the perils of

I realize that in my more than 16 years (!!!) of blogging, an estimated 90% of my motivation to write comes from procrastinating another piece of work. Today, a Saturday, I woke up feeling extra anxious over having to accomplish two reports due Monday morning, plus having to clean up the condo and get a bunch of other domestic tasks done, but my brain really just said no no no we absolutely must prioritize the most important task of all: updating our blog. After all, we cannot keep our dear readers waiting another moment longer! Oral Exam The past 5 months of residency so far have felt like they were all building up to one moment: our first oral exam. For Psychiatry residents, the oral exam means interviewing and diagnosing a real patient in front of a panel of consultants, and it happens twice a year, the first in May and the second in October. If you get a high enough score from three consultants, you can be exempted from having to take the second exam. It's such a huge event tha...

How I wish we weren't living in such an interesting time in human history. A few days ago, the USA and Israel bombed Iran amidst ongoing peace negotiations, and Iran retaliated (as they said they would) by bombing US bases in nearby territories. In the Philippines, we are feeling the ripples of this event -  just last night, President Bongbong Marcos declared a four-day workweek for government offices to ration our oil reserves. In the background, Duterte remains locked up in the International Criminal Court in the Hague, absent from his pre-trial hearings, where past media footage of him proudly announcing his kill counts are being played as official court evidence. Coincidentally, his daughter Inday Sara also recently announced her bid to run for president in 2028. Also, none of the big fish from the flood control scandal have been jailed yet. As if the local political turmoil weren't enough already, we have to deal with impending World War 3. Interesting times indeed. It al...