Sometimes It Just Happens

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Special thanks to @dailydoseofREALITY.  ^_^

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I am twenty one years old, fresh out of college, currently working as a laboratorian in a very small hospital in our very small province. A laboratorian, essentially, is that one medical personnel often understated, if not unknown, to the community. He is the one who collects all sorts of bodily fluids (yes, including blood, poo and pee..and some other disgusting fluids), bring them back to the lab and do all sorts of tests on them. You have probably encountered at least five laboratorians in your life, you just didn’t know at the time, or perhaps you have dismissed them as nurses (a common misconception. and how irritating it is for laboratorians to be mistaken as nurses).

I was, and always have been, a very good student. I was always part of the honor roll. I have all sorts of medals I’ve won from various quiz bees and all that schiznit from grade school to high school, but was never all that popular. Perhaps what I lack in social skills and physical beauty I have compensated with my good grammar and spelling, and my ability to memorize stuff faster than anybody else. Growing up, kids are fit into stereotypes, and I was not the golden girl, or the hot cheerleader, or the prom queen. I was the kid with the thick glasses, always walking around with a thick book in one hand, the one whose name you usually hear first when exam results come up. I was the nerd, and I embraced it with unusual pride.

I wanted to go to medical school and study to be a surgeon. My parents wanted the same thing. My relatives do too. But as it turned out, want and can are two very different things. My family, we are not exactly poor, but not rich enough for a hundred grand a year, which I need to get to med school. So I went looking for a job instead, thinking I’d save up for the school fee first.

Now working for almost half a year in this very small hospital (the only one I have ever sent my resume to), earning barely six thousand pesos a month, it is becoming clear to me that saving up for medical school is a rather ambitious plan. With the small amount of money I am earning, I will probably be stuck in this job for a long, long, long time. It is not the path I would have chosen for myself, but what is a person to do? In this terrible economy, I am lucky to even have a job.

As I have said, I was never a social person. I do not talk much, I do not involve myself in work politics, and I pretty much mind my own business. The people I work with are nice enough, and I can be as polite to them as I could, but politeness only takes me so far, I do not “hang out” with anybody after work. They do not invite me to family affairs. We do not call each other “mare” or “sis”. They are my colleagues. They are not my friends. Sounds kind of depressing for some people maybe, but not for me. I have always been a loner. I do not hate company, but I do not yearn for it either. Talking to people, trying to get along with them, has always been a tiring feat. I am much comfortable being alone.

I have already mentioned my very small salary from the very small hospital I work in. Now that amount is further made smaller by my everyday bus fare. I am at least an hour away from the city. So everyday I have to take the 6 o’clock bus to get to work. And with the drab life that I lead, the 6 o’clock bus is the only real highlight of my day.

It is in that 6 o’clock bus to work that I do most of my thinking. Or daydreaming, if you like to call it that. I myself prefer to call it thinking, because daydreaming means forming elaborate fantasies in your head, immersing yourself in situations far from reality, and all I do really, is to think. Just think of random stuff that come to my random mind. Just contemplations of my day ahead, most of which are not really that far out from the real world. For the whole ride, I sometimes lose myself so deep in my thoughts that I only remember to get off when I actually get off, fortunately I have never missed my stop, not even once.