Saturday, May 31, 2008

word nerd

Blog. Blogging. Blogger. To the uninitiated, these words are simply funny sounding. At first, I thought that these terms sounded so silly that no one can possibly get anything more than a few laughs from their content. Who would've thought that one could stumble into a fount of great ideas from something with such a funny label.

I had always been enamored with words, that is, the written word. To borrow David Cook's term, I guess you could say I'm a word nerd. I just love playing with words and getting what I feel and think on paper. When this all began, I don't know. I have this secret dream (well, now it won't be a secret anymore) of having a best-seller published and winning literary awards for it.

Writing has always been an outlet for me. I have journals that could document the development of my handwriting from a school kid's scrawl to the doctor's chicken-scratch penmanship that I now have (unfortunately, in some cases, my handwriting when I was younger is actually a bit more legible than the present). I wrote in these journals for a release, and because secretly, I also hoped that someday, I'd be someone important enough for people to want to know how I lived. Such Narcissistic delusion of grandeur actually led me to start my first blog.

Now, i don't pretty much care if people read my blogs or not. My views about blogging have changed somewhat. I have come to realize that through blogging (as I have stated in my blog's description), I am attempting to make life move slower for me. My blog entries are attempts to preserve the "now." It's not that I don't want to move forward; it's just that I'm finding life's pace to be a bit too fast. Blogging can capture for me what photographs cannot; I guess you could say that my blog entries are snapshots of my thoughts and memories, painstakingly converted into text that tries to convey them as eloquently as I could.

A couple of weeks back, a friend introduced me to a blogging world I haven't discovered yet: the world of physician bloggers. As I hopped from one blog to another, I was surprised to find that these blogs hold unique treasures unselfishly shared by their writers. I found solace in the array of blogs, written by physicians who are undoubtedly very different from myself, but kindreds nevertheless in this path we all chose to traverse. The anonymity allows for a more open sharing, and yet, all these inputs from doctors I don't know are amazingly very comforting and empowering.

Now, I try to take part as often as I could in the Blog Rounds. Again, the Narcissistic part of me eggs me contribute because fellow MDs might like reading what I was writing. However, I think I'm doing this mainly because composing an entry helps me collect my thoughts and somehow by putting these into words, some sort of order is established in my mind. I like the feeling of satisfaction after completing an entry and clicking the publish post button.

To end, I still think the best thing about posting is that I get to play with words.



This entry is a contribution to the Blog Rounds 13th Ed., hosted by Bone MD.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

he had me at hello

I think it was when he sang Bryan Adams' Everything I do, I do it for you that I first noticed David Cook. I've always rooted for the rockers in the competition, but with their not so good record on the show, I thought then that the best that I could hope for is for him to give us a couple of good performances and hope he'll be given a record deal like Chris Daughtry. I was resigned to the reality that while AI showcases some really talented rockers, America doesn't really vote for rockers.

When he sang Lionel Richie's Hello, I was hooked. Hooked on Cook. I began downloading his performances and I would listen to them over and over. The first time I heard the Beatles' Eleanor Rigby was when David Cook sang it, and I actually liked it. Loved Billie Jean and Always be my baby (which I didn't like when Mariah released it). The Phantom of the Opera fan that I am, I was mesmerized by The Music of the Night.


I'm glad I was proven wrong. I would rank David Cook as one of the three most talented American Idol winners, along with Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood. Chris Daughtry is still my favorite AI contestant, especially since he followed his Idol exit with a superb album, but Cook fast rising up to his rank.

Congratulations to the new American Idol David Cook!