Bottled ※ Brain

What I do with pictures

May 29, 2026

I’m not so sure what to do with most photos I’ve taken from a trip, but I store them in a private folder in Flickr. I forward the link privately to friends who might be interested in them. Otherwise, they stay in the safe Flickr cloud, that marvelous repository of photographs that I subscribe to yearly. I remember, more often than not, the general circumstances of when they’d been created.

Photographs therefore function as timestamps for me. If you asked me when I’d last been to, say, Boracay, I won’t be able to answer you right away. But I have memories of the white sand, and how warm the water was, and how, at the mere sight of clear waters at the pier, I had wanted to jump and swim already, despite my bags being hauled to the small boat that would take me to the resort. My photographs, timestamped and geotagged, provide me the details of the trip. I could give you an answer after I’d scrolled through my album.

There are days when I want to head to the shop to get them printed and framed. But those intentions are ephemeral, overtaken by more pressing needs of the day—work, errands, and, sometimes, rest.

But why take pictures anyway? Behind each photo is a creative act, I suppose. For me, photography is a way to remember, to enjoy the present, and to capture that enjoyment for future reminiscence, in the same vein as writing about an experience or a trip. I’m certain that taking pictures can sometimes distract me from the actual moment. The distraction largely comes from my personal impulse to perform—in other words, to show off, when the intention should be to show. I take measures to keep myself from that, but I’m a work in progress. Such measures include distancing myself from social media—a great step towards a healthy mental and spiritual state—and using a single-function device. I love my Olympus OM-D Mark IV and the two lenses of my choice—the pancake 14-42 mm and the 45 mm. It’s a small and powerful mirrorless camera I bring with me when I travel.

Consider these time-tested suggestions: get a Flickr subscription, and get an actual camera that's not in a phone.

Breakfast

May 25, 2026

Travel days are not normal days. While I’m in Italy I have breakfast in a pistacceria, where people, dressed in their work clothes, say “Buongiorno,” then: “Un caffè, per favor.” Caffè typically means an espresso, a small volume of concentrated coffee which takes some getting used to. But I've liked it. Weeks earlier, a barista in Marbel—my hometown—cautiously warned me, “Gamay lang na siya, Sir, ha.” She apparently got a lot of flak for the small coffee sizes.

I noticed that nothing savory is eaten; heavy meals are reserved for lunch. In Italy, breakfast means coffee and pastry. People stand in a bar, sip their coffee, and off they go to wherever they need to be. There are tables around if you have time: people in Milan, Rome, and Naples seem to have a lot of time to kill. Adding cream or milk to coffee is acceptable around this time, but not after lunch—a story told to me by my friend Luther who received curious looks in Milan when he ordered a cappuccino in the afternoon.

I normally skip breakfast. My physiology allows me to get through the morning with a cup of coffee—a pour-over, a French press, or an espresso. I drink coffee for the taste and for the stimulation. This is providential. I’m not passionate about toasting bread, frying longganisa, or cooking rice while the sun is rising and people are still emerging from sleep. Mornings don’t find me particularly hungry. If I must eat—a morning workout or some tedious physical activity for work or a future arrangement that does not allow for a later meal—I will have brunch or a heavy lunch.

Before heading out to the pasticceria, my friend Jef shows me how to make a proper moka pot—an Italian friend had taught him. Prior to my lessons with Jef, I’d seen videos on YouTube, but they add too many specific details, making the instructions more complicated than an analytical chemistry laboratory manual. So Jef keeps things simple for me: fill the bottom chamber with water just below the safety valve, add medium-fine grounds of coffee to the basket, and close the pot, but not too tightly. I ask, “Do I have to tamp the grounds?” to which he says, “I don’t.” The water must boil under low heat; you’ll know it’s ready if you can smell the coffee, beckoning you to taste and see that it is good.

We walk to La Siciliana Roma, along Via Cipro. It’s a perfect day—the sun shines on this spring day, a light cool wind pushes us along. In Rome, even the dogs are always smiling.

I have caffè con panna (coffee with whipped cream), Manong has caffè pistacchioso (pistachio coffee), Jef has marocchino. Jef orders these on our behalf: he is fluent in Italian. It’s the first time I’d ever seen a marrochino. There’s a dusting of unsweetened cocoa powder at the bottom, a strong shot of espresso, a layer of frothed milk foam, and a final dusting of cocoa powder on top. We share farcito pistacchio (pistachio-stuffed pastry) and breccia miele e noci (honey and walnut “breccia”). White powder is all over my clothes and mouth. The food is so good.

What a blessing to be alive, with a hearty breakfast and good company!

caffè con panna (coffee with whipped cream)

When in Rome, do as the Romans do

May 24, 2026

The thing with travel—to make it work, to make it actually happen—is to plan ahead with reckless abandon. You don’t know what will happen in the future, except that you will grow old, your knees will give up on you, and you will eventually die. So book an overly discounted ticket months earlier, free up your calendar, and see what happens.

My college friend Jef and I did all of the above. I’d last seen him in December 2024, when Manong and I went around New Jersey and explored New York City—that “concrete jungle where dreams are made of.” Jef met us in San Antonio, where I attended a breast cancer conference. He drove us around Texas, and we met some of his family. I tell him to this day, Texas is my favorite state, a statement he finds fascinating, understanding, perhaps that pretty much of the United States remains unexplored territory for me.

I remember I was in between rounds, and he was at work in Dallas, when we made a video-call. This was in 2025. As with many of my friends, who think the same way as I do, we both came up with the idea of meeting halfway, somewhere in Europe. He did his graduate studies there; he is conversational in Italian and Spanish and French. How he learns languages quickly, how he managed to get straight unos in subjects many UP freshmen failed in despite spending the night playing table tennis in the basement with me instead of studying, are proofs of his brilliance. His face and voice brightened up, “I know a lot of good places there.” Soon, Manong would move to Sweden to do his graduate studies, and we decided he could join us in the tour as well.

The tickets were booked. Immersed in the daily routines of clinics and classes, I saw the email reminders for the upcoming trip to Rome as a kind of a reward, a beacon of hope for the future. I hadn’t been to Rome, but it was the closest city to Naples, which fascinated me more. Naples is where the characters of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Quartet lived and breathed. I prayed that the trip would push through. Weeks before the trip were flight cancellations because of the war in Iran.

During a brief layover in Abu Dhabi, which is geographically closer to the Strait of Hormuz than my home, a fact that led me to more intense prayers for safety, Jef sent me a photo of Manong eating carbonara in a Michelin-rated restaurant near the Airbnb that he had booked previously. (Jef asked us where we’d like to stay: in the city center, or in a typical Roman apartment, where real people lived? We chose the latter, “Gusto ko ng real.”) Jef said it was so good, meaning the food, possibly my brother’s company. I would meet them in about eight hours: a six-hour flight to Fiumicino Leonardo da Vinci Airport, then immigration, the luggage counter, and the Leonardo Express that would take me straight to Roma Termini, the central train station.

Jef asked me where I was. I said I was near the Swatch store, a few meters from the turnstile. He said I must have walked passed him.

There I saw him—my dear old friend and brother of many years—smiling, walking towards me in a blue shirt, shorts, and Islander slippers, how he had looked when we ate breakfasts together in Kalayaan Hall or walked to AS Lobby in 2004, with no care in the world that the people who were passing by were in tailored suits and shiny shoes in typical elegant Italian fashion. He remained unchanged and untouched by time. His boyish laughter could be heard in the entire hall when I said something piercingly witty. So much has changed, and yet, as he and I would realize, we are still the same people.

He asked me what I’d like to do in Rome. I said I hadn’t thought about it, so much so that I got worried I’d be asked for an itinerary during the immigration check. He mentioned coffee in a pasticceria, a walk around the Vatican, a visit to the ruins, a hike to the Monumento Nazionale a Vittorio Emanuele II, and many more, interspersed with comments about where we’d eat and have coffee. He assured me, “We’ll figure it out.”

On our way to Baldo degli Ubaldi, where we’d be staying, he said, “Oh, and I’ve made reservations to Romanè, where Manong and I had dinner. The carbonara with guancale—so so good!”

Closest view to the Vatican

May 23, 2026

My student Hannah weaves her Tnalak into a white coat

May 23, 2026

Teaching is my happy job. The classroom is a balancing mechanism for an otherwise tedious clinical practice in cancer care. (The heaviness in oncologic practice emanates from an almost daily proximity to death and dying. There are days when meeting five patients in a day feels like a lot. Some of my friends will agree with this.)

Interspersed in my otherwise packed Google Calendar are lectures, seminars, and meetings. Behind them are the quiet tasks I often do after clinic hours: preparing my lectures, crafting my evaluations, grading my students' research protocols. These academic routines activate another part of me that is separate, but somehow still related, to my day job. In a sense, clinic work is my vocation; teaching my avocation.

I've been teaching since the launch of the College of Medicine (COM—as in "see-oh-em") of the Mindanao State University - General Santos, a fact that gives me much pride and joy. I find it a privilege to interact with bright students who would otherwise not have the opportunities to become doctors if not for government support. Half of our student population are from underprivileged Muslim and indigenous communities, many of them from Mindanao. COM is my happy place: the faculty members I work with, the college's support staff, even the canteen owners who give me an extra helping of pastil.

A number of our students are scholars of the CHED Medical Scholarship and Return Service (MSRS) program, part of the provisions of the Doktor Para sa Bayan law (RA 11509). One of them is Hannah Joy Bento-Billones, one of my mentees! Dr. Popoy de Vera features her in his Philippine Star Column, Edukampyon. The article is entitled, "Weaving her T’nalak into a white coat," which you can read in full.

Here are some excerpts. Dr. de Vera writes this about Hannah:

I met Hannah Joy Bento-Billones, a bright, articulate and self-effacing medical student. A T’boli from Lake Sebu, South Cotabato, she is the first in her community to study medicine and become a doctor. I told myself her story had to be told.

He continues:

Like the T’nalak, medicine was once a distant, impossible dream. When I first told my family I wanted to pursue medicine, my father grew quiet. I sensed both fear and disappointment – not in me, but in himself, for not being able to support his daughter’s dream. His line was, “Kaya ng utak, pero hindi kaya ng bulsa.” It was beyond what we could afford. For a time, I convinced myself that maybe medicine was not meant for me – maybe it’s for my children to fulfill someday.

When MSU GenSan opened its College of Medicine, it gave me a chance to revisit a dream I had once buried. I carry the reality of being a first-generation doctor in the making – the first pure Lumad in our family to pursue this path. My education has always been supported by scholarships, from high school through college. Still, there were moments when even that was not enough. At one point, my family had to sell a portion of our land just to sustain my studies.

I am also a product of a learning environment that prioritized inclusivity. At MSU-GSC COM, opportunities were never withheld because of ethnicity, social background or life circumstances. This support, together with the MSRS program, made it possible for me to continue even in seasons when continuing felt hardest. Tey bong slamat! Thank you very much!

Today, I am one step closer to becoming a physician. I will graduate this June. This milestone is not mine alone. It reflects the impact of programs like MSRS that invest in students who are willing to return and serve. It is shared with my tribe, the T’boli, and with every Indigenous community striving to be seen and heard.

We're so proud of you and your class, Hannah!

—

In 2012, during a day trip to Lake Sebu with classmates, I took several photos and stitched them in an imperfect panorama.

Some books

May 12, 2026

I read with curiosity the personal diary of Dr. Michihiko Hachiya, who ran a hospital in Hiroshima, when the atomic bomb exploded. The incident would usher the end of World War Two. He did not intend for his personal diary to be published, but he wrote with vivid description and clinical accuracy. So much pain and compassion could be gleaned from his daily account. I loved that most of his entries started with descriptions of the weather. Despite his personal injuries, he kept working, ignoring otherwise sound advice to recuperate. What struck me was how much Dr. Hachiya loved his country and his people. He also loved science. In the midst of so much work of caring for the ill and dying, he continued to pursue clinical questions, particularly on why patients who did not suffer obvious physical injuries deteriorated after a few days or weeks, often of internal hemorrhage.

I'm preparing my creative non-fiction piece for an anthology I'm also co-editing. To get my brain pumped up, I'm turning to John Jeremiah Sullivan's Blood Horses: Notes of a Sportswriter's Son. I thoroughly enjoyed Pulphead, Sullivan's collection of essays. I'm also revisiting the Jia Tolentino's Trick Mirror, which the wonderful doctor-writer Dr. China Castillo gave me last year. So, so good.

I'm writing all about these to remember and to inspire you, dear reader, to get away from your smartphones and read a proper book.

Nanay's kamuning

May 11, 2026

My mother's tiny garden is awash with fragrance. When I opened the windows at 5:30 am, I was treated to a sweet-smelling aroma coming from the garage. The source: her two kamuning trees (Murraya paniculata), offering their flowers this month of May, traditionally their blooming period. Their flowers are short-lived, which makes their existence even more special. As soon as the bees hop on them, or when rain drops fall from the sky, the flowers detach, falling to the ground like snow.

I wake my mother up from sleep. I pour her a cup of coffee and tell her to enjoy the lavish treat from the kamuning.

She tells me that she once overheard a Tagalog-speaking lady who walked by the street asking around, "Saan ang mabangong hardin?" It's a story Nanay keeps repeating.

"This is my Father's world," I sing in my soul...

And to my listening ears
All nature sings, and round me rings
The music of the spheres.
This is my Father's world:
I rest me in the thought
Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas--
His hand the wonders wrought."

Dot com

May 06, 2026

May is the month when I get reminded to renew my domain name registration. Web addresses are temporary. One rents them, until such time that the subscription expires and, if another party is interested, this web-based real estate can be owned by another entity.

For me, the ritual of renewal signals the passing of yet another year. The domain name, bottledbrain.com, has been registered under my name since 2010. Previously, this blog could only be accessed through the address, http://bottledbrain.blogspot.com. (If you type the address in the web browser, you will be redirected to the dot com page -- which is essentially the same website.) It was Manong Ralph's gift to me. I was unemployed, penniless, still in med school. I asked Ate Kate, sister of my friend Wegs, for ideas on how to set up the domain name, and she gave me a referral to a Cebu-based company called Dreamcode Domains, to which I'm still subscribed. A minor glitch happened in 2018: my domain name registration had expired, I couldn't contact Dreamcode Domains, and was forced to register a dot org address.

But those were glorious days of the internet. People wrote in their websites. They got to know each other and made connections through shared interests. They left comments and linked to other sites. The internet was a growing, vibrant community. Blogs, or personal websites, in other words, were an important component of that ecosystem. That community began to crumble when social media replaced these personal websites. Many blogs became silent, or were replaced by companies that profited off them. People posted and interacted in Facebook-gated communities. Blogs were essentially forgotten. I'm oversimplifying things, of course. We know the internet's history is more nuanced than what I had outlined, but I believe that's the gist of the story: the blogs were taken over by social media, people simply got disinterested in them.

But I kept on blogging because I like having a space in the web, a little corner I can temporarily own. Hardly anyone visits here now, I suppose. I stopped checking the web traffic years ago. I actually like the silence.

I still check blogs. I read them regularly. I enjoy them and learn so much from them. These blogs are quiet islands in an algorithmic sea of social media falsehoods, hate, and pride. They are quiet cafes playing jazz music and serving hot coffee personally prepared by the owner, not run-of-the-mill, machine-prepared, AI-generated Americano. I'm over-dramatizing, but I hope you get what I mean.

Here's to blogs! May they survive another year!

On Psalm 40

May 05, 2026

You have multiplied, O Lord my God,

your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us;

none can compare with you!

I will proclaim and tell of them,

yet they are more than can be told. (Psalm 40: 5)

As for you, O Lord, you will not restrain

your mercy from me;

your steadfast love and your faithfulness will

ever preserve me! (Psalm 40:11)

I meditate on the Psalms because they are real prayers of real people. They don't hide anything. They instead expose the realities of the human heart, including mine.

David wrote Psalm 40 where he "looks both backward and forward as he considers his need for God," according to Dane Ortlund. Birthdays, or any milestone in one's life that's worth remembering, offer someone a space for instrospection. What has one done with one's life? And what does the future hold?

My friend Hazel reminded me this year would be our last as thirty-something-year olds. I celebrated my birthday a few days ago. I chose a quiet celebration -- meaning, no grand celebration, save for a coffee chat with high school friends the day after.

David's Psalm resonate with me deeply. My life is peppered with the grace of God multiplied many times over. His mercies towards my sinfulness and shortcomings are not restrained; they overflow. What a real blessing to be alive in and for Him.

Ho Chi Minh: motorbikes and food tour

May 02, 2026

Day Two: food trip. A motorbiking-walking exploration of Ho Chi Minh City's gastronomical landscape.

My driver was a young man named Ryan. I suspect he has another name, but he introduced himself to me as Ryan because the Anglicized name rolled off easily on foreign tongue. He graduated from university this year, majored in journalism, did the tour as a part-time job, and spoke good English.

First, the preliminaries. We were taught how to ride the motorbike. Approach it from the left, take the backseat, hold the back rails so you don't fall off. I wanted to say, "We have habal-habal at home; we know how to do this."

Riding the motorbike for the first time — even as a passenger — in Saigon streets is what a starling, hatched and raised in the zoo, must feel like after it is released to the wild to join a murmuration. You join a throng of motorbikes and follow and rhythmic moving and braking, turning and moving forward. I imagine that drivers feel intimately close to the road and to other vehicles. To ride a motorbike is an exercise in being vulnerable. Four-wheel car drivers, who listen to Apple CarPlay with the windows shut, are insulated from that feeling of thrill and risk. The thrill of the road trip, with sun and sky above you, and the wind literally hammering your face. The risk that the motorbike can topple over, and you — bones, flesh, and all — with it.

Ryan wasn't deterred by the heat. He had a light, breathable jacket, enveloped his face with clothing that was layered below his helmet. It seemed natural to him to make conversation with me as if we were in a coffee shop. How old was I? he asked freely, the way Southeast Asians do once they feel comfortable with you.

I said, "In my late thirties," my mouth near his left ear, a proximity that was required so I did not fall off the vehicle.

"No way!" he said, laughing, as he negotiated an intersection with other motorbikes and Vinfast crossovers.

I was surprised by how young he looked — like one of my younger cousins or older nephews. Southeast Asians really do age much more slowly.

The shade trees made the trip bearable, as they offered relief from direct tropical sunlight. Greenery marked the streets of Saigon —from the major avenues and even the little side streets — and this reality made me mourn for my hometown's old, majestic acacia and narra trees felled to make room for road widening.

Ryan parked the motorbike by the sidewalk in a narrow alleyway. The food tour began with introductions and a warm welcome. Nancy, whom I suspect also possesses a Vietnamese name, said we'll have to make room for 11 courses. It was hard to say if she was joking. Despite their Southeast Asian sizes — slim, not-so-tall, just like Filipinos — the Vietnamese could finish food that could fill four stomachs. Their superpower is that they hardly get fat.

For the first stop we had pho, a Vietnamese soup dish consisting of broth, rice noodles, herbs, and, at least for me, beef. Delightful, no-fuss, real food with simple, fresh flavors. Iced chrysanthemum tea helped us with the heat.

Nancy, who was around the same age as Ryan and was a fresh college graduate, too, brought us around a Ho Chi Minh neighborhood in District Four.

Many families in the city live in four- to five-story apartments, with the ground floor transformed to accommodate businesses and the stairs modified with a smooth incline to allow motorbikes to be brought up to the upper floors for parking. The Vietnamese, unlike Filipinos (and I apologize for generalizing), seemed to have considered parking more thoughtfully.

The working class neighborhood was clean and colorful. And from the upper floors, there was a sea of Vietnamese flag in celebration for the country's Reunification Day.

Next stop: Chuối Nếp Nướng. Grilled banana wrapped in sticky rice, served in coconut milk.

It reminded me of suman, the Philippine version of that dessert. I only finished a fourth of my share, since I wanted to leave enough room for more food until the end of the tour. The guides said we'd be going to another stop. That meant another exciting motorbike ride around the city.

I got acclimatized to the motorbike, no longer resisted the twists and turns, no longer worried about a Vinfast closing in, the car door barely 10 centimeters from the motorbike, and surrendered my entire well-being to young Ryan who said he learned how to ride the motorbike when he was 11. I didn't tell him I couldn't even ride a bicycle.

District 10 was where we had bánh mì, which, according to Wikipedia, is "a short baguette with thin, crisp crust and a soft, airy texture." It was just as locals would have it: freshly baked bread bought from a sidewalk store. This street could well be anywhere in the Philippines. A man without a shirt and a dog freely roaming around.

The ingredients were fresh.

And here's some free advertising for Bakery 24.

This would be my favorite food during the tour. Ryan told me he'd eat bánh mì and coffee for breakfast. The more substantial rice meals would be for lunch or dinner. Bánh mì must be their version of the pan de sal.

The color and vibrancy of Saigon streets brought joy to my heart. There's beauty everywhere, if you pay enough attention.

Next stop: the Saigon Flower Market.

Orchids.

Lilies, with their flowers wrapped this way to increase their shelf lives.

Like broccoli flowers.

The dogs were smiling. Probably because they met us! We thought they were stuffed toys until they wagged their tails.

A splash of color was a refreshment to our eyes.

These were cut flowers, their stems soaked in water inside what looks like an Orocan. This may well be in Dangwa Market in Manila.

My mother once had an orchid-growing hobby, but she could not bring them to flower as lavishly as these.

In a small alley of the Flower Market, we were served Banh trang nuong, or Vietnamese pizza.

There was grilled pork wrapped in rice paper (or was it a vegetable?).

I only sampled some of the food and was sorry I couldn't finish everything.

Then we were off to our final stop. I was, by this time, relieved that Nancy was, in fact, joking when she mentioned 11 meal stops.

I snapped this picture while the motorbike was on full stop. The skies were clear and blue. It was around 4 pm, the shadows were longer, and the heat was more bearable.

What they served us — clams and oysters — were so fresh and so good.

You had a choice of fresh juices, a can of Coca-Cola, or Saigon Beer. I won't tell you what I picked.

This was the end of the food tour. We exchanged Instagram accounts and said our goodbyes, especially to Hudson and Mimi from Florida, who joined our group that afternoon.

On the way back to the hotel I experienced the rush hour firsthand— the general throng of humanity composed mostly of students and employees leaving their places of study and work to be somewhere else. Probably a third space, like their glorious coffee places. Or their homes, where their spouses and children and dogs awaited their arrival. What a great blessing to experience the city!