judging oblivious abandon

if not for the advantages of the previous page, i wouldn't be thinking about you. if not for the flash and the words therein, i could've ignored my memory of you. it seems you were meant to linger in my head for the rest of the night...

i already forgot about you. i just added "busy" in my vocabulary. i already gave up on you not because i wanted to but because i felt i had to. your words make a few years seem like decades. your subtle way of holding back or worse, a polite rejection. either way, i'm no rock.

but tonight i'm thinking i want to find out more about you and get to know you better. let your guard down for a moment. break the wall down and let me in for a while. you can make this go away in the morning or make this last for longer.

here comes the cold...

Walgreens

Good Day!

Dr. Ronny Chiu, Pharmacy Supervisor of the California Bay North District of The Walgreen Company, in cooperation with Rx Review Center, will be conducting a presentation about the history and benefit overview of Walgreens. Walgreens is the No.1 retail Pharmacy in the United States. The presentation will be held on November 21, 9:00 am at the Rx Review center located at 1919 F. Agoncillo St., Malate, Manila. Limited seats only. If interested, please reply with your contact details to this email address or call/text 09209254119.

Dr. Chiu will also interview qualified applicants for possible employment as pharmacy intern on November 22 and 23. Limited slots only. So if you already possess an FPGEC certificate, passed the FPGEE, or about to take the FPGEE this December, please contact me so I can schedule you an interview with Dr. Chiu.

Thank you for your time and we hope to hear from
you at the soonest time possible.

Yours Truly,

Ron Gilbert Go, RPh
Project Coordinator
Rx Review Center
http://www.rxreview.com

car crash

i was about to put my foot down, drill it to the floor even. i was about to show everyone that i'm a pushover no more. the lanes are open, pedal to the floor. flying on the highway and then all of a sudden i hit a brick wall in the middle of the road.

this morning, as i was about to go to work, i called our dog tiny but he was busy sleeping. it was a bit strange for he was an energizer bunny. but i was late and didn't bother him. the 8 hours of work did its toll on my body and the traffic jam in the city of potholes only made it worse. but the worst was still to come. i came home and my cousin asked me "did u cry?"

i was perplexed. why would i cry? then they realized i haven't heard the news. tiny passed away and joined his friend spark in dog heaven.

only two nights ago, he was like on a sugar rush. moving around in circles doing anything to catch my attention. he will only stop once i played with him. i think he was a lonely dog. that makes us two. he grew up with spark always by his side but these past few days he had no one during daytime for everyone had their own thing going. i keep on thinking, i could've done something. if only i took a couple of seconds to check on him this morning, i could've saved him from what will eventually end his life. another lesson to be learned.

i'm putting my reinvention on hold. for no matter how much we hate the world or just the people around us, we'll surely miss them once they're gone. and anyone can go in a snap. how many times will we have to be reminded to say "i love you" to the ones we love or even make them feel appreciated?

say hi to spark for me tiny...

reinvented

after almost a year of growing my hair long, i've decided to cut it short again. i figured if i'm going to be a professional, i have to look like a professional. cutting my hair short was just the tip of the iceberg as far as changes from last year are concerned.

this time last year, i was still in college, trying to make ends meet just to get where i am right now. how i wish i could do the opposite. no longer am i staying up late studying for an exam. i now stay up late because i can't sleep, hounded by questions that only time can answer.

this time last year, working abroad or even the thought of it was impossible for me to comprehend. yes, the money is there but it's for a price. you'll be sacrificing being with family and friends. you'll be sacrificing the life, no matter how difficult, you're comfortable with. some might argue that you sacrifice for the future of your family. have they thought of the sacrifice that the whole family will have to endure when a loved one goes away? i've always believed that you don't have to break-up the family to keep it alive. though i still believe so, i've opened my doors. i'm now seriously considering working outside of the country not mainly to make money and have a secured future, but more so to have a fresh start...

this time last year, i was the all around nice guy, even if i know that nice guys finish last. the past year i've learned that being nice will get you nowhere and i've decided to tone it down a bit. in this world, only a handful see and appreciate the good in people, and only to them will i be good, they deserve it.

it's always a balancing act, where God merits your good deeds and the people around you take advantage of it. i now understand. for years i've upset the balance doing all the good that i can. it's now time to get dirty with people who get dirty but still be nice to people who are nice. only God can judge me.

long sleeves and cab talk

i was ready for my job interview but i was running late on schedule. it's a good thing that the heavens were smiling at me, the series of fortunate events kept me on track. first was catching an fx taxi in valenzuela, a rare occurrence since last year. then at monumento station, crowds were spilling from the platform on to the sidewalks. it's a good thing the fx route was up to 5th ave. there were long lines as well but there was an express lane for those who already have tickets. good thing i still have my stored-value ticket from last month. still running a bit late, i decided to take a taxi cab on buendia. the roads were full of taxi cabs but were all taken. but after a long long walk from taft avenue, i found one. i came in 10 minutes early.

a heavy sunday

just when i thought things couldn't get any worse, now comes this. while i'm on a silent feud with my grandfather, a beloved pet died.

for 3 days now, i've been on a constant frown, keeping in the profanity but my face surely was not hiding it. old people can sometimes be such inconsiderate assholes that they care for no one but themselves. maybe they're thinking that they only have a few years left of existence and we should make it great for them. i totally agree. but if having their way makes life a living hell for the people around them, it's a totally different thing. don't get me wrong, i do have some love for my grandpa, but him throwing his weight around is just wrong. on the contrary, i think it would be better if he would do good things for the people around him and make his last few years on earth count. that's what i'd do.

and then some more bad news. spark, our laidback companion, died this morning. he was only 3 1/2 years old. he only knows two tricks, eating and sleeping. it probably got the better of him causing some problems and now he's in dog heaven.

our first dog was puffy, a japanese spitz. a few years ago, he got away and didn't return for a week. my mom was very depressed at the time and bought another dog. she found spark, a 3-month old labrador and since his owner at the time was leaving the country, spark came with his pal tiny, a mixed breed pomeranian. then after a week puffy came back from out of nowhere and then we had ourselves three little critters. spark just slept his way throughout the day, getting up only when it's time to eat or if he wants his belly to be scratched. he grew from a small puppy to a giant dog in only a few months time. for the last few days, he wasn't eating and last night we decided to bring him to the vet. my mom had the chance to see him one last time earlier this morning but got a call later.

if there's anything in this world that i'm scared of, it's death. not only my death but more on a death of a loved one. i'm scared to lose the ones around me but i think this is God's way of preparing me for the inevitable.

rest in peace buddy...

the road to employment

jobstreet.com has become a friendster for the past couple of months; every time i'm online, i just have to log-in and check if anything's up. i applied for any pharmacist position that suits me and there isn't much. and after waiting for what seems like an eternity, i finally got a couple of calls from would-be employers. the dates were set and my journey has begun.

makati city is undoubtedly the business mecca of the philippines and being familiar with every street and every corner of the busy city is invaluable to a job hunter like me. and since makati is 2 hours away from valenzuela, i knew finding the right buildings would be tough. that was until the information superhighway offered some help. after searching for maps, i found the website kabeet.com, an interactive internet mapping system. a few more clicks and there it was. zoom in and zoom out, pan left and right, every building and every street is just a click a way. getting lost was an impossibility.

another board exam scandal?

the nursing board exam leakage scandal is on its death bed. i'll give it a month's time 'til it's finally laid to rest. it will rest but not in peace. i doubt if the issue will be resolved, but i bet it will lose its fire and be forgotten. it's not a surprise considering the history of politics in the country. be it a leakage, corruption, money laundering, election cheating, or even murder, if someone big is behind it, more often than not, he'll get away with it. and while the PRC tries it's best to resolve the nursing issue, i've discovered another issue concerning board examinations. this does not concern the PRC directly, but it's an issue that mirrors the origins of the much talked about leakage...

july 2006. i, together with 1,208 other pharmacy graduates coming from 37 schools took the pharmacist licensure examinations. UST's sharlene lao claimed the top spot, 2 points clear of 2nd placer jeane constantino from UP Manila. my alma mater was disappointed to say the least but as a consolation prize, it was the only school to have a 100% passing rate.

a month ago, after the results have been released and after taking our oaths, my aunt told me that she saw a banner at our lady of fatima university congratulating its students for having a 100% passing rate. i was surprised and just assumed that it was an old banner as fatima had a 100 passing rate a year ago, with 4 out of 4 students passing the board exam.

i was on my way home last week stuck in traffic when a yellow banner caught my eye. i saw the lines "July 2006 Pharmacist Licensure Exams," "100% Passing Rate," and "Our Lady of Fatima" all in one streamer and i thought this isn't right. i tried to give them the benefit of a doubt thinking maybe they got the info wrong or something but i think by now, 2 months after the results have been released, they should've corrected themselves already. the proud banner still hangs to this day.

i have nothing against OLFU, i just want the truth to be heard. if this is OLFU's way to get more students of pharmacy to enroll in their system, then i'm certainly against it. healthy competition is always good but when things get dirty, as with the review center wars that lead to the leakage, it's a different story. besides, 11 out of 14 fatima students passed the boards for an average of 79%, where's the shame in that?

the adventure

A friend asked me to download the song "The Adventure" by Angels and Airwaves. I had no idea at the time of what the song was like, but from the sound of it, i assumed it was a soundtrack song for a disney movie. And so with nothing else to do on an active internet connection, i downloaded the song on limewire. and after completing the download, i was instantly brought back to the penshoppe denimlab rockfest.

it was at the rockfest where i heard the song for the first time. it played as the opening music for the program while the projectors started showing 20 years of penshoppe. i don't know why but somehow, the music matched the moment.

the short presentation highlighted the ad campaigns of penshoppe through the years. remember their slogan "Be True" and "Express Yourself?" though i'm not one of them, i recall half of the gradeschool population twirling baby towels on their fingers with a logo of either a flower for Be True or bold letters of EY! for Express Yourself. i never really figured out how to continuously spin a small towel on a finger but i do have at least 10 penshoppe shirts back then.

in a world where people would rather buy an imitation of a high-end brand than an original mid-class product, penshoppe should reinvent itself. the collections they paraded that night on the runway was definitely notches higher than the penshoppe we know of. they're in the right direction as far as reinvention is concerned but they also must not forget their roots.

it's funny how we associate anything with music. a love song reminds you of a former love, slow music brings you back to slow dances at junior prom, and angel's and airwaves' "the adventure" brought me back to araneta center. this is for sure not the last time a song will give me blasts from the pasts, after all, music is the soundtrack of life...