My Christmas break countdown ’till school opens in 2009 has started ticking. It’s the 22nd - just 3 days before the much-awaited celebration of Kuya Jess’ birth. I am both looking forward to the 25th and at the same time very anxious because this is the last Christmas break that I will be having until God knows when. As I mentioned in my previous post, next year, I will be spending my Christmas - or perhaps - New Year - caring for the sick and dying as a medical clerk. As preparation for our impending doom journey to the real hospital world, we will have a one-on-one session with a preceptor who will observe us while we do our history and PE on a patient starting next year. Although this isn’t exactly my first time to do this, what bothers me a lot is that we will be totally on our own this time unlike during our SGD patient encounter sessions wherein our preceptors supervise and correct us while we do our thing. What makes things a lot worse is perhaps the fact that we are clueless until the day of our one-on-one session on what kind of patients we will be having. In the past at least, we have an idea on what type of cases we will be encountering for the day. Say, Mondays are Pedia SGD days so we expect to see a kid entering the room, but for the one-on-one sessions, the patient who will walk in can either be an adult or a sick kid or even perhaps a pregnant woman. To make the very long explanation shorter, we’re supposed to know our maneuvers by heart - whether it be for a pregnant woman, for a Neuro patient who just had a stroke or for a week-old neonate being brought for a well-baby checkup. We’re supposed to do this only once and we’re divided into batches who will do the one-on-one preceptorship every Tuesday starting January. Sadly, I’m one of the very lucky students from the first batch. I’m already contemplating on ordering my epitaph since I’ll be dead for sure on January 6. So my dear friends, please pray for my impending death nerve-wracking one-on-one with Preceptor #6. More than anyone else, it is I who need your prayers badly on that day.

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I ain’t an equestrienne but perhaps you need some horse supplies.

Bee’s sick and I’m worried because I can’t be with him to look after him. I called him up earlier this evening and he sounded really bad over the phone. He was complaining of sore throat last night on YM and this afternoon, he developed fever. Now, he’s having chills. I heard how a lot of people are getting sick these days. The change in weather is taking its toll in a lot of people’s weakened immune systems especially those who are working in call centers and are on night duty. The downpour in the past few days also doesn’t help. Stagnant water promotes breeding of mosquitoes. Xienah, in fact, was recently in the hospital for Dengue Fever. If I were her, I’d be extra careful around mosquitoes since it’ll probably be a lot worse the next time she’ll have Dengue. Lucky for me, I seem to be spared from getting sick. But my track record over the past Christmases isn’t really good and I feel like I’d get sick again this year on Christmas Day.

I haven’t done my Christmas shopping ‘coz I barely have time to get my butt to go shopping. Bee and I are supposed to go to Divisoria tomorrow to look for gift ideas like promotional pens to give away to friends. Looks like I’ll have to do the shopping alone - or perhaps, if I am lucky enough, I can drag my aunt to go with me tomorrow. I hope I can ‘coz I’m scared of going there alone. =(

This used to be a rather farfetched idea: me and law school.

The only way you could put me and law school in one coherent sentence is when I say “I don’t like law school” which is like saying 1 + 1 = 2; a hard and fast fact. But recently, thanks to my professor who has multiple degrees tucked under his belt, I’ve been contemplating on giving the said field a chance. The idea of having an “Atty.” before and an “M.D.” after my name sounds too ambitious but it doesn’t mean that it’s not possible, does it? Finances aside, I think I can take on the challenge, especially since I am actually a bit on the suicidal side (it is suicide, agree?). The story of how he ended up taking up law after snagging the M.D. was indeed inspiring and the hurdles he had to overcome made my med school problems look like David beside a Goliath. He was studying law, was serving as a physician at a nearby school and was teaching at another institution next door during his lunch break all at the freakin‘ same time. If he wasn’t actually good-looking and charming enough, I would have thought him to be neurotic. I see myself probably doing pretty much the same if only I had XY genes, but since time is of essence for us females who do not wish to be genetic dead ends, doing so would definitely shove my mommy-instincts at the backseat - probably for good.

I asked Bee if he thinks he (or his ego) could take a lawyer-doctor for a wife. He just let out a smile. I knew it. I’d probably just resort to selling life insurance quotes instead.

The days that I’ve been dreading have finally come.

The first set of exams on my third year in medical school will be thrown my way starting tomorrow. Scared is the best adjective to describe what I’m feeling right now. I don’t think I’m ready to take the exams at all, but then, I figured out lately that there’s simply no way anyone would be ready to take the exams or even close to 100% confident of acing them when there’s just too much extra schoolwork being thrown our way too. In fact, I submitted the last of my papers just this Monday. Imagine the time lost making them! Instead of spending it for reviewing for the exams, we were stuck doing them instead! (Okay, so there’s a little bitterness hidden somewhere there, I got the results for one of my papers and it totally sucked!)

I am so scared really. I don’t know what to expect in the next few days. Please do pray for me. I don’t wish to get high grades, probably just enough to pass and save myself from feeling all stressed out for the next block.

How come guys can be really, really insensitive? How can they stand being such?

I know they’re not psychics, nor can they read other people’s minds but then again, there are just some things that you don’t need or have to tell them so that they’d understand. Us girls aren’t asking much. Just a teensy-weensy bit of sensitivity on their part will do. If guys would go and argue with me that a girl, in order to understand her, MUST tell them what she feels, then I’d probably would have gone out with a robot than a guy with an IQ instead. After all, it doesn’t make much of a difference does it?

I woke up this morning very eager to start the long day despite the lack of sleep from sorting out my vanity pictures for Bee’s consumption (I still don’t get it why he wants to see my entire collection!). I took a bath, did my waxing routine and ate a quick breakfast before my brother and I headed for Makro where we’d pick up a few things for tomorrow’s outing. The trouble began when my tummy started to feel funny. I had to ask my brother to go back home after we spent a good half hour at Makro even if we were still supposed to grab other goodies at another grocery store. By the time we reached the gate, the pain had relocated from the epigastrium to the left side and I was writhing in pain when I reached the door. The next thing I knew, I was in the bathroom for a good half hour, still in pain and was even vomiting. I had to call my mom and tell her about my condition which sent everyone into panic mode. They thought I had already fainted inside the bathroom. My brother was thisclose to opening the door - good thing he didn’t - ‘coz I had to strip off my clothes because I was having difficulty breathing and was really dizzy. Another half an hour later, I was already in bed, still confused on what happened. » Continue Reading