wanderlust

letters of desperation

Dear Mom,
Man, I’ve been really down lately. We just got our grades back for the last two modules, and I’m not doing too hot  I’d like to give the excuse “oh, but everyone is failing there exams!” But that’s a stupid excuse. I don’t know what to do anymore, because I’ve never studied this hard in my life! And then to not get results? To not even pass the exam? 
I’m so tired, and so depressed ALL the time. And I feel like crying ALL the time, but I have to put all these feelings in this tiny box just to function on a day to day basis. It gets harder and harder to wake up each day to go to lectures because I just feel so discouraged 

I don’t know what to do mom :( I had an relatively easy time last year. But there just seems to be too much information to absorb this semester. We have 14 lectures sometimes in the span of 4 days only, with 8 hours of lectures each day and then every Monday there’s an exam. I have no weekend anymore. I see the coffeeshop baristas more than I see my friends. Even spending 3 hours on a Saturday with dad is a sacrifice, because as time passes I feel guilty thinking that I could have spent the last hour studying rather than doing nothing.
It’s coming home to an empty (messy!) condo with no one to hug and feeling like I’m a million miles from anyone that really cares that this used-to-be smart girl feel like she doesn’t know a single thing anymore. 
I miss you  I’m sorry (in advance) for my grades, I’ll keep trying though. 

the price of convenience

I got my HPV shot from my cousin’s wife’s clinic at the Medical Plaza Ortigas along San Miguel Ave., almost near Shaw Blvd. & then I walked all the way home to Corinithian Executive Regency along Ortigas Ave.

Why?

Because I am so sick of this urban jungle. Or this monotonous stress. Or doing what I’m supposed to do. Of sticking to deadlines.

I walked home just for the hell of it, but mostly because I am tired of having to pay for convenience, for happiness, for fullness, for the ability to talk to my loved ones.

I’m tired of this consumer-driven world I live in, where people find happiness in buying new clothes when they already have 4 closets full of them and a shoe rack overflowing. Where people get their nails done even if it chips away in three days and their nails grow out in a few weeks. I’m tired of a life of  consumables and expiration dates, of single serving coffee or shampoo sachets.

I miss the ocean.

I miss not needing to plan every hour of my life and just deciding in the moment what it was that I wanted to do most - which would usually be to pack up my things and head to the beach to swim, breathe, eat, read a book, or chill with my sister.

I am so sick of the city life, and all of the fake-golden dreams it promises. All it gives you is soot covered raindrops and a million stories of tragedies and poverty.

I am sick of having to put my feelings into this tiny box and store it in the closet so that I don’t appear weak. Feelings don’t make you weak. They make you human. 

It would be so easy to not wake up for class Monday morning, or the next day for the exam. So easy.

No one ever said that getting what you want would be easy. I just never thought I would have to give up so much to get it. I never thought I’d have to put my feelings in a box for so long, and fake a smile this long.

This is definitely catharsis week.

square peg in rectangular hole :D

After visiting the Surgery Ward/Department at St. Martin de Porres’ Hospital last weekend, this crazy thirst has been awakened in me. If nothing holds me back, I REALLY want to become a surgeon ^__^

Today we had a debriefing session with Dr. Alfonso, formerly known as “The Terminator” when he was still teaching in UST. He’s the kind of man that has an aura big enough to fill a room, to make the 5 (small) people that fill the room feel like they are in the presence of greatness, that somehow God is standing behind him. He’s THAT kind of man, the kind worth admiring and learning from. He knows his shit! And is brave enough to admit that his life has taken a turning point, that he is a changed man and will spend the rest of his life trying to salvage his early teaching days - when he taught mere excellence forgetting bedside manner.

“We never use patients as a means. They are our greatest teachers, and deserve our utmost respect.”

Dr. Alfonso reminds me too much of my dad - expecting nothing but the best, expecting to hear realizations from events rather than a rundown of what happened.

You can tell when someone amazing walks into your life, and you know that they’ve changed you, inspired you, nudged you one step towards the right direction. I spent 30 minutes with the man, and I can’t wait to learn from him. Martin’s been a kindred spirit as well, and it’s my great hope that the new blood next year brings more people hungry to learn and see and experience.

:) Strikeforce was the best decision I made all year.

mother knows best

she always has, and I’m pretty sure she always will. just received a care package from mum & mama mady, inclusive of the most essential needs for a med student! (ok, maybe she got a little ahead of herself with the surgical adhesive?!)

1. 5 sets of comfy scrubs woohoo!
2. surgical gloves & masks (for dissection!)
3. sterile tongue depressors
4. SCAPEL BLADES OF ALL SIZES!!!!!! :D
5. a vintage steth all the way back from the vietnam war! it even has my aunt’s name on it still
6. skin markers (?! that’s for surgery already haha)
7. Pharmacopoeia Pcket Dosing Guide (yay i’m gonna pass pharmacology!)
8. Clinical Laboratory Tests: Values and Implications (waaay advanced, but helpful!)
9. a Roxy jacket, for the very cold lecture hall
10. my favorite whitening toothpaste, Rembrant! (mom knows me too well!)
11. and most important of all…. nude seamless panties to wear with my white medical student uniform ^_^ + this amazing butt-lifting panty that gives you a Kardashian ass!

happy happy day :) i can’t wait to go home in 23 days! :D

||| you are a mutual friend of: dylan thomas

the med school battle cry:

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

||| & then wendy chose london

i will forever remember this as the moment i grew up.

not the moment i got my driver’s license

not the moment i moved away for college

not the moment i went on an out of town trip without calling home first

not when i graduated from college

not even the moment that I chose to attend the Ateneo School of Medicine and Public Health, but having to tell my dad that i made this choice.

i grew up when i went against my father’s choice and finally found the courage to tell him, while still trying to show that i respected and loved him. i doubt anything is harder for a daughter than to tell her father that she understands what he wants, but something else is better for her and he doesn’t see it. i doubt anything is harder for a father, than to see his daughter making her own choices for herself, and them not matching up to what he had planned.

i know my dad loves me. all i can hope is that he can one day understand the choice i made, and that i can prove myself by being great.

here we go.