One day you're a student, and the next, BOOM, you're a doctor.
No, not really. The thing is, I think I've been living in a happy bubble for the last three years, where the reality and gravity of my profession still hadn't sunk it. Things did a 180 for me yesterday when, after an extremely benign orientation at Psychiatry care of the chairman, a resident came into the room (where we were all lounging about waiting for the next thing to do) and said, "Alam niyo bang mayroong dalawang ICC na dapat naka-24 hour duty ngayon?" I felt like a headless chicken for the next few minutes. Apparently, because there are no clerks (who, if they're rotating in Neuropsychiatry, are assigned for duty in Neuro rather than Psych), WE--third year know-nothings--have been assigned to monitor patients and do 24-hour shifts, from 7 am to 7 am, AND we're still expected to show up for all of the classes from 8 am to 5pm.
I know my seniors will probably roll their eyes at this because they've gone on duty a gajillion times, and because monitoring a patient or making admitting notes is nothing to them, but wow, suddenly it was like I was a limbless person thrown into an ocean and expected to swim. In fact I'm still feeling a little bit at sea here. Up to this point we had only ever met patients who had already been evaluated before we got to them, so nothing we said or did could possibly have an impact on the management or outcome of the patients. We diagnosed things pretty much like people sitting at home watching HOUSE. We were just having fun. And it was really okay to make mistakes.
I'm also a little bit afraid. I saw the notes that an intern had made before me and I just couldn't believe my eyes. It was like he did this thoroughly horrible and careless examination of the patient, taking everything she said as gospel. You don't do that. You just don't. So instead of a schizophreniform or schizophrenic patient, his notes read more like the patient was just depressed, because he believed everything she said without realizing her lacking reliability or without consulting the two available relatives.
What if I missed something vital during MY evaluation of patients? My decisions will have such an impact on their lives. Eventually there will come a point when I won't have anyone to rely on but myself, and my (extremely bad) clinical judgment.
I know I used to complain that medicine takes so long. Now I think that maybe it shouldn't be five years but twenty, PLUS specialization.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
What some call censorship; CCP, the art exhibit and "blasphemy"
I don't agree with death threats. I don't agree to anything that threatens to cause material harm to any party.
But.
Imagine an art exhibit with photos of famous people from the LGBT community. The photos are defaced and strong words like "whore" and "fag" and, you know, words I can never bring myself to type, dot these images. These images, imagine them, show these people as the lowest of the low, as though they're hardly even human.
If the LGBT community took a stand to have these photos removed, calling them offensive, insulting, and an outright manifestation of discrimination, they would be completely justified. I'd probably be campaigning right along with them. The whole world would probably be campaigning right along with them.
So why is it so different with images of Jesus Christ? I'm really trying to understand other people here; I am in no way trying to be smart-alecky. If those imaginary photos of LGBT-directed insults were removed due to pressure from the relevant groups, wouldn't the LGBT community heave a sigh of relief and satisfaction? (I mention the LGBT community not to make it a polar opposite of the Christians and Catholics and the Bishops; only to use it as an example of a minority group that has its rights like every other group does.) What makes it so different that this time the people who raised an outcry were Christians? Why is it OK to discriminate against Christians? Why is it not okay to campaign to have art exhibits like those in the CCP removed, when they do offend a lot of people? Why would it be okay, in my hypothetical but all too possible situation, to apply the correct pressure to remove those slanderous photos from CCP, but they call it censorship when the force behind it is "conservative" and "conventional"?
Why is it censorship as long as the CBCP is the first one to speak up? They're just one group, like the rest. Whether you believe they have power or not, they are just one group, and they have rights like we all do, and they have freedom of expression as well. Whether the powers that be will bow to the pressure they exert is another thing altogether.
Just help me understand. Why is it not okay to discriminate against the atheists and the freethinkers and the LGBT, and always, always okay to discriminate against Catholics? I am getting a little tired of this double standard, and all I really, really want is to understand why it exists so that I can stop being so hurt.
Why is it okay for movies like Easy A to have words like "Jesus-freaks"? Why is it okay to make fun of Christians and not of everyone else? Does the fact that Christianity has been "in power" (an absurd and oversimplified concept) for two thousand years justify the violation of human rights against discrimination in the present? Why? Why? Why?
Why is it that everyone's catchphrase is "respect", but that no one ever seems to remember it when it comes to Christians and Catholics? Why?
I don't think I'll ever understand.
--------------------------
ETA.
...And, you see, because I understand that freedom of speech is not absolute--meaning it is NOT the same thing as freedom from criticism--I'm just going to let you come at me. I will let you say what you want. Because that is what freedom means.
I just wish that you, whoever you might be--whoever might be reading this and might be thinking of commenting--would approach the topic with the same sensitivity, and respect, and fairness of outlook that I try, try, try to use. Because I have tried. I really, really have. When we're angry we tend to use strong words. Sure. I get that. But maybe, just maybe, you can understand that topics like these require something more than strong words. That they might, for example, require kindness.
But.
Imagine an art exhibit with photos of famous people from the LGBT community. The photos are defaced and strong words like "whore" and "fag" and, you know, words I can never bring myself to type, dot these images. These images, imagine them, show these people as the lowest of the low, as though they're hardly even human.
If the LGBT community took a stand to have these photos removed, calling them offensive, insulting, and an outright manifestation of discrimination, they would be completely justified. I'd probably be campaigning right along with them. The whole world would probably be campaigning right along with them.
So why is it so different with images of Jesus Christ? I'm really trying to understand other people here; I am in no way trying to be smart-alecky. If those imaginary photos of LGBT-directed insults were removed due to pressure from the relevant groups, wouldn't the LGBT community heave a sigh of relief and satisfaction? (I mention the LGBT community not to make it a polar opposite of the Christians and Catholics and the Bishops; only to use it as an example of a minority group that has its rights like every other group does.) What makes it so different that this time the people who raised an outcry were Christians? Why is it OK to discriminate against Christians? Why is it not okay to campaign to have art exhibits like those in the CCP removed, when they do offend a lot of people? Why would it be okay, in my hypothetical but all too possible situation, to apply the correct pressure to remove those slanderous photos from CCP, but they call it censorship when the force behind it is "conservative" and "conventional"?
Why is it censorship as long as the CBCP is the first one to speak up? They're just one group, like the rest. Whether you believe they have power or not, they are just one group, and they have rights like we all do, and they have freedom of expression as well. Whether the powers that be will bow to the pressure they exert is another thing altogether.
Just help me understand. Why is it not okay to discriminate against the atheists and the freethinkers and the LGBT, and always, always okay to discriminate against Catholics? I am getting a little tired of this double standard, and all I really, really want is to understand why it exists so that I can stop being so hurt.
Why is it okay for movies like Easy A to have words like "Jesus-freaks"? Why is it okay to make fun of Christians and not of everyone else? Does the fact that Christianity has been "in power" (an absurd and oversimplified concept) for two thousand years justify the violation of human rights against discrimination in the present? Why? Why? Why?
Why is it that everyone's catchphrase is "respect", but that no one ever seems to remember it when it comes to Christians and Catholics? Why?
I don't think I'll ever understand.
--------------------------
ETA.
...And, you see, because I understand that freedom of speech is not absolute--meaning it is NOT the same thing as freedom from criticism--I'm just going to let you come at me. I will let you say what you want. Because that is what freedom means.
I just wish that you, whoever you might be--whoever might be reading this and might be thinking of commenting--would approach the topic with the same sensitivity, and respect, and fairness of outlook that I try, try, try to use. Because I have tried. I really, really have. When we're angry we tend to use strong words. Sure. I get that. But maybe, just maybe, you can understand that topics like these require something more than strong words. That they might, for example, require kindness.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Art, imitating life
I used to have this HUGE thing for Jason Robert Brown's music, and today I was searching my iPod for songs to listen to while traveling to community, and I thought of him. I googled him again and found this strangely appropriate paragraph, which is apparently how he rephrased something that Stephen Sondheim said to him:
And the thing is, that really surprised me. I've always thought of Sondheim as a really tough guy, who just puts his art out there regardless of what people think of it. (And through the years, despite his genius, there have been some pretty mixed responses.) But I think that was wrong of me, and that I missed something that is so integral to his work: that it is all so intensely personal. (And I think I missed a huge chunk of what "Sunday in the Park with George" was all about! Now, despite myself, I think I understand it better.) Whether it's good art or bad art, or good musical theatre or bad musical theatre, whenever I pop a CD of his into a player (or a CD of Jason Robert Brown's, for that matter), I am actually listening to pieces of a man's soul, put to music. Interspersed, too, with the art and soul (haha.) of the people who sang his songs, the musicians who played the notes.
I know that my little story--my 13,999 word story that took so long to write but still ended up underdeveloped and a little awful--is nothing to Sondheim's immortal work, and that ten years from now the fifty people or so who have read it will probably have forgotten all about it, but it is still a part of my soul, and I hope that when it's revealed people will be... nice to me. Nice enough. Nice enough to tell me, "I loved it."
Nobody cares what you think. Once a creation has been put into the world, you have only one responsibility to its creator: Be supportive. Support is not about showing how clever you are, how observant of some flaw, how incisive in your criticism. There are other people whose job it is to guide the creation, to make it work, to make it live; either they did their job or they didn't. But that is not your problem. If you come to my show and you see me afterwords, say only this: "I loved it". It doesn't matter if that's what you really felt. What I need at that moment is to know that you care enough about me and the work I do to tell me that you loved it, not "in spite of its flaws", not "even though everyone else seems to have a problem with it", but simply, plainly, "I loved it." If you can't say that, don't come backstage, don't find me in the lobby, don't lean over the pit to see me. Just go home, and either write me a nice email or don't. Say all the catty, bitchy things you want to your friend, your neighbor, the Internet. Maybe next week, maybe next year, maybe someday down the line, I'll be ready to hear what you have to say, but at that moment, that face-to-face moment after I have unveiled some part of my soul, however small, to you:that is the most vulnerable moment in any artist's life. I beg you, plead with you to tell me what you really thought, what you actually, honestly, totally believed, then you must tell me "I loved it." That moment must be respected."
And the thing is, that really surprised me. I've always thought of Sondheim as a really tough guy, who just puts his art out there regardless of what people think of it. (And through the years, despite his genius, there have been some pretty mixed responses.) But I think that was wrong of me, and that I missed something that is so integral to his work: that it is all so intensely personal. (And I think I missed a huge chunk of what "Sunday in the Park with George" was all about! Now, despite myself, I think I understand it better.) Whether it's good art or bad art, or good musical theatre or bad musical theatre, whenever I pop a CD of his into a player (or a CD of Jason Robert Brown's, for that matter), I am actually listening to pieces of a man's soul, put to music. Interspersed, too, with the art and soul (haha.) of the people who sang his songs, the musicians who played the notes.
I know that my little story--my 13,999 word story that took so long to write but still ended up underdeveloped and a little awful--is nothing to Sondheim's immortal work, and that ten years from now the fifty people or so who have read it will probably have forgotten all about it, but it is still a part of my soul, and I hope that when it's revealed people will be... nice to me. Nice enough. Nice enough to tell me, "I loved it."
Monday, August 8, 2011
Les examens
The smell of possibility means everything
On this wet morning
When the third exam is placed before you.
It's an old exam and you've seen
The questions before; you know
All the answers and how
You got them wrong before.
Again and again crashing through fences
And then backing up sheepishly once you've realized
You're wrong, not you, never you
Never right.
You think you know the answers now
But there's something, something in the light
And the possibility
And the feathered hope, light-winged
That travels over your exam paper
Confusing you
And the warmth in thinking
Maybe just maybe
But you've failed this exam before
And should know exactly
The right places to shade
Because there is no other option, and if you fail again
You've failed
Forever.
On this wet morning
When the third exam is placed before you.
It's an old exam and you've seen
The questions before; you know
All the answers and how
You got them wrong before.
Again and again crashing through fences
And then backing up sheepishly once you've realized
You're wrong, not you, never you
Never right.
You think you know the answers now
But there's something, something in the light
And the possibility
And the feathered hope, light-winged
That travels over your exam paper
Confusing you
And the warmth in thinking
Maybe just maybe
But you've failed this exam before
And should know exactly
The right places to shade
Because there is no other option, and if you fail again
You've failed
Forever.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Real
眺める空の下 それぞれの毎日が巡る
輝く星の下 それぞれの思いが街を照らしている
僕は退屈なのに 泣けてくるんだ
気がついてないね 僕がいつも思うこと
聞こえているよ 届いているよ
僕の中の世界で
強がりだけど 素直になれず
いつも空回りする
でも大事なのは
「今 側にいる 君のReal」
行き交う人々が 目の前を通り過ぎてく
ざわめく風の音が 聴き覚えのある声を 僕に運ぶ
こんな毎日なのに ただ詰めないんだ
気がついてないね 僕が君を思うこと......
分からないこと 聞いてみること
言葉にすると何故か
進みたいのに 進みたいのに
いつも空回りする
でも 答えは ただ
「今 側にいる 君がReal」
聞こえてくるよ 届いてくるよ
僕の中の世界へ
会いたいことも 会えないことも
心には抱えてる
でも 大事なのは
「今 側にいる 君のReal」
でも 大事なのは
「今 側にいる 君のReal」
輝く星の下 それぞれの思いが街を照らしている
僕は退屈なのに 泣けてくるんだ
気がついてないね 僕がいつも思うこと
聞こえているよ 届いているよ
僕の中の世界で
強がりだけど 素直になれず
いつも空回りする
でも大事なのは
「今 側にいる 君のReal」
行き交う人々が 目の前を通り過ぎてく
ざわめく風の音が 聴き覚えのある声を 僕に運ぶ
こんな毎日なのに ただ詰めないんだ
気がついてないね 僕が君を思うこと......
分からないこと 聞いてみること
言葉にすると何故か
進みたいのに 進みたいのに
いつも空回りする
でも 答えは ただ
「今 側にいる 君がReal」
聞こえてくるよ 届いてくるよ
僕の中の世界へ
会いたいことも 会えないことも
心には抱えてる
でも 大事なのは
「今 側にいる 君のReal」
でも 大事なのは
「今 側にいる 君のReal」
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Friday, July 22, 2011
The anatomy of elegance
While looking for images for a cultural activity in August, I found a LOT of links on modest fashion. Even Google's autocomplete on my search was "modest fashion". To me it means only one thing: that there are people out there who are looking for ways to be updated and trendy without baring all.
I don't know much about fashion--in fact most days I vacillate between "frumpy" and "ridiculous"--and I don't exactly have the body type that comes to mind when discussing the anatomy of elegance. But I think that even if I were as skinny and beautiful as Audrey Hepburn, I still wouldn't want to walk around in the extremely short shorts that are so common in the La Salle area. I know that my friends think that I would dress in a nun's habit if I could, but it isn't about covering yourself up. I think it's about being considerate so that you don't distract the man (or woman) on the street. People are inevitably drawn to the sight of a bare leg or an exposed chest. If you don't want to attract that attention, then don't. (I certainly don't want to.) If you do want to attract that kind of attention, then maybe you should be thinking about why those are the things you want people to notice about you.
There are probably better ways of explaining why I love modesty so much, and I might think of a better paragraph than this sooner or later, but right now I just want to give some helpful links to anyone who might be dropping by. It's so hard to find clothes that are elegant but still keep that high standard. (Personally I love the tops from Marks and Spencer, which you can pair with simple skirts and well-cut chinos and trousers, and the dresses and skirts from Dorothy Perkins. But then again, I really have never been all that trendy, so the links below will probably be of more help.)
- ELIZA - a very pretty-looking magazine with an online blog
- Momomod.com
- Just Like Molly - which has some really exquisite photos
- Modest Fashion and Style on livejournal - which has some helpful shopping suggestions and discussions
Here are two draft posters that I'm still tweaking for our activity. (The image on the left is from justlikemolly.com; it isn't being used for profit.)
I don't know much about fashion--in fact most days I vacillate between "frumpy" and "ridiculous"--and I don't exactly have the body type that comes to mind when discussing the anatomy of elegance. But I think that even if I were as skinny and beautiful as Audrey Hepburn, I still wouldn't want to walk around in the extremely short shorts that are so common in the La Salle area. I know that my friends think that I would dress in a nun's habit if I could, but it isn't about covering yourself up. I think it's about being considerate so that you don't distract the man (or woman) on the street. People are inevitably drawn to the sight of a bare leg or an exposed chest. If you don't want to attract that attention, then don't. (I certainly don't want to.) If you do want to attract that kind of attention, then maybe you should be thinking about why those are the things you want people to notice about you.
There are probably better ways of explaining why I love modesty so much, and I might think of a better paragraph than this sooner or later, but right now I just want to give some helpful links to anyone who might be dropping by. It's so hard to find clothes that are elegant but still keep that high standard. (Personally I love the tops from Marks and Spencer, which you can pair with simple skirts and well-cut chinos and trousers, and the dresses and skirts from Dorothy Perkins. But then again, I really have never been all that trendy, so the links below will probably be of more help.)
- ELIZA - a very pretty-looking magazine with an online blog
- Momomod.com
- Just Like Molly - which has some really exquisite photos
- Modest Fashion and Style on livejournal - which has some helpful shopping suggestions and discussions
Here are two draft posters that I'm still tweaking for our activity. (The image on the left is from justlikemolly.com; it isn't being used for profit.)
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