Semi-Zero-Social-Media Challenge

I challenged myself out-of-the-blue to disable my Instagram account and uninstall my Facebook account. I've always been like that, uninstall-reinstall. My Twitter accout is still there though, I think I need it. 

Why?

My in-service exam is fast approaching and my research proposal is still hanging. Social media is ruining my life and I am constantly conscious about it. Also, I want to go back to writing and expressing myself without limitations. Here in my blog, I am not afraid to be judged because nobody comes here to purposely read me. Nobody. Errr, perhaps one or two people. Thank YOU. But Instagram? People judge everything. That has always been my issue --- fear of being judged. Although I always say I don't care about what people think, honestly I am still a tad bit affected.

Oh well, let's see how long this lasts. Maybe 24 hours? A week? Or a month? 

Support me, yeah? 

Words for 2017

This came quite late for my annual blog tradition where I describe my past year with two words. I was caught up with pre-residency and eventually residency that I had little time to sit down and write. So much for the introductory words. 2017 was my worst year. Ever. All the terrible things that could happen in probably 5 years were squeezed in a single year for me. What better way to describe it than LOSS and DEFEAT.

LOSS

What happened in Marawi is one for the books, it will be marked in our history for the rest of our lives. The story will be passed down from one generation to the next after us. We lost our most prized possession—our homeland, including the properties which were product of our parents’ and grandparents’ sweat and blood. Almost all our family’s properties along Lilod Madaya---those of my grandmother, my grandaunts and granduncles, my uncles and aunts, my cousins’—were lost to the war paved by young men claiming to purge Marawi from its sins. It’s been eight months since the siege and I still cannot get over it. I cannot even bring myself to watch documentaries showing the massive destruction in our land. 

In relation to the siege, I lost someone very close to my heart. Someone I consider a sister. She was blinded by a false ideology thinking that she can somehow save her family and her land by joining the war. I shall respect whatever reasons she had for what she did will never change how I saw her as one of the most kind, innocent and adorable person I have ever met. She will never hurt even a fly. Her soft voice and laughter will forever be remembered. 

In the midst of the siege, I lost one of the most important persons in my life---my grandmother. She was very healthy at mid-80s, but one fine afternoon, as she was about to pray for salaatul-‘asr, she fell while sitting on her bed and was declared DOA at the hospital. I went home to Lanao del Sur, but not in Marawi. My heart was breaking when I was there not being able to smell the fresh air of MSU or even take a glimpse of Marawi because of the ongoing Martial Law. It pains me to see and to know that my relatives, people I grew up with, were scattered all over Mindanao.

At around that time, there were many reports about missing men in Iligan and my brother-in-law was one of them. He was abducted for almost 6 weeks, we initially thought it was a kidnap-for-ransom case but we never heard from the abductors. My in-laws searched the entire Lanao but to no avail. We’ve exhausted all the possible means but everything turned out negative. We’ve only clung to our unrelenting faith in Allah that he’ll be back to us safe and sound. True enough, when we’ve almost lost hope, he unexpectedly appeared at the doorstep of their place in Iligan. I will not dwell on the details of his abduction but up to now he has no idea who his abductors were as he was blindfolded the whole time. What he knows is that they were Visayan-speaking men. Alhamdulillah for the second chance at life given to my brother-in-law. I pray those men won’t bother him again.

DEFEAT

2017 was the best time for my clinical career to get back on track. I applied for residency training at the most prestigious Department of Internal Medicine at the Philippine General Hospital. Out of 100+ exam takers, I was one of the 48 passers who qualified for pre-residency. I was ecstatic when I passed the exam. Knowing how rusty my brain has become after almost 3 years of not practicing, it came as a surprise that some medical concepts were still retained in my memory. From the 48 pre-residents, only 36 of us made it at the end of the pre-res. The rest didn’t continue while some quit in the middle. From 36, only 21 qualified for residency training. I wasn’t one of them. I didn’t make it. It kinda broke my heart a bit because I prepared and worked hard for it but somehow I was thankful because in the middle of pre-res I kept asking myself if I really want to pursue it there. For the entire 2 weeks, I barely see my kids and I lost track of the household that I manage. I left everything under the care of Jabar and the household help.

I wasn’t ready to give up my dream of becoming an internist yet. I looked for an open pre-res in other hospitals. I tried Manila Doctors Hospital. They allowed me to go on pre-res for a week along with 9 others but only 4 remaining slots were open. I gave my best shot for that week. I was very competitive, always ready for an answer, even the chief resident was rooting for me. I was kinda sure I will get in. For the second time, I was defeated. Apparently, the chairman was doubting my commitment because of Jabar’s nomadic nature of work. He was afraid I might quit in the middle of residency. I cried buckets. I felt like I lost all the chance of getting into residency. I’m getting old and the medical concepts I know are becoming obsolete by the day. I need to refresh my brain.

*********************************

2017 taught me that with every loss and defeat, there’s always a chance to rise above the challenges. Loss and defeat are both a state of the mind. Meranaos have lost Marawi but our consciousness will forever be connected to our beloved Ranao. Our Meranao-ness will never be lost. We and our children will still speak our language, we will still wear our malong, we will still cook and eat pindialokan a manok , and palapa will still be our staple spice wherever in this world we will be. This government may have succeeded in bombing our homes and driving us away, but Meranaos will thrive and we will even become better people, in shaa Allah. With our hands, blood and sweat, we will rebuild Marawi.

(Pause. I’m crying profusely now)

I may not have continued Internal Medicine and I may have felt defeated after two attempts at IM residency but I found my niche now with Family Medicine (FM). Alhamdulillah. Family Medicine is a highly clinical branch but offers a lot more benign schedule. Residency training in FM allows me to indulge in deep clinical learning and at the same time take care of my children and of the household. It allows me to take care of my own health and well-being. Alhamdulillah. Allah’s mercy is indeed never-ending. I do not regret those time I went into IM pre-residency because I met wonderful people and maybe that’s Allah’s way of not making me regret my decisions. He made me experience what it is to become an IM resident but did not bring me there because He knows it will not do me good.

Alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah. All Praise Is For the Lord of the Universe whose love and mercy is boundless.

Coffee With Diana

I kick-started publishing my thoughts online and whatever that goes around on a so-called "blog" nearly ten years ago. Friendster introduced it to me until I moved to Multiply. Those now-defunct social media platforms started it all for me, until eight years ago I decided to "formally move" here in Blogspot. I did not intend to have a particular theme to write about, nor did I intend to be known through blogging or writing. This is the closest thing I do to talk to myself. In fact, none of those in my closest circle knew about this secret business I have. Most of my friends were like, "Friendster, yeah..but, blog? what? what blog?". I didn't bother them about it again. Haha! Until in 2006, my childhood Ate, Ate Diane, came back to MSU for good and one of the things that we talk about enthusiastically was blogging. Finally! Someone can relate to my inner nerd that was kept hidden under the rug. Blogging, as I've learned from her, was a huge thing in the Metro. In reality, it was quite dwindling already when I was barely starting.

I love reading stories, fictional or not. I love reading in general, so blog-reading is something that I enjoy so much. I've met a known a lot of people through their respective blogs. Some of them became friends of mine in real life. :) 

One of the blogs that I take pleasure in reading is that of Nessreen Diana whom I always refer to as Nessreen but she then told me that she is known to everyone as Diana.  I came across her blog through Ate Diane's as they're friends in UP.  I particularly took interest in her stories about growing up as a Meranao, as a woman, and as a Filipino in Jeddah. Growing up in the bukid of Mindanao State University, I had an impression that my cousins and relatives who were living abroad lead a glamorous and fabulous life. But, her Jeddah stories made me aware that they are also regular people and that we, in inged, live a much more normal life. Although they have an easy access to all the things we mostly yearn for like fast-food shops and malls. Haha!  

The Meranao community is so small that we are connected one way or another. Ate Diana happened to be a cousin of my good friend Mabi, and later on, I met her brother Adnan (through Mabi, of course). I remember meeting Adnan and after finding out they were siblings, I was thinking that this guy might be one of those "characters" I read on his sister's blog. Haha! 

Several days ago, she dropped me a message informing me that she's in Bangkok and asked if I want to meet-up. Of course I want to!!! She's some sort of a "celebrity" in my blogging world so how can I say no to that?! We met and talked over coffee at a mall near us. I hope she didn't mind commuting though. Hehe. We talked for almost three hours about her job, about her life in Jeddah (yeah, you cannot shut her up about Jeddah!), about my life here and about the people we commonly know. Turned out, we know A LOT of people in common! Small world indeed! It felt surreal to finally listen to her speak Meranao fluently. I guess that's how it feels to meet your favorite writer or author, that you're convinced that, yeah, they're real people too. I had a "Diana-hangover" a day later, replaying our conversations over and over again in my head. Haha! 

You can check out her blog on my blogmates list, on the right side of this page, so you'd know what I mean. She's Nessreen there. :D 

Aiscape and I

I have this love-unlove relationship with my blog. It's not "love-hate" because I don't really hate my blog. It's like having an old geeky friend whom you've ditched for the cooler newbies in school (twitter, facebook and instagram). If this blog can only speak, I know it holds a lot of hurt feelings toward me. I, on the other hand, keeps a looooot of stories to tell an old friend when we've finally have a time to catch-up. And that time depends on ME. Right after the medical boards exam, I vowed to  write about the untold stories during the review days and write a lot about my Doctors to the Barrios experience. Two years later, I scanned through this blog and horrified I was upon realizing that I actually wrote just two (!) entries about my whoooole DTTB experience (click this and this one, too) . I've been confiding a lot to the cool guys a.k.a twitter, facebook and instagram instead of my old geeky friend who has been waiting in vain for my stories. 

I keep a public blog where nobody reads my entries randomly because I wanted things to be private between me and my readers (who are just my close friends anyway, unless someone finds his/her way here) only, but I noticed that I wanted to share the experience to the crowd! I like people to "like" my posts and agree with whatever I say on the social media!! I felt alarmed though because I read somewhere that people who are very active on social media are those who have tendency toward depression and those with low self-esteem!! And then I came to ask myself, do I really need that validation from people? Am I depressed? Do I have a low self-esteem? Perhaps yes, perhaps no. 

What I noticed about myself though is how short my attention span had become. It started during later years in med school that I cannot focus on something for quite a long time, I need to distract myself with something else and that is how I found my way to the social media. For instance, I have been thinking about writing an entry for the past weeks since I've been here in Bangkok (yes! I'm already here living with my husband!!), but not until now (on my fourth week here) that I finally started a paragraph. And even before writing the first letter and finally coming up with what to write, I have been scanning other people's blog, update myself on twitter, instagram and facebook almost simultaneously! Delaying tactics, you know. But why? Perhaps because first, I don't know when and how to build this friendship with my blog again, and second, I am afraid of grammar nazis. Seriously, I am always afraid of committing a grammar mistake that I think I always end up of having plenty of them! Law of attraction daw. The more you fear about something, the more it is being pulled towards you. Haha! 

Anyways, I already made up my blogsignments in my phone (and in my head) and since I am a full time housewife for the time being, I really hope to catch up with my old friend, Aiscape. :) I won't make promises but I will see to it that I finish an entry at least once a week. Let me start with this. 

Bismillahir rahmaanir raheem.  

Look at you, poor thingy. 

How you've gathered inch-thick dust and  cobwebs. 

I haved missed you so dearly. 

Love,

Aziza