Think Out Loud

After enduring a very hot and humid week, it's suprisingly refreshing to be greeted at home with a relatively cool day. It's just what I need after an extremely stressful and sleep-deprived week. Once again, I was able to sleep for more than 7 hours and there was no pressure looming at me when I opened my eyes. I even had my favorite 'spaghetti' served for breakfast. Right now, I'm being cooled off by my third ice candy.

Thank you, Lord. This is clearly a good break for a fine summer day.

The heat has officially affected my brain. I was moody, irritated, and felt like my head was gonna explode due to extreme tension. It didn't help that I was cramming big time on something BIG. So I'm really disappointed and worried with myself today because I know I didn't pull it well together.

Add to that, my roommate is sick (so I'm playing nurse even though I have no idea what I'm doing) and the mango I ate fell really heavy on my stomach. I'm still going to eat ice cream later!

Sigh. This is beginning to be the worst week of my life.

Hopefully, God would prove me wrong. It will be my first television stint tomorrow so I'm really crossing my fingers about this. I'll probably have a sleepless night tonight to work on the scripts.

Lord, please grant me your grace, strength, favor, wisdom, and anointing for this week. I honestly need HELP!

Summer is in the air... and in this room. It's terribly hot in here. Angel told me she's going to burn a lot of calories just staying in our room because of the annoying heat. I sure hope the calories and fats get burned because I'm planning to go on a semi-diet to get my old shape back. Old shape meaning flatter stomach and leaner legs (I'm blessed with muscular pair of legs).

Anyway, I recently found out that we have wifi here in the dorm. And it's FREE!

So now I have found new ways to kill time - BLOG!

Now, if only wifi could fix the heat and cool down this room it would be most appreciated...

Today was a very tiring day. I feel like great amounts of energy was sucked out of my body. I guess that's what thinking does to people. It was only today when I got to wrack my brain cells again. We had our pre-retreat activity the whole day and boy did it involve a lot of thinking.

But on the bright side, I learned a lot about myself today. We took a 10-point personality test and a motivation gifting test. The most intense part of the day was when we resolved issues with our co-workers. In that activity, not only did I learn things about myself but I also learned what people see in me and see me doing - negative AND positive. Majority of the negative things they observed in me are my mood swings. I won't deny that. It's true so I need to improve on that. But a lot of positive things were also said that I wasn't really expecting, so I'm like still a bit overwhelmed till now. It hasn't really sunk in yet. But I guess I might forget all the things they said tomorrow because my mind is like a CPU that is close to overheating coz of too much information. Haha.

Yet I really thank you Lord Jesus for this day. You encouraged me and showed areas in my life that I need to maintain and improve on.

Another bright side: episode in STL that I worked on went smoothly, even though my boss and I weren't able to make it to today's episode. Another reason to thank the Lord :)

I'm reading a couple of blogs about med school from people connected to me through mutual friends (yes, like that in Facebook). And no, just because I coincidentally read about med school and accidentally saw last weekend my best friend who is currently taking med school are not signs for me to even think about venturing into the medical jungle.

I. AM. NOT. GOING. TO. MEDICAL. SCHOOL.

Okay, let's backtrack a little so you'll understand where I'm coming from. Last year, I became a radio scriptwriter for my boss' radio health segment program. Since I have a background on radio broadcasting (which includes writing towering amount of scripts, doing time-consuming research and interviews, editing the audio records, AND doing all that in less than a week), the job was refreshing. Even though I hated radio when I was in college, at least I'm doing something I was trained to do. I considered this as something positive - a sign that my career is heading to a good direction.


So even though I'm surrounded with young and -ehem- more experienced doctors, I still do research the 21st century style - Google and medical books. At first, I thought it was time-consuming to do those nosebleed research when I have doctors all around me who know these medical stuff like the back of their hands. But no, they still want me to do the research, do the script, and give it to them to edit. So until now, that's what I'm doing.

The doctors at work are telling me I'm almost like taking med school. Some people even encouraged me to pursue one. Well, I admit that at one point I disillusioned myself venturing into med school, but no, I finally decided I wouldn't. Not only is med school expensive and challenging (emotionally, mentally an physically), plus add to the fact that I flunk at math and science (they are my least favorite subjects) - if I take med school, I might be tarnished. I might forget the language of the common people and the jargons might override my mind. I'm content with studying my research, consulting the doctors for more explanations, and flying out the message in the air the medical stuff people (especially those living in far-flung areas of the country) need to know.

I'm just not sure if God is content with me doing just that or make me pursue something that is beyond my wildest dreams.

We'll see. Or better yet, I'll see.

I wonder when I'll be comfortable telling my story to other people.

I'm not really good at talking about myself. In fact, the only place I do so is here, in my blog. And I'm not sure why I'm hesitant sharing my stories to people who are not even strangers to me. I mean yeah, I talk a lot sometimes and I share stories that are usually funny, but it never centered around my feelings. I've not even had a heart to heart talk with anyone in a long time. I'm just not a fan, especially when I'm the subject of that 'talk'.

I guess I just got so used telling the stories of other people that bringing my story up front has become uncomfortable and a bit pointless. I mentioned before that I get bored easily, so maybe I get bored with my story because I know all about it, even if other people do not, and started to get lazy to go over the details and explain them to other people. I'm pretty impatient too, may that's why. One of the reasons also could be that I don't want sensitive areas to be touched. I don't have a clear idea what those sensitive areas are. Maybe I'm trying to avoid finding out. I don't like awkward moments, and I don't like spilling my guts out. I don't like crying either and maybe I don't want showing vulnerability and stupidity over things so petty. (What I do like is laughing about my bloopers and stupidity that were once embarrassing nightmares.)

Or maybe it's the lack of stories to tell. Whenever I meet with my long lost friends, it has always been about them. It's more interesting listening to other people's stories than listening to myself gush, or complain, about my own. I guess it's all those trainings I got in school, where we were taught how to formulate interview questions and listen to people's answers. I'm used to pointing the barrel and firing away questions because majority of people actually like talking about themselves. I'm rarely at the end point of that barrel - only those times when I had my series of job interviews. It's nice to show people that you're interested in their stories, not make them interested on your own. I mean, who would want to listen to someone talking about themselves? Unless you're asking the questions and is actually interested.

So that's why Fridays have always been a struggle for me. Every Friday, we have our weekly "Basket of Blessing' day wherein we share to our co-department staff the things/situations we want to thank God for that happened the whole week. Now, there's no problem listening to their stories. Their stories are always funny and interesting. The issue starts when it's my turn telling the story. Not that I have nothing to thank God for. It's just that the moment I start sharing, my mind suddenly goes haywire. It becomes so cluttered. I stutter and I end up starting and finishing so fast. The details are all botched up. So I never give justice to my very own stories. What makes it worse is that I never have any issues like that when I'm telling other people's stories.

Hopefully, our family activity on Monday will be a fun-filled event that would be worth sharing on Friday - if we'll have the 'Basket of Blessing' day. And I hope that when I tell the story, I wouldn't stutter or mess up the details. Nothing wrong with short sharing, as long as it's clear, succinct and interesting. And I hope that week after week, I'll have more and more great personal stories to tell.

Mikey Bustos is an extremely funny guy with a really big talent. I hope this video of his makes it even just to the evening news. In fact, I think the Department of Tourism should hire him or pay for his Filipino Tutorial Videos. He's really good.