Franz Marie Cruz’s Diary

Sigh, shopping, perhaps it both genetic and has an environmental component.  I remember my mom bringing me along quite frequently when she went shoe shopping when I was too young to appreciate, enjoy and have enough patience with it.  (She had most of her dresses made then so instead of clothes shop we went to fabric stores.  And I loved the dresses and skirts she had made for herself.  I loved the fabric she picked out, silky, smooth and soft, in nice pastel colors, and the pattern or cut she had them made, flowy skirts and A-line dresses. Too bad too that I never got to salvage them when she gave them away as they all looked quite heavy on the shoulders, with the padding and all and are already outdated and out-of-style some 15 years later.) But she’d regularly buy me dresses from Cinderella and shoes from SM Department Store in my grade school years.  I remember her coming home one day with 3 new dresses for me and also a number for my brothers.  I remember my aunts opening my closet when I was 9 and gushing to the abundance of dresses they found in there.  I grew up with the impression that all moms have plenty of shoes and in all colors.  In the late 80’s, my mom with her big permed hair had pink flats to go with her pink and blue floral skirt and pink knitted top. She had red flats, violet pumps, gold stilettos aside from the usual black, blue, brown, taupe, and burgundy shoes.  I believe she was the most fashionable

OB

resident/young consultant during her time (and maybe until now).  In senior year in HS when my class was required to watch a play at Shangri-La, I allowed my mom to dress me up in her green/black/maroon paisley jacket with my black fitted top, green pants and black shoes.  I sure did get compliments for my get-up.  And I dressed that way –  Color coordinating and matching — for the next decade.  (Perhaps my mom is my style icon.) And so over the numerous shopping years and my mom and I sharing the same shoe size, the only color of footwear we are lacking in our combined shoe collection is green! We have red (pink and burgundy), orange, (oh, no yellow), blue, lilac, gold, silver, bronze, white, black and various shades of brown.  Unfortunately, she’s one size larger in the clothes department and so I don’t raid her closet as much as her shoe rack.  But my closet has become an extension of hers, she borrowing a few of my tops and skirts she can fit in. While I sometimes borrow non-expensive jewelries and accessories her patients give her.

Ironically, my mom and I don’t shop together.  She’d sometimes text to inform me to check out the sale in this and this store, or check out the shoe she has reserved for me at Nine West (which I didn’t like so much for the price it was selling for).  I also rather shop alone so I don’t feel guilty of making some poor soul wait while I try on lotsa stuff and no guilt too with the purchases I make, so magastos!  Besides, I’m not the kind of shopper who needs consultation with a confidante whether to buy an item or not.  But I find out na mas napapabili ako when the salesladies are nicer and more maasikaso (nakakaguilty if you don’t buy the item) or they’re the gushing kind, complimenting you on how great you look in that item they are selling.  Anyway, that is of course, if I have the money to spend.  I prefer the tiangges in Greenhills more over any shopping mall.  I like buying nice stuff for a steal and I’m not as brand-conscious as I was in college.  I suppose I get more value with my money there.  Probably the same reason too why I enjoy shows like The Look for Less.  Same reason din why I probably enjoyed shopping at

Bangkok

(tiangge everywhere)  more than in

Singapore

(where everything is branded and expensive).  Now, my occasional splurges however would include something from Rustan’s or Mango.

My friend, J, recently published an article on her blog about, probably, one of our greatest passions in life – books.  J and I have been friends since first day of first year highschool at the Philippine Science High School where we spent 4 geeky years of our adolescent lives.  We read almost the same books and together enjoyed and splurged on the biannual booksales at National Bookstore,

.  Every first week of the month, we’d each go for a trip to Goodwill Bookstore in SM North Edsa to purchase the latest book of the Sweet Valley Series.  We witnessed the price of a

Sweet

Valley

book climbed up incrementally from P30 something to P59.00.  Through different influences later on, she digressed to read sci fi (Star Trek, Star Wars, Isaac Asimov) while I preferred trashy romance novels (Judith McNaught, Amy Tan, etc).  We both acquired a large collection of books over the years.  During early college, we both scrounged to complete each of our Erich Segal collection.  I was satisfied with the newer reprints of his book, but she would buy the older, hardbound versions from various booksales.  Until now, she would buy nicer reprints of books by Dan Brown as coffee table books while the only coffee table book I bought for myself was that of defunct HBO cable TV series, Sex and the City.  Books were our first common interest.  Shopping was the other.

I think our first real shopping started in third year high school.  We frequented kamiseta then and spent a fraction of our stipends each on a blouse.  Prior to clothes shopping, our trips to the mall, mainly SM North Edsa (as it was the nearest and farthest commute we can go), during the first 2 years of HS consisted of sprees at Blue Magic and Papemelroti. Our shopping proficiencies were brushed up most especially during summer vacations.  Together with R and sometimes with E, we eventually learned to commute to SM Megamall and Shangri-La.  We’d usually meet up at Jollibee Philcoa in the morning, take a bus to our destination and be home before the sun went down.  Aside from National Bookstore, Goodwill Bookstore and kamiseta, our other “favorite” stores then were Traditions, Personalized It!, Odyssey, Gift Gate and Marcella (where we bought our matching birett).  We discovered the tiangges in Greenhills together and rode the bus as far as Glorietta in

Makati

.  We rarely shop together now.  J does it now with her fiancé at

Singapore

while I prefer to shop alone at various tiangges and bazaars here in

Manila

.   

Long before we started to waste our time away at coffee places such as Starbucks,

Seattle

’s Best, etc, J, R and I would frequently hang out at Red Ribbon ordering 1 slice of cake each and chatting the afternoon away.  We’d stay there for 2 hours or so, sometimes after a day of walking around the mall or after and in-between classes, taking the smallest bites to our slices of cake.  Sometimes we have other friends over (R2, R3 and R4) and we just enjoy the lazy pace of the afternoon, each other’s company and kwento and the sugar-rush.

Boo-hoo. My team in The Amazing Race got eliminated in today’s episode.  Draaaatt….  Ijust checked out their official site on the web and learned of the sad development.  =( It should have been the Weavers.  I suppose that Gaghans’ luck finally ran out.  The husband and wife are twice as strong as anyone in the race.  They paddle, pedal, saw lumber, push and pull a rickshaw twice as hard as anyone.  And the kids are the cutest!

Symptom that I had enough of vacation and bumming around: boredom.  After 5 days of staying at home, lounging in my parents’ bed all day, drifting in and out of sleep with the TV on and stuffing myself with junkfood during wake periods, I have to get out, go somewhere and do something tomorrow.  I was too lazy the past 5 days to even go out for a jog! 

Well, I didn’t exactly stay at home yesterday, 1st day of November.  We did what we usually do as a family on All Souls’ Day.  We drove to my lola’s house in Bulacan for lunch then visited our dead relatives post-prandial.  On our way back the cemetery, my mom buys puto-bungbong and bibingka from the same person every year. 

So far, orientation to the 3-year residency program of Ophtha in PGH has been OVERWHELMING and INTIMIDATING. As an incoming first year resident I’ll start out at the bottom rung, the scum in the food chain and even after 4 years of premed and 5 years of med school, I am back to square one and with a clean slate. It is scary. I am very much anxious about the coming year. Foremost of my apprehensions is the fear of the mistakes I am bound to make and its consequences and repercussions. I just hope they won’t be as grave as to cause any disability to my patients and that every future mistake is the first and last of its kind. Lesson learned guaranteed. I am scared of getting on the bad side of my seniors, of becoming the target of their anger. Even before I was accepted to the department, I was already faced with 2 big hurdles: to disprove my unfavorable psych report and to measure up to my consultants’ expectations of me. When I think about the challenges and workload that lie ahead of me (and right now it’s as vague as the images seen by a highly myopic person without corrective lenses) and I begin to doubt myself and the decisions I am making, I just try to remember the valuable "lessons" I learned from my "application period" in Phi. Perform to the utmost of my abilities. Never settle for mediocrity. Show the right attitude towards work, my patients, and my seniors and batchmates AT ALL TIMES. Humility, sensitivity, resourcefulness, academic integrity, etc. Take one day at a time. (But in my case, it is more like one morning at a time as Ophtha residents start their day real early… 5ish am and it’s always so hard for me to get out of bed before 8am…. I abuse my snooze until I find myself later on rushing to get on my post on time). Anyway, it is just a year and I will be getting the BEST possible training in the ONLY department I like in PGH and in the Philippines. They’ve said over and over again that first year is the most difficult year but also that it’ll only get better past it. Besides, I really can’t see myself as any other else than an ophtha resident in PGH. But hell, it is still scary. I do not know anything. Everything is so expensive. Ganun pa rin, I just hope this is really God’s plan for me.

Chic lit that is worth your money: Bergdorf Blondes by Plum Sykes. The lead character is as shallow, unbelievable (can there be really a person such as her?) and inwardly flawed as Sophie Kinsella’s protagonist in her Shopaholic Series, Rebecca Bloomsomething. The storyline is not original either. It’s size 2 Bridget Jones turned into a society girl (Paris Hilton?) with 3 Hugh Grant characters before she and Colin Firth character end up together at the end. But Plum Sykes makes up for it by using the funniest, most original, albeit shallow, metaphors like:

"It’s like the place looks really cute , but in reality it’s a minefield to my shoes. The fact is that it’s more like Wuthering Heights there than Emma most of the time."

"I have to say that the place was totally giving Gosford Park."

"He was totally giving Orlando Bloom."

And expressions such as:

Beyond

used as in " I so looove your (input any designer shoes) shoes. It so beyond."

SPDV

. At a party you may scout the crowd and say "SPDV". Same people, different venue.

Glam

and icky are opposite adjectives. "Eeew, that look is last season. It’s so icky." or "I want to be like her. She’s so glam."

If you liked the movie Clueless, you just might like this book.

===================================

I think Jennifer Weiner is overrated. For someone who has written a book that already has been adapted into a movie, her latest book Little Earthquakes is a mediocre. Yeah, I may not relate at all with the emotions and tribulations experienced by new moms but definitely this is no Waiting to Exhale or Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club or The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. But I could forgive her for that, consider it a fluke or something. So I try another book of hers, Good in Bed. I’m almost halfway and it’s pretty much disappointing and quite banal. The title doesn’t say much of the story. The first half of the book dealt about heartbreak and everything that one feels and resorts to when a relationship ends: from bitterness, depression, denial to going after the guy. I’ve read a number of books about the same thing already, I witnessed friends undergo the same series of emotions and there’s frankly nothing new in this book. I’m losing patience with the lead character, Cannie Shapiro, and the book plus the author. It’s not even witty or funny; forget original it is so NOT. C.S. is just plain bitter and depressed, it’s making me feel that way too. Her character is so uninteresting. She yaks on and on about the same thing for I don’t know how many pages (way too many if you ask me). I can’t take it anymore. You know what it is like to have an acquaintance (not even a friend ha) tell you about a small short segment of his/her life over and over again, obsessing every detail about it to you. Well, that’s exactly how it feels like reading this friggin book. Spare me your frigging problems on your weight and your ex and get on with your boring life. Problem is, I can’t NOT finish the book. I did start it and want to see her through. And yeah, you shouldn’t critique a book when you’re only halfway through it, but….

Oh freak, the Gaghan family almost got eliminated! They came in 2nd to the last or 7th place.  Sadly the Aiello family got to the pit stop last and was eliminated.  I like them pa naman.  They’re 4 sweet men.  Who I am not particularly liking are the Weaver family (half the members are Ward 7 material) and Paulo family (shrilly mom and whiny son). 

I am really admiring the Gaghan mom and dad.  They’re very patient and encouraging with their kids.  You won’t hear any negative criticisms from them, nor have they raised their voice on each other or anyone in the race so far.  They’re kinda boring actually compared to the other families, if not for their cute kids.

Clearly, I am loving this show.

I’m loving my 6 weeks old mini-iPod. When it comes to computers and gadgets, I might as well have been born in the 1950s; in other words, I’m next to illiterate. So it is only very recently that I discovered and learned how to use a form of peer-to-peer software to download mp3s via the net. Kewl. With my iPod-mini, I can listen and sing along to my favorite songs anytime I want, from the Madonna hits I listened to in highschool to Gwen Stefani’s latest releases. I’m even jogging more often lately so I can jog with my new toy. I also don’t mind waiting as long as I have it with me, fully charged.

I love chocolates and don’t quite understand people who don’t. I used to prefer Cadbury over anything else. Milky Way’s #2 in my list. I used the phrase "used to prefer" as lately I have been buying and munching nothing but Hershey’s milk chocolate. The Hershey’s happiness commercial is most effective, don’t you agree? I first saw them on cable when I’d catch my daily dose of Friends rerun back when I was studying for the boards. After that it seems that I have only been buying and craving for a bar of their milk chocolate at least once every week. I also know of someone who is on a low-carb diet but wasn’t able to resist his sweet tooth and just had to give in and get himself a Hersheys bar.

"I eat Hersheys when I’m hungry, studying, reading, bored, when I need an energy boost just before I jog or after jogging, for dessert, or when I’m just simply craving for it."

I can’t stop talking about the latest season of The Amazing Race: The Family Edition. I can hardly wait for Wednesdays to come. I’m rooting for the Gaghan family with the 2 cute, adorable, able, and competitive kids. I hope they don’t get eliminated. Would it be too much to ask that they win the race? Though I’m very much hoping they’ll fly out of the USA in the next episode. The race is turning out much like an educational trip with stops at historical landmarks in the US.

(Other TV shows that I have incorporated in my weekly schedule are Wonderfalls, House M.D., Medical Investigation, Friends reruns, Desperate Housewives and How do I look on the Lifestyle Channel.)

I saw a dog curled in the middle of Commonwealth Avenue early this morning.  He probably got too frightened to cross the road.  I wanted to get out of the car and rescue him.  But that would be crazy as I wa speeding past and I literally just got straight out of bed some 20 minutes earlier, still in my pantulog, hair uncombed… (you get the picture).  I wished there was a number I can call who will rescue the dog but sadly I do not know the number of the local police.  I hope he was somehow rescued, got to the safe side of the road, not hit and is well.

I had my interview with the chair of Ophtha this morning.  He said, "Big problem, you’re rank #1 but you flunked the psych exam." I got a "NOT RECOMMENDED" rating from our psych examineer. My personality it seems did not fit the profession. 

We took the psych exam some 2 weeks ago.  It consisted of 4 parts.  From the thematic portion of the exam, wherein we were asked to write a 3/4 of a bond paper length short story each about 4 pictures, my results showed that it seemd my interest/talent is in Journalism. And that there was vagueness in my plans in life and career, ergo, whether I should really pursue Ophtha vs Journalism as a career — DUH?!?! 

The 2nd part of the exam asked us to each draw a person after which we were then instructed to draw another person of the opposite sex of the first one.  Interpretations from this part of the exam showed that I’ve ok sexual orientation (you can bet on it) since the 1st person I drew belonged to the same gender as I am. (It turned out that you may have homosexual tendencies if the 1st drawing was a person belonging of the opposite sex or if you were a guy who included too much detail in your drawing.)  Both of my drawings showed persons drawn with their profiles only, in seating position and only up to their waist (as I ran out of space/paper).  This was interpreted as I being deceitful, lazy/passive and not willing to take responsibilities.  This was pretty hilarious.  I’m not an artist to begin with, I don’t draw very well, so I copied a female character from 1 of the pictures the examineer handed out earlier and it was of a woman seated and facing sideways.  For the male character, since I couldn’t find a male person among the pictures she gave us that remotedly interested me, I sketched my seatmate (a co-applicant whose name shall be protected) who was at that time seated and busy doing his drawings. 

The other parts were a 560+ item True/False exam (wherein I got an invalid result and a headache) and another 160 points exam wherein they found me average in most aspects except in intelligence and heedlessness.

Haay…. you can never really be too sure about anything.

Do you believe in fairytales? I do and I know one that is unfolding right in front of my eyes. This one has all the ingredients of a true fairytale, well maybe except for the pea, frog or evil stepmom. It’s of my friend, G. We’ve known each other for only 5 years (not much really, compared to my other friends who I’ve known for more than half my life). We started out as groupmates early in first year of med school and later on became sisses by choice. We both live in QC and we shared those long rides to and from parties which were the perfect time to bond and I consequently got to know her story.

She admits she started from not-so-great beginnings. Her mother was forced to raise her and her younger sister all by herself by by selling jewelries. It was a simple and happy life. Her mother eventually married and she was loved by both her mom and her stepdad.

She got a good education. But she was an exceptional student. She finished her college education with a degree in PT. She then ranked #2 in her PT boards. She started med school and finished on top of her class. She then placed 2nd on the medical board exams. But there’s more. This girl, the princess in this fairytale, is a dancer and a model. She didn’t spend the 5 years of med life just studying. She is a choreographer, front row and center dancer of our school’s dance troupe, a model (and I don’t mean a role model, which she actually also is, but a catwalk/runway/clothes model), and a very active member and prominent figure of our sorority. She is beauty and brains and grace.

But of course, the princess, just like all princesses in other fairytales, just can’t be only about beauty and brains, she has to have a pure heart and a good soul and everything in between. And this one does. She is a good friend, a kind and compassionate person with no mean or spiteful bone in her body. With all her blessings, she never brags but is only thankful and more than willing to share them with people around her.

But every fairytale has to have a prince in it too. And so, to whisk this princess to her happy ending is a prince of her perfect match. They are to be married late this year after a whirlwind romance. The story of which may be the very core of this fairytale. I’ve been reminiscent and I could remember very vividly her reluctance on going out to with him for the first time on a blind date arranged by common friends, who have already tried to set her up with 2 other dates previously. I encouraged her to go, remembering distinctly saying, maybe third time is the lucky charm (or something like it). Anyway, they did go out, were inseparable 3 weeks later and got engaged less than a year later. They’re now planning this magnificent wedding on November this year.

It’s kinda amazing to see these things happen in front of your eyes, however jaded one can become. Galing lang, some people do get what they deserve and this girl is getting just what she deserves and so much more. Don’t you just love to be able to tell a fairytale, especially one that is very much real?

Let’s get morbid this time. I’ve this feeling that my death will involve stairs and my love for tall footwear in a freakin’, freakish accident. Hehehe. I’ve been cautious and a bit afraid of going down and even climbing up stairs lately especially after the 2 stair accidents I had early this year.

The first one was scary. I was wearing my mom’s sandals with 1.5 inch skinny heels and my friend and I were alighting down a flight of stairs at Greenhills after buying pirated CDs at the 2nd floor when the heel of my mom’s left shoe broke and I came crashing down (er, diving would be a more desciptive word), head first down from a height of 2 meters or about at least 10 steps! For the briefest millisecond, when I realized that there’s nothing I can hold on to to break my fall, I knew I was going to hit my face on the hard cement at the bottom of the stairs and it was fuggin scary. Having been exposed to the ER and seen various trauma patient, I also knew it is possible that I could lose my consciousness, suffer really bad head injury and worst, need plastic surgery for reconstruction for whatever face injury. (Not counting pa the possible fractures anywhere else in my body). All these thoughts rushed in my head in that millisecond as I came head down the stairs. But because of the angel on my shoulder who has been looking after me for as long as I have lived (hey, I’ve been reciting the "Angel ofGod, my guardian dear…" prayer every night since my mom taught me how to pray when I was a kid), none of that happened. A guy with his girlfriend was at that time just going up the stairs when I came crashing down on his thighs! His thighs broke my fall and I was literally hugging his thighs! When I finally got my composure back (hmmm, how do you say, nahimasmasan?), I was too embarrassed to face this God-sent person that I couldn’t look up to his face. I remember talking to his shoes, saying "I’m okay" and "thank you" to a pair of mocha colored suede loafers. His companion’s shoes were pink doll shoes with oversized ribbons on the toe end. (And so to whoever these 2 persons are, THANK YOU again!) I still have a map-shaped, light purple, slightly depressed deformity over my lower left anterior leg as a token of that incident.

The second accident was stupid. I was running late for the 7am conference in OB. I was wearing this time a black flat sandals. I made a stupid mistake of looking at my watch as I was going up a 3 or 4 step stairs. But my sandals got caught somewhere or did I lose my footing(?) when I fell and landedon both of my knees and hands this time. The papers in my folder went flying and so did some contents of my duty bag. Buti nalang, the only people who witnessed my fall were 3 strangers: 1 security guard and 2 bantay. I have not yet reached the summary rounds and I already have dirt on my pants legs!

Yes, I know, I am lampa and I have 2 left feet-same reasons why I am not a dancer.