Good finds :)

I was en route home from work yesterday when I decided to checkout the Japan surplus shop I passed by during the weekend. the reason? I saw a bogu displayed outside! O_O

So from my usual ride home, I alighted somewhere before SM Southmall and luckily, the place wasn't hard to find. (It was along the main road.) I approached the store and lo and behold at the entrance, the BOGU. :D

It looked like it was in fairly good condition, the indigo still quite bright and hasn't faded. It seems that the precious owner only sold it because it has been grown out of. The Men looks well, including a sturdy and intact Mengane.The chichikawas for the Do and Men weren't frayed as well. The inside of the Do mune had some fraying and wearing, but not too much. The Tare was also in good condition. 

So what prevented me from getting it? Well, one, it's KIDDIE SIZED. (So there goes my thoughts of wearing it. Haha.) Second, one of the Kote is missing. (It has the Zekken though.)

The Zekken is good quality as well with the name made using stitched leather. (Nice.) The Kote is also in good condition; no fading, minimal fraying, intact Tenouchi. 

While I can't actually use this as my own armor, it occurred to me that I can actually have use for this as a dummy for my practice at home. With a little work and creativity I'll have a tool to help my training. :) I was just contemplating if the price is worth it just to construct a dummy. The floor price for the whole set is Php2,200.00; not bad, but I think I'll try to haggle more. LOL

Not to dwell on the Bogu, I went around the place. I found interesting pieces that catered to my interests and fancy. Beautiful dolls, teacups (yay!), display items, electronics (I found a VOX amplifier! :D) and a lot of furniture. With all the neat things I found, I actually just ended up getting two of these:

They're simple, yet lovely. The blue one's a little worn on some edges, but both are still in very good condition. And yes I think I'll use them sometime. :D

I know I'll be back to check the place out and probably others like it. There's actually one back in Marikina that I've been meaning to checkout as well. :D

Darn, I think this is the start of a picking hobby. :))

I know. It's the nth time.

So, for the nth time, my blog undergoes yet another revert and henshin. Here we go!

I haven't written in practically a year, but a nice person told me how writing is catharsis, and another nice person has been encouraging, if not compelling me to write. Ergo, here I am again. 

Looking back, I was just so caught up looking for something interesting to write about that I actually forgot this is a way for me to open my heart and pour out a few things (which may or may not be interesting). But moving forth, I know better now. 

The past year has brought a lot of changes and my, how drastic most of them are. New endeavors taken, new friends gained and lost, a new job + a promotion (in less than a year, too!) and yeah a new craze I got: being a kendoka. (LOL)

All I hope for now is that things to turn out better this time around. And for rain not to go monkey on me when I go home already.

PS. I'm still at work. But hey, this one's worth it ;) Updates in the following posts. 
 

Call Upon

Yesterday was quite an unexpectedly crazy afternoon. I was in the HQ for a meeting for our Disaster Management Training class when we had a call. MVA (Motor-vehicular accident) - motorcycle vs. truck. And to top it off, no one was on duty for some reason. So I took the call and grabbed the rest of whoever was available at the HQ and made it there. I thought I was prepared for what was waiting for me. Well, I was wrong. Sorta. 

Being off-duty kind of turned off some of my "ready-for-blood-guts-and-whatnot" switches. And yes, some of them were. It was ironic how I encountered my bloodiest case to date, while being technically off-duty. The victim was bloody foaming at the mouth and had multiple abrasions on the limbs. It was a good thing that the nearest hospital was barely a kilometer from where we were. After loading the patient onto the ambulance, I realized my shirt and arm were bloody already. (Good thing there were shirts back at the HQ). 

At the ER, I helped out a little with some of the procedures being carried out by the ED physician and nurses. Everyone was scrambling since the patient already went into unresponsiveness. Then the relative came, who to some cruel joke of fate was actually in her office just behind the hospital. She heard all the ruckus from the road, but never did it cross her mind that a relative would be the one who was lying on the road covered in his own blood.

Post all the technicalities and hoopla, we went back to base and started on a dreaded task - clean up. After cleaning up my own self for starters and getting the equipment and ambulance cleaned, I went on home. (And showered some more)

After freshening up, I went to the gym and worked out. I guess the adrenalin was still in my system cause I was pumped doing my routines. (lol) 

Looking back, a funny, albeit somewhat serious I realized something usually meant for memes.

Emergency Medical Responders/Rescuers are like superheroes: sometimes that call for help comes even when you're in your civilian disguise. And yes, you run like lightning and fly like the wind to save the day.

Intertwine

Another day, another duty. Nothing much happened though. Just one run to a fire incident and treated two patients who were having difficulty of breathing. The rest of the day was spent pretty much just sitting around and waiting for the shift to end. What I wasn't expecting was an encounter with another aspect of my life while on duty.

I learned that a colleague of ours (whom I have never met, YET) was brought to a hospital by our team yesterday. He has been suffering from a sickness for the past few months. And this sickness as I have learned, is still unknown. In fact, it was the fourth (if I'm not mistaken) time that they brought him to the hospital. And it seemed he was getting worse with every episode.

Those who were telling me the story went on with the other details: that he was a good man, a guy built bigger than I am, got along with others, the disease started after the rampaging rains of Habagat, how it was peculiar that his tests all came back practically normal, etc.

His story has indeed gotten me puzzled already at this time. But what really got me interested in him was they said that his family had already consulted with a manggagamot (healer) and that she has ruled that he is afflicted with a disease of a supernatural nature caused by an evil spell...

In Filipino, Kulam. 

The cherry on the cake? The spell wasn't from one, or two, but from three individuals.

The rest of the story concluded with the statement that he already got featured on a TV show about supernatural stuff and us looking for a rerun on it on the web. Sure enough, we found it and watched his story.


K (not his real name)'s story on TV was pretty much the same as the details I've heard earlier: nice guy, easy to get along with, active with the cause of helping others, et al. After the several months he spent going back and forth to the hospital with his health deteriorating, they decided to consult a manggagamot. From then came the scene for the tawas, a traditional folk practice of determining a cause of one's affliction, done by the manggagamot usually with the use of a candle and a water basin. The scene was something right out of a horror movie. Cliche, but I guess it's their way of '"setting the mood". Then, the manggagamot went on to say that it was indeed Kulam and it was not from a single person. She even added that there might also be elementals involved - a duwende (gnome) and a kapre (giant earth elemental smoking a tobacco).

The episode went on with him consulting with an actress turned alternative healer on camera. The session went on with the confirmation of another human being involved with his sickness, prompting a question for K, "Do you work with someone, curly?" K then answered that he might know one, but that person was a volunteer. They then proceeded with the scanning and healing, now requested to be done off-cam.

Shift ends. I leave the HQ and get home. I still can't help but think about K's predicament. Primarily because, after that healing and stuff, he's back in the hospital. So, with nagging curiosity, I went on to do a little "investigating" myself.

I started with Tarot, something I would honestly say I am still learning to use. I started with a three card spread having Justice, The Ace of Swords and the Five of Cups in that order. I confirmed my intuition by adding two more cards for a five-card spread. One was the moon, the other, two of swords.  To make it short, my conclusion was this: Someone, was seeking "revenge" on him or was seeking to get even. He doesn't really know the person/s who did this to him. He should not think about the time lost being infirm, but rather recover from it.

I decided to do something else in addition to my card reading: a tawas.

I haven't done tawas on water before. So I decided to use a method I've learned from a good friend and mentor in magick. The use of a pendulum.

I used a diagram found on my mentor's book to confirm the cause of K's illness. Sure enough, it pointed to that of masamang kulam (evil spell). By pendulum movement, it affirmed that it was more than one. It was indeed three. It also told me that he can be cured. But as far as the cure is concerned, I have yet to find out (the pendulum answers in yes or no). Thanking my guides, I ended the session.

Now while I've done the aforementioned session above, I would like to state that my magickal skills aren't exactly top notch.

I could be wrong.. But then again, I could be right.

As the night falls ever deeper closer to midnight, as I sit typing thinking of the next thing to say, I send K a prayer. For I know, right now it is all I can do.

At this moment, a statement from my good friend and mentor's oracle came to mind:

"Is it better to ask for help, or is it better to be asked for help?"

Revert. Henshin!

For some reason, I fiddled with my blog today and decided to remove the negativity and hullabaloo I left on this blog THREE YEARS AGO. And on top of that, I've also considered posting anew; chronicling my new life that has been molded by the past years that I haven't posted anything.

With this, I actually realized (and rediscovered) a few things:

-I used to let my imagination dwindle and write stories. I believe it's time I explored that side of myself again.

-I am a better person in many ways than I was before.

-Blogging is cathartic.

-While this is a page for individual expression and freedom, it does teach me to be in control.

So, hello again, Blogger. It really has been a while. The silly shounen that I was has already grown up.



And it's that grown up shounen's turn to write.