Hell-Oh...

In a city where fireworks are non-existent, its hard to dampen a sulky mood on a dawning decade.

You see, a 24-turning-25, shy, overweight, single-since-coming-out, gay guy in Davao City who at the same time has his daily life buried in his Medical books and whose idea of quality alone-time is sleeping his ass off or drowning in ice tea as he surfs for internet porn, it is terribly hard to bump-into let alone aggressively search for that compatible someone who would be just the right guy to negate all the above-mentioned obstacles to a great life.

I have been obsessed by this very craving. Cried myself to sleep, even tormented myself with the prospect of growing old alone. Why don't I have a boyfriend? Am I that unattractive? Doesn't anybody find me interesting? Why do I choose to wallow in my self-pity despite knowing how crappy doing exactly thus is?

Well, for one, I am devoid of self-confidence. My friend, Kitte, today said "if you look good, you feel confident". She didn't quite know how hard her statement hit me. I've had psoriasis since I was in high school. You can google it. Talking and describing it makes me sad. It is the single if not the only dilemma I've been burdened with all these years. If you have this skin disorder, you could pretty much get the picture. If you don't, then imagine having multiple, ugly, erythematous, dandruff-resembling plaques all over your back and thighs. Also, don't be hypocrite by saying physical looks don't matter because we all know it does. Hell, if it didn't, why do we have spas, beauty parlors, and Vicky Belo? It is human nature to be attracted to physical looks first before being drawn to personality. Its encoded in our genes, that is just the way nature works. Having this disease today and the knowledge that it will forever taunt me makes me feel really ugly.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Medical Bloopers

Medical Bloopers No.1

Scene: Mental Hospital, Interviewing Mental Patient aka "Manong"

Hayme: Manong, ilan naman kayong magkakapatid?
(Sir, how many siblings do you have? [rough translation])

Manong: Anim
(Six)

Hayme: Lahat naman po ba sila NORMAL sa pag-iisip?
(Are all of them MENTALLY NORMAL?)

XHET!!! Wrong question!!! Well, I clearly have a lot more to learn about clinical tact. Urgh! Good thing Manong didn't react much. Either he's understanding of my lack of interviewing skills considering I'm a second year medical student or he was unaware of the implication behind the question. Ehe.

#################

Medical Blooper No.2

Scene: Weekly Family Lunch, Sunday, Nov. 28, 2010

Uncle: Papa-Antivirus nga pala ako sa'yo.
(I wanna get an Antivirus from you.)

Hayme: Po? Alin po? Hepa-B? Di pa naman po ako marunong.
(Uhm, what? Which one? Hepatitis-B? I still don't know how [to
administer it].)

Uncle: Di ata yun. Kaspersky ata yung sabi ng kakilala ko.
(That's not it. I think my pal told me it was named Kaspersky.)

Ehehehehe. I overthink things sometimes. And most of the time, I can't get my mind off school.

#################

Medical Blooper No.3

Scene: Pathology Class, Mini-AVR @ Laboratory Hall

Dr.M : If bowel infarcts happen, what type would they be?
Class : Red Infarct
Dr.M : Good. Why would they not become white infarcts?
Class : Because the intestines have multiple blood supply.
Dr.M : Very good. Because of the intestinal CASCADES...(then I butt in)
Hayme : ARCADES

And I butt in with my conversational loud voice which reberverrated across the small room. Dr.M scanned the hall and was drawn towards my direction. I futilely hunched my back. He spotted me anyway.

Dr.M : Thank you for the correction. Yes. ARCADES...Because of the intestinal arcades...

Whew!!! Another tight corner there. Me and my nasty habit of butting in on someone when I spot a wrong word, mispronounced word, grammatically incorrect sentence...etc. Ugh!

INFO: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arterial_arcades)

GEEK TALK

Alas. My mind isn't infinite at all. I try to learn as much as I could but then time erodes what knowledge I keep cramped in my neurons. I could only imagine being Spock, able to recall and apply all Vulcan mathematical equations and formulas that could explain the laws governing the universe. I too would want to be the Spock of Medicine. But, alas, I am not a Vulcan. Haysh.

What brought about this geeky entry? Well, my sister made me watch Big Bang Theory the other night and it sure is comedy for the likes of me. If you are well read in the Sciences, especially Physics and Chemistry, and you know a little of Politics, Economics and Geography, well then, you could expect a good laugh from the said show. Then, last night, a friend FB-ed me a video depicting Albert Einstein's view that God exists. Well, I've always adored the genius of Einstein. If I could be him, that would be the closest I'd get to becoming a Vulcan. Waha. Next thing I knew, I was reading through Wikipedia's entry on him. Hohum, I was again dragged to the reality that I do not possess a brain of his level. I could not understand half of what the article on Relativity, Equivalence Principle, Adiabatic Invariance etc. were saying. Haysh. Too good to be true.

It frustrates me.

@@@@@@@@@

I'm alive too. Thanks to the love and support of my friends.

Finals

So yeah, I'm back after being out for so long. It's not that I wasn't online. I was. I just didn't have something worth my and your while to write about. That and because its our finals month this October. Then again, that doesn't necessarily mean this post is actually of substance.

(1) FINALS

So I have accepted my fate. I will not pass Pathology and Surgery this Semester. This, I now reckon, is the reason why Medical School and colleges, universities and academic institutions all across the planet employ at least a bi-semestral year. To the best of my projections, a 70 in both subjects wouldn't be short of a miracle. Better buy me more of that midnight oil come second semester.

(2) I'M SLOWLY BECOMING AN iPOD

I'm tired. Has anyone ever experienced blanking out for more than an hour? I have. Everyday, almost.

I hail a jeep and the moment I embark, I sit, stare into space, then after a flick from an invisible finger, I'm there where I'm supposed to get off. Like, an hour has gone without me noticing. I swear. I don't know how it happens nor can I explain it. I always think I have gone to sleep but then it just doesn't feel like how its supposed to feel after you've woken up. I don't feel groggy at all, nor disoriented even just for a bit. This one time, I was jolted to reality by the feeling of holding something in my hand which wasn't there before just to find out that I was clutching my 40 peso change in the form of one 20 peso bill, one 10 peso coin, and ten 1 peso coins. I don't even remember paying. HONEST.

This one time, my classmate grabbed my pen from my polo pocket so I had to hold on to his hand saying "Oh, ba't nangingialam ka ng gamit ng may gamit?" just to be told "Huh? Kakapagpaalam ko lang ah!". HONEST. Really.

I get soooooo tired my brain manages to shut every unimportant impulse just so it can have some R&R...to the detriment of making me resemble an iPod in some standby mode.

(3) COFFEE

I managed to down two tablespoons worth of coffee over a span of 1 and a half hours. See, when I'm tired, and I mean REALLY tired, almost nothing can make me want to stay awake. One of the few things though apt for the job of keeping me alert is coffee. Last night, however, I've noticed how my body wasn't reacting to my usual concoction of 1 teaspoon of Nescafe coffee. My Cytochrome P450's must have done a pretty good job of desensitizing my body. What I did was to toughen my usual drink and see what happens. It kept me up from 1AM to 8AM.

(4) GAYNESS

I just suddenly had this longing to see this McDonald's commercial one afternoon. This ad was the one where the lead was a closeted gay guy and he was with his dad at McDonald's. So yeah...just watch it...

I SO LOVE how he flicked his dreamy eyes 32 seconds into the clip. That move makes me remember Mona Lisa and her I-Know-Something-You-Don't-Know sort of look.

New Moon

A few kids sa neighborhood while I was walking home:
Kid 1: Parang full moon ngayon.
Kid 2: Di ah, kahapon pa kaya.
Kid 1: So ano na yan ngayon?
Kid 2: NEW MOON
My evil alter-ego guffawed hysterically inside.

Cardiac Surgical Pathology

In light of my first time to pass a Surgery quiz, let us all sing together now! "For the first time..."


So yes, I passed that Surgery quiz I was studying for the night I decided to blog again. I got 35 over 60. Yes, it was that freaking hard. But then the highest score was 41 and since 10 questions weren't answered correctly BY ANYONE in the class, they were taken out of the number of items. So I was credited 35 over 50, which made me pass. Happy happy happy. I could pass Surgery naman pala. 


My heart trully skipped a beat..."Hayme, pasado ka! Pasado ka!"...


=) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =)


*Rinne's Test is a test of hearing. It compares sound perception through conduction of sound 
via the mastoid process and through air. 


Rinne and I both live in the outskirts of the city so we almost always go home together. Our hour and a half ride through the primetime traffic always makes ample time for all sorts of discussions. Yesterday wasn't dissimilar. 


Hi Me: Ang mga babae ba your-age, nililibugan din? 
Rinne: Huh?
Hi Me: What media portrays is how the male species are when they get aroused. Nagtataka lang ako kung paano           ma-arouse ang mga babae.
Rinne: (after much hesitation)...uhm, Oo. Ano ba naman 'tong topic natin. (kuliglig uli) Pero, oo. 
Hi Me: So, ikaw, na...teka...para di tayo maintindihan. Kung ang rhinoceros may "horns" and elephants may "tusk". 
Rinne: Ano? Paano napunta sa hayop?
Hi Me: Basta, sundan mo na lang. Ikaw paano ka ma "tusky"?
(TAWANAN)
Rinne: Hahaha. Eh di, yung, nagmo-moist siya doon.
Hi Me: Ah, so totoo pala talaga yung nababasa ko.
Hi Me: So, tumatagos talaga yun pag namamasa?
Rinne: Wag na nga natin to pag-usapan. Wahahaha. Pwede Pathology of the Heart na lang? 
           May quiz kaya tayo bukas.
(Change topic na...di na niya kinaya level ng pagtatanong ko.)


=) =) =) =) =) =) =) =) =)


*The Tail of Spence is an extension of the tissue of the breast which extends into the axilla.


We had Saturday classes today. Pathology of the Heart. While our cute professor (di ako nagsabi, opinion ito ni Spence*) was lecturing endlessly, I started to daydream of this guy in the past who has caused me more than a fair share of heartaches my young heart could handle back then. Emo. Haha. So yeah, I kept remembering him throughout the two-hour lecture. 


How I always waited for him to arrive for our 7am class in Bio-Sci. How we stayed at Chowking Vega to study for Genetics exam and when I taught him how to calculate for Genetic Interference in Gene Recombination. How I feigned "comparisons of hand sizes" with him because of this article I read which I thought was totally phony. How he loved the siomai at SEKS and Papus. How I smiled inside when he finally walked through the Anatomy lecture hall and would always sit at the last row. How I got up from where I was seated and walked past my friends just so I could sit beside him. He was my puppy love. How I felt for him though is still the most I've felt for any other guy. Yes. I'm not gonna be ashamed to say that at 24 years of age, after 5 years of finally being able to say "I'm gay" to myself and to my bestfriends, I still am a newbie in all of these relationship stuff. Hence, my longing to finally have that special someone. Hope God brings him my way soon.

Life's Unfair

Sa mga nilalang na tulad niya ako napapaniwalang di totoong pantay-pantay ang lahat. Hahahaha.
(Screenshot from Playfull Kiss, Kim Hyun Joong a.k.a. Ji Hoo of Boys Over Flowers)

A Sigh

Hi. before I start rambling nonsense, let me first come up with a decent introduction, as that is what I've meant to write the myriad times I started to write for this first post. So here goes...

My name is Hayme. I'm 24. I am from down south from the Philippines. Geek would be a pretty appropriate term for a description of what I most usually am. If my being a second year Medical student wasn't proof enough, I would sit you down next to me under a clear night sky and start discussing Astronomy, Earth Science and how Vega will be the North Star in about 26,000 years from now.

I am also a big Korean fan. Aja!!! Been so since I got to know Dong Bang Shin Ki way back in 2004. I've tried watching all successful Korean dramas and movies I could get my hands on since then. I've got tons of downloaded performance videos of just about any hit chart-topping Korean artist and they're not your typical YouTube quality videos as they're all in 1080p High-Definition.

So yeah, I'm tech savvy but not uber interested in Computer Science things like making my own websites, flash movies and whatnot. I'm the type who could go 5 hours online without food and drinks. Blog surfing, Facebook stalking, editing Wikipedia entries, Plurking, and activities of this level are my usual day-to-day routine unless I have to pour my time into reading Medical books. I love torrenting PC games and movies. I could basically spend all a day's effort on looking for hard-to-find Indie LGBT movies and porn stuffs (yes, I can be horny too sometimes) and I feel great pride everytime I succeed in pirating them.

So yeah, having said it already, forgive me if I reiterate. I am gay. You wouldn't doubt my sexuality once you get to know me but by just looking at me, I don't usually fit several stereotypes. I don't like dressing up. On the contrary, I am a fashion disaster if it weren't for my sisters checking out what I wear if I do decide to go malling. And yes, I don't like shopping for stuff. I just basically go to the mall, pick the shirt I reckon would most represent my overall mood should I choose to wear it in a future event. I don't like going out to parties and bars and boutiques but I do love going to the beach and to mountain resorts.

What else? Uhm, I am a disappointment to my family. My mother trusts me no longer. I wouldn't blame her. No one could. After flunking eight subjects on my last two semesters when I was in UPLB, who wouldn't become the family's black sheep? So I transferred to the Ateneo after having applied for Honorable Dismissal. Why did I go haywire in the first place? Well, it had much to do with Erik Erikson's fifth stage of psychological development. As have most of my gay friends, I got sucked into that blackhole of questions as to who I really was, what my life meant, was my sexuality wrong, would I ever be accepted. You know, the basic questions a young gay Filipino guy would expect to question his own person with. So I got a little stuck, more and more of my free time was put into these thoughts until I just finally snapped back into reality only to find out I was too late in salvaging what academic plans I and my family had. Looking back, I wish I could have done better. Graduating as a UP student just was a dream, now it would never come to fruition.

But too much for negative vibes. I am actually a happy person. Simple things can make me happy. I would go karaoke singing with my friends every after term exams, buy myself tons of spare DVD-R's then burn sought-after Glee, Gossip Girl, Vampire Diaries, Merlin, Dexter and Naruto episodes for me to watch by my lonesome. I'm basically happy even just with myself.  

Yeah. I remain happy. But I won't deny this longing for a special someone whom I deem I could be happier with. I may suppress it most of the time but I can't deny the existence of a  desperate-romantic alter ego hidden beneath this chipping wall I used to keep myself locked in. It just haunts me sometimes. Scares me enough to make me cry myself to sleep these thoughts of growing up old and gray, all alone.  

But I don't think I'm ready for a relationship just yet. Heck, I don't even have permanent gay friends. Maybe that's why I spend most of my spare moments reading on the experiences of other gay Filipino post-adolescents. That keeps me sane sometimes. Keeps me from believing I am actually an alien in this planet. Hehe.

Hmm. Unless I make this my last paragraph, I don't think I'll ever end. So, I end it with...a sigh. 

You've been warned...

It's past 1:30 in the morning. I still have loads of pages to read from Mr. Sabiston, that's my textbook in Surgery. Yes, for I am a Medical Student. This will have to do as my first post. I've actually started to write a more apt post a while ago but then it sounded too geeky. No, it was really geeky. Why start a blog post by explaining what a "Thymine Dimer" is? Heck. I'm so not good at this, blog writing. I'm so used to Facebook and SMS.

Why start a blog in the first place? Well, my friend of 11 years admonished me into doing this. It's been like 3 years since my last blog. And this is my third venture into blog-making. Haha. I'm boring. I know. So if you can put up with me, do so at your own risk.

So anyways, I leave you with this one for now. Proper introductions will be postponed until the next time I log on.