At This Point

Yesterday, we had our very last SGD (small group discussion). Starting Monday, we will be going through what we call "Hell Weeks". That is, three weeks of non-stop examinations. The Finals of all Finals.

We were pretty sentimental yesterday. Pictures galore!

But now, a day after, when I'm home and trying to study for my first exam on Monday, I try to really think about the implications of all these.

Our years of formal schooling ended yesterday.

No more SGDs. No more first five jumps (where we get trigger cases and brainstorm and come up with problems & hypotheses & learning goals), no more task sheets and division of tasks (technically, we were not allowed to do that and were expected to READ EVERYTHING but that is so unrealistic) no more cramming & reading our tasks two hours before the Synthesis (where we do the reporting), no more spending for acetates or writing on the whiteboard when we were on a low budget, no more concept maps and no more SGD preceptors.

What it all means, actually, is that at this point in time, medical school has taught us all it could. At this point in time, we should have learned all that we could. And that leaves me with a very important question.

What have I learned?

So... ummm... hmmm... That's an interesting question.

My follow-up question is: What in the world have I been doing the past three years????

After Hell Weeks, we have a month of reprieve, and then we go into the Pit. Namely, the hospital. The real world arena of medicine. We'll be interns! We'll be responsible for and taking care of REAL PATIENTS. We'll be part of a medical team.

Am I prepared for that??

Well, I better be.

To my classmates, future colleagues, and the reason for my sanity & insanity, the best years are still to come. Thank you for the memories.

:)

Profile name

So...

I changed my profile name because what's the use of a pseudonym when my URL says very clearly I AM MELUDEE JOY.

Duh.

Besides, my name is so unique that if you google it, you'll come up with my Facebook page, Multiply page, Twitter page and whatnots.

Haha.

My Story

A few days ago, I met one of the most remarkable women of all time. Namely "Nanang", my great-grandmother. At 89 years old, she stands tall, wears a serene smile, and has natural dark hair with a few strands of white. At 89, her mind is sharp, her humor intact. She radiates peace and kindness and wisdom and love.

In her 89 years, she has accomplished a lot. By working in the land she inherited from her father and selling eggs for a living, she has raised and educated her children, her grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. At 89 years old, her grandchildren already have grandchildren.

She told us a few stories. Her life in the US (she's been living there for around 4 years, being taken care of by her grandchildren), her tour in the Holy Land, how she met my great-grandfather, and a few stories of her youth. She told me that my grandmother, Lita, who died before I was born, was smart at school.

I wish I had asked for more stories. I wanted to know what her life was like. I wanted to know what my grandmother was like. I wanted to know their stories, to catch glimpses of a younger world, of a generation slowly fading and giving way to the new.

I may never get to see my grandchildren. I may never even have children. Only time will tell. But maybe by writing, I can give the future generation a glimpse of what life was like in my time.

Other than, writing is my creative outlet. My expression.

So these are my stories.

Color Change

I've decided to add a little color to my blog. Not that it matters to anyone but me. My life needs a little color right now.

I always have problem dealing with my blogs. I have lots of them (active, inactive, miscellaneous forgotten) that it's a little hard to organize my disorganized thoughts into posts and then fit them in whatever blog seem most appropriate. So I've decided to make this blog the official blog of my "flights" in this journey called life. (Char.)

Well, that is until I grow bored with it and make another one.

.xoxo.

Dare You To Move

Welcome to the planet
Welcome to existence
Everyone's here
Everyone's here

Everybody's watching you now
Everybody waits for you now
What happens next?
What happens next?

I dare you to move
I dare you to move
I dare you to lift
Yourself up off by the floor

I dare you to move
I dare you to move
Like today never happened
Today never happened before

Welcome to the fallout
Welcome to resistance
The tension is here
The tension is here

Between who you are
And who you could be
Between how it is
And how it should be yeah

I dare you to move
I dare you to move
I dare you to lift
Yourself up off by the floor

I dare you to move
I dare you to move
Like today never happened
Today never happened

Maybe redemption has stories to tell
Maybe forgiveness is right where you fell
Where can you run to escape from yourself?
Where you gonna go? Where you gonna go?
Salvation is here

I dare you to move
I dare you to move
I dare you to lift yourself
To lift yourself up off by the floor

I dare you to move
I dare you to move
Like today never happened
Today never happened
Today never happened
Today never happened before

Happy New Year!

Happy 2011 from the world's worst (or best) procrastinator ever!

Life has been passing by like a blur the past few days. One minute, there were fireworks in the sky and the next thing I knew, twenty-four days have gone by. I can't even begin to enumerate all the things that have been happening lately. For one, they're basically boring stuff like sleeping when I should have been studying and driving in absolutely crazy traffic jams and getting stuck in an intersection for about ten minutes because all drivers are basically insane and because the traffic enforcers were having their snacks.

But then let me enumerate the more interesting stuff, such as:

Moving to Holliwood!!!

Well, technically, it's still Holliwood. My new address is Holliwood St, D Homes, M City. We moved at the end of last year. It's one of those social housing units where ALL the houses LOOK ALIKE except for those units owned by ridiculously rich people who can afford to renovate their homes.

Our house has the barest of necessities. Our only real luxury is the new refrigerator we bought on New Year's eve so we could have Mango Float for dessert during the Media Noche.

I'm still trying to adjust. It's been basically crazy. I'm doing stuff like waking up at 5 am and driving to school by 6 am, arriving at school by 6.30 am and sleeping in the car till 8 am. The traffic is driving me nuts. By the time I get home from school, I am so tired that it takes all my strength to climb up the stairs and collapse on the bed.

In addition, I now have to do my laundry (and the towels and the bedsheets) and cook (or coerce my brother into preparing the food), wash dishes, wash the car, tidy up the place, etc. I am behind the washing and there's still a mountain of clothes to iron. The only thing I enjoy about all this is doing the grocery.

And to top it all, I still have to keep my grades up. *Sigh*

I am so drained that I have come to the point of buying vitamins and actually taking them instead of letting them expire or get molds or something! That's how drastic the changes have been.

But in a way, I'm glad we moved into our own place. I like having a place to call "home" and being able to invite my friends for sleep-overs and practicing my housewifely skills and all that. It's like a practical exam for the day I'd have my own home. I hope I pass.

With the way things are going, I kind of doubt it. Right now I'm blogging when I was supposed to be studying, my brother is doing his assignment, and the meat is slowly being defrozen. It will probably take another half hour to thaw. It's 8.30 pm and I'm hungry. Looks like we'll be eating at 9.30 again.

Oh, well. Practice makes perfect.

:)

Note: The waking up at 5 am is a bit of exaggeration. Well, the truth is, we did exactly that the first week of school because Mama was still around to make breakfast and bully us into taking baths in freezing water. Now that she's back home, my siblings and I are back to waking up late (6 am) and not eating breakfast.

Old Me

I'm back to being my old, boring self.

And I love it.