keep forgetting how young the other students in my batch are… I remember when I turned 21. My two guy friends brought me to a bar at midnight and we shared my first legal drink. It was simple, subtle but utterly satisfying. This time around there wasn’t any alcohol, much because the drinking age here is 18 and all of my friends have already started drinking legally already, and it was nice. My friends came over, we had a BBQ and had some fun playing some games (e.g. Twister) and watched some TV shows, music videos (Korean of course… ) and a movie. And of course there was cake. Very good, scrumptious chocolate cake. Yum!

A simple night out, but it was great. A good break to be had by all.

And now I’m home and just had dinner. I just got off the phone with my girlfriend. My girlfriend j, is about to hop on a jet plane at this very moment to head to Hong Kong. She’ll be heading there a week earlier than me to hang out with her family and stuff. As I mentioned before, I’ll be heading there this coming Tuesday morning, after I finish up my last round of finals.

So alright folks, I’m gonna just go read some more notes for my other finals and then maybe eat some ice cream and head to bed. I’ve got upcoming surgery, clinical rotations and veterinary medicine 1 finals to worry about so wish me luck with those!

Now I shall leave you with this very flattering picture of my friend Margaux on a Twister mat.

Good night ya’ll!