When Firefighters start the fire

Last night, we took Z to bonfire and fireworks night. We told him he might see Fireman Sam and the fire engines. Unfortunately, the firefighters wore this neon jackets and Z didn't recognize them. He was also disappointed that there were no fire engines that night.

It was my first time to join the event as well. The council organised it so I thought it must be something exciting, nevermind the historical significance of it all.

So there we were. Everybody gathered around this huge pile of wood. Two firefighters ignited the heap and everybody became excited. I supposed that more than 90% of the attendees had not seen fire in their lives. After an hour and exaggeratingly expensive jacket potato and alarmingly dizzying rides, everybody oohhhd and ahhhd at the fireworks display.

So Guy Fawkes night ended with a bang, and a big hole in our pockets.

I hate

Interviews.

For one, I can never be honest. I have to b*llsh*t to give a smart answer. I have to say what the interviewers want to hear. Most interviews I've been to didn't get the best out of the interviewee. I leave the interviewers feeling muddled, not because I wasn't able to present myself smartly but because I saw no point in the questions asked. Mostly irrelevant. No direction. Purely political correctness.

I'm saying this because K does interviews to applicants who wish to work abroad through a charity organisation. And I am impressed by the way they do things. Although the process takes a whole day but they put applicants in positions where they can be observed from a distance while problem solving or interacting with other applicants. They have a way of getting the best out of every person as well as identifying weaknesses which could affect the job in question.

My first job interview in England was at a hospital. I've only been in England for a few weeks at that time and I didn't have any idea at all how people do things. I didn't have a grasp yet of work culture nor of British sense humour. I was a foreigner: not assimilated, not acclimatised (was still wearing jumpers during the hottest summer of the decade), couldn't understand thick northern accent, and in typical Filipino stupidity, didn't bother to check the British equivalent of my degree because of typical Filipino arrogance that I could speak English!

Anyway. For the sake of experience, the job I applied for was Filing Clerk. Chicken. Kasajon.

During the interview, I went through the normal (and for me, senseless) describe-yourself-why-do-you-think-you-can-do-this-job-how-do-you-interpret-equal-opportunities sort of thing.

Then. What do you think would be the biggest challenge you would encounter in this job?

I replied with half-sincerity but with typical Surigaonon sense of humour: Filing!

The interviewers laughed but remember that the job was Filing x-ray results kept in tattered envelopes.

Next question. How would you improve the filing system, having seen and observed it before this interview.

With all honesty, I said: I would tidy the whole place up. It's a mess, the envelopes are tattered and some labels are out of place!

The interview ended.

Of course I didn't get the job!

Failure

hey, why don't you try this!


Open Google.com

type the word Failure

Click I'm Feeling Lucky

Now what do you see? Spread the word before google fixes it!


courtesy of Angie.

Happy 3rd Birthday Zak!

3 years and 24 minutes ago, a set of eyes above a plump body of mass covered in green (that was my ob-gyne) was the first thing that Zak saw. Then he turned his head and saw a rusty oxygen tank in the corner, which was hastily covered by a nurse. A pair of hands hauled him up and dumped him on his mother's bossom. He didn't cry. He closed his eyes, his fists, because he realised that his mother was teteering on an 8-inch slab of wood that was the delivery bed. His mother was then 72 kilos. If that delivery bed was just suspended and there was an audience around it, it would have been a circus of a birth. Welcome to Surigao, Zak!

He was then taken to an adjoining room to be cleaned while his father hovered nervously. A nurse boiled some water on a large kettle, no not an electric kettle, but one which could have been unearthed from somewhere to discover the Mayan civilization, only that the inside was scrubbed with Dazz.

It was only when his 3rd birthday party finished that Zak cried. When we told him we were going home, he thought we were going back to that private hospital in Surigao to reminisce his birth and remind him how difficult indeed it was to take him out from the comfort of his mother's womb only for him to face this rusty world.

K and I could still remember clearly that day but the rest of the story could be told in his next birthday, and every birthday celebrations after that.

Unnecessary loss

My sister in Surigao gave birth last Friday, unfortunately, the baby died in utero. Apparently, the baby suffered from umbilical cord strangulation .

She had ultrasound scan only once, 2 months ago. A month ago, the baby was noted to be in a breach position, which reversed a few weeks later. How the doctor came up to this conclusion without having an ultrasound scan, I wouldn't know. Also, supposing this was true, I should think that an ultrasound scan would be the logical thing to do, to check how the baby moved that quick. The cord around the neck would have been spotted and Caesarian operation would have been done straight away. But then again, I'm not a doctor and prenatal care in the Philippines, or at least in Surigao still depends on the pregnant woman whether she would like to see a midwife/doctor or not.

So what are the common causes of stillbirths? They could be

a. Placental abruption
b. chromosomal abnormalities
c. gestational growth problems
d. environmental factors
e. genetic defects
f. bacterial infections in the mother

But umbilical cord strangulation at full term?

I don't know. I'm still checking from the philippine medical council but their website doesn't say anything about procedures in prenatal care.

I mourn for the unnecessary loss of my sister's baby. I know that whatever we do now, there's nothing that can bring the baby back to life.

It's just a difficult thing to accept at the moment.

Conversations with a 3-year-old

Me: C’mon, let’s put away these toys then we can have a bath.
Zak: Okey, boss!


******

A bath, and countless of stories later…

Me: Na-nyt. See you later…
Zak: Bye Marge!

(as in Marge Simpson!)

*******