Recommencement

After a long bout with procrastination, I realized that I desperately needed to blog something, anything, just to get back into habit and get the ball rolling again.

It's really difficult to start anew, especially when you've grown comfortable with the status quo. Despite that, here I am, ready to take charge once more, starting with my precious online journal.

Since this is another "jumpstart" entry, it shall contain a number of minor blurbs since I don't really have the luxury of time right now for a lengthy, well-organized entry.

• The circumstances concerning my shift in career plans will never be discussed in this blog. I guess its all for the best

• Thanks to the wonders of technology, I was able to turn on my TV set to witness the Japan tsunami just mere minutes after it made landfall, plowing a path of devastation in its wake. Incredible...

• Now an earthquake recently struck close to the metro.. :|

• On the lighter side, this is the first time I'll be able to attend my brother's graduation since his preschool grad! Finally! :D

• Drifting off again! I need to put this up before I get off track (yet again)!!

Forcible removal

*written by the seat of my pants at the LRU on Feb 23, 2011

At the verge of yet another life-changing decision, this time under much less pleasant circumstances..

Sigh.. I never thought it would come to this.. Yet another resignation, of all things.. So much for "living the dream". I guess this means I'll probably have to take my game elsewhere, if I would be accepted, that is..

I have absolutely no idea with what to do next with my life.. Ever since I began work as an NPROD, things have gotten more and more complicated. All this eventually culminated in my committing a lot of screwups, each suppoosedly more worse than the other, causing serious hits to my credibility, drive, and self-confidence. Again, I felt that my life was spiralling out of control, now made even worse by the constant badgering and angry ranting by my seniors.. I wish there was some way with which I could undo all of this, that I could go back to Cardinal and just revert back to the simpler (although a little less meaningful) work that I had there, away from all the complicated issues that seem to permeate the very ground upon which I stand..

I yearn for a return to simplicity, back to a time where I just went to work, had some conferences to attend, and went home tired but content nontheless.. Oh if only I HAD remained contented with what I already had, I wouldn't be facing this in the first place, the prospect of being banished with a black mark upon my head..

This used to be my dream, to be able to train at one of the best (well, only) NeuroPsych programs in the country. I was willing to abandon what had been shaping up to be a promising career in Internal Medicine to foolishly pursue a fleeting flight of fancy, one which took me down to the very depths which I am languishing in now..

I know it's useless crying over spilled milk, and that blaming others won't really do me any good. What's done has been done, and a reversal is nowhere among the cards.

I fnd it funny that everytime I find myself leaving UST, I do so under unpleasant terms.. Finishing clerkship, I opted to have my PGI at CGH to get away from it all.. When I first applied for residency here, I also left with an unpleasant feeling that maybe this was not the place for me.. Now for the third time, I am leaving with a far greater degree of "sama ng loob". I thought I could make it this time, that being a little older and wiser would help me get by the stresses that permeate the place, but I was DEAD WRONG..

Seeing as this is MY blog, where I can put WHATEVER I WANT, I want to put up a kind of retrospective "wish list" that would serve as a reminder to myself of what I may have wanted in the first place:

- I wish that there were less issues in the place of work, that people would be less prone to make big deals about little things and instead just be more helpful and understanding..

- I wish that there didn't have to be a very strict "ladder". Sure I can respect a heirarchy for the chain of command, but to cling to it rigidily in a military-like fashion may seem a bit inappropriate if the job in question is managing people's illnesses and saving their lives.

- I wish that I never would have had the strange compulsion to just get up and leave Cardinal after everything I have ben through there. Though it's true that I may have been a little fed up there as well, but the way I was treated there is way better that what I have experienced in these short 1 1/2 months..

- I REALLY WISH I could get myself a fresh start, but that would seriously depend on what the verdict would be.. I mean, letters of recommendation are VERY important, and I really doubt whether I would be able to get favorable ones from this place..

I feel like such a failure.. Its as though all the motivation and self-confidence has been sucked out of me.. Never in my wildest dreams have I thought that it would come to this, although I admit that I may have had an inkling of this a few weeks back.

A few short weeks.. that's how long it has been?.. It feels like I've been here forever.. Oh yeah, I forgot, they extended pre-residency to two months from the usual one..

So now I sit here on my ass, waiting for the clock to tick down as I await the inevitable.. I will go quietly if given the option, anything to salvage whatever credibility I have so I can take my craft elsewhere.

I'm sick of all this...