random thoughts

To laugh is to risk appearing the fool. To weep is to risk appearing sentimental. To reach out is to risk involvement. To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self. To place your ideas and dreams before the crowd is to risk their love. To love is to risk not being loved in return. To live is to risk dying. To hope is to risk despair. To try is to risk failure. But the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing. The one who risks nothing does nothing and has nothing - and finally is nothing. He may avoid sufferings and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn, feel, change, grow, or love. Chained by his certitude, he is a slave; he has forfeited freedom. Only one who risks is free.

Yesterday he asked me to prepare 100 questions for tonight. I thought wow thats a lot… something is up. Women, i believe, have intuition. We may try to deny it. But hey we’ve only known each other for a month which actually doesn’t feel like just a month. After several pedia duties, afternoon endorsements, and long talks in between… We can actually talk for hours on end and not run out of things to say.  I finally meet a guy who talks more than I do.

You see, I can spend every weekend gimmick for months with a group of people without really getting to know them. You may see a person everyday for the past N years and actually don’t know much about them. Unless you really spend time to talk and listen to that person and show who you really are, without fear of rejection, then you will never get to know the person who you are talking to. Because everybody wears masks.. We all have facades.. An image that we would like to project to people… Because in general, we don’t want to appear weak and vulnerable.

So I spent 3 hours making 100 questions today, thought about each question carefully.. I call them the crucial questions.. Do I want to ask questions like "If you were a color, what color would you be?" Of course not! These 100 questions would matter. Even if 100 questions initially seemed like a lot, I am barely scratching the surface. So I typed it, printed 2 copies like he instructed me to do, and emailed a copy to Mia who I YMed the entire morning. Wish me luck!

Coffee Bean, 11ish pm, December 23rd

Question #1 Have you ever done this 100 questions thing before with anyone and who? Answer is no. He said he wasn’t able to make 100 questions because he was post-duty. Really valid excuse. Mental note: I would even have understood if he would want to cancel tonight because postduty IS postduty and travelling all the way to suburban QC and beating the holiday rush is no small feat. super bangag ka na after 2 consecutive days of duty. Believe me.

Question # 16. Does vanity turn you off? he says ALL girls are vain. ok… point taken.

Question # 27 Have you ever said I love you without meaning it? Answer is again no

Hours passed and somewhere throughout our conversation, he apologizes for not making his own set of questions. We still have a long way to get to know each other after all. Btw, I told him that he is not entitled to ask any question that is not printed on those two sheets of paper. Fair deal. I forgot what his exact words were but somewhere he interjects "How would you react if I told you I’m falling in love with you." PAUSE. That question is not printed on the paper. (OC me)

And hesitation sets in. I wasn’t able to say anything for a minute i think. ok that’s just me. Miss Analyze-Everything-Go-Into-Self-Preservation-Mode.. Rather than risk getting hurt again this year.. Rather than risk exposing your true feelings. I didnt say anything and im just rambling now. I just smiled, looked down on the table.. trying to stall a bit.

We never really got past questions #53-100 because he has to leave… Early flight tomorrow. Maybe if he read the second page he would have found Question # 97. What was the biggest risk you took in your life? What happened afterwards? I never took the risk of saying anything. I say it’s all a big gamble! I really like this guy. But what happens next year? Maybe this time, my intuition tells me, it will be different. But as I always say, nothing in life is certain. I told him the other day, I don’t want to to think too much.  Cliche as it may sound, but it reminded me of the scene in My Best Friend’s Wedding when Julia Roberts and Dermot Mulroney were on the boat and as they passed under a bridge, he said "Kimmy says if you love someone you say it,… you say it right then, out loud… Otherwise the moment just… passes you by". It felt exactly like that.

In life, there are no rewind buttons to press. It may seem all peachy, happy happy joy joy but in reality, when you take off the rose colored lenses, what are you left with? I really have to think during this Christmas break! What risks am I willing to take?

one boring day somewhere in the suburban area of QC, this newly converted couch potato turned on the tellie.. 

lo and behold, Top Gun was showing on HBO.. starring Tom Cruise, Val Kilmer, Tom Skerrit and this unknown blonde girl who will be known as Charlie…

LSS: "Take My Breath Away" and "You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling" playing on the background…

i cant believe i havent seen this movie before.. (during that time i was probably still playing with Play-doh and Barbie) and i didnt really care for anything on tv except Care Bears, Batibot and Sesame Street back then…

it sure got me glued to my seat.. wasnt really a Tom Cruise fan before BUT any young/old woman who has seen Top Gun would understand why this movie made Tom a star.. Reasons cannot be disclosed at the moment but it’s classified. I could tell you, but I’d have to kill you… haha.

Btw, Iceman tells Maverick "You can be my wingman anytime" was voted as the world’s 5th cheesiest line in movie history.. (BBC)

to quote Mark Simpson from his website " TOP GUN is a film about young muscular airborne gladiators who liked nothing better after a good dogfight to stand around chatting to one another in jock straps and perfectly gelled hair in steamy bath-houses/locker rooms.  TOP GUN was the most important proto-metrosexual movie of the 80s, one that eventually turned Tom into the most famous metrosexual actor in the world, not just because it is a film that sells very modern, very ‘perverse’ male vanity (and homoerotics) as something traditional and Republican, which it does in gelled aircraft carrier-loads, but because it is drenched in the codes of 1980s men’s advertising and pop promos (A Gillette commercial crossed with a Calvin Klein and a Levis ad – and a US Navy recruitment film – it was directed by adman Tony Scott.)"

anyway, gush gush gush… Tom Cruise in those Ray-ban aviators… i really dont care what other people say.. maybe he did set the trend for metrosexual men, we dont know..

oh and Tina texted me that the MI3 trailer is out.. im super lost.. didnt even know King Kong came out already until last week.. and still catching up with backlog tv shows.. God, i miss being a couch potato..

Is the universe fortuitous or planned? Is life an incidental ferment or purposive? Is the mind unique and independent or a mere secretion of the brain? Or is matter itself only an illusion of the mind? - after reading in fully booked, powerplant for 3 hours

i have always believed that when people keep on telling you certain things, over and over again.  until eventually you believe it yourself…you end up living it out..

gio asked me yesterday what i wanted to do with my life? i said have a successful career, raise a good and happy family and travel the world.. he asked "thats it? wont you get bored?"

believe it or not, this is what i wanted since I was in Kinder, during those short afternoon graduation programs where you scream at the top of your lungs what you want to be when you grow up.. some kids say "i want to be an astronaut" (’cause it would be utterly cool to explore outer space i guess), "i want to be a fireman" (and rescue people from impending doom) "i want to be a lawyer" (and defend people’s rights especially those of the poor and oppressed)

But me? "i want to be a doctor!" just like mom and dad.. just like my dad because he receives lots of gifts for Christmas! just look under our tree now.. 7 christmas hams, several fruit baskets, bottles of wine, food from Santi’s, generic shopping bags from Marks and Spencer and a Samsonite bag. that was my only reason in Kinder for wanting to be a doctor…really..

i thought i got my whole life planned out until now.. do you know why i entered Pisay in the first place? i was only 12 years old and i knew i wanted to be a doctor… so i made a life altering decision to attend Philippine Science High School which is my sure ticket to UP Diliman ergo eventually land me a slot in the UP College of Medicine. Nobody forced me to do that.. I was young, naive, but I knew what I wanted in life..  So you may assume i planned my life for 12 more years after high school.. the control-freak that I am, always planning everything in advance.. fast forward to the present.. Im here na in UP Med.. the means to an end.. so what now?

here i am now living out my dream, pursuing what i have always wanted.. after hearing it from strangers, relatives, and family friends through the years.. and finally, wow may doktora na din kayo! like i was to live out everything that they have hoped for, what i have aspired for, until this conversation..

don’t get me wrong! i still want to become a doctor… im actually having fun in pedia wards (i admit it.. and my co-clerks and interns find that weird kasi ang hirap mag-duty) The patients and the parents are very appreciative and i receive food from them every now and then. oh just like dad except my professional fee consists of chips, cookies and peanuts… (thank you for feeding me while i monitor ward 9!)

what else do i want in life?  i thought i had my whole life planned out, but as i always say.. nothing in life is certain.

i always told gio, you think too much! our conversations are always like this… now he’s making me think again…

"there is no one defining moment in life but a series of events and circumstances that define who we are. they change us little by little leading us to something bigger or unexpected or maybe to a closed door and that is when we experience a grand moment of realization that drives us closer to our destiny."

today is my dad’s birthday… and i wont be able to go to our family dinner tonight because ill be on duty.. i have come to accept that being a medical student, you will have to miss the important events- countless family gatherings, despedida parties of friends who migrate elsewhere and the like.. because you have chosen to enter this profession. because i have chosen to follow my parents’ footsteps…

my dad comes home from a drug company party while i sit in front of the tv, half asleep, half awake.. holding these ECG tracings that i need to interpret before friday… it’s not easy being me.. people often say i look like my dad… that is probably my claim to fame.. the moment they see my last name, i get instant recognition! because my dad has lectured on the ECG year in and year out since time immemorial… but i have a confession to make, i still dont know how to read the ECG even after rotating in internal medicine..and that is my frustration at the moment.. i don’t know if my dad feels i am a disappointment since i can already sense it in the tone of his voice as he lectures to me.. how come i cant get it? it’s just a matter of understanding the basic principle of depolarization and the travelling of the impulse along the myocardium.  being a clinical clerk, there are already cerrtain expectations of you and im afraid i havent met most of them.. most of my friends think i have it easy, BUT I DONT.. my classmates tell me bakit hindi ka na lang magpaturo sa tatay mo? my dad expects me to remember where the precordial leads are and how to get the frontal axis, vectors and angles.. and i rack my brain as he tells me simple lang di ba? which actually makes it complicated because i dont get it.. i wish it were a matter of genetics, like how i inherited his looks.. i wish i knew how to interpret the ECG, like it was passed on from the chromosomes i inherited from my dad.. but it doesn’t happen that way..

so can u imagine my frustration now as i type madly into my brother’s keyboard? my dad just went upstairs and actually walked out on me..because i don’t know the basic principles of the ECG.. there is already a negative association with these ECG tracings, because i am reminded of the emotional overtone that comes with it.. another reason why i don’t want to be a cardiologist.. people keep on telling you that i could easily inherit my dad’s practice.. only for me to realize that it is not really the profession for me…because i don’t want to be compared to my dad.

from day one, i have never been spoonfed.. and from the beginning, i have always been left on my own.. unlike other children of doctors, everything i did in med school was of my own doing and not something my parents gave me..my dad firmly believes that i shouldn’t be spoonfed because i am not in grade one… i am about to finish clerkship in four months and i don’t know if we are competent enough to be left on our own…  we blame the system! being a clerk, you end up doing all the scutwork- the blood extractions, the monitoring of the wards, the paperwork.. and at the end of the day, not having enough energy to study or read up on your cases… so where’s the learning in that?

i now feel like i’m that area of ischemia on that ECG tracing.. instead of understanding the ECG after talking to my dad, the impulse didn’t travel all the way across the myocardium.. it stopped somewhere else.

and then footsteps.. my mom is what i call the great equalizer..she knows how difficult it is to interpret the ECG and unless you practice, you wont be able to get it… even admitting that she herself has forgotten it already..  i have always told my mom that i am my own person and she reminds me of it.. my identity and the way i perceive things have been greatly influenced by what other people keep on telling me.. that’s why i shouldnt even bother listening to their comments.. i am my own person, i will learn this at my own pace, at my own time.. i will not let my frustration and my father’s disappointment get to me.

maybe when he wakes up, he would have forgotten this already and play golf or something.. later, i’ll try to buy this book to teach myself to interpret the ECG.. maybe next year, i would know this by heart. (*pun intended*)

today is my dad’s birthday..

i just met a person who has given me a new perspective about life. His name is Nheo and he is my 2 year old patient in pedia hema-onco… for two weeks, i rotated in ward 9 and my patients were all cancer and leukemia patients..

Pedia could be a toxic rotation but it is not hard to love the patients and their families.  Moreso, I learned the importance of prayers and family support.. Even if they were aware of the poor prognosis, they did not lose hope. Whenever i passed by Nheo’s bed, they would always greet me and sometimes share their problems.  most of the time, i dont know what to say so i would just listen. Once, i joined them in prayer and i found myself crying.. maybe because i have not prayed that intensely in a long time.. maybe because i have learned to be emotionally detached from my patients because of my previous rotation in internal medicine, where at least one patient dies everyday.. maybe because the concept of death and dying is still new to me.. maybe because Nheo just celebrated his 2nd birthday last week which in itself is a miracle. This kid has endured more trials than most of us in 2 years because he has had several surgeries since he was born..  Nheo is a joy to his parents, and never fails to amuse the other patients and parents of the pedia ward.. if you looked at him you wouldn’t think that he had a mass in the liver, already with metastasis to his lungs.. He would greet me everyday with arms outstretched, and wave at me, always beaming with a huge smile. Nheo would give me his cupcakes and donuts which i couldn’t accept from this 2 year old.. He needs it more than i do.

On his birthday, they were discharged from the hospital because he would need more chemotherapy sessions on an outpatient basis.  Today, Nheo and his parents went to visit me again after a week ( and because I still owe him a gift!)..  He still has this huge smile on his face, and the same cheerful disposition. They made me feel i was part of their family and i thank them for giving me the extraordinary opportunity to get to know them…