1. Before Facebook’s existence, I had more time to contemplate, to ruminate on stuff, to blog about thoughts and random ideas; ever since FB became (almost) everybody’s addiction, I too became one of those social media end users who consume all these social bytes- reading other people’s “shares”, “likes”, looking at their photos – lately the theme among my friends are wedding and baby photos, and knowing where they go what they eat what time they sleep whatever else they’ve been doing. Now I’ve never been one of those people who are against social media, but I do blame it for my lack of writing/thinking. When you have all these colorful bytes, these ‘noise’, that keeps throwing itself at you, and in between you still have to find time to eat, sleep, study and hang out with real people, you’re left with very little time for self, for reflection. At least that’s how it is for me. (Addendum: And with everyone having an opinion on everything, that makes me more reluctant to share mine. Plus, you never know when it will be used against you in the future!)

2. I don’t know which bothered me more- the fact that I have an ego that’s of a comparable size, or the fact that my ego took a beating. And then there are times when I don’t really know who I am, or who I want to be. Yet, when told by others I’m such and such of a person as if they know me better than myself, I can get quite agitated. Why I act or say certain things sometimes escape my logic, I have no idea why I do what I did. That amuses me at times; more often than not I just regret having done so. But what baffles me most is why I over-think things that most people wouldn’t even give a second thought to. Really. Sometimes I just wanna kick myself and ask- what the hell is wrong with you?!

3. I’ve been getting questions regarding my marital status pretty often these days that I half wished I had made a cardboard with my answers on it so that I can bring it around and pass it to those who ask, so then I don’t have to repeat myself so much. I wished this question could grow old and people would stop asking. Unfortunately, the more likely options would be: 1) instead of the question growing old, I would be the one growing old and people would just lose interest in asking a spinster that question; or 2) I eventually change my status and that’s the end of story. Option #2 is very unlikely for now, so that leaves me with Option #1. lol. My take on this? Relax lah. When the time is right, it will happen. For now- enjoy first. 🙂

Last day of my summer break. Tomorrow marks the start of my second year as a medical student. There’s a concoction of emotions in me- excitement about new stuff I’m going to learn (particularly neurosciences, my favorite); anxiety about all the previous materials that I need to review; enthusiasm/gung-ho-ness that comes with the beginning of any start of the year, be it academic or Gregorian calendar year; the jitters about the big fat exam in less than a year that will determine our future destiny; and of course, the delight of seeing my classmates whom I haven’t seen in 7 weeks.

It’s hard to believe I’ve gone through a quarter of the journey as a medical student, when it really just felt like yesterday when we learned anatomy. Pretty soon the quarter will become half, but we would still only have touched a tenth of the tip of an iceberg of the medical knowledge (or at least that’s what I’d feel). So much to learn, never enough time. And yet, as we go forward, we’d be expected to know more and more, and it would turn into a race where we try to meet or even exceed expectations. It’s a little unnerving to feel as if I’m not stepping up to the game, and I shudder to think what will happen if I don’t meet those expectations; but realistically I know there’s nothing much I can do except to do the best I can. The rest, I shall leave to fate.

Year 1 has been great, year 2 will be even better. Random photos to follow-