Weekend Pictures

Lungs for Life 5K run



Bible study- Bloomington, Indiana



Before the Worship Service


Indianapolis Choir


Indianapolis Children's Worship Service Officers

Love and Faith

My mom tells me that my brother is pushing through with a civil wedding in December. My brother understands that my parents will not be going. He had asked my grandparents who are not yet members of the Church to be his witnesses. I guess he is just continuing with family tradition. My dad just keeps quiet. I'm sure everything will work out in the end. But still, for the record, I must say, I do not approve. It's not exactly the ideal way to start forever. A friend who visited me last summer jokingly chastised me for having "crushes" on guys who are not from our Church. Another friend once told me that when these things happen one should just pray for the feelings to go away. If it's meant to go away, it will go away. And yes, surprisingly enough, you just wake up one day and it's all gone. Gone. Gone. Gone.

Little Orphan Me (the green dress)

It just hit me hard that I have been living life essentially as an "orphan". I can now understand the look of pity others have when I mention that I have not lived with my parents since I was 11. In the last 15 years, I have only seen my parents once. I imagined that I have an excellent relationship with them even though I only get to speak with them over the phone. It never occurred to me that it was not real. Does this give me then the entitlement to be childish (complete with tantrums)? ;) Can I ever reclaim all of the baby time I lost? Yikes, I am really so flawed. :)

But hopefully, my parents will be here soon enough. When they get here maybe I will get all the baby time I need. Until then, I will try to patiently wait my turn to be their baby. Special thanks to the green dress for letting me see life as it is and not as I imagined :).

Code Blue

Every time I hear Code Blue announced from the public address system, I feel like running. My heart pounds and sinks at the same time hoping that the patient survives. The patient is typically on the pulmonary unit. I ran once when I was seeing a patient just across the hall. It was actually a patient on our consult list who we have seen earlier. It seems that the whole hospital runs towards the unit. I don't really know why I ran since I am still not trained to handle a code. Thankfully, the patient made it. But yeah, every time I hear Code Blue I feel like running. But I stay put, hoping the day will come when I can be of help.

Women are from Venus

It's such a cliche. You expect men in your life to think and feel like you and they don't. Is it too much to ask that they try to anticipate how you would feel? :) You try to "protect" them from other women. But are you really protecting them or are you protecting yourself? You see another woman's hidden motivations a mile away and they just don't see it. Does it take a woman to read another woman? When you explain to them why you feel the way you do, it does sound silly. You kinda understand their perspective, that it's really not a big deal. Emotional "maturity". It's a long journey. One step at a time, maybe I'll get there. (Don't worry mom, I promise that I'll try my best to be a good big sister :)).

warm sunny days

i love days like this. i woke up around 10:00 a.m. left for school around 11:00 a.m. walked out to a lovely 73-degree weather (23 in Celsius). this month is my radiology research month. i really appreciate that i can come in whenever i feel like it. (i do try to stay for the whole 8 hours, so don't accuse of me being a slacker. ;)) yesterday, as i stared blankly at yet another CT scan, i asked myself, is this really what i am signing my life away for? :). i had lots of dreams last night, my mind must have been trying to reconcile a lot of stuff. and reconcile it did. i woke up wanting to look at more short gut imaging. so here i am, back at it.

Visualizing...

i saw this picture of one of our chapels online. can you also see me getting off a white limo with a long veil? ;) what do you think? haha

Confessions of a Primadonna and Control Freak

(A big sister's note to her little brother.)

Dear PB,

A week from now, you should be here in Indianapolis. I can't imagine what sorts of emotions you are going through right now. You must be so excited to make the trip. At the same time, I know you must be anxious about working here. As you know, I am the eternal optimist, so I am telling you that things are going to work out for the best. The worst thing that could happen is that you wouldn't like working here. And even then, home is just a plane ride away. You must be asking yourself, how would you know that you made the right choice to come here? Here's the simple answer. If you find yourself even closer to God, taking up an office in the Church, perhaps, being more spiritually active in general; then you would know that this is where God wants you to be. I have even picked out an office for you :). What do you think of Finance (Pananalapi)? I think it would be a good fit.

And for the record, contrary to popular belief, I am not a primadonna nor a control freak ;). I can do up to 50% of the household chores. I'll do half of the cooking, cleaning, etc. Oh yeah, except for ironing. I don't really know how to iron and even if I did I wouldn't want to iron anyone else's clothes. I have plenty of my own clothes to iron, thank you very much. (Certainly, you can volunteer to iron my clothes, if you would like :)). And yes, I do like making suggestions. But don't you worry that I'll take it against you if you don't agree with my suggestions. Just don't come back to me whining, ok? :) Seriously, I would really like for you to make your own decisions. You can consult me every now and then. But please don't be afraid to make mistakes. That's really when you can learn the most.

I do think that we will get along fabulously. We're both easygoing and laidback. We both want the best for our family. I am sure that all of them are cheering us on! :)
See you soon!

Ate Mhy

ER humor

Growing up, there were Reader's digests lying around in the house. My dad must have had a subscription. I especially liked the vocabulary and jokes/funny stories sections. I learned last summer that one of my med school classmates actually had one of her funny stories published there. It inspired me to think that maybe I could also publish one of mine someday. I think that there is a section called All in a Day's Work. (Hmmm, is there also one called Laughter is the Best Medicine?)

So I worked in the ER today. I absolutely love working there. Sometimes you just click with some of your patients. They are appreciative that you care for and actually care about them. Sometimes they are delighted that you are actually funny, too. Today, I actually had one of those patients. This is his story.

A 32-year-old white male comes to the ER complaining of a deep laceration in his forearm gushing with blood sustained early in the morning. He had been drinking and fell through a glass window. As we prepare to suture him, the registration person comes in and hands him some paperwork.

Registration: Sir, this paper explains payment procedures for those without insurance.
Patient: I wonder how much all of these would cost me.
Med student: It would cost you an arm!
Patient: It would cost cost me an arm and a leg?
Doctor: No, just an arm.

I know it's probably not as funny on paper. But the patient's family laughed really hard. It definitely made my day :).

Michigan On My Mind

My port of entry 15 years ago was Detroit, Michigan. I finally got to see the chapel and attend the worship service there last January. A friend started his fellowship there this past summer. My rotation partner in Peds grew up there. A friend's boyfriend will start a job there next month. A classmate is about to date someone who lives there. Finally, my radiology mentor told me the other day that she knows of this small residency program there that might take someone who has below average grades and board scores. She is suggesting that I do an away rotation there next year to up my chances. All along I've been thinking of some place warmer like Texas. But I guess, Michigan it is!

Physician Under Siege

During my very first day in my Family Medicine rotation last month, the office staff were abuzz that there is this doctor being investigated for overprescribing strong narcotics and short-acting anti-anxiety drugs. I didn't really pay much attention. I overheard them saying his name as Dr. Minilo (?). In the next few days, my preceptor would get calls from his former patients wanting to know if she would prescribe the narcotics for them. I think I already wrote about my preceptor's position on this matter and so the answer was no. One day, we had one of his former patients come in as a "work-in" (walk-in)patient. The receptionist wrote out on front of the chart that this is a former patient of his. So I read his actual last name and it is actually the same as Bro. Felix's. So I told my preceptor that he could actually be Filipino and I tried to educate her with the correct pronunciation. I guess it's hard for some Americans to pronounce the "a" sound like in apple in his name. So anyways, it occurred to me to google him and see where he went to medical school. And in fact, he graduated from UP. He is a cardiologist but he would have patients on cash basis in his office even until after midnight waiting for a prescription. It would be sad if his motivation was primarily money. I guess it would be too naive to believe that he just really wanted to ease his patients' pain and anxiety. But clearly boundaries have been crossed in this case.

Time for some pictures. I spent last weekend with college friends Tala and Carolyn.

Tala is growing an organic lettuce garden. I was tasked to pick some for lunch.


This is where Tala works. Carolyn dreams of working here next year. I dream of using some of the "appropriate technology" developed here someday.













I took this picture of the Seattle chapel. It was a very spiritual worship service last Sunday. The district minister of Australia happened to officiate the service. His daughter residing here got married last weekend.




Waiting for the Dave Matthews concert at the Gorge amphitheater, quite possibly the most gorgeous outdoor concert venue.











Tala and Julio (her husband) salsa dancing. Tala and Carolyn are avid salseras so we salsa danced for 2 nights. I probably should take lessons. My hips still do not want to move. I still yet to find my inner "landi" (flirt) ;).




Carolyn is running a half-marathon next month. She has inspired me to sign up for a 5K run this month. I'll be sure to ask PB to take pictures of me running then :).