sporadic thought bubbles

So I’m smack in the middle of my so-called "intensive" studying for the USMLEs. I’m trying to get back into the zone, where you wake up in time for Mo Twister’s morning radio show (is it still 6-9am?), sleep around the time that Conan’s on etc (or so you guess because, as we all know, tv is the n-enemy), and make yourself kurot each time you leave highlighter tracks all over the book whenever you fall into a catatonic stupor. Of course, my brain is fried by the time I hit 2 hours of continuous reading, so I spend the rest of the day daydreaming. (See how much I’ve regressed? Redundancy is now my best friend.)

Anyway, I got to thinking, what if the USMLE was like a Tyra Banks show? Specifically, what if they reformatted the exam process into "America’s Next Top Doctor"? And they’d get some uber-hot tv doctor, like say Mcdreamy or even George Clooney, to live with and be a sort of mentor to the 12 fresh young Filipino doctors aspiring to live the American dream. The top prize would be a 3-year residency contract with the Johns Hopkins doctoring agency, a photoshoot with "New England Journal of Medicine", and (in true Pinoy gameshow fashion), a pangkabuhayan showcase!!! In my fantasy, the competition is limited to female and gay contestants. That’s 75% of the new doctor population anyway. Of course, Mcdreamy (or in this case, Mctyra) would have to whittle the number down each week by posing certain challenges related to the medical profession. I won’t go into detail for fear of alienating my non-medical readers (one out of the three people who’ve read this far), but suffice it to say, since this IS tv, that there would be a number of physical and anatomical examinations of blond Caucasian male models… There would be a week devoted to dealing with sexy superiors (residents/consultants/whatnot), with these roles being assumed by the likes of Noah Wyle, Zach Braff, and of course, the Mctyra… And an on-the-spot challenge of jazzing up a clinic area using recycled materials (which I will ace due to the PGH experience). It will be rigorous work indeed, rewarded whenever we go to panel and Mctyra announces the names with those sweet puppy dog eyes and a kiss on the cheek. And when I finally win (by virtue of my sheer genius at patient rapport and a "special" co-doctor camaraderie with Mctyra)… I wake up.

This is why the MLE is not a Tyra Banks show. It’s really not that interesting.

Snooze button.

Now here’s a non-rhetorical question.

Ever feel so brain-numbingly bored that you feel the urge to self-destruct?

I’ve been wondering about this lately, if it’s just me, or if it happens to other, more normal people out there. Have you ever stopped in your shoes, as you’re walking down your lovely, yellow-brick, rose-strewn path, and heard this undrownable ringing in your ears? An irritating, high-pitched screaming coming from the depths of your otherwise placid, bordering on frigid, soul?

And it comes around when you’re supposed to be happy, when you’re supposed to be safely ensconced in a life that many envy, in the arms of a dream that you thought you’ve always wanted. For all its publicity, sometimes love and happiness aren’t all that they’re cracked up to be. And the easiest way out is to set yourself aflame.

Sometimes, the temptation to sabotage ourselves is just too much to resist.

I am unwritten, can’t read my mind, I’m undefined
I’m just beginning, the pen’s in my hand, ending unplanned

Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you 
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open 
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten.

After 3 months of complete bumhood, during which i gladly let my brain dissolve to mush, i recently decided to (drumroll please)… get a job. Yes, i’ve gone and done it, i’ve actually dispensed advice and medications in exchange for money. Oh, the horror. Just when i thought i knew what i wanted to do with my life, which would be to depend on my parents for another ten years, then go straight into semi-retirement by finding a Brazilian supermodel with a trust fund. Preferably a male supermodel.

So anyway, after i went off the deep end and accepted these job offers (like i’m sooo in demand), i realized what this meant. Responsibility. Accountability. Consequences of my actions. Shi-ite.

I guess i’m supposed to grow up now, guess i’m supposed to stop whining like a big baby when i get hungry, or gushing to my friends about the latest brain-dead show that i watched. It’s kind of hard to be a doctor when you feel twelve years old inside. It gets even harder when your patients constantly ask how old you are, and you have to respond, with utter confidence, with a number that will satisfy them…a number that may be more than your actual age, and perhaps twice the number that comes to mind when you think of maturity, or credibility, or any other grown-up trait that you’re supposed to have acquired. It’s almost like playing pretend but with a bit more guilt. The shadows of uncertainty plague me till i fall into blissful sleep…and then i wake up the next day, forced to be less of the shallow, selfish bi-atch that i am in real life, and more of the caring, competent physician that i know i also am, if i dig deep, waaaaay deeeeep…

It’s never a good idea to look vulnerable, when you’re a doctor. Then again, it’s probably not the best thing to be a doctor, when you’re twelve years old. Not even Doogie could do that.

I’ve been going to the gym on a not-so-regular basis for the past 5 months. I’m sure nobody noticed, cause nothing much has changed in terms of body type or stamina. That’s mainly because I’ve been going an average of 5 times a month, staying there probably two hours, max, each time. Those are the days when I am motivated by sheer guilt over the money I’m throwing away, and feel the need to sweat two thousand bucks worth in one day.

I’ve tried out a number of different group exercise classes in hopes of finding my perfect fit. Just figured some of youse might be interested to hear about them.

BODY BALANCE - the class I attended the most. It is a little bit of everything: yoga, pilates, taichi…This was fun mainly because I enjoyed the music. Imagine exercising to “Fix You” by Coldplay. Talk about imagination. Sometimes the drama of the music intertwined with the drama of the poses brings tears to my eyes. Hehehe. Not even kidding. Theabelle’s favorite class also. May rapport na sha sa instructor.

PILATES - I did this once and thought it was nice, a lot of stretching and contorting into different but not necessarily graceful positions. Might try again if schedule permits. Warning: do not try this on a particularly heavy period day. With the opening of your legs wide and up in the air, the awareness that your perineal area is on display is quite unnerving.

YOGILATES - I thought this would be easier since it’s yoga-based, but NO. Aside from the uber-cool name which I would
love to say I’m doing (”I’m off to Yogilates!” –> how much more Newport could you get?!) , I really have no other reason to do it again. Besides, my classmates were just so good at it! I looked like an awkward gosling lost in a sea of amazingly limber geese. Talk about cool similes.

BODY JAM - This is a total dance class, with funky choreography and loud music. I was scared to try this initially, cause when I watched it through the glass it looked super hard and complicated. Surprisingly, it wasn’t. I had so much fun! If only I could use the choreography in real-life clubbing without looking like a total dork slash Romy and Michelle wannabe.

BODY COMBAT - Thea and Lia warned me that this might be a little too physical for me, but I liked it! Maybe cause the instructor was this big bald gay man (no, not ilie), with bulging muscles, who, after telling us to jab jab punch kick, would suddenly do a shimmy or a big ala-Fame slide to the floor, the gayest moves ever! It was also fun to watch the two feeling macho guys there, who were SO into punching, down to their Rocky-like facial expressions.

BELLY DANCING - One of the reasons I joined fitness. I really wanted to learn belly dancing. Unfortunately, it didn’t feel like much of a workout. It’s fun if you feel like just letting loose and making use of your excess flabs around the waist area. But when you look at how the instructor’s abdomen isn’t exactly how you want yours to look, you might change your mind about making this class your one workout.

I think that’s about everything I’ve tried. The funniest thing about going to the gym is seeing all these people sweating it out around you. Despite my scoliosis and accepted lack of athletic skills, I wasn’t the most pathetic-looking, thank God. The saddest thing, though, is seeing all these forty or fifty-something women with smaller waists and toned arms go through their workouts without so much as a huff and a puff. It appears that the only ace up my sleeve, YOUTH, doesn’t amount to much after all. With multiple childbirths and at least twenty years separating us, they still manage to make me look like the same old lampa-rita that I’ve always been. Hahaha.

Someday, I too will don that Nike bra top that the little old lady with 80’s style hair regularly wears to the gym. For now, I’ll stick to my oversized shirts and jogging pants, true fashion-victim that I am, while getting my father’s money’s worth of free iced tea and pretending to know how to work the machinery.

I think I’ve done ten Kai years worth of exercise in five months. I may have to take a five-year hiatus from the healthy lifestyle and resume in 2011.

Anyone interested in a Fitness First account? Hehehe.

Since my last blog post, the following events have occurred:

1) My sister gave birth to my very first nephew, Joaquin. He was born exactly 30 years after his mother. When I say exact, I don’t just mean same birthday. I mean 2:34 pm, October 11. Freakyyyyy.

2) I have decided to install an anti-virus program. Yes, just now. Why? Cause I’m an idiot. Ilie told me to.

3) And now for the main event. Quite a number of my friends, "trophy" girlfriends, if I may say so myself, have gotten unceremoniously dumped. I pertain to no one in particular, so shame on you, if you, man-who-has-recently-broken-up-with-someone, think that I deem you worthy of blog space. It’s just something I’ve noticed going on over the past few months. When I say trophy, I mean the whole shebang. Gorgeous, smart, kind, stellar examples of womankind, suddenly finding themselves left out in the cold, with no plausible explanation. These are beauty queens with the intelligence to answer "world peace" and mean it. Some girls were left for others (new cows), and some were just left, in general. But when these things happen, the specifics become irrelevant. We are simply mystified by the fact that another seemingly perfect relationship has come to the same unambiguously bitter end. When women like these get dumped, the rest of us are left quivering in fear over the faithlessness of this so-called love.

If they couldn’t do it, how could we?

So basically, we trudge along and hope against hope it doesn’t happen to us. But when they drop like flies around us, we steel ourselves for the eventual blow.

In this day and age, how often does love, as we know it, survive?

Perhaps as often as a little boy is born on the same day, same time as his mother.

Next to never.

Warning: this post WILL offend some of you. These are just my opinions. Feel free to tell me if you agree but scathing comments against MY scathing comments are not welcome. Get your own blog. Hehe.

It was just so damn entertaining.

If you were just some random person who happened to wander into the PICC plenary hall yesterday afternoon, you would’ve been hard-pressed to realize that it was the oath-taking of the country’s newest physicians.

Some highlights:

(1) Endless references to "deal or no deal" made by the emcee and various dignified looking people seated at the presidential table. Kris Aquino will be president one day, i foresee it.

(2) Canned minus-one music accompanying the soprano and tenor through their doxology and kundiman-style intermission numbers (think high school, those programs during linggo ng wika that they force us to sit through). The PRC couldn’t fork up the dough for real accompaniment, since we only did pay them 700 bucks a head.

(3) Sad man who sang the national anthem. A capella. None of that patented drumrolling, harmonizing choir music we hear when we watch a movie. Just one sad sad man, singing, not particularly well. Flashbacks to grade school. Up next, Panatang Makabayan.

(4) Attempt at an inspirational speech by the PRC chairperson, a.k.a. "swimming in her sea of angst". Godwin likened it to "communion", mafia-style, where they cement down the poor guy’s legs and throw him into the ocean. It was about twenty minutes of sheer bitterness, with the occasional nuggets of "i-still-believe-in-the-philippines" idealisms thrown in for good measure. She was basically telling us, new doctors drowning in her sea of shattered dreams, to "see that island? swim towards that island! go go go!", temporarily forgetting that she’d cemented our frickin feet together.

(5) Teeny-bopper guest of honor patricia evangelista, with almost-impeccable english (with only one "him-her" discrimination problem), flawlessly tying up the vastly important topics of flirting with boys AND political activism. Why would you get a non-doctor to speak at a forum full of new doctors desperately looking for someone to inspire them? Despite her best efforts at flipping her hair and striding across the stage, she could not possibly evoke inspiration in me. She looked at doctors with the same wide-eyed awe as any other lay person, like anyone else who did not understand. She was charming, articulate, but inappropriate.

(6) Being sworn into the Philippine Medical Association, Wowowee style.

(7) Our board topnotcher, the stoic. (I’m sure we all wondered what he looked like when he found out he was #1. Perhaps he grew half a laugh line.)

(8) The stampede. At one moment, my life actually flashed before my eyes and i was amused by the irony of dying in the process of getting your license to heal. I was intimately related to complete strangers for an inordinate amount of time. Worse yet, 2 people stepped on my pretty pretty shoes. I was so glad i dressed down as i watched girls in prom dresses clawing their way through the crowd. I heard crawling was later involved.

And we are doctors. Paragons of society. With stellar reputations and glistening futures. Or so they think. If this is all we deserve, then i fear for the rest.

I can’t wait to get out of here.

During board reviews, i listed a few goals for myself, things that i wanted to do as soon as studying was over. I was gonna learn how to drive, go to the gym regularly, buy a whole new doctor-ish wardrobe, register for the usmle asap, and read pathology in my spare time. (yea, i’m so wicked.)

A month later, I’m 0 for 5. I have, however, managed to watch seasons 1 and 2 of lost, shop for everything EXCEPT a doctorly wardrobe, fatten myself up a couple sizes, and go to one million parties. I’ve visited the usmle site a couple of times, asked a few friends, but haven’t actually gotten round to applying. That’s about it. I’ve always been horrible with goals, self-confessed procrastinator that I am. But this is just shameless.

To make matters worse, it seems I am surrounded by people who know what they want and how to get it. Everytime I check my email, there are job openings, and people scrambling to take them. I hear of classmates moonlighting in various hospitals, and even braver souls starting their pre-residency at PGH. And here I am, completely satisfied with watching top model. Is this what I went to school for seven years for?

I’m standing on the edges of my tomorrow, and I’m not in the mood to jump.

Push, anyone?

it’s the end of a very long day, and i’m smiling.

it’s been 24 hours of pure anxiety, going through various peaks and troughs as we waited. and waited. and waited some more.

it’s amazing just how gullible you can be when you’re life-and-death desperate.

we had the computer on standby, refreshing the screen every few minutes. almost the entire day.

we went on a wild goose chase from katipunan to prc, and wandered there aimlessly for a couple of minutes until the guard told us we weren’t going to find anything.

dejected, we sat in the car quietly texting away our frustrations.

then aicee and annski texted thea and the inevitable happened.

we called bombo radyo.

BEAT THAT! Haha. WE FOUND OUT WE PASSED THE MEDICAL BOARD EXAMS THROUGH BOMBO RADYO! I’ve never even heard of the station bombo radyo! Now that’s a story to tell the grandkids!

i’m saving my thank yous for another entry. now it’s just little old frazzled, non-literary me, freaking out over this, this miracle. i’m a doctor! WHO KNEW?

(Bombo Radyo!)

Woohoo!!!

i am

supposed to be studying but obviously am not…

spending most of my time thinking

bout things i know better than to think of right now.

these days there’s a mcflurry of thoughts residing in my head,

taking up the space i’d intended

for the urea cycle,

the muscular dystrophies,

the one million and one foreign names that stand for diseases.

i’m classically screwing things up,

kai-style.

in more ways than one,

i’m waiting…

for the shit

to hit

the fan.

sometime last week i was reprimanded by an old lady for wearing a mini-skirt to mass. i wasn’t in any way trying to seduce the priest, or attract men, boys and lesbians to accompany me on my journey to hell. it simply slipped my mind that i was wearing a relatively short skirt, since i had gone straight to the mass from somewhere else. i realize now that it was inappropriate, and completely my fault, but the shame i felt was proportional to how pissed off i was at being humiliated. i no longer go to that church. i don’t think that was the point she was trying to make, but it’s the message i got anyway. i’m sorry my skirt wasn’t as long as your pashmina, lady. i’m sorry the sight of my bare calves offended you.

but i wasn’t there for you. in any case, i’ll go speak with my God in another place, another church, or maybe just in my head again.

i know i’m not always right, and that there are probably a million arguments against what i just said. i don’t really care.

throw your stones.