The Trip To The Equine Farm

This is actually long over due since I took this trip about 2 weeks ago, and I’ve been meaning to blog about this for awhile but just haven’t gotten around to it. Since I have a little free time on my hands, I thought I’d post about it.

My friend Miguel is a classmate of mine at CVM and so he invited all of our rotation to come out and hang out with him at his home in Batangas. We all agreed to spend some time there since at the time we were recovering from a very long bout of exams and presentations and because it was a three day weekend.

We headed to Batangas, which is about an hour-and-a-half away from Los Banos and then saw this expansive farm. We always knew that Miguel lived on an equine farm, but this farm was secluded from the rest of the homes in the area and had a lot of land. Frankly, I was really surprised, but when we got there we got to experience a little of what they do on the farm.

Miguel’s family is really warm and welcoming. It was a great to have a break at his place since it was ultra cozy and the food was good! Miguel’s mom is a really good cook I have to say.

Just take a look at that spread! Yum!

I also played a little piano for the folks. Apparently Miguel’s mom likes piano players… haha.

Miguel allowed us do take a tour of the farm and we got to see some really cool Thoroughbred horses. These are really different from the horses that we worked on TABON back at Los Banos as these horses were huge! Also, they were clean and well-taken care of. Miguel’s farm usually raises horses and then sells them to places where they’ll get trained for horseracing.

We did some interesting things, like doing rectal palpation and ultrasound on pregnant and non-pregnant horses. I have to say, that it’s a skill that I have to develop since I don’t do it too often, but it was still cool to do it on these nice looking horses nonetheless.

We eventually even got to ride the horses. It was only a teaser horse so it was quite small. While the girls are small and me and the other guys felt bad riding it. It seemed really tired… :(

Miguel’s mom kept feeding us so eventually we retired to the house once again. There was a karaoke machine that we all gathered around. We kept singing and singing for goodness knows how long. Some decided to play basketball and golf while at the farm while others enjoyed the food, singing and company.

We were supposed to leave around 2pm but ended up staying until around 7pm! We definitely had a lot of fun and again I have to thank Miguel and his family for his hospitality.

Let’s hope we can do it again sometime!

My Trip To Caliraya… and a sandwich hut.

So remember that I told you guys that I was an honorary member of the Lady Veterinarian (LV) organization at UPLB? (You may think that’s weird, but hey, the ladies love me… haha, joke :P ). Well they were nice enough to have a gathering today in Caliraya, Laguna. It’s about an hour and a half away from here in Los Banos, so the girls chartered a jeep and by 9:30 this morning we were off to have some fun.

My physiology teachers Dr. Amie Estacio and Dr. Rina de Luna are the advisers for LV and they helped set up this trip. The organization set up a place in Caliraya where we could spend the day to relax, eat lunch, go kayaking and fly some kites. I was the only guy on the trip besides the ones Doc Amie had with her (not sure if they’re her nephews or something), but regardless, I always feel comfortable with these girls. They’re a really nice bunch, and very warm and welcoming. I was honored to be asked if I could be one of their honorary members last year. I thought it was cool before, but it gets even better because I get to go to these LV-exclusive events. Lots of fun indeed.

Once we got there we set up camp… Doc Amie and Doc Rina had two tents we could set up so they made me in charge of setting them up and they assigned me LV minions to help me. Lots of them were very helpful actually… but of course they made me do all the hammering of the pegs. When I asked why I had to do it, Doc Rina said it was because I was a guy and that’s what guys are for. That kind of made me laugh.

After that some of the girls set up a grill to make some grilled liempo (which is basically pork chops with fat) and we had some salted eggs, rice, soy sauce with chopped onions and tomatoes and some grilled eggplant. We didn’t have enough forks and spoons so we just all ate with our hands. Really felt like we were living in the outdoors… But the food was delicious, let me tell you that. Good job to the girls who cooked it. :)

Shortly after the meal we washed up, got into our bathing suits and then tested out the beach. It was a little muddy, but a good temperature so we jumped right in. Eventually, the kids set up 2 kites which we played with for awhile and then we got a 2-person kayak to go around the lake. At the same time some of us also ventured around the area to see the scenery.

We did this until around 4pm and then we started to head home. We did a lot today and so many of us fell asleep on the jeep ride. I almost missed my stop actually!

Tonight I decided to try out a new place for dinner. In LB Square (a place where many bars and cafes are here in Los Banos), a new sandwich place popped up called the Submarine Sandwich Hut. They serve good quality Italian sausages and great sardine sandwiches (which is something I tried tonight). Pam, one of the owners, was someone I talked to tonight. It seems that the place is attracting a lot of foreigners since sandwich places are a staple in American culture. Heck, it’s the same reason why I decided to try it out. So if you happen to be in Los Banos and are near LB Square, I suggest that you try this place out. :)

Okay, I’m off to catch up with some friends before hitting the sack. I’ve got a lot of things to do tomorrow, as usual.

So I’ll catch you guys soon. See you later ya’ll!

What A Week It’s Been!

Cystocentesis & Cystotomy in a Feline

Ahhhhh, so the week is almost over. It’s Thursday night and I’m sitting at home after some dinner and just relaxing for a bit. I had my physiology lab test today which went alright for the most part and then had to run to surgery afterwards to help my friend Faye with a cystocentesis and cystotomy procedure. We finished within 2 hours and everyone worked hard, so we were the first ones out of the 3 groups in lab today.

I realized that I do a bad thing when I have a lot of stuff to do in a day. If I have a lot to do and a lot to study for or have an impending exam that day I’ll take every short break I have and run to the cafeteria for a snack. I think today I ran to the cafeteria about 3 times to get something to eat. It’s kind of a bad habit of mine… always wanting something sweet to fill in the gaps between classes, tests and such. I was on such a roll with the exercise bit for the last month but this past week I wasn’t able to actually do any exercise. Usually I’d run or do some type of cardio for at least 30 minutes to an hour and I was able to fit a little weight lifting into all of the craziness. But this past week has been a blur and I’ve been feeling more tired and cranky than usual.

I don’t like to get up in the morning. My alarm goes off and I hit snooze thinking to myself, “Just 15 more minutes…”. That is why I set two alarms… I can never really get up the first time unless I push myself.

So now after dinner I’m feeling relaxed and sitting at my computer I’ve decided to tweak the background and color a little bit for the site. Nothing really flashy, but just something to make it more pleasing to the eye. Belle, one of my surgery teammates, visits my blog a lot and said that the color I put in the first revision of this site I did yesterday was quite interesting since it was a lavender or lilac color. She said it was kind of girly looking, but to tell you the truth I get that a lot. (Just so you know, I’m red-green colorblind. :P ). I always make mistakes like that when it comes to designing and art… oh well. I’ll leave the colors to people who really know which ones are pleasing to the eye.

Gonna rest a bit… maybe get some coffee with some friends later and then hit the sack. The week is almost over but it isn’t quite yet as I have to run to my equine rotation tomorrow at the veterinary teaching hospital in the morning.

I’ll leave you all with a picture of me helping out Faye during our surgical procedure today. Catch you all later!