Hello again

New year, new phase in life. a new chance to do things differently.

 I have been away from the creative space for quite a while now, sometimes due to real-life responsibilities like household chores, but mostly due to laziness and the draw of just resting on the couch and letting my brain fly amidst all the usual Youtube content we have been following as of late. There's also the ever-present temptation of objective-driven console gaming (think open-world RPGs or sports games l), or the retro hits like Tetris or Dr. Mario wherein the only driving force is the acquisition of more points for its own sake. I don't play for points though, but maybe just for the sense of achieving something, which personally seems more fulfilling than being stuck in a loop with your neck craned over your phone, scrolling indefinitely through content tailor-made to keep you willingly (or unwillingly) engaged while the rest of the world moves on without you.

 Four months into a new year filled with much hope and promise, we suddenly find ourselves in the middle of ever-escalating conflicts around the globe, the latest of which hits home very hard due to the shock effect of skyrocketing fuel prices, which would inevitably escalate into higher prices of goods and services all around,

 It kind of boggles the mind when you consider that all of this was unthinkable just a decade ago, where everything seemed shitty, but at least was kind of stable in a twisted sort of way. But come to think of it, 2016 wasn't really that great a year either in this part of the world.. All of this brings about a certain longing for a past version of myself which was seemingly unbothered by everything else that was happening.

 Although I am definitely grateful for the stable situation I find myself in right now, I still often find myself yearning for simpler times and the things that moved my world. I guess I'm talking about my love affair with novels and drawing. I remember those carefree hot summer afternoons where I could finish an entire book from sunup to sundown. I fondly recall reading almost all of my father's books on the past world wars, both biographical and otherwise, in a span of a single summer vacation. My Robotech collection was (and still is) my pride and joy, having collected almost every novel bit by bit through my meager savings and thankfully completed by some hand-me-downs from my older cousins when they moved house. I still don't have book #19 The Zentraedi Rebellion though, but I wonder if it would be feasible to secure a copy eventually.. Bargain bins at Booksale are out of the question though, as anything of remote value from the Science Fiction section had long since dried up. Visiting the last two remaining major booksellers (NBS and Fully Booked) is an exercise in futility, as the former is now but a shell of its's former self, becoming more of a supplies store than a bookshop, while fresh titles from the genre are few in far in between in the latter. I would like to add that there are a lot of reprints of classics at Fully Booked though, with new edition prints of Harry Potter and the Dune series lining the shelves, with these titles maintaining a fleeting cultural relevance due to portrayals on movies and series, which we now mainly derive from streaming platforms as opposed to the traditional moviehouse sessions and free TV programming. This leads me to another point..

 The emergence of streaming services and on-demand platforms effectively killed the once-vibrant and very social experience of the Movie Night. This decline was further exacerbated by the pandemic which ground life to a halt that fateful year, and forced us to adapt our way of living, sometimes permanently. It actually saddens me when I see movie theaters being neglected or closing down. Apart from the loss of a part of my childhood, my thoughts also drift to all those people who lost their jobs and sources of income as a consequence of this change, but more importantly, the changes in the way we living which may not necessarily be for better despite the obvious tradeoff for convenience. Modern life is stripping away the human experience and is being replaced by automated conveniences which makes things more accessible but renders us more inert at the same time. I don't have the headspace or the drive to delve further into this particular topic, so I shall be putting that on the shelf for now.

  I sadly admit that I no longer have the writing endurance I once had to en much longer entries, but I guess I need to follow one of the points I made in this post, and just sit down and read a book. Like just might get a bit more interesting after all.

 See you on the next one (I hope). 

And yet, here we are

 Yeah... so that happened..

 The lecture came and went eventually without a hitch, and I actually found myself recycling the same slide set a week ago hehe.

But yeah, I'm here again like that old guy trying to restart his old jalopy, faced with another daunting presentation, this time of far greater importance, and with a lot less time to spare.

I have to admit that I really missed this.. As I have settled somewhat into a new way of living where I find myself entertained by the consumption of content and the comfort of playing video games on a platform I never thought I would get my hands on (not a PS5 though :P), my usual creative outlet has taken a very far back seat to the point of near-disappearance. 

 Life has been pretty interesting in general, I guess.. 

Man, I'm tired. I need to get some serious shut eye.. Oh well, next time then...

That same old problem

 Here we are again in a bit of familiar territory.. Late night work setting, but procrastination abounds. I actually have to make a presentation for a talk I will be giving in a few days' time, but have yet to start work on any of it, save for a rudimentary title slide, and the  ubiquitous thank you slide, both classic elements which never go out of style.

 There's so much I want to tell here, as my inner storyteller shakes the rust off and cracks his fingers in preparation to get things going. However, I find myself restrained by privacy concerns, something that wasn't really too much of a problem when I began blogging in earnest (hint: its not the oldest date on this blog, as I had began doing this on another platform years earlier..)

 I guess the most notable change I could reveal would be the change of setting I presently find myself. I'm still at my desk, but it is no longer just "mine" nor is it the original desk that saw me launch a thousand pages of useless rambles years before. It somehow feels cozier.. more comfortable?..

 I should really be getting some much-needed shuteye instead, as the past few days have proven to be quite exhausting all around. I hope I can accomplish my set task tomorrow though Only time will tell.. P

Two Years

 Wow.. just wow...

 A LOT can definitely happen in a couple of years. Numerous life-defining and life-altering events can take place, and I find myself in a totally unrecognizable environment from where I was once before.

 After all that time though, I realized only very recently that I have already strayed so far from what i felt would define me. (vague, I know, but just hear me out until the end) As I write this, I realize this would soon devolve into a stream of consciousness entry, but so be it. I haven't written anything in such a long time that I welcome any sort of mental catharsis as far as my writing is concerned..

I presently find myself having settled into a routine which is pretty much a byproduct of the times, which involves a lot of mindless scrolling and a sharp decline in creative original output. I'm not talking about content creation in the contemporary sense, but its more of making your own thing (like this blog) purely for the sake of doing it, as opposed to the common trend of monetizing everything for profit.

Man, I really miss this. I realize that my skills have gotten a bit rusty, and I'm kinda struggling to get back in the saddle, but I wouldn't trade this for the world. Using an "ergonomic" keyboard isn't helping much though, since I'm not really a touch typist, so using the keyboard one-handed offers a very different experience that what this thing is originally designed for. But hey, its wireless, and its free :P

I'm at a loss on what I should write about. I'm torn about censoring some things and sharing about others, but I guess a good place to start would be how things are right now.

Safe to say that I find myself once again in the thick of things in my practice. Downtimes are now few and far in between, and the census has thankfully been consistent and rising. This comes as a great relief, as I was aiming for stability for the longest time,and would hopefully be settling in for the long run.

There were a lot of missed opportunities, most of which I had turned down for one reason or another, usually because something felt "off" or "didn't feel right". The term "gut feel" comes to mind, as I found myself uneasy at times with regards to the options I eventually turned down despite the potentially high returns. I guess that's the difficulty with finding work that you would find meaningful for yourself.

I guess I need to goal-set and clearly define what I would like to do with my career, a kind of career wishlist if you will.

-  I would love the opportunity to teach trainees. I'm not talking about big classroom sessions in medical school as I don't think I have what it takes to be a traditional academician. I mean, I tried my hand at that pre-pandemic, and found the experience underwhelming and unfulfilling, though I guess it was the fact that I was lecturing to a classroom filled with foreigners, half of which are clearly inattentive and are only after the medical degree for status advancement as opposed to actual altruistic goals of helping the sick. Those students are the worst. You can spot them a mile away, slacking around at the back without paying any attention. All good though, as I get paid regardless whether they actually learn something or not. The most important thing is that my conscience is clear because I had already given an earnest effort to imppart what I know. It is up to each individual student if they would out in the work to actually study.

Instead, I want to teach/mentor the young would-be colleagues like residents and fellows on the finer points of the specialization. I am more fond of the more intimate setting where I can teach informally without being judged by the entire student body. I realize that I teach more effectively when I impart from my personal experiences in managing patients. The informal approach seems to allow for more recall and creativity. An ideal scenario would be to return to my old hunting grounds during residency, as I wish to pay forward having been taught as a trainee once before.

2) A paid staff position was in the books for several opportunities, but was never really substantiated, as the ever-shifting landscape and dynamics of life found me having mismatched opportunities and current responsibilities.. oh and there's gut feel also. The question remains: Am I still interested in a paid position (preferably government)?

I guess it all boils down to the responsibilities the job would entail, and who would be the personalities behind the leadership. I know it seems I'm just being picky and cowardly, and you might be right to some degree, but I trust my gut feel with things like this, and was a little bit too paranoid so I had already worked out inside my head what the possible consequences would be should I dive headfirst into this unknown or unstable territory. Certain jobs tend to expect you to be all give but no take, and it's this type on unfairness that I seek to avoid. In fact, some jobs seem like they reward hard work with more work. This often ends up stifling creativity as you're afraid to trigger an avalanche of ideas from the higher ups, which would require you to act on them.

 So yeah, I guess I am going to be stopping for now to attend to real life, but I will be back soon with more stories.

Pet Peeves

 After a pair of failed attempts to try and squeeze a yearender blog out of my brain, I just decided to scrap the entire thing and just go with more of a stream of consciousness thing.

But yeah, I did skip more than a year of blogging, and to tell you quite frankly, I did miss it. :P

Anyways, this one is about pet peeves, mainly the things I have unfortunately seen on the net, and this will be a short list since I'm not really in any shape for long-form writing right now. So here we go..

- I dislike reading things where people write "y'all" all the time, even if they are presumably not American. This goes double for those grown, fully educated people who start off their discussions with this, thereby showing off their inner hillbilly. Whatever happened to proper language? You can call me a grammar nazi all you want, but that won't change the fact that you are either too lazy to write properly, or too stupid to care.

- Equally annoying are those people (presumably children) who comment "i'm wheezing". I mean, really? 🙄 Because if you are, its either you go grab your nebulizer or bring your ass to the ER. As a lung doc, I take wheezing very seriously, and some patients live in total dread of it. So stop making light of a potentially important symptom and learn to react properly to those dumb videos you are watching.

- Short form vids are temporarily, amusing, but when you take a step back and think about it, these are just absolute wastes of time, especially those that show randos doing stupid dances that nobody really cares about (apart from other similarly inclined randos who have nothing better to do with their lives). The focus today on generating content for just the views, likes, and subscriptions have ruined Youtube. Instead of a great repository of interesting discussions, in=depth investigations, or well-made entertainment, it has become just a total dump of random pathetic people putting in anything and everything just to glue your eyeballs to the screen. You still get the serious content, but sometimes these get lost amidst all the trash. The sad thing is that this is here to stay, since the conceited nature of humans makes it impossible to wean people off the desire for attention.

- Comments sections in general. I miss the days when skimming through the comments section exposes a person to lively civil discussions. Now it is dominated by bots, spammers, and trashy individuals (mostly children who don't know better and probably never will). The anonymity of the web has emboldened cowardly assholes with worthless and oftentimes misleading opinions. I wonder how many of these individuals would actually have the guts to say what they wrote in an actual face-to-face conversation. (So yeah, I don't read random comments sections now)

- There are way too many vlogs made by way too many untalented people with nothing good to say or have zero skills in putting their ideas forward. These people are just obviously in it for the money and should not be rewarded for their pathetic attempts at content creation.

Wow, that got very real very quick. I guess I had so much pent up frustrations that I needed to air out.

This felt great, I should do a part two another time.

 

2021 Yearender

Finally! A proper yearender post! 😛

Now that things have pretty much normalized for me, with the previous consultant routine slowly getting back on track, this time with a bit of accommodation for further opportunities opened up by my recently-concluded training. 😉

Hmm.. I would say that this year pretty much picked up where the shitstorm that was 2020 left off.. The introduction of vaccines early in the year brought a faint glimmer of hope, as cases were trending down and the vaccine rollout caught steam. This optimism was curtailed shortly thereafter though, as the more contagious (and no less deadly) delta variant finally hit our shores a few months after wreaking havoc in India. I would say that this particular wave finally brought the fight to all fronts here in the Philippines, as the outbreak epicenter shifted to the provinces. Fortunately, we were able to see a bit of change in the trend of admissions.. Vaccinated individuals were apparently less prone to wind up in the hospital and hooked to the ventilator. People who got their jabs still tested positive occasionally, but usually had little to no symptomatology to speak of. That's science at work, and no amount of denial by crazies or the ignorant is going to change those facts.

As the year wore on, the trends showed an ever-decreasing case count as more and more people began to shed their unfounded fears and got themselves protected. People started to go out more, and public areas slowly but surely became congested again, the only difference is that people were wearing masks (thank goodness!).

Enough about Covid for now though.. I admit I was a bit apprehensive about getting back into the game after having been away for so long. Fortunately, he clinics were always so supportive, and old familiar faces started to reappear during consults. In fact, I was extremely touched to learn that an old patient had been waiting patiently for my return and refused to see any other physician, because she said I was the only one she trusted. Fortunately, she followed my last instructions and continued her maintenance therapy religiously, which quite predictably resulted in minimal adverse events in the interim. 😛

I thought that I would have become quite rusty with my pulmo management, but apparently its just like riding a bike, you never forget how to do it once you already tried before. ;)

Let me just say that it really feels so good to be able to conduct face-to-face consultations again. I have become extremely sick and tired of telemedicine consultations as it was the only medium we used during fellowship training. I'm sure patients feel the same way, well, those without heightened anxiety about going out anyway. 😜

Hmm.. it's roughly 10pm, but things have still been relatively quiet outside. Perhaps people in the area have finally wised up and learned that it is not cost-effective to waste your hard-earned pandemic money by burning it all away on celebratory explosives. (Although if the news reports from Bulacan are to be believed, people are still going to be such petulant children who are unable to follow sound advice and still do the stupid things that they do, and lose fingers and limbs in the process. Not really my problem though, as long as they don't cause harm to me or the people I care about)

This past holiday season has been one of the weirdest I have experienced. I don't know if its because 24 and 31 are set during thursdays which threw off my internal calendar, but I seem to have trouble telling the days apart. Unlike previous years when people were more than happy to take time off during these holidays, this year seemed to be more busy, as people were taking advantage of relaxed restrictions to conduct business in an almost-normal setting, something most of us have not been able to do for the past 2 years.. I guess this explains my disorientation, since everyday seemed like a regular workday, only with more people at the malls doing their old-school face-to-face x-mas shopping, something they have not been able to do for ages.

Now we stand on the precipice of starting a new year, with a new, highly contagious variant already within our shores. I can only hope that the reports from Africa are correct, that they have already apparently weathered the storm and cases have already significantly dropped, and that this new variant apparently caused milder illness than previously encountered..

So yeah.. It has been a hodgepodge of a year, with equal measures of hope and anxiety mixed in, causing a roller coaster of emotions for all of us. Still, there was some silver linings that happened, and I am grateful for that.. But there are tragedies as well, especially the severe destruction in the southern part of the country brought about by the typhoon Odette, which caused unimaginable devastation as was seen in clips shot by brave individuals caught in the middle of it all..

Let's all pray for a better tomorrow, and a brighter 2022! Stay safe everyone! Please, keep wearing your masks and keeping your distance by avoiding crowds. Its for everyone's good. If you insist on being bullheaded about it, I  will just pray for your family such that you don't put them at risk with your reckless and inconsiderate behavior, because if anything happens to them, it will most likely be all your fault.

More stories to come, and I hope you will be here along with me for the ride. 😁 Have a Happy New Year!

One month later...

 It is quite late at the time of this writing, so this entry will probably be quite brief. 

After around a month of resuming practice, I have confirmed that I really, really miss doing face-to-face consultations. 😅  I hope that the low Covid numbers hold over the next year, so that it would be so much better for eveyone.