Thanks (Commercial Muna)

To the nice people from Johnson's and Sunsilk, thanks a lot!

January to February in Notebooks

 

First photo of the January notebook

The cover is a beautiful dark-red to maroon color.

My mum thought it was my passport the first time she saw it.

 

Now for the February notebook.

It's a very nice and rich red and this photo does not do it justice.

(P.S. I'm still using the multi-colored fineliners)

Well, That Went Well

First day of classes for 2010, and yours truly thinks she did pretty well.

I made it to the first class on time, no matter how tempted I was to sleep in the cool sheets or how slow I was in getting ready. What previously took 5 minutes took me some 20 minutes this morning; blame it on holiday hangover or vacation inertia, but I probably just have to reset my routine or familiarize myself with the dorm again. I have to keep my resolution of arriving in class well before any official activity takes place, unlike those last few weeks of 2009 when I'd arrive harried-looking and wheezing with asthma to 7 AM quizzes or classes, much to my own dismay and discomfort. I can probably improve on getting a proper breakfast down, but I'm improving. Anyway, sleep totally beats (PWNs?) food for any MS3.

Listening to the lectures and trying (emphasis on trying) to participate in the group discussions made me realize how I've taken pharmacology and microbiology for granted, just because they belong to hazy memories of MS2.  I like that I remember most drugs and most microbes and that I am able to apply those information to the current things we discuss; it's just that the professors have this look that all the effort we exert is NOT GOOD ENOUGH.  They always remind us that everything we study is not compartmentalized and should not be forgotten, which is the truth, but they have the advantage of years of experience in the field, whereas we're these students who have to make space for every single topic of every single medical/surgical specialty.  I know it's not entirely good to cut us some slack because we're not trained to be complacent or forever classroom learners, it's just that maybe they can teach us in a way that doesn't make us seem like 1 GB flash drives trying to eat some 40 GB of data.  Is it just that my neurons have 'emptied the recycle bin' while I valiantly try 'system restore' on those precious shreds of memory?

The interesting thing that today brought was the wide range of substances that one can abuse or become dependent on.  There's a difference, according to Dr. V. Rosales (one of the best neuropsych lecturers of all time, we lesser mortals should bow down to our basal ganglia god, kthxbye), who kindly explained it in terms of 3 venti Starbucks brewed coffee from Colombia and whatever subject's been messing with our brains and grades lately.  We unknowingly abuse caffeine--down own and you're still drowsy, down two and you're a bit awake, down three and you're vomiting/fecally incontinent/miserable but awake.  That abuse doesn't translate to dependence, because we nerds have stricter criterion to see if anyone becomes truly dependent or has those horrible withdrawal symptoms that one friend inelegantly put as, "you know, sabog..."  Most of the drugs of abuse mess up the reward (dopamine) pathway of the brain, some inhibit the inhibitory pathways (hence, disinhibition on one's part, which is sadly a very bad excuse for drunk texting or emo posts on FB/tumblr), some make one so euphoric and anorexic (favored by artistas and mow-dels) and some wreak havoc on neurotransmitters that you start hallucinating like Alice in Wonderland who took special brownies with tea in the Mad Hatter's place.  Trivia of the day included that two bottles of beer can get you legally intoxicated, that 10% of alcohol ingested passes through the lungs and kidneys unchanged so reeking of alcohol really means you're truly drunk, that methamphetamine is rampantly abused in our country because the masses can only afford shabu (the conyo kids carouse with ecstasy, marijuana, or cocaine, and heroin is so darned expensive that only politicians, swindlers, or dictators can afford it), and that at any given area anyone can get a high from solvents but the long term trade off is brain atrophy and a low IQ.  Makes you kind of wonder whatever it was that our current leaders were or are on.

No Vacations for the Next Ten Years?

The Christmas break went by far too quickly to my liking.  It was the last solid block of vacation junior medical students like myself will have for a very long time; April will see us starting our clinical clerkship (as senior medical students), followed by a year of internship, then board exams for physicians, some 2-3 years of residency, and many more years of specialization or sub-specialization if one desires.  (If I'd be able to fit in getting married and starting my own family in between those very hectic years, I'd stop getting lines on my forehead or spending sleepless nights wondering if my eggs are staging an uprising in my ovaries.)  Now clerkship/internship/residency/fellowship does not make any allowances for public holidays, weekends, or class suspensions--what matters only is if you're on duty or not.  I'm quite excited by the prospect of actually working with the patients 24/7, kinesthetic learner that I am, although I think the novelty will wear off quite quickly as soon as (1) a patient's bodily fluids/excreta/vomitus decorate my uniform and make me less pleasing in an olfactory sense, (2) a superior piles work on me and screams at me just because I'm the bottom feeder in the hospital food chain, (3) I'm running on adrenaline and no sleep while helping out on a code blue and the patient's family members are emotional wrecks in the way, (4) I miss out on very important family reunions or rare outings with the barkada, (5) whatever other scenario involving me trying to help treat the patient and learn at the same time, while trying to maintain some shreds of sanity and an acceptable physical appearance.

Junior year already has shown how precious little time we have to ourselves, and I wonder if I'd have the same luxury of stolen moments of just vegging out or engaging in my little but very important hobbies in the next few years.  (Vegging out just feels more delicious after long hours of working until one's neurons voluntarily commit suicide to force one to rest, non?)  I'm still confused as to how I'd balance everything that has already been part of my life prior to medical school with my professional aspirations, personal goals, and increasing workload and responsibilities.  Granted, I'm not the type of person who demands everything in the future to go exactly as planned, but I do have some sense of urgency and of wanting to know how everything might go and what I might do about those things so I'll be sure I'm still on course.  A concrete five-year plan sounds nice but quite frustrating if I'd have limited choices and chances; I'm not too pleased with the idea of having no plan at all, either.  How do I choose what's right for me and what was meant for me?  And how am I going to function without a proper vacation in the next ten years?

Enjoying the Christmas Break

This picture I borrowed from Tumblr represents some of the food I've been enjoying in the past four days.

After what seemed to be weeks and weeks of dreadful school work and not being able to go home, I'm on Christmas break and making the most out of the it.  It's going to be my last free Christmas for a very long time; I am an MS3 after all, and it will be more than a decade before I'll be able to call when I can take a Christmas break.  I'm doing everything unrelated to academia, indulging in my favorite food, and enjoying much needed shut-eye in this beautifully cool weather.  I hope the stress of parties/shopping/traffic has not overshadowed the holiday spirit in everyone's hearts.  Merry Christmas!

Yellow Roses

This little ray of sunshine greeted me with a cheery "Good morning!" over the weekend.

They're so lovely and happy.

 

They instantly banished all feelings of frustration, and the all-consuming feeling of loneliness.

Thank you =)

Slow Down, You Crazy Child

If someone prays for patience, do you think God gives them patience? Or does He give them the opportunity to be patient? If they pray for courage, does God give them courage, or does He give them opportunities to be courageous? If someone prayed for their family to be closer, do you think God zaps them with warm, fuzzy feelings? Or does He give them opportunities to love each other? - God (err, as portrayed by Morgan Freeman) in Evan Almighty

This quote first came from a college friend who was among the pillars of strength I leaned on quite heavily as I began my journey to become a physician. Adjusting to the new uni, the new culture, the new people, the new system, and the new environment presented quite a challenge and became an additional source of stress on top of worries of the expenses my mum was suddenly incurring (after eight years on government scholarships) because of the shift from the state uni to a private uni. During one of our late night convos, my friend happily shared the quote above. At the time, I think I was too distracted by my moping around that I failed to see deeper into what was said; I merely thought it was a very beautiful and heartfelt expression of all things that had to do with God and human life. The powerful message struck home tonight and I just felt that all my prayers had been answered somewhat. I had always prayed for strength, courage, understanding, wisdom, and perseverance, and got frustrated because the prayers were seemingly answered in the opposite manner. Somehow, after getting frustrated day after day, I sort of gave up and took life's 'blows' as they came. I reasoned that there was no use fighting against them anymore, and merely waited for life to stop 'picking on me' even for just once. Somehow those 'blows' that I resented immensely became the opportunities for me to become stronger, braver, more understanding, wiser, and more enduring. An added grace was that everything seemed calmer. The greatest bonus for myself was that I found myself accomplishing things easier; perhaps I became more focused instead of remaining somewhat of a crazy child. For all these, I am thankful and I hope for the best for the next few years.







P.S. Cookies and props to anyone who can name the artist and the song from which I stole the title of this entry.


P.P.S. I've always thought that God would sound like Liam Neeson. Morgan Freeman does a pretty good job too. If God was a woman, I think she'd sound like Meryl Streep. :) (To which statement, my friend replies, "Duh, Liam Neeson is Aslan; Morgan Freeman is God," and to which I reply, "Aslan is sort of like the personification of God in the Chronicles of Narnia...so somewhat same, non?")

Nostalgia for Good Food

I think the complete lack of good food nowadays is making me fat. (Please allow me to make excuses, just this time.) I'm swallowing heaps of stuff that are either as bland as board, loaded with enough sugar to make my pee attractive to ants, marinated in a tub of MSG for two months, or soaked through with reused atherogenic animal fat. I'm eating and eating and eating stuff that really isn't that palatable or that delicious because my taste buds are hankering for those real, solid flavors that were introduced during childhood. It's just not the same food anymore.

Milk used to be a source of comfort. I remember one of my grand-aunts handing me a creamy glass to enjoy on a lazy afternoon and thinking to myself, they must have this milk in heaven. Throughout my childhood, I must have guzzled enough milk to fill a large lake. Nowadays, I'm starting to abhor the milk that's available everywhere, and it's a bad thing because now is the best time to get all bone-building goodness that milk provides. Commercial milk tastes nothing like the milk I had when I was a kid. Are the cows too stressed to produce good milk? Are companies trying to cut down costs by watering down their products? (Of course, it doesn't help that I developed lactose intolerance after a bad gastro bout in high school, but there really comes a time every week that milk becomes a nagging craving.) Too bad the milk nowadays tastes like liquid cardboard. Or flavored with enough artificial stuff to give me all sorts of horrible diseases or worsen pre-existing ones.

Another foodstuff that's been growing worse is bread. Bakeries seem to just lump the bleached flour, lard, yeast, water, and sugar together then serve up sad lumps of carbs. Whatever happened to warm pieces of bread, with its sweet smell wafting up with its steam? Pandesal used to be something as big as an adult man's fist and substantial enough to drive away mid-afternoon hunger pangs that couldn't be shooed away by biscuits. We used to toast pandesal to that point before it hardens and pat really good and authentic butter on the halves. It was fascinating how those golden pats of butter melt into the fragrant pandesal and add to the slightly yeasty smell of the fresh bread. The rich flavor of butter flirting with a hint of sweetness from the pandesal always put a smile on my face until the day ended. Now pandesal looks no larger than a marble, and it takes about four of these small critters to satisfy the tastebuds.

Even the honey being sold in supermarkets today is adulterated with refined sugar or caramel coloring. Sadness, sadness, sadness. I love honey on those oven biscuits I used to make or paired with a soothing cup of tea. The best honey I had was a palmful given by the generous indigenous Mangyans we visited in Romblon last year, after a challenging hike through the lush forest and up the steep mountains. The honey served as our dessert and pick-me-up after a meal of a starchy purple kamote (no, it wasn't ube), stewed gabi leaves, and freshly caught river shrimp, sweet and plump. The honey smelled something like vinegar, so I thought it was fermented and a bit like wine, but it was like drinking nectar straight from the wild flowers. It wasn't the type of sweetness that would make your teeth ache or your throat sore. It went down so smoothly and at that time, it was like some rare gift from heaven, so fragrant, so light, and so uplifting.

The paternal side of the family spoiled my tastebuds, I think. My grandmother, bless her soul, made the most spectacular dishes at home, and those dishes trump those sold in restaurants any time. Lola never failed to indulge us in our favorites every time we had gatherings in any of the homes. She'd always try to serve my favorite steamed crab when I was in high school and living away in a dorm that served otherworldly (strange/alien) creations; she had a knack for finding crab that was just plucked from the depths and had the sweetest meat to be enjoyed on its own. (I hated aligue and fished them out for other relatives to mix with their rice. I think that is partly the reason they also enjoy eating crab when I'm around. I'm selfish with crab meat, but not the aligue.) I can't trust crab anywhere else because the time I had it from some place, it tasted just like those fake crab sticks used for pretend sushi. All the other ulam we enjoyed that Lola lovingly created in her busy kitchen are unforgettable: her bola-bola (made with shrimp) and sotanghon soup, the piping hot sinigang with the gamut of vegetables and soft fatty pork in all its sour glory, the unparalleled adobo flakes that go well with fragrant grains of perfectly cooked rice, the succulent roast beef + creamy mashed potatoes + thick homemade gravy + steamed vegetables combo, the perfection that was her free-range native chicken and asparagus soup, the chunky cuts of tuna swimming lemon butter sauce, the crispiest and tastiest fried chicken minus the "lansa" because it was marinated in patis-calamansi and dropped in the hottest oil, and that kare kare that wouldn't leave that thick aftertaste of cholesterol because Lola had the beef cooked in a special way. The desserts are best left for another entry on this blog, and I'd have to say, I love my mom's baked desserts the most.

Dear heavens, I could go on and on, but I'm stopping here because I'm thinking of raiding the fridge for a late night snack, and I need to get back to reading my textbooks.

Dance Like No One's Watching

Forget your worries for four minutes and dance along.
I share this in the hope that it might take the blues away.
Smile everyone and have a happy weekend!

Stress Management Tips from the Masters

Just in case you are having a rough day, here is a stress management technique recommended in all the latest psychological tests.

The funny thing is that it works.


1. Picture yourself near a stream in the mountains.


2. Birds are softly chirping in the cool mountain air.


3. No one knows your secret place.


4. You are in total seclusion from the hectic place called the world.


5. The soothing sound of a gentle waterfall fills the air with a cascade of serenity.


6. The water is crystal clear.


7. You can easily make out the face of the person you are holding under the water.

See. You're smiling already.