2008-09-28

Woes of a Wretched Week

It's as if the whole universe has conspired to give me everything there is to make last week (probably) the worst week of my life.

Sunday: After taking a bath and getting ready for the church mass, I felt quite unwell, like a general feeling of discomfort. Malaise is the medical term for that, I think. And as we leave the house for church, La Salle just lost game 1 to Ateneo.

Monday came and I'm already feverish. But the fever somehow felt different. I can feel slight, stinging pain in my feet, my knees, practically everywhere. The pain just travels from one body part to another. A few paracetamols and I felt better towards the end of the day. Unfortunately, cough and cold replaced the fever. Never mind, at least I can already go to work tomorrow.

Tuesday saw me going to the nearby clinic instead of the office because the fever is back. But I felt confident since I am now armed with medicine that will fix me. Again, I felt better towards the end of the day. Also, news came telling me that a Singaporean employer is coming to the Philippines to conduct interviews. I'd better get well soon so I can prepare for this.

Wednesday and I'm finally in the office. But the day was marred with frequent visits to the clinic because of the recurring fever. To make things more worse, I couldn't breath most of the time due to a clogged nose, making it hard for me to swallow food and eventually losing my appetite. As I got home I'm still burning with fever, so I already called up my ninang for help. Everyone was alerted of my condition (even my mom's cousin who lives in the nearby village), and so they came and asked if I wanted to be confined in the hospital. I said I'll just rest the whole evening and tomorrow if my condition's still worse, I'll have myself confined. And in the middle of my uneasiness, the call from Singapore came and asked me if I could come for the interview on Saturday.

Thursday: I just went for a check-up since I'm already feeling fine. Plus, if I'll be confined today, there's a big chance they won't discharge me by Friday so I can go to the interview on Saturday. Got my blood extracted for CBC, waited for 3 freaking hours in the cold, dull corridors of the MATI building for the lady doctor who looks like Susan Roces, had my CBC results interpreted by her, then finally went home. Everything was normal in the CBC except for the white blood count which frightened me. It was way below normal, but the doctor said that's 'normal' when you have a viral infection. I see. So that's what's gotten into me. She even added that it's usually 3 to 4 days. Dammit. And to end a rather fever-free day for me, the Archers lost the championship to the Blue Eagles.

The whole Friday was spent in recovery and in doing nothing to prepare for the interview. I've already read the job position requirements and none of them matches with my current skills anyway. So there goes our popular mantra back in college: "Bahala na!"

Then Saturday. Eventually I failed the interview because I'm not really proficient in C++. And that's what was needed in all 3 available positions. I even felt stupid showing off my expertise in e when the employer told me "This is not C." Fine. All of my officemates (who went to the interview) got the job, but my college classmate also got the axe like me. At least I'll be taking this as an experience in being interviewed by a foreigner. More opportunities to come, I hope. But for now, I'll just content myself with thinking about how to move on for the other, hopefully wonderful weeks ahead.

2008-09-11

Lakbayan

A geeky officemate of mine created this nifty website that gauges how much I've traversed my very own country, the Philippines. Well, a picture's worth a thousand words they say, but the places I've been to don't even amount to a hundred words. Nonetheless, here's the outcome of my adventures.

renvill's travels

My Lakbayan grade is C-!

How much of the Philippines have you visited? Find out at Lakbayan!

Created by Eugene Villar.

At a rate of 2 to 3 new places per year, I wonder when will I get to have a grade of A? I'm gonna tell Jho & Tin to push through with Busuanga, Coron in Palawan, then Caramoan in Camarines Sur. Wohoo!

2008-09-02

Blog Hiatus

I'm on extreme OCD mode these days, trying to apply my CSS learnings in this blog. So don't be surprised if you suddenly see unusually large fonts somewhere, or distorted layout, or you simply find this blog very uninteresting already (I doubt it ever became interesting to anyone). This is how I'm coping with my QLC, which is apparently at its peak these days. It could be a mere hormonal thing, though. I'll double check the Wiki article. In the meantime, I want the ads and external (to Blogger) widgets to be at the center of the sidebar. Maybe I'll want to add some more widgets to spice things up a bit, too. Be back in a few days...