the perils of

        Hello, blog. It's been SO long since I've last updated you. Lots of interesting things have been popping up in my life, but I've just been so preoccupied with keeping my head afloat in med school. I haven't really been paying much attention to anything other than my transes.         I'm sorry.         Anyway, today I just had the urge to write because I just came from my Revalida. For those of you who don't know what this is, a brief explanation: The Revalida, also known as an Oral Integrative Exam, is an oral exam that comes at the end of your second year in med school in which you have to integrate everything you've learned during the year. The format of it is you're first given a written case to read. Then you have 30 minutes (or less, depending how long it took you to read the case) to read up on the case using one book of choice (for most people, it's Harrison;s Principles of Internal Medicine)....

It's been a stressful week. Okay, every week is a stressful week. But lately I've really been more stressed than usual. To the point that I think- no, I know - I'm getting burned out.  The most distressing symptom of burnout is apathy. The past few days, my emotions have been blunted. I don't laugh as hard as I used to. I don't smile as much as before. The sad things don't make me so sad. The stupid things don't make me so angry. I still feel the #feels, but to a lesser degree. It's my Obstetrics exam on Monday, and people say it's one of the hardest. Judging by the events of this week, I am not at all surprised.  It's Friday night, and there's a huge, monstrous exam looming ahead. I cognitively know that I should be using tonight to study. There's so much to study. But I also congitively know that I'm headed towards a burnout, and if I don't give myself a break first, the consequences on my mental health would be ...

      Today was, overall, a good day for being a doctor-in-training.       This morning I volunteered at a medical mission at the Pasig City jail. The event was organized by alumni from the Ateneo Graduate School of Business (AGSB), and there were only 6 of us from ASMPH. One freshman, one sophomore (me), three juniors, and an Ophthalmology resident.        Weirdly enough, it was my first medical mission as a med student (ASMPH is not fond of medical missions). Few things I was expecting: One, that my sole contribution would be to take vital signs (blood pressure, temperature... all the basic stuff that can be learned in college). And two, that my patients would be scary, snarling inmates with tattoos on the inside of their eyelids. It is worth noting that neither of these things happened.        We got to the jail at around 9 AM because the traffic was bad and we got pretty lost along the way. When we got insi...

      I feel like I'm a little too old to be writing essays on "How I Spent My Christmas Vacation," but what the heck. This is 2016. Adult coloring books and hoverboards are real things grownups can own.      Anyway. What I've been up to for the past couple of weeks, aside from mindlessly scrolling through Facebook: Tried my hand at programming a choose-your-own story game using the Episode app. I found it to be really user-friendly! You can easily program your characters' behaviors, dialogue, and appearance. For my program, I chose to do an updated version of Splanchnic (too lazy to think up a brand-new story). Got too lazy to program the second episode though, so for now the game is stuck at the point before Elmer gets to the Spleen Department.  Filling in the Secret Garden coloring book that Mai-mai got me for Christmas. At first it's pretty therapeutic, since all you really have to do is just scratch a colored pen in between some lines...

Just wanted to mark this point in my life, where, in the span of one weekend, I Performed slam poetry for the first time, and actually won third place in the competition. Pretty big accomplishment for me since I'm terrified of being on stage, and I am really shy about showing my poetry to other people. I'm just a shy person so yay, +1 expression skill.  Am generally doing well in terms of writing. In a short amount of time I've written a poem, a section for our research review, and a feature article about turtles, and I've received good feedback. Feeling very good about this. Never fancied myself a writer; always thought I never used fancy enough words. But this is good. This means I'm on the right track. Bonded with a group of people during Pawikan Weekend. Quite an unlikely bunch, if I do say so myself, because it was composed of two people I had never met before, one person from the batch ahead of me, and three classmates. Again, I'm very shy, but I forg...

              Had the worst blood extraction EVER. I know my veins are so teeny tiny that they can turn a simple blood extraction into a full-blown treasure hunting expedition (beneath my skin, with a very sharp needle). Even the pro-est of the pro med techs are at a loss whenever I'm the patient, which always results in me being poked ~10 times more than the average person whenever I need a blood test.                But what I experienced earlier was seriously horrible. See, before the extraction, I gave Kuya Med Tech (KMT for short) a fair warning about my troublesome veins, hoping to allow him the opportunity to steel himself mentally, emotionally, and spiritually for what would be his most difficult blood extraction ever. So he spent what felt like a good 10 minutes searching for my mythical Antecubital Vein (notice the capitals, just like how one would capitalize the equally elusive Loch Ness Mon...

    The summer before med school started, I shopped a lot. Not for clothes or shoes, but for textbooks, pens, highlighters, and a device that I could read e-books with. Unfortunately, there are just some things that you don't really know you need until you need them, like neutral-colored underwear (because your white uniform has the magic ability to make colorful underwear look even more noticeable).      But never fear, future (or current) med students! I've compiled a list of things you don't think you need but actually do. You're welcome.  1.Warming implements       The classrooms in most med schools are air-conditioned, and in ASMPH, it can get really really cold. So cold that some people even bring blankets and malongs  to school. (Yes, malongs, as in the thing that non-Manila people use as tablecloths or curtains.)  Jacket city        My warming implement of choice is this Atene...