vday lunch at lantaw busay♡

a few months back, i blogged about the lantaw floating restaurant at cordova, cebu and i was able to get lots of nice comments about it. i bet the place is still visited by lots of people from all over cebu that they decided to build one much nearer to home. when jp and i saw the billboard at banilad that the new lantaw is already opened jp called for a valentine's day reservation. we went there for lunch cos we both have work on that day and a 2-hr lunch was all that we can afford. i must say that this one is a better version of the one in cordova since it's nearer and the road going there is less hassle too.

the view from the parking area

she is a beauty, isn't she?

who say's welcome better? me or jp? tell me what you think? =)

that's my jp! a lot of times when we go somewhere jp always take my photos so since
it's valentines, i'll take his

the place calls for a casual get up so even if i have work in less than 2 hrs, i do'nt have to worry
about what to wear ☺(top: f21 shorts: wagw flats: tory burch bag: michael kors)

the same signage you see in the other lantaw at cordova

paparazzi shot! feeling like a real boss :p

the view from where we are! i do think though that this view is so much
better at night (:

more paparazzi shots of the boss!

this picture was not edited in any way! lighting is soo good! haaha

ceiling centerpiece

they have an open kitchen and you can really see from where you are how the chefs make their food

some of the food we sampled! the sisig was so good, i can finish 1 order all by myself!

their famous sun cooler which was a so-so

aww this one was the bomb too!

hello big world, i feel soo little (:

and just for this blog, i need to take a photo of their front piece

Add caption

me and mi valentino ♡!

over-all, the place was really worth the drive. of you want to relax and dine over-looking the city then this is the place to be. it's relatively easy going there especially if you are familiar with mountain view because it's the same route. it's about 500 meters from it. the only downside is, since the place is still new cebuanos's flock there by the hundreds so it would really be helpful to call a day or two in advance 

i hope you guys had fun with your valentines day and you enjoyed receiving grand gestures of love from your love one cos i sure did! 

✘ o ✘ o,

jas

i'm finally published!

earlier today, i got this text message from our toastmaster club coach:

since i have 6 hrs work at starbucks, i dint have the time to look for it in the internet but jp (being the supportive boyf that he is) looked it up for me and i felt sooo giddy reading my first ever published article in The Freeman*

here is the transcript (((:

Doctor, patient came in unconscious. Bp is deteriorating at 80/50. Pulse not noted. He is afebrile with erratic heart rate. Patient currently on IV of plain NSS at 85 gtts/hr. Defibrillator already attached.

Good evening fellow Toastmasters. I have never wanted to be a nurse. A famous and excellent engineer maybe. A witty and well-loved teacher can be, but not a nurse. I just do not think I can pull it off.

However in 2004, the year I graduated from high school, nursing was the most talked about profession in terms of going abroad and finding a better living. Without my consent, my parents already decided to put me in nursing school no matter how expensive it was. So nursing I did.

Nursing was very demanding way back in college. We were the only department which did not allow students to chose his or her units and schedule. We are to follow the blocked schedule and subjects prepared for us.

For most courses, internships happen on the last year. Its just about a semester or 2 the most. But for nurses, our formal internship starts on the 3rd year which is roughly about four semesters plus the summers in between. During this time, we are not allowed to take up any extra curricular at school.

At this early stage, we are already ridiculed by doctors when a procedure is not properly executed. We get embarrassed in the station plus we get another set of embarrassment, sort of with our clinical instructor during post conference. Then we go home with loads of paper works like drug study, pathophysiology, patients history and nursing care plans. If these are not completed, we are not allowed to go on duty the next day.

On top of that, every end of a duty week we are to present a case study of a patient care to back up what we learned that week. And if we get lucky, whenever it's exam week we have to take the exams whether we studied or not. We also gave up some holidays and vacations so we can complete our assigned cases in the hospital. Because of the number of nursing students in a school, sacrifices like that are to be made for us to graduate.

Most of us who are trying to keep up and maintain our grades have to give up our love life and social life. The price we have to pay for taking up nursing.

On the brighter side, after college, one is sure of being able to learn the skill not everyone is endowed to have, multi-tasking. I for one mastered the art of cramming ater four semesters of studying about 1530 minutes before the exam. One could already be confident of his or her cramming skills.

But really, what is the prize of being a nurse? It is being able to care for a fellow human being not necessarily someone we know. They say, doctors cure, but nurses care. The doctor visits the patient and give orders, but it is the nurses who in turn make sure that the orders are accurate and should be carried out correctly. It is our job to wholeheartedly answer the doubts, the patient may have for the medications given or the procedures done by the doctor. It is us, who instructs and patiently assesses the patient for understanding of a going home order. The smile, the patient gives after changing his or her bedsheet. The warm handshake after being discharged. The genuine thank you from the patient's family for the outstanding care which was so generously given. These and a whole lot more.

Looking back, I realized that I do not need to be the excellent engineer or the witty teacher I wanted to become. Being a nurse and being able to touch someone else's life is reason enough to love this profession---that's the prize of being a nurse.

*This was delivered on October 9, 2012 by Jasel Prill Baliong as Basic Speech Project 2, "Organize Your Speech." * divisionc.district75@gmail.com www.facebook.com/groups /division C. district 75

tick-tock, what time is it?

Tick-tock tick –tock! I used to listen to the sound of my watch when I was small. I’d put my wristwatch near my ear and listen to the endless tick-tock that it makes. Have you tried listening to your own tick-tocks?

Before the 13^th century, telling the time was very difficult. By then, mechanical clocks were not yet discovered nor invented.  But somehow, people have a way around telling the time. They used sundials.  They merely rely on the shadow the sun will cast on the sundial and they will be able to relatively tell the time. Not the exact time but better than no time at all. It will be so unlucky if a day proved to be rainy or cloudy because there will be no telling of time.

Later on, the water clock was invented and so was the candle clock, which was a little more accurate. But still, it was a challenge for them to be well exact on schedule. I bet there was no expression such as ‘on time’ or ‘on the dot’ or ‘saved by the bell’.

It was in the Middle Ages when mechanical clocks were starting to flourish. However, it wasn’t standardized until the 1800’s when railways were also flourishing.

So what exactly is the importance of time?

For a person suffering from a heart attack alone, he has only 10 seconds to call for help before losing consciousness.  For a basketball championship game whose score is a tie, the last 2-minute play will determine how the game will be remembered. For Ben Carson who operated on detaching the first ever Siamese twins, 20 seconds was all he had to stop the hearts of the twins and determine their fates altogether. For a very busy businessman who missed his plane, 5 minutes was all he could’ve needed to catch his ride.

When you try to look back in your life, how many times have you tried wishing or asking for an extension of time? Was it during a very hard physics exam when the proctor says 10 minutes more and you are still halfway on the equations? Was it during one of those airport moments when you wish the time you have with your loved one would be extended? Or was it in a hospital bed when you try bargaining everything you have just to get an extension of that person’s life laying in front of you.

In reality though, when we are not in those kinds of situations, we always seem to neglect the importance of time. We do not care if we let people wait on us in meetings, in restrooms or even in crowded restaurants. We do not consider that a second of someone else’s time may be a matter of life and death. I am sometimes guilty of abusing someone else’s time. I am embarrassed to admit that procrastination sometimes gets the better of me and phew a few hours after, I just wasted some precious time.

Don’t get me wrong though, I also agree to what John Lennon said:  the time you enjoy is not wasted time. The point is, every single time you spent which gives your existence some meaning is not wasted time. So if it’s something that gives you relaxation and pleasure, go for it. Spend it.

So today, just before you turn in, take a few minutes to review your day and find something worthwhile on how you used up your hours. And if ever you find some lapses, there is always tomorrow. After all, we are a work in progress.

Tick-tock what time is it?

the art of choosing our battles

i know this is a little out of date but i just wanted to share my thoughts on the recent fight of pacquiao. i wrote this monday night after that horrifying sunday but before publishing it in my blog, i have to deliver this first in one of our toastmaster's sesh.

The Art of Choosing Our Battles

Jon Saraceno in his headline for the USA Today wrote: “Covered in a mask of blood, the 39 year old fighter blasted Pacquiao with a huge right hand with one second remaining in the sixth round to score a decisive knockout, the first time he defeated his Filipino adversary in four attempts.”  Last Sunday, Dec 9, Marquez put a definitive conclusion to a rivalry that spanned for a total of 42 rounds in over 7 years. A jaw-dropping, unbelievable and surprisingly entertaining match for boxing and non-boxing fans alike.

Good evening toastmasters and guests.

I was not a huge boxing fan. I prefer basketball and football because these are the 2 sports I can play. But when Manny Pacquiao became a national icon, I started to consider watching his fight and eventually got interested in other boxers and the sport itself. But let’s face it, here in the Philippines majority of the people don’t really care about other boxers or other boxing fights for that matter. The only fight that we care about so much so as posting it in our facebook status or hashtagging it in our twitter timeline is that of the “Pambansang  Kamao” or Pacquiao’s. After all, he was and he is phenomenal.

To those of you who are very much into social networking, you may have read, commented and even liked statuses that talked about Pacquiao’s fall over Marquez. There was the issue of him losing because he changed religion and did not make the sign of the cross. There was that status about the RH bill connected of his defeat, which I found very funny by the way. There were also true blue fans of Pacman who voiced their admiration and approval of him as one of the famers for boxing even after the fall. Interestingly, in my own facebook timeline and twitter majority of the posts were expressing their desire for Pacman to retire and just give up those boxing gloves. They question why did he even bother fighting against Marquez when he already got him 2 times with the previous fights? Fair notion, isn’t it?. But the real question is, can he really just retire immediately as much as he wants to? As much as his family wants to? Or as much as his fans want to? And can he really choose his fights or who to fight?

We need to make one thing clear. First, we have to know that 95% of the time, boxers cannot choose who they want to contend. Before they match up with the famous, they got to be famous themselves and how do they do that? Their promoter will do everything in their power to tie up with media, get them famous by spending thousands of pesos or dollars for that matter and spend a lot of time and effort to get the boxer in the A-list.

So, case and point #1: Before Pacquiao became the icon that he is, thousands of money was spent to build him. Case and point #2: He may have already doubled or tripled the money that was spent to build him but he can only stop when his promoting company sees it as appropriate for him and his career and for their pockets too. To simply put it, Pacquiao no matter how beat-up and humiliated he already is cannot choose to end all this boxing frenzy as easy as saying, “I quit”.

But you know what battle or what fight he can choose? The battle of humility, the fight to maintain sportsmanship by honestly declaring his mistake: “I got careless, I got hit by a punch I didn’t see”

Unlike Pacquiao, we as human beings in our struggle to survive have the option to choose which battles to fight. It may be choosing to do right in a workplace, which consents to an immoral act. It may be simply keeping silent at a pissed off partner and waiting for the anger to cool down. The moment we keep our rationales above our emotions, our opponent may think that they are dominant and we lay inferior over their strong outbursts. But truth of the matter is, choosing wisely which battles to win and fight is already winning in itself. So fellow toastmasters, choose your battles wisely today.

Good evening!

and to top that, i will share some of the photos i took at the waterfront hotel and casino where we watched the fight (:

the not-so-newly renovated lobby

no one cannot have too much christmas tree photos :p

the bar at the lobby

grand staircase going to the function rooms 

another picture of the bar

the girl in the mirror :p

hello fat me!

too bad we are not allowed to take photos inside but that's where the fight was shown in several huge screens 

boxing fan, jon (the guy in violet)! 

boxing fan, jp (the guy in black) funny how i took photos of my boxing buddies  showing their
backs only! lol

happy holidays says the snowman!

i just have to take a photo of myself in that grand
staircase :p

✘O✘O,

♡jas

what's in my bag?

hello wednesday!

after 2 days full shift at starbucks, i'm finally off! i'm happy cos i can now immerse myself in the cyber world. i'm not yet (take note of yet :p) an internet addict but i'm part of the general population who frequents social networking sites, blogs, and the likes. most celebrity bloggers have already their version of what's in their bag so might as well have mine (: 

no, i'm not trying to be a celebrity here, okay? but one time, after about an hour of walking around the mall with jp i complained of pain in my right shoulder. jp then offered to (hand) carry my bag since it was causing the pain obviously. he suddenly blurted, "my god, this is so heavy lovelove! what the heck are you carrying?" haha after that, i realize that i need to smartly choose what stuff to bring moving forward to make sure that carrying my bag wouldn't be so much of a hassle.

these are my essentials (not yours, so don't judge :p)

that's my rainbow bag today!

my onto headset. i don't have one of those pricey hard case so i just put it in a ziplock!
brilliant huh?  

this white coach cellphone pouch is from tita ella (jp's mom) yeah, i always always
 bring  phone chargers!

make-up pouch: inside is ciracle bb cream, yves rocher moisturizer, compact face
powder, eyeliner, brush, chapstick, blush on, mascara, and lash curler
(some stuff i said is not seen hehe)

wallet, keys, and the green apron book of starbucks which contain coffee recipes
 i need to study

gucci and calvin klein samplers from jp's mom! they smell soooo good
and very handy too!

this is where i put 'em together with my hair comb and ties and alcohol (:

there goes my bag! yesterday, jp slipped in some m&m's and snickers for my baon daw (: yeah, he is sweet like that!

that's me today! i'm in a hurry cos jp has been waiting for 10 mins already when i took this ((:

it took me a while to really think the stuff to carry and the stuff to leave behind. for now though, i'm happy to say that my bag is way way lighter than it used to! what about you? what's in your bag?

✘O✘O,

♡jas