i never would've guessed it would come down to this...

a year like no other. 2 semesters of pure evil. 10 months away from all things familar to me. 38 hell weeks. 266 days at the mercy of acads and studying. 6384 hours of torturous classes, stressful reviews, and restless sleep. 383,040 minutes that would never end. an infinite number of precious moments. who could've imagined it would end like this? who thought it would ever end at all. but it did. it ended. at long last.

the first year of college is over. we are now officially non-freshmen. the 12 days of the most pitiful excuse for a summer vacation has begun. and all i can say after all that is... college isn't so bad. in fact, it's not bad at all.

college is always a big step. turning away from everything familiar to you, entering a whole new world of independence, excitement, and much much harder subjects. after going through a whole year of exactly that, i can say it's been a blast, and i wouldn't have it any other way. of course, i miss the ease and simplicity of high school life, and i miss the people to death, but i won't trade my freshman year in college for anything, nor would i trade the people i went through it with (save for a *select* few) for anyone else. after the first year, i can't see myself in any other course but intarmed, can't see myself with anyone else but imed 2011, can't imagine being anything else but a doctor.

of course, the year had its ups and downs, lefts and rights, and circles all around. near-impossible academic situations, days upon days of hardships, nights jampacked with study groups and cramming, hellish exams and tons of other academic requirements. but along with those, came all the good things about being in college and in imed 2011. freedom. living away from home. late-night gimiks. last full shows. baywalk runs. mallratting. bumming around in condos. amazing field trips. birthday surprises and celebrations. chatting. parties and debuts. foodtripping. singing, dancing, acting. a memorable valentines' loser date. cutting useless classes. camratting. water play in rivers and beaches. street food. and tons of other reasons to love it all.

and in all this, the weird thing is, it just went by so fast. yes, there were times when i'd just get fed up with studying and all that, wishing that the entire 7-year programs was over, but among the fun and laughter, i guess i just got swept away by the whole thing. it feels like everything just got started, and right away we finished the first chapter. you don't realize time has been passing until you reach the end. to put it simply, "time flies when you're having fun." and with being with the same people, the same place, the same experiences over the next 6 years, i can only hope it passes by just as quickly, but just as enjoyable.

it'll be all over before i know it.

good doctors have to be brave and tough about blood and pain, right?

am i doctor material? you be the judge.

i visited my dentist a few weeks ago, after nearly 3 months of self-maintenance of my retainers. after the traditional prophylaxis, cleaning, and other stuff, we got to talking about how to further improve my dental aesthetic (in other words, my teeth alignment). both my upper and lower jaw suffered from overcrowding of teeth, which my dentist said might be due to wisdom teeth developing below the surface of my gums. she said that my condition might worsen over the years, since my lower front teeth already have a pretty severe sungki and my upper teeth can't perfectly flatten out due to space constraints. and so at her advice, i opted to have my wisdom teeth extracted, scheduled for the 6th of april.

jump around a month later, to yesterday. classes had been over for 2 days already, so i spent the better parts of the morning just lounging around, watching tv and playing with the ps2. i never really put much thought into the surgery i would undergo in a few hours, probably distracted by relaxation and not really worrying about pain and whatnot. around 4, my dad came home to take me to the dentist. we arrived on time and waited for over an hour for the dental surgeon to come, the entire period with me still nonchalant about the whole thing. considering i hadn't had surgery aside from a sty operation when i was a year old and my circumcision over 8 years ago, it's surprising i didn't feel any more distressed.

when the surgeon finally came, we got around to taking 2 x-rays of my left and right lower wisdom teeth. he came back with the film, and with not-so-good news. according to the x-ray, i suffered from a horizontal impaction, where the wisdom teeth were growing on their side, perfectly horizontal with respect to my other molars, which grew vertically. this would make their extraction more complicated (or as my surgeon put it euphemistically, more challenging) because the whole tooth can't be removed as one big piece from within the bone, since the window to be made in the bone can't be made that big. at the least, it would make my surgery take a bit longer than usual. taking all that news in, i braced myself and took a seat in the chair.

time check: 5:30 pm. first came a topical anesthesia, to prevent me from feeling the pain of the local anesthesia being injected into my gums. next was a minute-long gargle with medical-grade antiseptic mouthwash (less painful that listerine, i mentioned to my surgeon) then the power tools came out. at this point, i went into a state of sensory discrimination, where i closed my eyes for the duration of the surgery and instead relied on other stimuli to tell me what was going on and to distract me from the surgery. i did this knowing that i would be much more calm and comfortable with the surgery if i didn't know what sort of horrendous oral torture devices were being inserted into my mouth. the one time i took a peek, at the edge of my vision i saw a metal spatula-like device whose tip was drenched in blood, and did that teach me a lesson. the anesthesia seemed to work properly, but when pressure and discomfort did come, i kept my reaction down to grasping down on my hands, bracing my legs, and letting out a little tiny wince.

it took all my wits about me to keep calm and to keep breathing normally, and not to allow the sensory cues i received to form gruesome mental images. *note: most of these are exaggerated and based on primitive predictions based on the sensations i received.* a slight pressure on the gums could have been the scalpel cutting through the thin layer of tissue covering the teeth. tiny taps and chinks, a chisel going through the bone. the characteristic whirr, a drill making its way around or through the tooth. strong leverage, the spatula-like thing prying out my tooth, or the remaining chunks of it. a strong pulling force, pliers grasping and tugging on the larger chunks of crown enamel embedded in bone and tissue. the feel of a soft material, gauze stuffed in my mouth to absorb the blood. the sound of suction, rivers of blood being drained from my jaw. a splish-splash and the trickle of cool drops of liquid on my face, *i hoped was* water used to clean the area out. strings running across my lips and teeth, the sutures being sewn into the cavity. a final stuffing of gauze, instructions to bite down as hard as i can, the chair going back up to vertical, it was over. time check: 6:30 pm.

my doctor asked if i wanted to see my mouth after all the work, and i hastily declined the offer. he then offered to show me the tooth taken out of me, which i accepted. he washed it down, and brought it back. looking back at me from my surgeon's hand were 2 segments of a humongous molar, each piece nearly a centimeter long, with the crown still attached to a random piece of pinkish flesh. my doctor described it to me, that the two pieces didn't exactly fit together since the middle part was pulverized (nice word he used) by the diamond drill. he said that was the part which took a long time, where he kept on returning to his tool station and adjusting the drill bit. so glad i didn't have to see that. estimating the part which he *pulverized*, the whole tooth would have been around 3/4 of an inch long. the little monster, growing and living beneath my gums. who would've thought?

after receiving a few instructions from my surgeon, an ice pack for the swelling, a few medications, and scheduling for the right wisdom tooth (i know, going through it again) and removal of the sutures, we finally went home. the local anesthesia still hadn't worn off, and the feeling was strange. the whole lower left area of my face, from my left ear to my chin, was numb and twitchy. along with the pain, the anesthesia took out all signals which said my lower jaw was still present. the whole mass just weighed down on my face, like a ten-pound force pulling down. my tongue was tingly, my cheek engorged, my lips swollen, and it felt as if i had lost all the teeth on my left side.

the doctor said to remove the gauze after around 20-30 minutes since the sutures would have taken over by then, so when we arrived i went to my bathroom to dispose of the gauze. upon removing the wad stuffed in my cheek, i rinsed my mouth out a bit, and out gushed pools upon pools of red liquid. i spit out a few times, and out a few times sprayed fresh, viscous blood. it actually made a gruesome scene on my sink and mirror, like a murder just took place and i had tried to dispose of the body down the drain. around this bloody episode i started to go into a panic mode, the blood wouldn't stop flowing from the wound and thoughts of drowning in my own plasma and cell aggregate drifted into my mind. i calmed down, applied more ice to the area, kept my mouth shut (to prevent blood and saliva dribbling and drooling down my chin) and prayed for superior clotting abilities to stop the blood flow. luckily, it did.

2 hours passed by with me lying down on the sofa to prevent aggravating the bleeding when sensation started returning to my left face. my cheek felt smaller, my lips thinner, my tongue smooth and untingly, my teeth felt rooted in my gums again. but along with the normal responses came another normal response: pain. a sharp pain growing at the back of my mouth. a pain the anesthesia and the ice pack couldn't hide anymore. wincing and groaning from the agony, i took in a capsule of mefenamic acid, got my ice pack refilled, then retired to bed without dinner or general hygiene, trying to shake off the dull, stinging sensation and lulling myself to sleep. i woke up this morning, the extreme pain gone but a dull pressure still present in the area. looked in the mirror and as expected by the doctor, a swollen lower left cheek, like a bad smack to the face or a gigantic mosquito bite. simple things like licking my lips, washing my face, opening my mouth, and swallowing cause general discomfort in the area. a few more hours with the ice pack and i hope it goes away just as quickly as it came in.

with that, i would like to thank topical and local anesthesia and their inventors for shielding me from the unimaginable pain. the humans' lack of peripheral vision, so i wouldn't have to see the grisly sight that was my mouth, 92.3 fm for providing the background music during the surgery, to which i actually jammed to even under the anesthesia, gauze, and implements, and gave my surgeon quite a chuckle. to my surgeon, for having a nice, comforting voice which incessantly asked "is it ok?" and frequently threw out the comments "that was good" and "perfect". to ice cream, the perfect cool treat i am obliged to enjoy after the surgery. and now a little bashing. no thanks to my genetics for having to give me wisdom teeth in the first place, and even more so for making them grow horizontally. so much for that.

during the course of my surgery, my surgeon mentioned to me; "you've got a tough little baby here. just won't give in." i'd like to respond to that now:

"well, he's got a tough little daddy too."

a week till summer classes and what?

oh god. this break has just been... yawn-worthy. nothing to see, do, hear, make, nothing. nothing nothing nothing. a week's worth of vacation with *nearly* nothing to show for it, except a still-swollen cheek, scary shaggy hair, unmade bed spreads and 2 games packed away.

*counts fingers* 4 days since the minor dental surgery, and my face looks just as bad as it did the day after. at least the wound has closed and no further bleeding has occured, but my lower left cheek and gumline are still as bloated as a monster truck's rear wheel. the pain and discomfort have pretty much subsided, and the area only irks when i press it or when i open my mouth too widely. my diet's also returning to normal, meaning tough, chewy, workable food. one can only take a certain number of bowls of noodles, oatmeal, and arroz caldo so many times in a row. even guilt-free ice cream has its limits. i've also noticed a weird piece of gum tissue hanging a bit on top of my third molar. like the flesh is sagging or the sutures weren't pulled tight. oh well, the sutures get removed on tuesday night, and the swelling has a wednesday deadline.

why wednesday? well, because it's my first public appearance since the surgery. *yet* another debut to attend, and my role this time has turned into an 18 gift, apart from being a song like in the past 2 debuts. this means more trouble for me, since this time, the gift has to be well-thought of, sincere, and meaningful. unlike in the previous debut, where we settled for a group gift, and it wasn't too meaningful or thought-provoking, just fun (unless lacy bikini underwear holds some special value). i've been racking my brain for ideas on what to get the past week, but as usual, futile. my dad's also taken to giving me suggestions the past 2 dinners, and to my surprise, i might even consider them. i'll know later, when i finally go shopping for the gift, and maybe my outfit as well.

now, my past week couldn't have been mostly about whining in discomfort and contemplating birthday presents, right? in fact... surgery is the perfect excuse to abstain from anything necessary, and so nearly 3/4 of my time was spent in bed, burning my eyes on the tv or wriggling around to find a comfortable position for my mouth (gravity also hurts, by the way).  the heat and humidity don't even make it conducive to sleeping. the times when i do doze off, i wake up covered in a cool, moist stickiness. even rising from the bed warrants the tiniest annoying headache. it's times like these that i just miss the condo and the eternally-active aircon.

i did finish 2 action-rpg games, samurai legend musashi and devil may cry, the day after the extraction, but since then i've run out of other decent games to play. and aside from those 2, all the other tasks i've tried to set about on doing have been left stagnant or unfinished one way or another. i've been wanting to exercise, work out a bit, but again, surgery. there is another task awaiting: my blog layout overhaul. the idea has been brewing in my brain for quite some time now, but it just won't mature into anything decent (for my tastes anyway) or doable. i've searched for images, browsed other sites, viewed source codes but still nothing. not even a most basic layout or a color scheme to show for it. at least photoshop and css have become a bit more familiar to me, but with nothing to apply my newfound knowledge to, it's about as useful as my swollen cheek. i've never really had any artistic vision to speak of.

just another week left to burn. God help me.

yep, you heard it right. a semikal.

i've been used to having a full head of hair ever since birth, aside from around 2 years of short cuts during junior/senior high school. and at times, "full" can really mean "wild, mangy, untameable". guess i just got tired of all that today. i texted a few friends for their opinions, with most agreeing with the semikal style i suggested. and since i've been itching to try out a different hair style for a while, i got just what i wanted. and i've been riding on it since 5:30 this afternoon.

so here goes the list:

10. saves time and shampoo in the shower

9. combs and hair gels are but a vanishing need

8. no more itchy ears and sweaty brows

7. long, disgusting hairs don't fall on my food anymore (just short ones...?)

6. wearing my cap looks and feels better

5. my head feels cooler (important point, with this scorching summer up ahead)

4. the surprise factor when people see you for the first time

3. people just love stroking and rubbing your head (which i particularly enjoy, for some twisted reason)

2. my widow's peak just looks plain cool (for the uninformed: the widow's peak is the sort of spike of hair growing downwards from the center of the browline. imagine dragonball hair. it's a recessive trait, and i'm now damn proud of having it.)

1. *semi*bald is sexy (or so i've determined in the last 3 hours)

now, i just can't wait for tomorrow's mall gimik and overnight, and wednesday's debut.

the surprise factor will be well worth it!

the summer just started to become fun...

monday, got my new semikal haircut (totally living and loving it!).

tuesday, a mall gimik/hangout/sleepover with adelfa people. this was actually a surprise, since the get-together was planned over the course of the weekend, with more than a few hitches along the way. even more surprising was the sheer number of people who showed up. there were 19 of us all in all, which is about the number we would usually get during *really* planned outings. and even if we didn't go out of town (which i would have preferred, if not for time, planning, and financial constraints) the day and night proved more eventful than usual.

i started out the day by meeting a high school friend, ria, at my house. we went to up dil to get her classcards, where we met more adelfa people. we then headed to gateway mall, for a short *side* trip. see, the overall agreed plan was to meet at sm north around 2 pm. but since we were already together as early as 10 am and we had to kill time, we decided to head off to gateway mall. i particularly enjoyed this part since it was my first time to go to gateway, as well as to ride the lrt2 line. the katipunan station was killer, reminded me of the train station in the matrix movie. anyway, gateway mall, me and ria, then we met dino who got there a little bit before us. we walked around a bit, then settled down by the cinemas because we planned to watch a movie before the 2 pm call time at sm north. wyna arrived around 12, and joaqs 12:30, but by then the movies had started and we decided against entering at a late time. we just had lunch at the super bowl of china, then made our way to sm north.

at sm north, there were around 9 of us already there. we waited for nearly an hour for the others before we realized that none of them were coming to sm north anymore, since the ateneo enrollment system crash thing took up most of their time. we went over to my house to wait for cholo to come home, where we would be having the sleepover. around 6, cholo came, the people left, and i went out a bit to get my sutures removed by the dentist.

this was a great part of my week too, believe it or not. by that tuesday, the external swelling had completely disappeared and the internal pressure and discomfort had reduced to an ignorable minimum. when my dentist finally came (after 30 minutes of waiting), he just looked at my teeth, snipped around a bit, and voila, it was over. he even commented that the wounds had completely closed, and that the swelling had gone down faster than he had expected. turns out i'm a good healer myself.

returned to the house then went to cholo's, for a night of pure fun and relaxation. dinner at jollibee philcoa, then some people went out to buy the *hard* drinks, with whom i tagged along. chatting, games, shots, rounds, laughter, dizziness all followed in the next couple of hours, where we sat around the living room and had our fill of shots and chasers. it was actually my first time to drink alcohol in significant amounts, and though i didn't get drunk (fortunately) i discovered one thing: no low alcohol tolerance for me. that was pretty much the agenda for the whole night, until midnight struck.

by then, the people had dispersed, to each their own little chats and activities. we had to accompany ria outside, since she was the one with an allergy to alcohol yet one of the bravest drinkers in the group. we went to ministop around 1 am to fetch yet another classmate, then dino treated me to a bottle of mudslide, unexpectedly good and refreshing without the throat-burning sensation. blah, blah, blah, dino vomitted on the corridor since he was the one who drank the most that night. chat chat chat, tried to sleep around 4 am, succeeded and woke up 8:30 am. we stayed at the house for another hour or so, until the maids had to clean up, and that ended the sleepover.

after that *sorta* wild night, i was obviously sleep-deprived. but with another activity lined up for that wednesday evening, i had to grab as much snores as i could that afternoon, then left for ana's debut around 6 pm. the place was beautiful, ana was beautiful, the food was good, the entertainment adequate. too bad not too many imed people came, with just around 15 of us squeezed together in 1 table. nonetheless, we still managed to have fun, catching up with each other from the short break and in general, entertaining ourselves with the event. my 18 gifts spot went well, i was able to come up with a decent speech for the book i got her. now hopefully gift-giving will not be a problem for quite some time.

all that fun in the span of 2 days, then back down to earth this morning. yep, that's right, enrollment. it went ok because of the fact that the processing of the papers took shorter than usual since the schedules had already been planned beforehand. but our grades weren't complete yet, and i couldn't avail of my scholarship right away so i had to pay off my tuition for the summer. the line was helll, but at least we had a group together which helped pass the time, not to mention an unknown cutie who got in line behind us (just eye candy, nothing more). and the worst part is, summer classes are actually gonna happen.

oh yeah, i got xenosaga 2 this week, another positive thing, but there won't be a ps2 over at the condo during the summer classes. and i have to get my lower right wisdom tooth extracted tomorrow, meaning i'll be attending the first day of school with a bloated profile. now that adds to the fun.

just when things were looking up.

yawn... just one big yawn...

the worst part about summer classes: the summer classes. we've got 6 units to burn this summer, 3 in pi 100 and 3 in math 101. that's rizal studies and statistics for those not knowledgeable in the up manila course nomenclature system. in pi 100, we got the *lovable* sir esguerra as our professor. now, history has taught me (history 2, to be exact) that nothing good or useful or productive can be wrought from his class. yes, he's kind to intarmed students, especially to our batch, he loves giving out bonuses and throws away extra points like nobody's business, and it's said that it's already an assured 1.0 for an imed student in his class.

but (the big but just had to come along) all these come at a great expense: the slowdown of time to a mere trickle as he takes the discussion to uncharted territory with his incessant stories and side tracks, none, absolutely none of which are even remotely relevant to the topic at hand. your mind runs circles around your head as you wrack your brain for ways to pass the time, or as you think to yourself "yeah, right" or "oo nalang ako sa kwento nya" as he spews tale after tale of his unlikely (and sometimes unbelievable) experiences with the peoples of the world. every new narrative brings out a combination of laughter, gasps, sideward glances, eye rolls, and grimaces from the class. imagine, our lecture goes from ninoy aquino to sabah to the npa to the newly-elected pope to the four levels of prayer to God knows what other edges of the imagination we trekked upon, all in a little more than a blink of an eye. and now, he's taken to the nasty habit of questioning and ridiculing our history 1 course every time we can't remember historical facts for the discussion, due to a silent feud between him and our histo 1 prof. as if we held to memory anything he made us memorize in histo 2. i guess that's what we get for petitioning for him to be our prof. then imagine this: daily sessions with the storyteller himself, now what could be more fun than that?

statistics is at the most a lukewarm subject. the thought of it brings back haunted memories of third-year str, with the endless terminologies and the countless formulae, all to memorize and tediously apply to exercises and exams. and what's more, we even have twice the fun this summer, with separate lecture and lab portions of the course. our stat lab prof has at least proven to be kind and approachable enough, being lax in our solution of the first module exercise. the lec prof was *interesting* to watch, as we all took turns in criticizing his manner and guessing at his gender. i found out this morning that he was only a substitute; guess we won't have that fun activity to do anymore.

i guess college was never designed to be easy, but at least some things are still trying to keep me up through all these. the people are still there, as are the movies and the food trips. i've received my gwa for this quarter, and i can say i'm more than happy with the results. sutures come out tomorrow, i bring yu-gi-oh to the condo, classes were practically cancelled today.

but it'll take much more than that to get me through the whole summer.

call me crazy. call me self-absorbed and vain. call me fanatical, delusional, out of my mind. but i can feel it. i know something's there. something special.

and it isn't just about the glances and smiles. there's now the attention being lavished upon me (which never used to be there before). the constant banter and teasing around. laughtrip moments and inside jokes. a common understanding on things, and playful arguments on trivial ideas. head rubs (my head of course. thank you semikal!) casual lean-ins. farewell pats and waves. leaning an arm or a head against me. property exchange. random phrases of affection being thrown around haphazardly (an 'i love you' in the context of a joke is still an 'i love you'). now tell me i'm not just thinking this up.

if there's anything i've learned in comm 3, it's that actions *do* speak louder than words. prof adeva couldn't be more right than now. it's not like what has transpired over the weeks of classes is unique, most (or all) of these i get from my friends on a daily basis. but like i said, there's just something extra here. if not the sudden increase of anything happening at all between us at all, it's gotta be the equal interest i might have on the whole scenario.

i'm not sure if these signals are being sent deliberately, with the same intentions as i perceive them to have, nor am i sure if there's awareness that i'm actually picking up these signals. so how can i possibly send the message "i get the signals, i'm right here." back? reciprocate, of course. so there it went, big grins, teasing and joking right back, getting on with conversations, possibly leaning into the lean-ins, spending as much time as possible together. there's nothing wrong with a little innocent *flirting*, specially if it's going on both ways. like i said, equal interest.

i can just hope that the interest is really there, and where this whole thing will lead us, only time will tell.