Final Countdown

Title theme brewing?  Not deliberately, but I like it.  So we, are getting towards the end of the journey here, and I have to say that this last bit is absolutely speeding by.  The only full day I have left here is Monday.  5:50am Wednesday morning, Chicago time, you are so close and yet so far.

Karaoke was a success.  I did "Don't Stop Me Now" as my starting piece.  I wanted to sing it again and again, but I saved everyone that awful experience.  As luck would have it, I also got to finish out our room with "Bohemian Rhapsody."  In the middle, I did some Paul Simon, ABBA, Joan Osborne, and others.  I had a bunch more queued, but so many people had entered songs (and then left) that I didn't get my shot at "Love Fool" or "Billy Jean."  There were questionable holes and more questionable inserts into the song list at the karaoke place.  No Blondie?  Really?  Why do you have a Dashboard Confessional song?  AND one that my unfortunate high school Dashboard phase didn't even introduce me to?  One of the people from my office insisted on singing forgotten mid-90s songs ala The Verve Pipe's "Freshmen," Duncan Sheik's "Barely Breathing," et al.  It was amazing to hear all those songs again, curious to discern how many lyrics I still know, and wonderful to give one of my co-workers a hard time about it.  Everyone was such a good sport.  Lots of songs in Filipino as well.

You know, cause this Def Leppard song is about driving, so it makes sense that the B roll is of really boring suburban traffic.  

So the driver, Darwin, came and joined us.  As it turns out the man can WAIL to any song in the genre of rock ballad.  Lots and lots of Bon Jovi.  He doesn't speak all that much English with me, but he can get accents down pat.  And high notes.  I cannot wax poetic on the karaoke skills of the man to the left, though don't tell him I said that because I don't think he knows.  He is, however, somewhat aware of his range limitations, so he would hand the mic off to Darwin.  It was a crowd pleaser every time.  

Those two ladies with their mics also did pretty darn well

For a while now, I have been telling all the people at work about how I want to go to the comedy clubs I keep seeing in this one area we drive past on the way to some of the hospitals.  After the karaoke, those of us who were left crossed the street so I could cross this one off my list.

Aw, note the little Jeepney in the foreground.  Goodbye, little Jeepney.  I'll miss your confusing presence in my life.  

This is the stage:

This is the room full of empty chairs in front of it:

Turns out it wasn't a comedy night.  Unfortunately, this means I have no coveted tips on how to do comedy like the legendary Filipinos to extend to any of the people back home (sorry to let you down, A).  Don't worry; we'll write a grant to get back here for comedy research.

I am finally getting training in at all the hospitals!  One more to go, and it is slotted for Monday.

Where the magic happens

Paging Dr. Avila.  Just kidding.  She's not a doctor.  

 In the background of this image, you can see a sign with the Nurses' prayer on it.  There is an interesting quantity of religious paraphernalia around at all the hospitals, especially in poster form.  The creepiest one, by far, was at Cebu Maternity.  It had an operating table, and one of the surgeons was Jesus.  It read, "you only get one chance for this performance."  What?  Is that supposed to stress you out or make you feel comforted?  Is that for the benefit of the doctors, so they are reminded not to mess up in front of Jesus, or for the patients, to remind them that if the doctors do screw up, it's totally not their fault; they couldn't rehearse this.  I wanted to take a picture, but that would have been tremendously tacky for so very many reasons.

Speaking of tacky:

By far the most amazing statue find here on the grounds of Pete's Condoville yet.  It doesn't get better than 3 clowns performing the 'speak no evil, see no evil, hear no evil' thing because if their are two words I want my place of residence to put in my head together, it is definitely clowns and evil.  Good thing Oliver Hardy is there too?  That Charlie Chaplin one, as seen here

 still creeps me out.  He is at the top of those dastardly stairs that skinned my arm, so as you are walking up them with your head down to make sure you are not going to fall, all you see are shoe tops hiding in a little corner.  I take note every time, "Tory, those are just Charlie's feet.  No one is there."  But, because I am almost non-functionally skittish, it will never help.

This evening after leaving SM, the most intimidating mall I have ever been inside,

the cab driver asked me the following questions (all of which I am pretty sure are scripted since everyone asks):
-What nationality are you?
-Where do you come from?
-How old are you?
-Are you married?
-Why are you not married?  Something wrong?
-You are getting older; when are you going to have kids?
-What have you eaten?

He threw some new ones into the mix, such as:
-Is abortion legal in your state?
-Is pot legal in your state?
-How are you going to find a husband that will let you travel like this?
-Have you found any Filipino suitors?
-Oh, so the Filipino men don't tickle your fancy? (because me having a boyfriend at home wasn't an acceptable explanation)

It was hilarious.  He got a generous tip.

I did the awful, bourgeois American thing and went here.

Mango yogurt cheesecake.  Yes, I'll have one.  It all cost like $5, and that includes one I bought for Jo Jo.  Starbucks, why are you taking so much of my money back home?

So, a few times while going to the bathroom, using toilet paper I had to make sure I packed with me so that I wouldn't be SOL on that one, I haven't flushed.  And it is because it looks like this:

So, there's a shower or some other water source that leaks into a bucket.  Then there is a cup in the bucket.  Then there is a toilet.  In my experience, those things, while often sharing a room together and a section at hardware stores, are not directly linked.  I didn't realize until yesterday, in fact, that if you scoop a large amount of water into a toilet at fast speeds, it flushes.  The more water and the faster, the more it flushes and better.  I feel really bad about the bathrooms that happened before I connected the two.  Some I feel much worse about than others.  By the way, I had nothing to do with that toilet water color.

I am getting stuff together and starting to pack.  I knew that I would be going home, and that I would be going through the process of packing again the whole time, but it is sort of crazy to me that it is almost here.  Tomorrow is my last night in Asia.  That is pretty odd.  It is also weird that I have been in Asia.  These twos ideas compete for surreality.  This has been an incredible experience.  I think the experiences at the hospitals have by far been the most influential.  People do that all the time.  People have babies constantly, and people are there to deliver babies almost as often.  The whole experience of all of these things is so much more invisible back home.  No one really sees women in labor, except on TV, because they have their own rooms. Women who are delivering are absolutely not in any sort of common area.  Here, they are.  They are often sharing beds, at least in the public hospitals.  It makes me feel pretty prudish about the way things are approached in the states, but there are definitely things about the way things are done back home that I appreciate and really wish I could share with these women.  These are pretty heavy thoughts that have been rolling around in there.  They make me want to participate in healthcare in some capacity, but then I remember that I also couldn't get the smell of blood out of my nose all day yesterday.

I think I overbought.  I haven't actually put anything in a suit case yet, since they are still over at the office, but it looks like a really big volume of stuff has got to fit in there.  Stupid not-Tetrislike packing, I hate you.
This T-shirt I found on Threadless pretty much sums it up:

Oops.  It's sold out.  Hope you all hated it.

Oh, and another summer-pumping movie was watched today.

What is it about horror movies and summer?  I don't know, but it is something I cannot wait to do more of.