Author Archives

• Virulina

  By Will on October 27, 2020 • ( 0 )

  

  Right before the pandemic Virulina was introduced to a call center agent through a common friend. Call Center Agent Cholo was not particularly handsome, rich, smart, or erudite but he was so into her and that was all Virulina ever… Read More ›

• Cardboard Imbudo

  By Will on October 22, 2020 • ( 2 )

  

  Mrs. T celebrated her birthday a few days ago. She has been my blockmate since college, and having the same birthday as Fox Mulder (October 13) I knew it was something I would never forget. We were seat mates in… Read More ›

• The N Word

  By Will on October 20, 2020 • ( 0 )

  

  Against all odds–actually against just one odd by the name of Coronita Virulina–I went to Greenhills Shopping Center to look for toys. The last time I went there with Sonny Balwani was on February 25. A few days later news… Read More ›

• Oh, yes.

  By Will on October 19, 2020 • ( 0 )

  

  There were six webinars/online conferences/meetings scheduled yesterday, some of which required me to download different online platforms. Being just one of the audience, with no expected input from me, I’ve decided rather remorselessly not to attend any of them. I… Read More ›

• A Brief History of Not Knowing

  By Will on October 10, 2020 • ( 0 )

  

  In the olden days when we were still medical students we would flock to the conference hell—I mean hall—at 7 am, stuff our faces with turon and iced tea frantically purchased from The Nosocomial Canteen, and cower in our seats,… Read More ›

• Hungry Clinic Days in Room 107 Back in 2011

  By Will on October 7, 2020 • ( 0 )

  

  While fixing our charts in preparation for a busy charity clinic day I told my hell-owship batchmate Alanis Cornucopia that I wish I can menstruate. In the past few days I’ve been getting crankier than usual, and the tiniest  micro-aggravation… Read More ›

• Judging Bookstore Patrons

  By Will on September 13, 2020 • ( 1 )

  

  Was able to go to a bookstore after six months, and it was delightful. Of course I dutifully filled-up a contact tracing form with my complete details using sanitized pens from the sanitized bin of pens–I didn’t mind, I was… Read More ›

• In-clinic Bickering!

  By Will on September 7, 2020 • ( 2 )

  

  I was holding a tray full of reconstituted chemo meds, and I realized that if I so much as sneeze and drop everything on the floor and the bottles break or roll to the other end of the room only… Read More ›

• Death by Tonkatsu

  By Will on September 6, 2020 • ( 0 )

  

  I saw this very nice photo on Instagram of the X-Men Gold Team featuring the Hasbro action figures of Storm, Ice Man, Bishop, Colossus, and Jean Grey. I realized that I don’t have Colossus yet, and after clinics I ran… Read More ›

• For The Nasties

  By Will on August 25, 2020 • ( 2 )

  

  I’ve always assumed that home schooling was an urban legend, but apparently even before the pandemic it has already been a thing. And these kids, surprisingly, have been taking it quite seriously. My sister sent me a video clip of… Read More ›

• This Could Be A Job For Mulder And Scully

  By Will on August 24, 2020 • ( 0 )

  

  My clairvoyant friend Namtab Pots declared that an asteroid will hit the earth on November. A quick google search revealed that the info wasn’t from his precognition, but from NASA. I didn’t bother to read the articles and scare myself… Read More ›

• Profuse Apologization

  By Will on August 23, 2020 • ( 0 )

  

  I’m still on my pinoy rom-com streak, and I told Eleesabeth Lee Balwani that he should watch Us Again starring Jane Oineza and RK Bagatsing. Eleesabeth ran out of gas midway, and I had to narrate the eventful second half…. Read More ›

• Hulaan Portion

  By Will on August 21, 2020 • ( 0 )

  

  I think I’m getting the hang of conducting virtual consults. And I feel like some of my patients, once we get past the clunkiness of the synchronized “Can you hear meeah?!”, are getting used to it as well. I haven’t… Read More ›

• Coffin or Urn

  By Will on August 17, 2020 • ( 2 )

  

  In the spirit of panicking from the thousands of new cases reported daily, and some of our own patients dying from other diseases, my friends and I rekindled–with much enthusiasm–our discussions on death. The past few months we have forced… Read More ›

• Pinoy Rom-Com Reportage

  By Will on June 5, 2020 • ( 0 )

  

  So I’ve been trying a few of these “prestige” TV shows from different streaming sites (ie, free trial), and I realized that you really need to be in a certain mood to get into them. Content has exploded in the… Read More ›

• Kare-Kare Extravaganza

  By Will on June 4, 2020 • ( 0 )

  

  Whenever my mom decides to cook kare-kare it turns into a two-day extravaganza that begins with the effort of grinding nuts and pressure cooking the meat, culminating in everyone getting all bloated from overeating. Since the 80’s mom’s kare-kare has… Read More ›

• Catastrophizing

  By Will on June 1, 2020 • ( 0 )

  I don’t know what happened, but at some point in the aging process I stopped being… cool. Not cool in the sense that I buy all my clothes from Bench in Quad II or I would only snack in Bun… Read More ›

• Bootcamp Bonanza

  By Will on May 31, 2020 • ( 0 )

  

  Last Saturday we had our fourth weekly Writing Bootcamp with Jessica Zafra via Zoom, and this time we presented the opening paragraphs of our short story projects. One of my favorite things about writing workshops is having a trapped audience… Read More ›

• Imperfect Situation

  By Will on May 31, 2020 • ( 0 )

  Apparently the Philippines will be re-opening tomorrow. Of course we are told there are guidelines, but the guidelines might only look good on paper and too complex for the enforcers or the general public to understand and implement. Since I now… Read More ›

• Dyspnoeia

  By Will on May 29, 2020 • ( 0 )

  Today I had a carpenter put in an extra level of wood in my closet to accommodate more stuff. Over the course of the quarantine I’ve tried to throw away so many things, but some very nice boxes of my… Read More ›