Tuli Mission + Satchi Vinyl Day 2014 (aka What I did with my Saturday)

If you must know, I’m still on that phase where I prefer theoretical learning over practical. So when I agreed to join the tuli mission in St. Martin yesterday, I immediately felt afraid. Because as interesting as it looked, the fact remained that I was an inexperienced med student who had just recently been promoted to second year. Granted that circumcision is a huge deal in Filipino culture, I did not want to be that person who screwed up a little boy’s life just because fate meant for him to be my very first actual patient.

In hindsight, I wish I could have told myself that there really was nothing to be worried about. The doctors there -- bless them all -- were very helpful and though they were years and years of experience ahead of any one of us, they were very humble and taught us everything we now know about the entire process.

And to Baron, the very first patient I handled pretty much all on my own, my heart goes out to you. Thank you so much for being brave (and for not screaming like the other boys), for being calm despite the apparent fear you were feeling, and for trusting that we would both get through the procedure alright.

More than anything, the experience reinforced my dream and made me realize that I should never let myself be overwhelmed by my apprehensions.

(P.S. I wish I took more photos but, well, there's this thing called privacy that we always have to honor.)

And then there's Vinyl Day.

Okay, I am not as aware of Filipino indie music as I would like to be so I cannot begin to describe how much of a fish out of water my presence there last night made me feel. But you know, there's never really a dull moment when you're with friends so overall, it was a good experience. Plus, I really should pay more attention to Filipino indie anything.

P.S. Apple seriously needs to improve the iPhone front cam. Also, I should really bring my SLR to things like this next time.