Lesson 23: Seize the moment

I'm currently listening to the 90's Pop Hits station on my Pandora and "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" came on just a few minutes ago. Of course I know all the words. That made me think of a time several years ago when I was out with a bunch of friends at a bar with live music and a dance floor: The band played covers all night, and before the next song, they asked if anyone in the audience knew all the words to the "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air", and to come up to the mic if they did. People around me knew I did, and they urged me to go up there but I didn't because I was too shy to. Instead, some hesitant chick went up there and didn't know half the song. I could've anhihilated that song. When am I ever going to have another opportunity to do that?

It also makes me think of another time earlier this year. I did the Tough Mudder with a team of about 16 people, with me being only one of three girls. At the end right before the last obstacle, which is composed of basically a mud pit and dozens of hanging electrical wires, the announcer stopped the whole team and asked us to all go through it together. Mind you, there were a few hundred family members and friends on both sides of the obstacle shouting in excitement, marking the near-end of achievement and refreshments and showers and rest. The announcer shouted into the mic, "3... 2... 1... GO!" And everyone ran through it... except me. I'm the loser that went around because I'm scared of getting shocked. And that's the last Tough Mudder I ever intend on doing.

Sometimes I let myself down. For times like these, I need to learn to think to myself, "Will I regret not doing this?" If the answer is yes, suck it up and fucking do it. Your fears confine you. Learn to think that it's about the bigger picture, the story of your life, the stories you'll be able to tell and that your friends will be able to tell. It may even prove to yourself that you are capable of so much more than you think.

Many Missed Lessons: Blog revival!

It's been a long time.

I have posted a couple of entries here and there with Google+, but I don't think it'll be the same as what I started here. I've decided that this is a good theme for an ongoing blog and that it's time for a revival. I can't promise that there will be daily posts, but writing has always been therapeutic for me and after a long hiatus, it's time to come back.

Since my last post, here are some major events that have happened in my life (not necessarily in chronological order):

• Graduated from pharmacy school
• Completed a 1-year General Practice Residency at Mayo Clinic
• Obtained a full-time position as Assistant Pharmacy Manager at a well-known and respected local grocery chain
• Got out of a 7-year relationship and recently ended a 2.5-year relationship
• Moved out into an apartment for a year
• Moved out of the apartment and bought a house
• Bought a new car (2014 Mazda CX-5)
• Ran my first half-marathon in Vegas and raised money for the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America
• Visited family in the Philippines
• Started attending a rapidly growing non-denominational church

I can't tell you how many lessons I've learned since then, and I know that I have changed and matured since the last time anything was posted. But my most recent lesson has been this: My accomplishments have merely been steps towards living the American Dream, but I still do not feel fulfilled. I know that I am capable of doing almost anything I want, as long as I put effort into it. When I set a goal, I can usually reach it. I have proved it to myself time and time again. But I just move onto the next thing, then the next thing and the next... and now I feel like I am here right where I need to be, but something is still missing. That's when I asked myself, Is it God?

 

That is one of the reasons why I have looked back into going to church, hoping to seek those answers. I have been attending this new church for a few months now, but have yet to join a disciple group or become active. I grew up Catholic and this is still new to me... but I am open to new experiences-- just scared to push myself right over the edge into them. I am hopeful and doubtful at the same time... I know God doesn't disappoint, but I can't shake the feeling that he will until something happens.

When you're younger, it's easier to make connections. You've got school, work, extracurricular activities, hobbies. Young people generally seem more willing to meet new people or try new things. At my age now, people are more interested in cultivating the relationships that they have already established, but I am still willing to make new connections. I hold dear to the friends that I have kept in touch with over several years, but it's different now. We grow and sometimes have less in common than what we used to. People move away, start a new job somewhere, join the military. I remember being able to call people at 3am if I wanted/needed to, but now people have to get up early, go to work, take the kids to school. It gets lonely sometimes. 

But they say you are where you are because of you and the choices you make. I find that mostly true. I guess the only solution would be to keep moving, keep opening up opportunities to make new connections and experience new things. Hopefully I can find something that will make everything worthwhile.

Lesson 22: Communication across age groups

As we progress through life, often times we forget what it was like during a previous stage. I find that to be what makes it difficult speaking to people who aren't in your age group. When you're older, you want younger people to know what you know; to see it how you see it; but communicating that information usually comes out as a lecture that the recipient doesn't care to hear. It works the other way around as well: younger people usually don't understand why parents have certain rules.

A recent example of this happened just a few weeks ago when a friend of mine told me she was never going to "brag" about her kids. She said this because lately, other parents have been comparing her to their kids and their accomplishments and she ends up annoyed and does not want to be "that" parent when she gets older. I understand how irritating it can be when a parent says to me, "My daughter was valedictorian. What about you?" But part of being a parent is also being proud of your children's accomplishments, although it does not necessarily encompass blatant comparisons to other children. Every parent goes through that stage of showing everyone the video of their baby's first steps, their daughter or son winning this or that, getting into whatever college, etc. Even though a lot of people don't give a shit, you just want people to be happy for you for the most part. I don't think my friend sees it that way. Not yet, at least.

I can see how frustrating it will be for me as a parent trying to convey life lessons to a fresh palette. But I guess part of life is experiencing those lessons yourself instead of merely hearing about them.

I will always admire the people who can effectively communicate with people across different age groups. I know it's something I will always have to be conscious of in order for me to become that person.

Lesson 21: ?

On an angry note:
People don't have shitty characters because of their wrongdoings; people have shitty characters because they don't admit them.


On a contemplative note:
Ever notice that the word "ass," when used by itself, is a noun... but when you use it after an adjective, it becomes part of that adjective, usually to say something derogatory?

Examples:
"Get your lazy ass over here!"
"Stank ass bitch."
"I don't want your crazy ass mom in my house!"

You could do without saying the word "ass" in most of those sentences, but the addition of it brings a little spice to the sentence and gives you a little more insight as to how the person really feels about what they're saying. That is... unless they use profanity as part of their normal, everyday vocabulary.



Oldie but goodie.

Lesson 20: From School to Practice

It's weird to see my brother weak. It does hurt, but I try not to dwell on it and have it plastered and glowing all over my whole body like my mom does. Save some face in front of people in the hospital, jeez. Doesn't make things any better for anyone.

So apparently my brother is experiencing an exacerbation of his ulcerative colitis: a condition in which your colon/rectum is inflamed, which causes you to have uncontrollable, frequent diarrhea. He's had a high fever over the past weekend, with abdominal cramps that are 8-10 on the pain scale, and an extremely bothersome stiff neck. When he told me the other day he had a stiff neck, I immediately asked him if he was sensitive to light and he said no. Hallmark symptoms of meningitis: fever, nuchal rigidity (stiff neck), and photophobia. After that, I had doubts that it was meningitis because usually the symptoms appear suddenly within 24 hours and the neck thing was probably caused by him lying down on his pillows for the whole weekend.

At the hospital, I watched and listened to the doctor interviewing my brother about what was going on. It was interesting to watch because we've basically been learning these interview techniques for the past year. He asked the pain scale -- in which we pride ourselves on if we remember -- and after my brother mentioned the stiff neck, the doctor followed with the question, "Do you have any sensitivity to light?" (Point for Cristina!) Then as my brother started to describe in detail how his neck felt, with tightened muscles that went from the back of his head, down his neck and across part of the back of his shoulders, I whispered under my breath, "Tension headache." When the doctor gathered the information, he told my brother that he was assessing for meningitis but he doesn't think that's what it is, and that he wasn't too worried about the neck stuff because it's probably just a tension headache (2 points!!!!!!) due to stress. After some other information was exchanged, the doctor stepped out of the room and I said, I SO SMART!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BEST PHARMACIST EVAAARRR!!!!!!!!!1

In my head, of course.

Dude, I don't know why it's such a good feeling to me when I experience the applicability of things we learn in school to real life. So valuable. I love it.

Lesson 19: Brainwashed

Pharmacy school has embedded into my head an entirely new perspective on different aspects of the food and drug industry. I am very hesitant to recommend any products that are not FDA-approved and I have grown extremely critical of health claims made by my friends that I have not personally come across and evaluated myself.

Here's an example: a few weeks ago, my best friend and I were at IHOP talking about what we put in our coffee, and I told her that I try to stick to Splenda instead of using table sugar. She told me that she doesn't use Splenda because it's a neurotoxin. Right after she said that, I probably failed trying to hide the biggest look of skepticism on my face. I really held myself back from saying, "That's a bunch of bullshit. Where did you get that information from?" So the other day, I went on a PubMed search to look for specific articles in peer-reviewed journals and used the key words "Splenda" and "neurotoxin." I couldn't find anything proving it was a neurotoxin. I then gave it the benefit of the doubt and typed "Splenda" and "toxicity" and I actually read the toxicity profile.

One thing I found was about a chemical called 6-CG, which has already established literature on its neurotoxicity. Although sucralose (Splenda's chemical name) has a metabolite 4-CG, which is similar in chemical structure to the neurotoxin, it itself has not had any reports of neurotoxicity whatsoever. In fact, none of the sucralose metabolites have shown any neurotoxicity.

I gave into my inner nerdiness and even looked at thetruthaboutsplenda.com and researched the article that they claimed to support the belief that Splenda is somehow bad for you because it's not "natural." I could pick the article apart right now, but I will spare you all the boredom. I would've also given it more credibility if it wasn't funded by the Sugar Association, Inc., which is also in charge of the website. And to think that they tried to make us believe this was really an independent study.

See how bad it is? I'm relying more and more on hard, scientific justification for any claims I ever hear, especially if they're health-related. I have to admit that this is beginning to affect the way I think in general now, as I am putting science on a much higher pedestal than before... almost like I won't believe it until I see it. Sometimes I don't know if I'm being smart or just being stubborn.

Lesson 18: Working in groups

This past week has been a wild one so far. Lately it seems I've been having more of those, especially from the start of my 3rd year of pharmacy school. We've had an enormous increase of exposure to working in groups this semester, and through this, I've learned a lot more about myself and how to work with people.

I generally think of myself as someone who is quite passive when it comes to being in groups, usually accepting the ideas of others. My last and current group really tested my skills in that area. The last group I was involved in consisted of members that I intuitively did not trust because I perceived them as "slackers," although I tried -- at first -- to not let that judgment get in the way of being able to work as a team. I discovered that one of my group members did not contribute at all to the job he was entitled to doing, so I was the one who took initiative to pick up his slack. We had to stick with our same group working on two different assigned cases, and with the second case, I did not trust that my group would do the amount of work that I thought was sufficient to get the grade that I wanted, so I took it upon myself to do most of the work for them. We all knew in the back of our heads that I was doing this because I did not trust them to do it, so during the evaluations, I don't really know what kind of score they gave me, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was low because of this.

My current group turned out to be quite the opposite; karma came around and kicked my ass. One of our group members basically took upon the same role I did in the previous group, although I believe she was much more controlling... but who knows; I could be biased. All of our group members complained behind her back about how insignificant it was to argue over the words "can" and "proposed," how she seemed to never accept others' ideas unless it was her own, and how she constantly changed the parameters of our project when we thought we had already come to a consensus. I was extremely stressed out about this and I finally took it upon myself to write an email to her on behalf of the group, which at first, she did not take very well. I consulted with others before I sent the email to make sure it was not too harsh, and they told me that it actually seemed pretty civil. I replied to her response in a private email, explaining that my previous email was not intended to be taken the way it was and that I was only trying to provide her with constructive criticism. She responded back with thanks and appreciation, wishing that I would've addressed it more nicely in the first place (which I didn't think was harsh at all in the first place), and mentioned that she actually likes me very much and that she is working on bettering herself. She also mentioned that she has respect for people who speak up on behalf of those who can't or won't and that she was actually taken aback that someone had actually stood up to her because that usually doesn't happen... heh.

The one thing she said though that I really took away from it all was this:
"Thank you for speaking up and letting me know how you feel, it says alot about your character"

Since pharmacy school, I have been feeling like my character has been deteriorating somehow, even if it may not be true to the perceptions of others. I feel as though I'm learning how to be fake to people when we are taught how to be empathetic, although I don't want to be that way and I don't want others to think that of me. For my group member to imply that I have a great moral character truly helps assure me that I am still the person I see myself to be... and it makes me feel really good about myself.

[insert feelings of happiness here]

I am a dork. =P But I am happy that I did what I did. Now I know how it feels to be on both sides. I just wish situations like this would always end well.