random thoughts

congratulations doctors!

I spent the whole day glued to the television set and playing fish tycoon on my palm pilot. deliberately avoiding the computer.

8 am Eileen texted me that consultants from pgh will be playing on game ka na ba? something to take your mind off the boards... texted veena, came and jo about it.. veena said she already had a blunted affect... same here.. this is D-day!!! eileen was having palpitations, i was having chest pain.. no kidding!

9 am oprah - will smith, his kids and the real chris gardner

10 am the pursuit of happyness- a very inspiring movie..

1 pm watched oprah again, 1:30 pm talked to ate karla (my eldest cousin) about the boards... my mind couldn't think of anything else and i needed a distraction! she suggested starbucks but i think the caffeine wouldn't do me any good.

7 pm came was asking me if the results were out.. i suggested she ask somebody else to check.. i couldn't look at it myself so i asked lala to do it for me..

10:20 pm came sent me this msg: mb.com.ph

I KNEW WHAT THAT MEANT! shet eto na..

lala couldn't find the site... the suspense is killing me!!! scroll down please...

JARA, MONICA FELISE  AQUINO

reading my name made me jump for joy! hugging lala, ling and mama..  i immediately called my roomies who had no idea the results were already out.. i think eileen was crying/tearful, and was so thankful.. tricia was shouting for joy as well.

then a flurry of text msgs and phone calls...

congratulations batchmates!!! i'm soo proud of our class!!

congratulations sisses and brods!!! 100% Phi! congratulations to my ka-bunk-in came (#10) ang galing!!!

i can't begin to thank everybody enough for all your prayers, help in the review..  First to God because He heard our prayers and made it all possible.  He sent the Holy Spirit to guide us and prepared us not only mentally but also physically for this exam.

to my family especially my sisters and my mom who would send me inspiring msgs especially when i doubted myself.. to gio and his family for all their support and prayers.. thanks tetel for lending me your books.. ate karla and katz adan, maan es, kai tapawan for your reviewers!

to our resourceful sisses who have made all the diagrams, research, photox, checked our venues etc. the support Phi has given us are more than enough. To my tita susan and tita perly who were my 2nd moms when mama was out of town... my tito alex who woke up early for those 4 days to bring me to UE. to lala and papa for buying my baon for the exam. for doray, sir norman, sir ricky, mia, colleen, tin for their constant support through SMS.. thanks veena for letting us use your condo unit, hahaha (a.k.a. "prison") we literally breathed the same air for 3 weeks. to jo, veena and came for all the mnemonics and fun during our 2 month review. to jo's ate for letting us study in Napocor (feeling nag-ooffice kme dun last june) and treating us to lunch. sobrang dami kong gustong pasalamatan! thank you!! this is the best day of my life. finally my life long dream.. congratulations fellow doctors, our journey to the real world is about to begin.

Post-boards

"What did i learn from the board exams today? it's not the amount of books that you read.  What will matter now is whether you get the logic of the examiners or not. haha. Good luck to us!"

That was the text message i sent to some of my classmates last saturday after the surgery, pharma and medicine exam.  Post-boards.  It's not like it's a post-duty day knowing you have to go back to PGH.  Post-boards means basically, you're just in limbo. 

As much as I would like to rant about every typo, repeated question ( some questions were repeated 3x! and still i didn't know the answer to it) or useless information that they DO NOT teach in UP, I couldn't dwell on every exam knowing that there was another one after it.  It was after all, 4 days of exams.. Probably the most tiring, nerve-wracking experience I've had so far. The only thing i could compare my anxiety leading up to THE day of the boards was the OSCE we had in 2nd year med school where you had to do a physical exam on "patients" in front of a consultant. There was a time limit for every station and the sound of the bell at the end signals you had to move on to the next. All you had to was memorize this script for OSCE and our block/neuro group at that time even practiced on each other at reg's lolo's building along salas st.  But then again OSCE was peanuts compared to the boards. 

Weeks before the boards, there were "circulating tips" through text, study this, study that.  I never believed any of those would come out. A special thanks to the support of our sisses who painstakingly helped us get reviewers, borrowed books, and made diagrams for us.  The information which didn't really come out, i think were more important because during the review you go on thinking, I wish I knew this way back in 2nd year.. blah blah blah.. life would have been easier. And you understand pathology and physiology better now than when you were studying it way back when.  But biochem, i must say, was different from the other subjects.  The rare lysosomal disorders, glycogen storage disorders came out.  And good thing our favorite thing to do is know these weird syndromes that you can only read in books because for some reason unknown to me, the examiners love asking these!

Some of my friends have been experiencing chest pain 2 weeks before the boards.  I am amazed how I was able not to feel panic until 3 days before the boards.  Maybe because I took each day at a time. Maybe because we were praying the novena everyday. People have suddenly become religious during these past months.

What you could do is study for the next exam, and hope for the best.  And resist the temptation to look at the answers in between.  But unlike the OSCE where the bell signalled the end of every station, each exam was more difficult than the next making it hard for you to stay focused as the time passed by. 

It's funny because my dream last saturday night was we were vacationing in singapore (me, veena, jo and came) the sisses who I bunked-in with for the review, and we were asking each other where to go to next. In my dream, I told Veena we should go to Jurong Bird Park coz she likes animals. The dream felt so real to me that when I woke up at 5:15 am on Sunday, I was so disoriented then I remembered it was the last day of the boards.  My mind was already wandering off!

After 12 grueling exams begins the painful task of waiting for the results to come out.  3 long days... Gio and Doray have already sent their congratulations.  Came was reminding me of our study group's plan to eat in Spiral in Sofitel (the former Westin) and pig out on the dessert buffet.

Let me remind everyone, it aint over until the RESULTS come out.  I'm just glad the exams are done, and I was able to use the computer now.  First up, the salon for that much needed haircut, then read the new Harry Potter book and watch a movie tonight!  In the meantime, please pray for all of us. Please pray that UP has 100% passing this year!