I received this in the mail today, and it inspired this post on credit cards over ay my Blogger blog.
I browsed through it of course, to see what hotels Alfred and I may be interested to check out. I’d love to just grab an overnight bag and drive somewhere with him and enjoy the comfy beds, sheets and pillows, the cold airconditioning, room service and all the good stuff even for just one night. But we don’t have a car and neither on of us has a driver’s license (pathetic, no?). Who knows though, we may just be able to squeeze in a romantic one night getaway this summer…
I’m starting to feel bad about my photoblog. It hardly ever gets updated, I still post my photos here because I want to post my Project 365 photos in order there. I also think though, that one of the underlying reasons why I hardly upload photos there, is that it doesn’t have a real photo gallery functionality, which is what I really want from a photoblog. I’ll find time to restructure the blog… but not after redesigning this one (which is uhm, three months late already).
I have Idol on the background, a guy’s singing Stand by Me. Not bad. I have not followed this season from the start so I don’t really know the contestants and have no favorites. Who are you rooting for?
This past weekend was the longest I’ve had off work since our Bohol vacation last year. But this wasn’t a vacation; yes I was away from my regular job, but I was working too where I went. I need time to process my thoughts of the weekend. I just hope I don’t completely forget to blog about it like so many other things I’ve left for later then never got around to.
I had a long Thursday night at work – 14 hours straight! The closer shift had logged out at 2PM and I was just wrapping up at that time. I had intended to go to the hospital for the Spirometry results and then head on over to help out with the camp preparations at Asia ACTs. But I ended up with time for only one task – I had to choose the follow up check up.
At the Medicard clinic in St. Luke’s, I didn’t have to wait long to get the results or to be seen by a physician. The test results didn’t show any blockage, and my lungs were normal. So what the heck is wrong? The residen ENT was on duty and was just next door so my case was referred to her. I wonder why that wasn’t done earlier?
Anyway, Dr. Que was the ENT and she’s nice. She went through my records and asked me a couple of questions. Then she told me that she wanted to look inside my nose, using a nasal endoscopy. Man, it was long! I asked if it was going to be painful and she said it usually isn’t. I was relieved that she didn’t really probe too far in. Phew. It took just probably 10 seconds to look into both nostrils. She said that it was narrow up there, which is probably why I also have shortness of breath sometimes. Then she said that she wanted to see if it’s the anatomy that’s causing the non-stop colds, instead of an infection. If it was an infection, the antibiotics should have killed it, but it’s still around. So she ordered a nasal xray to be done on me. She further showed me illustrations of the nasal cavity, and what mine seems to look like at the moment. She also advised me to stay away from coffee and chocolates as it encourages build up of phleghm. Ugh. That is so hard to do.
From the doc, I decided to go ahead and have my xray taken, rather than go back on another day. If the three test I had were billed to me, I’d have spent over 5,000 Pesos already (more than a hundred US dollars), not including the medicine. Good thing that I have coverage. Anyway, the xray results were due for release the next day, but I’ll claim it next week when the doctor resumes work. It’s Holy Week and most people are on holidays (except us).
From the X-ray room, I paid my aunt a vist. She was rushed to the hospital the night before for extreme pain in her tummy. As it turns out, she has pancreatitis. She was discharged on Monday, but is continuing her medication so she can get even better. I hope it doesn’t progress to anything more serious.
I stayed there for about two hours, with two of my cousins. Ma called to say that she and Dad decided to eat out, so they picked me up from the hospital and we headed to Shakey’s. The mojos looked smaller than usual! I snapped a few photos, but I’m growing sleepy again. I’d leave the photos for another day.
So I noticed something weird on my EC widget today – the ads seemed to have changed twice (that I’ve noticed) since I logged online. What’s up with that? The ads run for an entire day don’t they? Then I hopped on over to one of the blogs on my widget and read his post about having 30 or more ad requests that seem to have been stuck on his dashboard. I finally logged on to EC and found I had a long list of Paid Ads request!
I didn’t read the comments on the blogger’s post so I don’t know what the explanation is, but good thing is that mine are not stuck and I can access my dash just find. I’ll find time to make sense of these paid ads later on tonight or tomorrow. I’ve been back in the city for about five hours already, and I’ve sat in front of my computer for the last three. I had a wonderfully long weekend, headaches and all. I had a taste of my old life (although I wasn’t too busy this time around, okay, I slacked off a lot of times!). Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that a lot of things are milling around in my mind, and I don’t want to read through the new system in EC to cloud it even more. I’ll get to that in time.
For now, here’s a much belated shout out to my top EC droppers for the past month:
The boyfriend’s here but I can’t peel my eyes off the PC just yet…
I spent a few hours of my day at the hospital this morning to undergo a Spirometry test. It was an interesting exam. There’s a pre- and post-exam that I guess measures if taking Ventolin or some kind of asthma medication would make any difference. The technicians had me retry the pre-test several times because I was falling below the normal range. There was significant change after three puffs of Ventolin.
I knew I was going to breathe through something, but I didn’t realize I had to sit in that contraption! It was a glass booth with these tubes and a chair. You had to suck in and breathe out through the tube, with your nose clipped so no air could go through it. It was a bit uncomfortable because you’re in a booth, but yeah you get used to it. I just had to take a photo but I snapped just this one lest the technicians found me weird. Haha.
There was a minor power failure just when we were about to begin with the test, and the technicians weren’t able to get the computer and the machine started up right away. I had to wait awhile but I didn’t mind because one of the techs and I were chatting about his work at another BPO.
I’ll be going back to the hospital tomorrow to claim the results and take it back to the doctor. I still don’t see what all these have to do with my colds?
Caffeine and chocolate was not allowed within eight hours prior to the test, so at work I stopped drinking coffee at around 2am. That was quite an effort because I didn’t get much sleep the previous night. And no chocolate! How was I to keep awake? Haha. So I decided to treat myself to a good lunch after the test. I headed to Delifrance. Even before I stepped through the threshold of the cafe, I knew what I was going to order:
That’s a half Oriental Shrimp Salad. I love shrimp on greens, and the dressing here is very tasty 🙂 I probably shouldn’t have ordered a drink to go with it, but I could not resist this, and to be honest, I didn’t regret ordering:
I usually order a Green Tea Frappuccino at Starbucks, but this one was even better! I probably should have skipped the whip. I deserved the treat though.
76181 this number will have no relevance to anyone but i need to remember this to follow up on something next week… Haha…
Last week, I had a discussion with photographer friend Edsel about getting a developing kit so I could process films at home. He was so animated about it that I was almost convinced. 🙂 We also got to talking about enrolling in photography classes. I’d probably go for the most basic ones available while as for him, he’d probably just need a venue to rehash his knowledge. Then the day after, I was speaking to film photography hobbyist Archie who was also considering buying a DSLR. Learning more about the art of photography, and getting more intimate with the tools of the trade (aka learning about camera functions and settings) seem to be the most attainable of all the things I want to do at this point.
Gosh, Archie and I even discussed how easy it is to take out a loan from SSS and that would be perfect seed money for a DSLR. Since payment for the salary loan is for 2 years, you’d hardly feel the deduction every month. Ahh tempting.
I spent hours yesterday searching for information on photography workshops and with each page I visit, I become more convinced that this is something I can do. I was even more inspired when I landed on SirNicolay’s blog. Checkout his teaser:
I am going to pickout a schedule soon, and I hope I can convince the boyfriend to sign up with me too. Too bad SirNicolay does not teach film photography, so I’m trying to decide if I’ll use my point and shoot for the class, or finally get a DSLR or borrow a similar built/model as the one I’m buying someday. Haha. There are other workshops that cater to both film and digital, but it’s much expensive. Besides I love the small groups that SirNicolay’s classes seem to turn out to be – there’s more of a one-on-one feel.
My interest in photography as a hobby is also something that Jo and I talked about last Sunday. By the time her wedding rolls over, I should have a DSLR already! Oh and speaking of her wedding, she has a garden venue in mind already but she’s not quite fully convinced yet (as of last time we spoke). I was trying to be a good friend and help her find other possibilities but couldn’t find much. How I wish there was a listing for wedding venues in one place with lots of photos to help you consider which ones to actually visit. You know, much like the page that could be used to find your ideal Pigeon Forge Tennessee hotel. Okay, maybe there is such a page for Pinays preparing for their weddings, I just haven’t found it, haahaha.
