tomorrow is our permanent address

Intarmed Christmas party at Ping Mang = best thing in the world. I see them every day and either way it'd be stupid to expect things to stay the same when med proper rolled about so I can't really say I miss the kids with any accuracy, but I kind of miss the kids anyway. (No, we will never graduate from being the Intarmedkids, ever.) Hindi nagbibigay ng 100 ang videoke ng Ping Mang- at grabe na lang 'yan, sina Gee at Ces na nga kumakanta, ayaw pang bigyan ng 100- pero alam naman naming magaling kami (depende na lang sa kahulugan mo ng magaling), so okay lang. And I'm writing this sitting on the floor of Allen's bedroom, right in front of the mirrored closet, with a metal cup of Coke (technically Pepsi) and rum. (At Ping Mang Sedric ordered a Coke with lemon and when it arrived Ginnie said, "Sedric! You can't drink that!" I love the Intarmedkids. It's not like a football club- too steady, too light, and not dramatic at all- but that doesn't make it mean any less.)

And I kind of spent the afternoon reading Sherlock Holmes fic, all the incarnations that were there, and all of a sudden I understood the logic behind Allison's verdict of high-functioning sociopath. My brain is still talking; I'm here because I want it to stop. You have no idea how many things I've done in the name of making my brain shut up.

I don't have words for the last semester. I went into it wanting nothing more than to get out and thinking that there wasn't anyone there I didn't already know who was worth my time. The jury's still out on the leaving part, but all the people- the dissecting sessions and the late-night conversations and the singing and the evacuating to Allen's place when the floods struck and my kitchen disasters and all the amazing people- it was a bit of a trainwreck of a semester, academically, but I have no words for my gratitude for all the amazing people.

In place of trying to explain, here is my soundtrack for the first semester of med proper with UPCM 2016. There is, hopefully, more than enough rhyme to make up for the lack of reason.

For old friends and new.

( Track list here. )

Hello again, temperatures of over 36 degrees Celsius. It isn't quite summer without you.

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I haven't seen the clasico yet. This latest one, I mean. I set my alarm for 2:45 in the morning, but when it went off I was headachy and tired (let me tell you this: the only difference between the MRT at rush hour and hell is that the MRT goes both ways) and couldn't sit up properly and still had slides to label because we had an exam the day after, so I just did not get up. I'm not sure that there was ever a more nervous person checking the football sites at one in the afternoon.

And Dr. Guerrero used my slides for our exam- let me make this clear, Dr. Guerrero used my slides, the ones I spent three hours staring at and sticking labels on, only of course with the labels blanked out, because she wasn't able to find any better pictures- and I'm not sure I've ever been prouder in my life. I think I even passed this one, never mind that I never want to see a frog ovary ever again, no matter how pretty it may be. There's something about Bio30 that makes a passing grade feel like a- well, feel like something very grand and very important, but this was the UEFA Champions League semifinal. This was a UEFA Champions League semifinal between Barcelona and Real Madrid, Spain's bitterest rivalry, preceded by Madrid's Copa del Rey win, Jose Mourinho being Jose Mourinho, and Pep Guardiola finally losing his cool. If the football were Copa-like and not manita-like the atmosphere would have made up for it. We're all drowning in morbo here, but come on, if we follow football it's as much for the drama as it is for the beauty.

I've downloaded the match, and no regrets about whatever, but I wonder if this is called growing up.

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Ladies. Gentlemen. If I cannot not want to be Arsene Wenger because he just does not compromise, I equally cannot not want to be Jose Mourinho, because he doesn't do things by halves.

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My Angkong turned 71 today. I called Amma up to say happy birthday, and as these things go we spent the next ten minutes talking in raised voices and trying to comprehend what the other was saying. Amma said they went out to celebrate, I'm not sure if it was at Dagupena or Star Plaza, and if I wanted crabs or prawns or bangus or anything, and to go back to Dagupan to visit soon. Times like these make me feel rootless.

Orven: Di ba sila yung kumanta ng Jopay?
Allison and Jereel: Hindi! Mayonnaise yun!

-when talking about the band Sandwich

(This is because we they just finished watching a movie and are now trying to pick another movie that has, more or less, the same feel. And are listening to F4 in the process. My gulay, classmates.)

Dear Intarmed 2016: You make me want to write, because you might come across whatever it is I wrote and react the way you're doing now. You make me want to write romcom cliches and melodrama and make them work.

(And this is what I want to say but won't, because that's not how I'm wired: Intarmed 2016, you make me want to write love stories, because you are the closest thing I have to one.)

Reviewing for the IDC exam, in Chancellor Arcadio's office:

Clint: Who is the father of comparative anatomy? Clue: he is mentioned in all subjects.
MJ: Paracelsus.
Manzo: Versalius.
Me: Galen.
Clint: Aristotle.

When in doubt. XD

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If the world had any sense of narrative I would be writing this cross-legged on my bed cushion on the floor of our living room, but the classmates have hijacked the living room and are watching a movie and I'm just sitting at the large white table and watching them.

And that would have been the typically me thing to do, to sit there and go This time two semesters ago- This time two semesters ago I would have been asleep. It's easy to say two semesters ago, two semesters ago, when I had no idea Cesc Fabregas even existed and I didn't give a damn, and all I was doing was waiting for the chance to do something wonderful, so that I could throw myself off a building and still have the seventeen-going-on-eighteen years be worth the while. When all the furniture that graces our living room was in Calasiao, Pangasinan, where it was made to stay and where it belonged, when I was bawling my eyes out at Toy Story 3 and feeling rootless and attempting to cook. When I was sleeping on a cushion on the floor of our living room and writing about things other than what an abject failure I was. When I had to keep headphones over my ears so that I didn't have to hear myself think. When Allison and Manzo and Joshua Torres stayed over to watch Spain's first World Cup game at two in the morning and all I did was wish the team luck and then go to sleep. When we were dissecting cats and making ice candy and I was still trying to be both in love and functional. Well. I'm still trying. But somewhere along the way- I can't say that I figured things out, exactly, because I still haven't, but the thing is that I've been wanting to commit suicide ever since I could remember, so that I don't even know the reasons anymore, only that somewhere along the way I figured out that you don't live for, you just live, and it will be worth it.

Because even if all I got from eighteen going on nineteen years of life was evaporating capsaicin in the STR lab, or watching Barcelona beat Real Madrid 5-0 on a fuzzy stream at four in the morning, or running to Robinsons at ten-thirty at night when it's raining and Pedro Gil is ankle-deep in water just to get the next part of Hitverse, or cobbling together a comedy about serial killers and UPCM graduates trying to give back and failing in different ways- it would all have been worth it, in the end.

If the world had any sense of narrative- but who even cares about sense of narrative. It's things like these that make the narratives. It's noisy classmates and learning to give a damn without it making you crazy and growing the hell up.

Dear Intarmedkids, I'd like to address this brand-new Softer World strip to you.

Love you all. But you knew that already.

I FAILED.

I failed! We failed. I failed Bio30 and I have never been happier in my entire life. I failed. As in. Singko. Clasico. I failed Bio30 and for the first time in my life I have no idea what I'm going to do. Having no idea what I'm doing is normal. Having no idea what I'm doing is par for the course. I have no idea what I'm going to do and it is so glorious you have no idea.

I failed and I am not Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov and the only thing I know is that I'm not going to be part of UPCM 2017. Aside from that, nothing. I burned all my ships at the shore and I'm never going to have my dream summer and who actually cares. And when it comes down to it I can still see myself as a med student- as a doctor I'm not so sure- but that's when it comes down to med student or nothing, and if that's the only way then what the hell am I still doing here?

And look, this second sem, I never want to do it all over again, but if I had to I'm not sure I'd do it differently. Doing it differently might mean not coming out of it failing Bio30 and ridiculously, inexplicably glad just to be alive. It might mean not needing a reason not to commit suicide.

Because I only learned one thing this last sem, with all the classmate insanity and the writing and the football and the fanfiction, with all the suicide pipe dreams and the near-consistent need to get out, and that is that it's good to be alive. I like being alive. It's not the reflexive physical impulse; it's not a matter of getting used to it. This is life, it's tiring and funny and sometimes it makes you want to sleep for three hundred years, and sometimes it makes you want to stop and stare. It's utterly fantastic.

So I failed Bio30. We can think about the rest later- I still have to figure out just what to tell my parents. But later. Right now I just want to sit here and drink in the world.

46!

Also naka-score si Robin sa 4-0 nila sa Hungary. Feeling ko siya yung pang-apat, pero hindi ko pa natitingnan..

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Pakiramdam ko pinuntahan ko na lahat ng coffee shops sa sambayanan ng Maynila ngayong linggong ito. Wala yang kinalaman sa malaking ipis na lumilipad sa living room kagabi. At sa pusang pumapasok sa bahay tapos lumalabas na may daga sa bibig.

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Also, why Hummers are better than everything, and why Thea Pascasio should get into advertising.



May I have one more year with the classmates. If David Villa can be Spain's top scorer then you can be competent. Let's do this, Intarmed 2016.

Is this the semester of Dead Poets Society teachers?

That is in no way a negative thing.

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I actually left home earlier than what was required for class this morning to have my X-ray taken. It feels like a triumph.

And, and walking down Adriatico at nine in the morning this morning it wasn't traffic and I didn't get hit by a pedicab and there was a Krispy Kreme truck parked right outside the Robinsons Adriatico entrance and there were leaves being tossed around in the wind together with the trash. It smelled like the sea, and there were almost no people- almost no people for Manila would be the minute just before rush hour in Dagupan, but still. There was sunlight that was quiet, and sometimes I wonder that we don't just stop in the middle of streets and look. And it's not just streets, it's people, it's people talking to your class and doing things and feeling things and helping people, and sometimes the world is so damn beautiful it makes you stupid.

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Emotionally wrung out and not suicidal? Can only be a good thing. I kind of want to get things done now.

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Postscript: Shakhtar for the Champions League. And dear Azkals, what happened in Mongolia, never mind, malamig doon, just win next time, I have faith.



We have lingered in the chambers beneath the sea
With sea-girls wreathed in seaweeds red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.