Thursday, December 10, 2009

Tripartite Post

I.

First of all, I'd like to thank those who commented on my last post and/or emailed me, it meant a lot to me. To those of you who wrote emails to me, I will (eventually) reply to them. I have final exams next week . . . and I just wasted all of today procrastinating. *sighs* Well there just went 5-6 hours of potential studying today. :-/

Alas, whatever my issues, I must suspend them for now. How typical - always postponing the issues at hand, always with a "good" excuse, always well-intentioned. I think this is something med students are particularly good at doing.

Though, I must admit, there was a blip of deus ex machina that showed that the universe at least acknowledges my loneliness. An old friend from elementary school (and we ended up going to the same place for undergrad) messaged me on Facebook. He wanted to let me know that he got into dental school and because it had been forever since we last chatted, he suggested that the next time I'm home, we should grab lunch and catch up. He was one of my best friends growing up, so I'll definitely take him up on his offer.

Lastly here, I seem to have a bunch of new Followers. I don't know who you all are (yet), but thanks for Following!! :-D
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II.

The blogger of MSTP Bound asked me several days ago to write a eulogy for his now deceased blog.

MSTP Bound is the blog of a gay Asian (gaysian) MD/PhD student. His blog had been running and well-established before I even began reading blogs. I think it might've been one of the handful of blogs that inspired me to blog in the first place.

MSTP Bound chronicled his first 2 years of med school, and all the adventures, intrigues, politics, and relationships therein. Truly, his experiences were far more intense and far more interesting to read about than mine. At times, it was almost as if it was out of a Korean drama (though I've never watched K-dramas; he'd probably bitch slap me for this).

Alas, MSTP Bound met its natural end. It makes me wonder if blogs have a lifespan of their own, and I sometimes wonder how much life is left in mine. Thankfully, MSTP Bound has transcended this cycle of blog death and has been reincarnated as a new blog (somewhere).
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III.

Last week, Jay (formerly known as Randy) of Sun on my Face posed 12 questions on his blog in this post. He recently answered his questions here. They are certainly thought-provoking questions, and my own answers are as follows:

1. Whose the last person you've helped, but didn't have to?
The last people I helped were people in my med school class. You see, some of us were lucky enough to have inherit old exams from the M2 class. There's a set of old exams that have been handed down throughout the ages. Anyway, I decided to undergo the laborious task of scanning and uploading these exams online (this usually take hours, mind you). I then distributed these exams to several of my med school friends to help them along in studying. I could've been a gunner, I could've hoarded these exams to give me an "edge" in getting a better grade in class, but that's against my nature. And yes, several of my friends will do better than me - whether it's due to these practice exams, I don't know.

2. Whose the last person you loved but didn't want to?
A difficult question for me to answer, as I'm not sure I've ever really felt love (or am able to recognize it when it's right in front of me). But to answer the question, it's definitely someone I've been chatting with online for at least several months now. Is this guy a blogger? Maybe. If so, he definitely reads this blog - I'm almost certain he doesn't know who he is, and I intend to keep it this way. It's simpler if I don't formally admit my love, as the distances and situations separating us would probably crush me emotionally.

3. Whose the last person you hated, but couldn't help it?
Probably myself. As if you couldn't have gathered that much from my last post. It extends further, but I'd rather not elaborate on it here.

4. What means most to you, but could do without?
Systems and routines. I like my systems and my routines - it helps keep me focused and on task. However, I wouldn't mind if something came along and disturbed this monotony and introduced a bit of spontaneity in my life. It's so difficult for me to break out of it myself, much easier if it's from some external source.

5. At the end of the day what can you do better, and will you try to?
I can do a lot of things better. I could study harder, be more social, be more active, be more vocal. All these things are important and probably things I should really do, but will I? Probably not because I only have a finite amount of motivation and energy - and right now I'm pretty low in both.

6. Can you ignore want and acknowledge necessity?
Is this not the definition of med school? Delayed gratification is almost an art - a torturous one - that med school teaches. I want many things, but I need surprisingly little. There are perhaps things that I need that I don't currently have, but such is life.

7. What is fucked up in your LIFE that you CAN change but never will?
I'm not sure how to answer this. I suppose, I constantly put other things and other people before my own needs. As long as someone else is worse off, I can't complain. As long as people need to vent, I won't (much). It would be difficult for me to say "Screw you, I need to look out for myself" to someone who needed me. I'm not sure I even want to change this.

8. What is fucked up in the WORLD that you CAN'T change but will try?
Apathy. I've seen so much apathy in this world, and I admit I'm guilty of it too sometimes. But I'll do my best to help make people care - care about their health, their education, and their actions. I've seen kids, teens, and undergrads I've taught go from apathy to caring. Everyone has that spark, it just needs to be ignited. But as a whole, I can only do so much when there's so much apathy in this world.

9. Would you denounce your convictions to save the life of one person/millions?
Hmm, that would depend on which of my convictions is in question. How could I denounce a conviction to help others when that conviction is meant to save lives? No, I wouldn't denounce my convictions because I can't foresee a (realistic) situation where I would have to.

10. Would you follow your convictions if it lead to the injustice of one person/millions?
Perhaps. If we were talking about my conviction to help others above, and if one of the people I help ends up killing another person (or millions), would I denounce my conviction to help that person? I might, so long as I didn't have to participate (directly or indirectly) in the death of that person. But now this philosophical musing is getting too complex for me.

11. Is your life about giving or taking?
My life is usually more about giving than taking. But I'm by no means a saint.

12. If you died tomorrow, what footprints have you left?
I feel like, despite everything I may have done and the people I may have impacted, that I would'nt leave a significant footprint on this Earth. Perhaps if I'm lucky, I'll be blessed with the butterfly effect and someone I've interacted with will rise to greatness - perhaps a student of mine or a good friend. But at best those footprints would only be indirectly mine. I feel like I haven't achieved much yet, and all I see are footprints to potential in the future.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good news about the friend! :) You should have told me earlier instead of letting me bitch about my uneventful day. -.-

I think someone once said to me that blogs, on average, last a year to a year and a half? I don't know if that's true, but if it is, 2 years is certainly a while (and 4 years for me means I'm ancient!).

And I'm stealing your questions cause I have nothing else to do...(and also cause it's the only way I'm going to read your answers :P).

Randy said...

Your answers ring a bell man. I think you are too giving, if there is such a thing. Your a good person and, like i said, sociable and likable. I think you need to take some time for yourself and experience life without the comforts of your routines.

Tom fom Cali said...

Hey your description of MSTP Bound is very flattering. I am a gay Med Student myself and would love to read his blog.

What is the link?prepboywill@aim.com