What I woke up so early for

Got up around 5:30 am after about 4 and half hours of sleep. I probably should have went to sleep earlier knowing I had to get up this early in the morning but I didn't much care. It wasn't like I was going to really do anything all that important today. It was just the National Medical Admission Test of the Philippines. Well, after some how managing to stumble out of bed with my eyes half open and half my brain functioning as well my only thoughts were about going back to sleep. I thought I could maybe just skip it but then with the turn of the shower knob icy streams of water changed that all. I was wide awake and ready to go.

Running on Filipino time me and two of my classmates arrive in Manila about a half an hour after we were supposed to report at the De La Salle University campus for the testing. After finding a place to park me and one of my classmates some how manage to loose the other along the way to campus by making a detour through McDonald's. When we reach the gate of the school the guard looks over my friend's papers and tells him where he should be headed and adds "You better hurry. You're late." I pull out my papers expecting him to look at it but he never does. He doesn't even speak to me. So I ask him if I should be following my friend and he just nods and smiles at me. I take that as a yes and chase after my friend half way across campus to the build where he is supposed to take his test. When I get there I find that the building I'm supposed to be in is the one all the way back across campus right next to where that suddenly gone dumb guard was. What the hell? He just ignored my ass when I was speaking to him. Was it because I'm not white? That he treated like a second class human being in the country where my own mother and father were born. Shit. Can't be all that surprised though, it happens all the time.

Me at any store,
"Excuse me do you have... (whatever it is I'm looking for)?"
Almost immediately the clerk responds,
"Sorry we no have."
Then ten minutes later after walking around in the same store I find it. It pisses me off. It's like they ain't even about to try and help me out.

Anyway so I finally reach the room that I'm actually supposed to be in and someone stops me right at the door. He takes my papers and tells me to wait outside. I could see everyone sitting in their chairs and I'm thinking I guess I'll just be going back home but then he comes back telling me it's ok. Shucks. As I walk in the room everyone starts staring at me like I'm a convict walking down death row or something. I don't know why. It's not like no Filipino has never been late before. The room was dead silent, no one uttered a peep. Despite getting the second class citizen treatment all the way up until now, my first thought after I sat down and looked up was that maybe things didn't turn out so bad after all. Sitting right there directly in front of me was the cutest girl in the room.

After spending a couple more minutes sitting in complete silence the examiner finally decided to speak and go over the rules and procedures. Of course one to the main things he emphasized was there is to be no cheating. It would seem an easy thing to do but with everyone packed in like sardines it would be harder not to look over at someone's paper. Well, after filling in our names on the answer sheet and expecting the pages of our test booklets for any misprints but being told to not actually read them we began the test.

As I started to take the test the cute girl that I was initially happy to have sat by now became more of a hindrance. I didn't know what to concentrate on more her or the test. Who cares if I flop the test, I'm already in. Right? To top it off half way through the test my butt starts to get itchy. Really itchy. I tried to squirm around in my desk to sooth it but it didn't work. I wanted to just dig in and give it a good rub but the cute girl and I were sitting practically face to face. Well, some how I manage to restrain my self using self meditation to draw on my inner self to ignore the itch while also managing to shift my concentration back and forth from the test booklet to my answer sheet to... the cute girl. By the time was up for the first part of the exam I only had to fill in "C" for a quarter of my test. Yeah, I don't think my scores will be all that good either.

Anyway as we were about to break for lunch I thought to my self I just have to speak to this girl, especially after I came down on Ray for having no balls. None what so ever. So, I stole her eraser. (No I didn't actually steal it. She forgot it and I just happened to see it there on the floor and picked it up.) I was initially thinking after we came back from lunch I would start up a conversation by asking her for the time because "my watch just broke and the clock on my cell phone broke as well and that I'm still unable to read the long and short hands off the clock on the wall." Ok, maybe that would have been a little pathetic but it didn't matter any more anyways. Now thanks to the eraser I had the perfect excuse. Oh yeah.

After finally having lunch I got my chance to talk to the girl. As I walked in the room I went to sit beside her and said "Hello my name is klepto and I got your eraser." Well, that's what I was thinking about saying but had decided not to. She seemed really friendly and for that short time it was nice talking to her. She told me her name was Jacquelyn. She grew up in Australia and is currently working there as a nurse but it was always her dream to become a doctor. It seemed that she would rather go to school in Sydney but she says she still loves it here in the PI none the less. Taking the NMAT to go to school in the PI wasn't really in here plans however, but her mother put in the application in for her. Her mother is staying in Cavite where she is currently staying now. Her mother hopes that she will enter med school here to keep her some company.

See Ray I got balls. I'll admit that I didn't get her number but she lives in Cavite. That's way far from here and I don't have anyway of getting there. So the only thing I would be doing with her is talking on the phone and sense I'm not one for much chit chat I really didn't see the point of getting it. Damn, I really need a car.

Well back to the topic of what I was actually supposed to be there for, the second part of the test wasn't really all that bad. I probably could have aced it if I had done a little reviewing before I took the test. I mean everything they asked about I must have went over a hundred times in high school, then again in my undergrad and then once more in med school. However, would've, could've, should've but... didn't. I guess that's what I get for not taking the time to prepare for it.

Well that's my story of how I halved assed my way through taking the Philippines National Medical Admission Test. Join me later when I tell you all of how I halved assed my way all through my first year of medical school.