Notice

I will probably not be blogging for a while. The final onslaught of exams before the end of the semester is approaching. And back home, I will most likely ignore the internet and spend time with my family instead. I've only ever written one entry over there.

I tend to get distracted when I'm at home. I'm counting the days.

In the sun

After spending quite some time studying the basics of making a decent-looking web page, I was finally able to come up with a design I wanted. I just updated my blogger template and I'm pleased with the outcome. This is the third look of my blogspot. The other two were designs made by other people, so this is a first. To Joseph: I copied the javascript on your site that operates the show-hide function of your sidebar, I hope you don't mind. I simplified it a bit, and I'm still trying to work out a minor glitch.

I've been feeling out of sorts lately. When I woke up from an evening nap a while ago, I remembered this song I heard from Saved!, a movie I recently watched and really liked.

It's called In the Sun, and it's by Joseph Arthur. Here are the lyrics.

I picture you in the sun, wondering what went wrong. And falling down on your knees, asking for sympathy. And being caught in between all you wish for and all you've seen. And trying to find anything you can feel that you can believe in. May God's love be with you. Always, may God's love be with you.

I know I would apologize if I could see your eyes. Because when you showed me myself, I became someone else. But I was caught in between all you wish for and all you need. I picture you fast asleep. A nightmare comes, you can't keep awake. May God's love be with you. Always, may God's love be with you.

If I find my own way, how much will I find?

I don't know anymore, what it's for. I'm not even sure if there is anyone who is in the sun. Will you help me to understand? Because I've been caught in between all I wish for and all I need. Maybe you're not even sure what it's for any more than me. May God's love be with you. Always, may God's love be with you.

Late this afternoon, inside the PGH compound, I was approached by a man named Timothy. He invited me to a one-on-one Bible study session. I agreed, and we ended up talking about the story of Noah, and the tower of Babel. He said that Noah was righteous in God's eyes because he was obedient. He said that God was always in control. I couldn't let him know that I did not agree with him. He sounded so sincere.

Afterwards, I walked with him part of the way back to my building. He said he was headed for the Cancer Institute, and he explained why. I was a bit confused because his voice wasn't very clear and he referred to his brother as 'her' instead of 'him', but from what I gathered, his three-year-old brother had liver cancer but according to him, God was taking care of things.

When we parted ways, he said "God bless." I said "Okay," and walked away. I have no idea why, but at that moment, I did not feel any sympathy for him.

I realized today that I have only just discovered what it means to be lonely.

Goodbye IPC

On most Wednesday afternoons, our class is divided into four groups of ten people for a course called Introduction to Patient Care. Each group has its own set of facilitators, all of whom are doctors who are part of the UP-PGH faculty and/or administration. Contrary to what the name of the course implies, we don't do anything involving actual patients or the application of medical principles. We haven't even begun real medical education after all. What actually takes place may be likened more to group therapy, with modules on self-actualization and such.

When I got my first taste of IPC on the first semester of last year, I didn't think I would get anything new from it. Coming from a Catholic school, I had been required to go through many similar self-empowerment themed activities. Some material was almost entirely the same as what we'd covered before.

Looking back, I was both right and wrong. It's true that I didn't learn any new psychological concepts, etc. However, in time, the weekly routine of sitting around with a group of people I was gradually getting to know better and just sharing my feelings or listening made a subtle but definite impression on me. I have come to realize this fully only now.

Today, we had our final session. I didn't know until one of my groupmates mentioned it to me. We had been going at it for three semesters already, and I assumed we would continue until the next. Apparently, we have something different in store for us later. I was surprised at how humdrum everything seemed. We had a regular session, our facilitators gave us some free food, which they do every now end then, we said our goodbyes, and then they left. And that was it.

I will probably miss the mandatory two hours I have to spend every Wednesday afternoon with my groupmates, though we will all still be around of course. I hope whatever replaces IPC next semester will retain the groupings, because I'd like to think all that sharing of feelings and thoughts has formed a special bond among us. I will miss our kind facilitators, whom we will probably encounter in our higher years. They didn't do anything exceptional, and I didn't expect them to. They were simply there to guide us and to listen. And that was enough.

One of our facilitators, Dr. Joy, recently left for a fellowship somewhere in Australia. I hope she's okay and settled in now. She was one of my favorites.

Perspective

I like to think that most Impressionist painters had a high degree of myopia, like me. Because when I see only through my own lenses, I get lost in a blurry, shimmering world that is entirely mine.

In transit

Almost daily, I make my way to our friendly neigborhood shopping mall for one of three reasons:

1. to buy food
2. to buy supplies
3. to watch a movie

Almost daily, I am confronted with the trivial, yet troubling decision of whether to take the piece of perfumed paper handed out to me by a promo lady or to ignore the gesture and walk on. When I do accept the paper sample I simply put it in one of my pants pockets and forget all about it. When I don't, I think about how life would be like for me if I had to hand out little pieces of paper for a living. Every time, what I do hinges on a split-second, arbitrary decision.

Regardless of what I choose to do, I always start wondering how things would have turned out had I chosen the alternative. Most people would say it wouldn't make much of a difference what I did. They would probably be right 99% of the time. What keeps me up some nights is the remote possibility that one random action will drastically change my private reality.

What if one night, the act of receiving a little piece of paper and sticking it in my pocket slowed me down enough so that a potential mugger, idling a few steps away, set his sights on someone else instead of me? What if that split-second, arbitrary decision kept me from losing my life?

Scenario: I am on my way to the cinemas on the fourth floor of the mall. I step on an escalator and expect my short 'ride' to be as normal as always. Suddenly, I lurch forward a bit and hold on to the railings for support. I immediately realize that the stupid escalator has simply stopped moving, leaving me in between floors. I recall seeing halted escalators in this mall before, but have never been on one when it actually happens. I reluctantly climb manually to the top. I am seriously pissed. I let it go, but think that the mall must have some serious issues with its escalators.

The incident actually happened to me some days ago. It has absolutely no bearing on the pseudo-existentialist thoughts I typed earlier.


I passed by this little bazaar in an open area of the mall a while ago, and at one point I got a very brief glance at some of the wares on display. I had to hold my thoughts a bit after leaving the bazaar behind, because I had a hard time processing what I had thought I'd seen. They were not merely phallic symbols. They were penises carved out of wood. They might have been dildos (although I can't imagine anyone wanting to shove anything like that into any of their orifices), or possibly paperweights.

I haven't been able to verify what they actually were, as I was on my way to lunch at the time, but I don't actually want to know.

There are many things in life I will never completely understand. Like why shopkeepers would ever attempt to entice people to stop by their stand by displaying wooden dildo-like thingies. Or why the people who manage the mall aren't bothered by the fact that random escalators keep refusing to move and that people might actually be on them while they act up. Or why I obsess about little things like pieces of paper handed out to me by promo girls.

In less than a year, I will begin my first year of actual medical education. I am headed along a path requiring nothing from me but compliance. Barring accidents, mental breakdowns, and other unfortunate events, I will in time become a medical practitioner with a reasonable income and a secure future. Some people would say that I'm on the right track.

If you ask me how my life has come to this point, I will not be able to give you a definite answer. If you ask me whether I believe that this is my true calling in life, that I truly believe that this is what I'm supposed to be doing, I will answer, "Maybe."

I cannot speak for the future. As for the present, no one can equip me with the means to be able to make the right choices. No one even knows what the right choice really is. All I am certain of is that this is what I have chosen and I will stick with it.

This isn't depression.

For the past few days I've been sitting in front of one computer after another preparing to write a new entry and ultimately deciding to call it off after realizing that I didn't have anything to say.

I have maybe four or five unwritten entries in my head right now that I can't bring myself to create. I don't know why.

I do know that I've increasingly become aware of myself zoning out in the middle of the day, staring at nothing in particular, my mind filled with a confused, incomprehensible buzz of nothingness. This is usually not a good sign.

The day before yesterday I received news that made me rethink my image of myself. I have never considered myself a person capable of strong emotional outbursts. Particularly because most of the time, I'm not even aware of my feelings.

Most of the time, I do not know how I feel about myself, or other people, or a particular situation. This is why in most cases, I tend to agree with whatever opinion is mouthed by the person I'm with at the moment.

I haven't really paid much attention to my emotions lately. This is partly out of habit, something I have developed to a great extent as part of my unconscious policy of ignoring things I do not find agreeable. It is a cancer that has metastasized into something that may be untreatable. An analogy that I find appropriate, given that I believe my current situation to be similar to a slow, inevitable death.

I am at a standstill. My mind wants out of this hole I've dug myself in. I am afraid because to me the image of an inescapable abyss is starting to sound attractive.

There is a certain peace to be found in ending everything. I never thought I would understand this, but I think I now know why the elderly experience happiness when they are brought to their final resting place.

Perhaps this is the only way to achieve true happiness and content. I wouldn't know.

On a lighter note, I've decided to learn the basics of CSS. And I've decided to construct my own template design. I haven't started on this yet, of course. I'll do it later. I am intrigued by being able to change the entire look of a page without really changing anything in its structure. And I want to see if I can come up with a design that's indicative of my personality.

Now if I can only figure out what exactly my personality is.