Traveled to Japan on my own to celebrate an old friend’s new marriage. Saw friends I hadn’t seen since graduating high school. First time flying all by myself and ended up finishing Hurricane Wars in the plane ride 🤣
Currently working towards residency applications and my gosh, government bureaucracy and processes are insane. And then the preresidency period will also be insane I expect.
Still working at the lying-in clinic but I’ve been moved to focus on medical outreach so I’m basically providing free consults 😂
Part of the clinical leadership team of said clinic now.
My nibling is now over 6 months old and they’re so cute and so funny (not disclosing gender for security purposes)! Kid gets frustrated about not being able to move around easily yet 🤣
I’ve since moved to a new church after feeling much discontent with my previous megachurch
Commissions have recently opened again and I’ve already been able to complete a few.
Near the endgame of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and I keep dilly-dallying
Got a recommendation letter and I was so touched by this person’s words about me. I still feel I don’t deserve any praise 😅
God is good! But man I’m so nervous and kinda scared at what direction He’s taking me with all of this. No idea if any of my current endeavours are gonna end up lasting or pushing through so I would really love some prayers!
And it was a far better trip than I had initially anticipated:
I kept my expectations low, knowing full well the political landscape in the country. In fact, I was a little nervous, and had barely been looking forward to traveling. Thankfully, the immigration officers were nice and we even cracked a few jokes and whatnot. Flying went very smoothly (I've grown used it already) and we were able to navigate hitches well.
Fast forward almost three weeks after we arrived, we ended up extending our trip by a few days cuz our last leg felt way too short when it was being spent with people we actually enjoyed being with. In short, this trip exceeded all my expectations, and as tru-blue Filipinos, we came home with at least twice as much stuff than when we left.
Four big cities, two of which were already fairly familiar to me. So I want to highlight the most interesting parts first before I move down the ladder to the bad.
First, I met more people on this trip than I ever thought I would: Two of them were old friends from as early as elementary: I had a bit of a rivalry and then a puppy-dog crush, while another was one of my closest friends growing up. It was great to see them again, and catch up. Heck the latter went out of their way to stay in an inn in the city we were at just to spend time with me. Even my mom was touched at that. The other turned out to have pursued medicine like me, but unlike me, had every intention to move to the United States rather than stay at his home country. Needless to say, these two were huge blessings in disguises and they will forever be part of this trip's biggest highlights for me.
Along with meeting one of the very first online folk I ever befriended in my life. She even got to meet my family, hang out, and my family finally got a good impression of her after only hearing about her from my stories. Though we've mellowed out as people and even in our friendship since, I was very glad to see her in person for the first time, and I hope to be able to meet up more times in the future.
Ok, with that set aside, let's try to run through my impressions of the cities I visited quickly before I bore you, reader/follower.
Boston - Quaint, walkable city, loved the temperatures and historical undertones. Lots to see, very chill. Will visit here again when I get the chance.
New York City - familiar (been here two other times now), but still chaotic, didn't enjoy the crowds esp in Times Square, cold and wet, but still good. Enjoyed just seeing the city on foot. We even got to eat in a diner and the food was amazing, see and walk the High Line, watch Lion King. But I still don't like how in a hurry everyone seems.
Las Vegas - Specifically the Strip and Fremont: It was good to check out once as a tourist but I don't ever plan on seeing those places again. Too shallow, everyone was just out partying or gambling, none of which are my personal forms of entertainments (where are the normal arcade games??) Shopping was decent since we were super close to Ross. But man, Fremont really felt oppressive just walking through it despite all the lights. We were all hungry when we visited cuz we hadn't eaten since breakfast but we were like "nope, not eating here at all" and left as soon as we walked through that whole lit street. If I were to go back, like my friend and I discussed, it would be to stay with her on the outskirts and be chill, go on hikes and stuff. I don't ever plan to go back to the Strip.
Outside Las Vegas - Our last activity before leaving LV was a whole-day trip to visit Grand Canyon, Horseshoe Bend and Antelope Canyon (not in that order). Needless to say, I am so glad we saved that bit for last on this leg of our trip. Because it at least left me with a better impression of our location than if we hadn't. This kind of excursion would be the reason I'd visit the Southwest again: Nature, landscapes, God's creation. And I really appreciated our Navajo guide, who shared with us just a glimpse of his culture, and I wish that they may experience justice as their rightful title as Native Americans demands.
Los Angeles - Chill, like coming to a sorta-second home, because we stayed with family friends that we've known for awhile and roomed with in the past. Mostly did shopping but we also got to see San Diego, and with my friend who came all the way from Las Vegas, finally got to go on a hike in their nearby mountains, see LA Zoo and eat Porto's and Italian pizza. California almost always serves as my family's final stop before we head back to the Philippines because of the familiar faces. I just wish it wasn't so expensive to live there.
General negatives: Prices. Everything is just expensive. Can't do much about that I suppose. Then there's all the marijuana we kept smelling. Look, I acknowledge medical marijuana as a genuine form of treatment but people kept smoking it and it stank. I akin the smell to oily machinery and exhaust. It was ridiculous every time we walked past it. Also, the fact that Los Angeles and Las Vegas are barely walkable or just not walkable at all. Where are the TRAINS?
But overall, an amazing trip in hindsight and a part of me wonders if I'll ever get to experience this level of satisfaction again. Or perhaps it's because I'm older now that I feel this way: No longer interested too much on touristy experiences and more on seeing loved ones, natural landscapes, just observing my surroundings and acting like a local but not being one. I've been appreciating the mundane more so than ever before and this trip was no exception.
What's interesting is that whatever politics I was afraid of witnessing or seeing, was only in the news. As if online talk is just sequestered to online talk and the rest of the human population goes about their business. As my friend said, a lot of the politics don't actually affect most people, which was interesting to hear.
But I could probably say more down the line about that later on... cuz this trip was just full of stuff to think about and talk about. If anyone else is curious, please feel free to send me an ask!
A few months since my last post, I have now started volunteer work at a nearby Christian-run lying-in charity clinic where they offer free basic maternal care for indigent women and those who can’t or only barely afford hospital care.
To say it has been fulfilling work is an understatement, to be able to help these women (and in some cases, children) without forcing them to compensate me financially, a reward in of itself. Though I haven’t had to necessarily facilitate labor or birth on my own (typically the midwives have been in charge of that. We made some arrangements, and hopefully down the line I’ll get to be more hands-on), my patient exposure has been great and I'm looking forward to learning more as the days go by.
But the thing is, obstetrics isn't the kind of specialization I plan on pursuing, as I lean more and more towards surgery. So this is a bit of an interesting conundrum for me, where I do need to prepare for residency but my current situation does not provide me with much practical experience. Hopefully, that will change, especially when the branch nearby opens and I'm assigned to work there as a general practitioner and take care of all sorts of patients, not just mothers. So yeah, we'll see how that goes.
I've also been volunteering from time to time with another medical ministry group that goes out regularly to provide care to more far-flung areas. I just got back from one such day trip. One and a half hours of driving, and another hour of uphill hiking. I'm not exactly the fittest person on the block so getting up those steep hills is...was...challenging. But seeing the several patients today that can't even afford to make the trip to the lowest form of a healthcare center? It's rough. Usually we see the typical cough and colds, hypertension, diabetes cases but I also encountered an older cerebral palsy patient, and a 34 woman with massive intellectual disability, so that was something...
I'm not really wanting to be too forthcoming with what I'm feeling about that, partly because I'm exhausted, and because I still need to process. But yeah this is where I am right now.
And no I'm not receiving compensation for any of this at the moment (though I will be making an announcement soon over at my art blog)
Perhaps that will change down the road, maybe not, but it's a strange and unorthodox way of building my practice now, I guess.
And as that one song by Sarah Kroger says, perhaps "the detour is the road."
Finally watched Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender and honestly it just reminded me how much time has passed since I saw the finale of the original series.
I wish 16-year old me could’ve watched this movie. All the adult Gaang adventures she would’ve been hyping as hard as Foamy-Mouth Man did.
But instead, a decade and a half later, I’m sitting here as a licensed physician waiting for work to start. After multiple fandoms and hyperfixations, I can no longer produce that same level of excitement I did for this franchise when I was younger, especially after the end of LoK and all the comics (stories I wish were told on screen instead).
Somber reality I guess. I enjoyed the film quite a lot; it was great seeing the Gaang again. Animation was beautiful, story was appropriate, and the grand cinematics were definitely meant for theater. But I had my own gripes with it plus this wasn’t enough to bring back the amount of love I previously had for this franchise, no matter how much I’m scouring both Tumblr and Twitter for material, clips, gifs and fan art. Though I might try to draw some of my own later this week.
Had a cute old gay couple at our ambulatory urgent care center today but only one of them was a patient. And when we assessed him, the results were… not so great.
Felt bad when we had to refer him to the specialist department in the ER 😔
Kinda sucks that we are constantly living in unprecedented times (partly no thanks to social media for making us aware of it immediately), and yet we all have to go through our normal routines, or dealing with our own personal stresses/concerns on top of it of all.
I know we're not supposed to feeling like the weight of the world is constantly on our shoulders, and bring things to God but even the anger that comes out of seeing other people suffering because of a few people in power, is intense.
Hello, so this is my 100th update and it's the new year (yes, I know, late update and all), but honestly it's been...I guess slow?
So I'll just give another quick rundown like my last entry in bullet points:
Got rejected by the residency program I'd applied to. It's fine, no hard feelings, nor super disappointed ones. It got to a point that even my parents were saying "it's fine if you get rejected, might even be better."
Unfortunately let myself go health-wise and gained more weight than I intended.
Acquired Ghost of Yotei and Pokemon Legends ZA so those games have been real fun.
Unfortunately, ended up with De Quervain Tenosynovitis and I still have it so I have to wear a brace. Thankfully it's on my left hand, not my right.
Traveled to Taiwan with family, including the nibling; and then Osaka two months later. Yes, I come from a family who loves to go around apparently.
Nibling is now 11 months old. Can't believe how fast they're growing.
Current career status: Freelance doctor AND artist, isn't that fun?
I admit, life has been on the oddly mild side. I know God has plans, or rather, He's there at every step of my life but at the same time, it's still very uncomfortable being in a place where everything is unknown.
I want to work on my health though, one of the biggest barriers I'll have in attempting residency again. Admittedly I had let myself go so it will be challenging. At the same time my country appears to be suffering a supply issue with my ADHD medication so I haven't been able to take them these past three months :(
