Crappy Weekend

I just had the crappiest weekend, literally. At first I couldn't figure out what could have caused my diarrhea but after careful review of what I ate last Friday, I was able to determine the culprit -- mushroom soup! I suddenly remembered that my stomach does not agree with shiitake mushrooms; but I have never had it this bad before. I was going to the bathroom almost every hour on the first day, and night! I was totally drained and dehydrated but still I didn't take any medication, thinking I would get better the next day. But I didn't. At least the interval lengthened from one to three, giving me a chance to catch some decent enough sleep. But I still had to keep my food intake at a very minimal amount because by this time, my bottom could not take the battering anymore. Good thing I woke up feeling a bit better this morning. My bowel is still loose but at least I didn't have a compelling urge to go running to the toilet all day. And I'm still watching what I eat, just in case.

So let this be a lesson to all. Know thy enemy, and avoid it :)

That hippie show

I recently finished watching the whole series of That 70's Show. It took me a couple of months to go through every hilarious episode, all two hundred of it! When it was first shown in the Philippines several years back, I was instantly fascinated because I would spot some home decors and appliances that were similar or exactly the same as what we had from the 70's. We had the glass fruits, framed hanging painted tiles on the kitchen wall, that brown refrigerator, orange and green-colored ceramic jugs and even the garden set. Then when I got to know more about the characters, that's when I got hooked. Unfortunately, the local TV network airing the show did not complete the entire series so it took me until now to find out everything that happened in the show.

I'm an 80's/90's kid but if I were to choose, I would choose the 70's. Maybe that era wasn't so great in this country because of martial law, but generally speaking, the 70's was groovy! Life was simpler then; as long as you have a decent job, you would be able to provide for your family comfortably. Families spent more time together because they have breakfast and supper together and watch TV at the living room together. Since there were not too many things to do, the neighborhood kids hung out together and found creative ways to entertain themselves. Contrast all these with what we have now. Sure, everything is high-tech, convenient and available in an instant but somehow, the family values and quality of life have been sacrificed.

Now if only Kelso was indeed able to invent a time machine so we can visit the glorious days of the past! But since this is not so, I'll just content myself with visiting Nostalgia Manila so I can go back and reminisce my childhood days. :)

On the road to fabulosity!

Since I am not getting any younger, I decided to start paying attention to and doing something about my looks. Just like what happened to my weight and metabolism, age has caught up with my skin. The sun's damaging rays and other external factors contributed as well. So, armed with a Slimmer's World gift certificate, I called their Trafalgar Plaza branch to have me scheduled for a free facial treatment. On the day of my appointment, I went and got my facial and felt wonderfully refreshed. I knew that this was not enough though so when the beauty consultant asked me if I would be willing to stay for a short while for a beauty discussion, I willingly obliged.

Ellen, my beauty consultant, walked me through the beauty package that would be most appropriate for me and would address my concerns. She prescribed 12 sessions of facial, 12 Diamond Ultrapeel, 12 Nutracell and 3 Glycolic Acid Peel, all spread throughout a period of one year (for more info, click here). This got me all excited until I heard the price. Good thing that they're having a buy one treatment, get one treatment promo so I can avail of the package with 50% discount. Still, I was not prepared to make the commitment because it would not fit my budget, even if I get it on 0% interest for 6 months on my credit card. I told Ellen that I will just have to wait for my salary increase this year before I can start on my face and skin program. However, I did sign-up for electrocautery to get rid of my warts so that's a start.

I had my first electrocautery session yesterday. Initially it was supposed to be the face and neck only but it turned out I also had a lot of skin tags in other areas so I upgraded my enrollment from face and skin only to full body. The first session covered the face, neck and chest so the assistant applied topical anesthesia only on those areas. After that, she put masking tape where the topical anesthesia was applied so that my skin could absorb it better. Then she left me for 30-45 minutes so that the anesthesia could take effect; I think I was able to sleep during that time. After that, the dermatologist removed the masking tapes on me and started cauterizing my warts. Thank God for the topical anesthesia, I wasn't able to feel any pain. There were maybe two or three times when I felt it (the assistant may have missed applying anesthesia on some warts); the pain was like being pinched, but with heat. I did smell the burnt skin and it wasn't pleasant. I must have more than a hundred cauterizations so the procedure took almost an hour. When it was all done, antibiotic cream was applied on the cauterized areas and I'm supposed to do this morning and evening for the next 7 to 10 days until the scabs vanish. I'll be returning to Slimmer's after two weeks for a followup session on the same areas then I'll start electrocautery sessions on the abdomen and back. Hopefully by that time I would have my merit increase already so I can sign up for other beauty treatments :-)

June Gloom

For many various reasons and a particularly major one, the month of June makes me sad. During this time, I turn to music to keep me sane. Current on my playlist is Rob Thomas' album, Cradlesong and The Script's self-titled album. I dunno why but I seem inclined towards songs that have, to borrow from Paul Doucette's words, "more uplifting melodies with really downer lyrics" (see Matchbox Twenty, my favorite band). I guess maybe because it allows me to cry and sing my heart out at the same time. Just like The Man Who Can't Be Moved:

Lyrics | The Script lyrics - The Man Who Can't Be Moved lyrics

Suffering in Suffrage

Today marks a very important event in Philippine Elections. This is the first time that we had nationwide automated voting and the experience was very promising and very horrible at the same time. What used to take 30 minutes took 3 hours for most. My sister and I were less fortunate, it took us 6 hours just to cast our vote!

The polling centers opened at 7am but we came at around 9am. We went straight to the voter's assistance desk to confirm that our names are still in the active list and to get our room assignments. We had to do this because even though we already know our precinct numbers, the room assignments would be different because five precincts were grouped into one cluster, and therefore one classroom. Our room was on the first floor of the public elementary school and that's where we spent 6 agonizing hours standing in line. What happened was there were a lot of individuals cutting the line in front so those of us at the back were not moving. There were not much volunteers to marshall the lines and no numbers were issued, like what they implemented on the other floors. Another thing that contributed to the slow lines was the time it took for the teachers to look for the voter's information sheet in the voter's book. It seems that the voter's info sheets were not arranged alphabetically so looking through them took quite a considerable time. Also since there were five precincts lumped into one classroom, you would expect that there should be one teacher assigned to each voter's book per precinct but there were only two. After finding my info sheet and affixing my signature and thumbmark, I was given my ballot and it was a breeze from thereon. I shaded my choices, fed my ballot into the PCOS machine and had a drop of indelible ink on my index finger. I guess we were still lucky because other polling centers had it worse. Some had brownouts in their area while some had PCOS machines that did not work. Also there were reports of violence in some areas, most especially in the provinces.

Hopefully things will run smoothly in the next elections. More PCOS machines should be added (provided we still use the same automated system) and something should really be done regarding the voter's information sheets. I believe this part of the voting process should be automated as well. Either they start encoding whose voter's information sheets into electronic format, or have everyone register again electronically in order to capture everyone's biometrics as well.

Now that the voting process is over, we move on to the more exciting and critical part of the election, the tallying of the votes and eventual proclamation of the winning candidates. I just hope and pray that the no padding of the vote occurs and that the results would be truly reflective of the people's choice of leaders for our nation. Then all of our suffering in casting our votes would have been all worth it. God bless the Philippines.

Start Spark

I joined SparkPeople last year but it's only now that I'm using it. I wasn't motivated to lose weight before but now I'm more decided than ever to be fit and healthy. I guess the biggest factor which contributed to my decision is my age. I've reached 30 yrs old and they say that once you reach this age, your body starts to decline. And boy, have I began to see the signs of aging! My joints are always aching, I easily get tired and I run out of breath whenever I take the stairs. I don't want want to feel like this anymore; I want to feel light and energetic. I want to be able to do the things I want to do, and look good doing them!

So far, I've set my fitness goals, tracked my calorie intake and joined a SparkTeam. I plan to follow the exercise videos as well and I'm going to do that tonight. Later on, I would like to learn to prepare nutritious meals with the help of their SparkRecipes. I've made a commitment to myself to stick to Spark at least until I've reached my goal weight. This is a big commitment for me because I really don't have the luxury of time, especially when there are project deadlines to meet. But for my sake, I am willing and determined to visit the site everyday and track my progress to a perfectly healthy and sexy me!

Click here to watch an inspirational news story about SparkPeople.