Tired.

Just a thought...

It seems the people you love end up, most times, disappointing you the most.

The Calendar Rule

(I’m sure you’ve heard of it.)

“It’s always best to have babies early…that way, you’ll still be young when they grow up…” she said.

I was quietly sitting at the side table near the nurses’ station this morning, quietly summing up the intake and output data of my patients for the past 24 hours when I overheard the above mentioned snippet from a conversation.

I smiled, and thought to myself, “Here we go again.”

Because I got curious (I am always interested to hear people talk about their opinions), I decided to put in a question, “Why, Ma’am, what do you think is the best marrying age, then?” I asked without pretense, or any hint of sarcasm. She was a married woman, she had kids, and most importantly, she had an opinion, so I pressed on.

“Well, I got married at 27, but if I were to choose, I would have married way earlier, like maybe 22 or something…” She said as a she worked. “Why, look at L., she and her kid will be just like brother and sister when her child grows up.”

“Uh-hmm…” I nodded quietly, waiting for her to go on.

“How about you, doc, when are you planning to have children?” she asked me.

“Well, let’s see…I think I’ll start having children when my monthly allowance/salary gets to more than Php 5000.00, at least….” I joked.

(We medical interns get that amount for working in the hospital. Since I live with my parents right now, I live on that for now, and these days, I’m guilt-ridden every time I have to ask for an allowance.)

We had a bit of a laugh after that, and the conversation was shifted to another topic. Eventually, everyone had to start getting back to work.

The topic popped into my head when I got home, and had no intention of relenting from my thoughts until I did something about it. I wasn’t getting anywhere with my studying so I decided that talking about it was going to give it a release of sorts (so I can go back to my life.haha.)

To be perfectly honest, I don’t intend on spending my life as a career woman, just focused on work and the path to “success”, where it would be highly likely that before I know it, I will have been old and grey and will be dying alone. Or worse…

That can’t be helped, because that is a common image people have of women in Medicine. Many doctors I know have been doing just that, focusing on work until one day, they come to realize that time had passed them by, and it was too late to do anything about it. There is a stereotype attached to women doctors sometimes, and I for one think it’s derogatory. That of being a mangkay, or an old maid, or a spinster…a woman who had apparently been to hard to reach for the common man, a woman so choosy because she could afford to be with her high stature, that in the end, she ended up with no one, all alone, and growing older by the day.

While I have nothing against getting married early, I do feel that sometimes, people tend to go overboard with the “Calendar Rule.” What is the calendar rule, you ask? Well, it’s something I coined, based on some people’s notions that once a woman hits the age of thirty, she’s “old” and therefore “undesirable” and therefore, would have a hard chance of getting married.

My goodness.

It’s a bit silly, if you ask me.

Perhaps we equate a woman’s desirability with her youth too often that we have failed to consider that maybe women who reach the age of thirty are not about to be discounted in the looks division, too, or in the fertility aspect… A woman in her thirties would probably be a better-adjusted mother, more accomplished and more capable of dealing with making choices. The thing about not being able to “adjust” to your child because you’re a good 30 years older than he/she would be is just unfounded. Any woman willing to make the effort can do so, if you ask me.

Perhaps it won’t be fair to these women to relegate them as “old-maids” and spinsters, because they chose not to think about settling down before they’re thirty. Being a good mother doesn’t mean that you have to be within 20 years older than your kid, I’m sure, but it’s about being the best person and example you can be for your child.

It takes a long time for a person to become matured, and in my opinion, honestly, I think a mother who has gone through the usual hang-ups, the usual myriad of uncertainties of being young will be a better mother, because she is more adjusted. But when would that age be?

Sure, they say that as a woman grows older, she will have a higher risk of delivering, well,high-risk babies (i.e. Down’s Syndrome, babies with birth defects, etc, etc…), but then again, so is the young mother who, yes, had babies young, but was not matured enough to stop drinking while she was pregnant… Also, everything is a gamble, including genetics, and if there’s one thing I know, it all really boils down to probabilities and possibilities. There is no such thing as a sure thing.

I mean, it’s a case to case basis. It’s not fair to simply say that having babies at a young age would guarantee a better childhood and a better family, while, those who are over thirty are sure to be having problems, or worse, not be having any family to speak of…

*whew*

I’m resisting the urge to tug at my collar to let off some steam, because I am literally sounding like I’m about to burst from the effort of containing my opinions to myself. Maybe I’m writing for me, the twenty-seven year-old me, who wants to wait and focus on my goals today…and the thirty-year-old me, who wants to have babies when she’s ready, and she’s found the right man (or he’s found her.:-))

It’s like this, I don’t want to be having to stroll into a mall with my child, where, I know he’ll be going over to an attractive spot and be soon persuading me to buy him something he fancies. I don’t want to be the kind of mother who flips the book/toy over to look for the price tag and be a little dismayed because I find that it won’t fit my budget (nor his dad’s budget), because, eventually, I’ll be feeling bad that I won’t be able to give him that privilege. I want to be the mother who holds his hand while he pulls me to that place where he found this magical toy or book and be readily able to pay for it and get it for him, because I’ve seen how his eyes sparkle just by finding it. And then, we’ll go home and I’ll be able to play with him, share the satisfaction of getting that toy or book with him. His dad will be happy, too, and everything will follow.

*sigh*

I’m wishing for things to be perfect, and I want to be someone my child can be proud of. I want him to have a comfortable life, that’s all. Financially and emotionally in the very near future, I’m trying to be ready.

SO while I’m getting on with my life, I don’t want to have to feel that once I’m 30, I’ll be worth less (or, ironically, worth too much) for my own good, just because other people think or say so.

And besides, in all fairness, I think women get better with age, anyway. Women get less awkward, and enjoy themselves as they fulfill more and more of their goals each time. Life, sex and love included.

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Now do you remember the “Calendar Rule”?

;-)

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Disclaimer: Strictly a case to case basis. This blogger would like to reiterate that there is definitely nothing wrong with getting married young. At the time of writing, the blogger is currently single, recently broken-up, earning 5000 per month and about to take the medical licensure board exam in 3 months.

Point and Shoot: Silliman Medical Center

a few "quiet" shots of where I've been spending most of the day...and year.  

It's a little bit of everything...

The fun afternoon rounds.. :-) 

the view from the 3rd floor Bridge to the Medical Arts building

The ball field is right across the street...great for jogging, walking, and ogling fit, sweaty soccer players, triathletes...which i have no time to do, of course)

(haha.:-p)

The Zen-effect mini-falls set-up that they did for the Koi pond in the Lobby. (Kinda cool...but it can get quite noisy too.lol..)

The view from the Emergency room at 6 in the morning. I took this one after getting out from the OR to take pics of Mindy and Baby Chiu. 

(No biggie, actually, just a few clicks and snaps here and there. I had the impulse to go out and shoot things earlier this morning after 24 hours on the job.)

Have a nice day, y'all! Be safe, don't do anything I wouldn't do~ ;-)

 

Tagalog Anxiety

What scares you the most?

 Me, I’ve got 4... the scariest things in the world would have to be…

  1. Losing my two front teeth.

2. Heights.

3. Failing.

4. And… speaking in Tagalog.

 Hehe.

 Sad, but true.

 

For as long as I can remember, I never did like speaking in Tagalog. Maybe I did up until I was 10 years old and still very confident, but somewhere along the way, I felt self-conscious. I never could get the accent right, and I lacked the necessary speaking vocabulary.

 

Someone asked me once, “Can you understand what I’m saying?”

 

(I’m even too chicken to write the question in Tagalog, which was the original language by the speaker.:-p)

 

My reaction to that was just to smile and say, “Yes, don’t worry, I can understand everything you’re saying to me…” 

 

Now, listening to and understanding is quite simple, really. Tagalog is a fairly easy enough language to understand, certain words are lifted from dialects I’m familiar with.

 

Talking, and speaking it? Now, that’s a different story. Being expected to converse in Filipino makes me break out in a cold sweat. Lol… It gives me a bit of anxiety, and more often than not, what happens is that I talk back in English, or I start thinking in Hiligaynon (which is totally far out, I know. haha) OR…I just nod my head and smile. :-p

 

Trust me, the possibility of embarrassing myself weighs heavy in my case. Maybe it’s not my fault, maybe it’s just the way circumstances have presented themselves. My father and his siblings studied in Manila…they can speak Tagalog without any accent… But we don’t speak the language at home. Most of the time, of course, the lingua franca of my home is basically, Cebuano and English. Ask anyone from here, speaking in English is more common than speaking the national language, almost.

 

And I don’t watch a lot of Tagalog movies.

 

Don’t get me wrong, though. I love the language. My anxiety is from a deep-rooted fear of making a mistake and embarrassing myself in front of people. Admittedly, the way they portray Cebuanos, or people from the provinces speaking Tagalog is that of a very coarse, not highly educated individual speaking in a rough tone, butchering all the words. In short, it becomes funny slapstick for some (even if it isn’t) and I don’t want to be labeled as someone who talks like that.

 

And so, I shut up most of the time. Or if I don’t, I speak in English, which feels like more comfortable and familiar. 

I like listening to people who can speak Tagalog flawlessly. It is almost as melodious as Hiligaynon… It’s fairly amusing, actually. It is pretty simple a language, and is considerably more familiar, which is quite funny that I am more keen on learning French and Japanese, when in fact, I can’t even master my own.

 I really want to learn, actually. Without embarrassing myself, of course.

 Any tips?

 :-)

 (I’ve started watching Tagalog movies, too… kaya lang, when the characters speak in Taglish, it’s funny eh.)

 :-p

Of Pens and Pixels

My pockets are always bulky. 

My right would contain my beloved camera and my breast pocket would contain my handy pens.

 These two things are rarely out of my reach. Whenever I need them, I am confident that I’d be able to find them and use them for whatever I needed them for.

 My camera is a Canon SX100 IS, black and compact, but sophisticated enough to take pictures that satisfy me. My pens are a variety…and I have to have them at all times, or I wouldn’t feel “complete”, and at a sense of unease. How so? Well, I need a retractable black pen for the usual official hospital documents we have to make, an orange or yellow (sometimes both) highlighter for marking names, a pencil for writing certain little notes here and there, a green soft-point pen for underlining [important] things in my books and fifth, but definitely not the least, a pen of White-out (liquid eraser), necessary for the little mistakes we can patch up as needed.

 I take a lot of pictures, by nature, and I write a lot.

 Ever since I was little, I had this desire, although in varying degrees, to preserve things that were happening around me, or to me. When I was seven years old, I started a diary where I wrote every little important thought, every little sparkle of inspiration that hit me deep.

 From an early age, I was akin to scribbling away on little notebooks. I was a bit of an introvert most of the time, taking liberty in slowing things down and observing things more closely that I should have at my age.

 I would then write about what I thought about certain things, without concern for syntax or rightness, neither caring whether or not my entries were too corny. Which they undeniably were, of course.

 When I was seven, I wrote in a diary about this boy in class that I thought was particularly interesting and good-looking. An older cousin, a girl, playfully teased me. My father overheard, and he got irked and muttered something about how I shouldn’t be having a boyfriend because I was only seven.

 Thinking back on it, I have to laugh. How preposterously overboard can a dad get, huh?

 (Quite a bit, actually. :-p)

 That taught me to keep my thoughts to myself, to cherish them and remember them, but to keep them and put them away for a later time.  My memories, and a good part of my young heart are stored in pages and pages of smooth notebook paper, kept in a box deep in a cabinet. Reading a few lines brings every happiness, every hurt, every mirthful laughter back in crystal clear detail every time.

 My camera serves the same purpose. I take pictures, lots of them. Never ever to embarrass anyone by posting them online, but to serve as visuals for moments in life that meant a lot. Or didn’t.

 My camera serves the same purpose as my pen. I don’t snap away because I’m a photographer who documents every event…rather, I take pictures because I want to remember faces, and happiness and triumph and precious seconds of joyous or sorrowful emotion that no other medium would allow me the freedom to.

 Basically, you could think of me as a chronicler…a storyteller who takes the little moments of life, whether they be serious or not, seriously.

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 When I was younger, I had this silly dream of being a lovely old lady, in my sixties or seventies, being surrounded by little grandchildren who wanted to hear stories about “how things were like way back when…”. And in my dream, in answer, I’d smile, with a twinkle in my eye, and pick a random story, and maybe tell her about the time, once upon a time, when I found myself standing at the foot of a very big ferris wheel, with twinkling lights, holding the hand of a boy who I had loved then, with all my heart, and how it turned out to be not so scary a ride, at all? Or that maybe, I could tell her about the people I had met in the hospital, who had, in one way or another taught me about life? Or, I could tell her about the time, when  she was born and that I had helped deliver her?

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I can’t wait, really. :-p

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When Ligaya put up the topics for this month’s blog rounds, I was initially excited…the  theme was so…free, and it felt like I could write anything at all, and not be encumbered by any “theme”, so to speak. As I sat in front of the pc, with fingers poised over the keys, I realized that…yes, my fingers had remained that, poised over the keypads, waiting for some divine inspiration to hit me and set my words into flow…

Like life, writing doesn’t come easy… a blank piece of paper that we all start with, puts us on the brink of a new challenging beginning. As with every other project, every major undertaking that comes our way, we have to start with a plan. And we have to start with a clean sheet.

 

10 random thoughts.

1. I think the best way to give someone new enthusiasm is to give him/her a new responsibility, one that let's him feel that he is contributing to a bigger picture.

2. I don't like guys who assume too much. 

3. It's Palm Sunday, and yet again, i'll be slaving away at the hospital wards. 

4. There is a growing skepticism brewing inside me regarding matters of the heart. either that, or i've just become manhid.

5. A woman I talked to died.

6. A man came in the ER at 1 in the morning and died while he was being resuscitated. I didn't feel much of anything. Just pity for the family he left behind.

7. The ER should only be for emergency cases.

8. I want to be happy.

9. Promises should be kept. 

10. Time should be managed wisely.

Staircase

I took this snapshot a few minutes earlier... can you guess what this might be?

A: The stairs up the foot of Mount Talinis

B: The footpath up Okoy Bridge

C: Abstract art with emphasis on emotional yellows and browns

D: None of the above.

E: Bootleg books/review material for August.. halp! :-p

hehe. A real no-brainer Q there for you, but feel free to give a guess anyway. :-p

Tiptoeing?

March 29, 2009

1:12 AM

A couple of weeks ago, one of my co-interns told me something quite surprising.

“One of the consultants mentioned that she read your blog. They were mentioning it earlier during the meeting…” She shared.

“Omigosh, which one??” I asked, mortified.

“Oh, they were talking about the one you wrote about another consultant, and they understood who you meant.”

I was horrified. I instantly knew which entry she meant. It was the time when I was berated and thought of as arrogant because of certain words I said. (I wasn’t being arrogant at all, in fact, it was all just a big misunderstanding. And, in that blog entry, I did concede that I may have used the wrong words, which I still believe were harmless enough anyway.)

“What did they say?” I asked, almost frantic.

“We didn’t wait to find out…we had already left the room.” She said, and she added that I really couldn’t do anything about it now, since I had posted something online, which meant that it was open for all to see.

In a state of panic, I tried to ring up some friends so they could check out that blog entry in question (I happened to be on duty at the hospital and had no access to an internet connection). I wanted to make sure that I didn’t put in anything that would implicate me (I wasn’t very sure, to be perfectly honest). The first friend I rang wouldn’t pick up…even after three rings. The second did. And he promptly went online to check it out.

Well, to make the long story short…the blog entry was just about me talking about how I felt being cornered. No names were mentioned, no reputations were trashed. (I never do that in my blogs anyway.)

Lessons to be learned?

One friend said that blogging about work was going to get me in trouble if I wasn’t careful. Period. My Ma and I talked about it while I was getting ready for work. She was cool about it, and in the end said that no one  could stop me from voicing out my opinion if I had one.

(Thanks,Ma.:-) )

I never should take my being part of the blogosphere lightly, I know. Whatever I write in here should be the product of foresight. I know I talk about this being an avenue for my personal catharses, but really, I’m not just some angsty teen (no offense meant) who doesn’t think twice before posting about little life events.

I think before I write too, you know.

I don’t mean any disrespect, much less arrogance for my part, and if it matters, I don’t write because I dislike a person. I write because I want to share how something makes me feel.

The things I write about are my opinions at a certain point in time and are as dynamic as the hours and days I spend in life.  There are precious few ways for one to leave a mark, and I’m choosing this one as mine.

Maybe I don’t have to explain myself, because since I have been bold enough to write about certain [sensitive] things, I have to be bold enough to stand by the consequences of writing such things…

A “Repeat Rotation” won’t be justified, though.

Haha. (Nervous laugh).

Tired

March 29,2009

12:36 AM 

It was just one of those days…they don’t come often.

 But when they do, I can’t seem to muster the strength to get out of bed to face the world.

 Some days, I just can’t.

 Today was one of them.

 Maybe this was a long time coming…but lately, I haven’t been myself. There is something that’s lacking, something I feel is essential to myself being whole again. Today I had a fever, a bit of a runny nose, a cough, and body pains. On normal days, I would have forced myself to just get up and pop a paracetamol and down it with lots of juice and get going…

 Today wasn’t a normal day, of course. I knew it from the moment I woke up. I was tired and drained and not willing at all to face what lay ahead at work, even if it was only for 4 hours today (it being a Saturday). Do you know that feeling when you’re so tired, you can’t even budge a muscle? Well, I felt like that.  I didn’t even feel like I wanted to move any muscle at all.

 Maybe I’m suffering from the daily drudgery of work…maybe I’m bored, or maybe I’m just tired of being taken for granted…heck, it’s even tiring to sit up straight while typing this up…

 It doesn’t feel right to tell it all to a close friend…it’s more than that. Writing about it online is also something I can’t do. Times like these, I need a bit of a pep talk.

 A “ juicy fruit gum”  just won’t do.