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Thursday, June 24, 2004
Two of my high school best friends have already started medical school -- and I can't help but think I would too had I made a different decision more than three years ago.
Hay, the woulda, coulda, shouldas in my life are too many, I wonder why I'm not psychotic yet.
Had I taken up that accelerated program offered by my university when I qualified for it, like what my friends did when they qualified in their own university, I would have graduated premed a year early, and, started this school year with my best friends in medical school.
Frankly, in retrospect, I wonder why I didn't bite at that offer -- maybe it was because I simply chickened out, but, I question myself now, Why the heck did you chicken out, Anne???, you've gone through far greater academic challenges than that one before, and, miraculously survived, with your name in the honor roll.
It is such a tragedy, though, that over the years, my confidence in myself has fluctuated considerably -- I don't know when it started, maybe it's not so much as a loss of confidence in myself but more of an affinity for sloth, whatever the case, I don't know what to do.
Perhaps, too, it's not so much as I regret not graduating a year early from premed but more because my best friends are already in medical school -- in the long run, they will always be a year ahead of me (for internship, residency, etc.), hopefully just a year ahead (see my lack of confidence?) -- and, as of the moment, I cannot find any comfort in that thought, call me a bad friend, even an envious one but that's how I feel.
Of course, on some surreal level of illusion and delusion, I'm happy for my friends, not only were they from the same circle of friends which gave me a very touching surprise birthday party last May, but because they have more guts than me and I applaud their strength -- they had more strength to welcome the demands of a very regimented course and mind-boggling pressure than I could ever aspire for -- and, at same time, loathe it, as well.
I am reminded of a saying I read from Jessica Zafra's Twisted, it goes, "It's not that I have it bad, but that other people have it good".
Of course, to digress, another of Ms. Zafra's sayings, which she clarifies are not hers, goes "Men are like parking spaces, all the good ones are taken and the available ones are handicapped" -- I can't say I agree with this a hundred percent, but the lady has a point, don't you think?
Thursday, June 17, 2004
Laker loss.
The Lakers lost the NBA championship to the Pistons.
I am, for a lack of a better emotion, so bummed out.
And, in lieu of better emotions, I am giving my fifty centavos worth of basketball analysis (a.k.a. crap talk) about the NBA finals.
*brace yourself*
The greatest criticism hurled against the Lakers has always been their incapacity to play team basketball -- and, who can blame them, with superstars like Shaq and Kobe in their roster of players, it really is quite a very strong impossibility to expect solid team dynamics among its players.
Going into the finals, I have always believed that, in order for the Lakers to beat the younger and faster Pistons team, they have to accomplish three things:
1. They have to play as a team: but, with Shaq's impassioned announcement that the Laker offense should be centered only on him, it seems inevitable that this goal is going to bite the dust sooner or later -- at, which case, it already did, yesterday.
2. They must not let the Pistons control the rebound: the Pistons is, undeniably, a younger team, most of their players are still in their mid-twenties, late-twenties, and early-thirties as opposed to the Lakers older players (Malone - 40 years old, Shaq - mid-thirties, Fisher - midthirties, etc.), thus, they play with more spunk, more hunger and more athlecism -- they like to run around the court, tiring and thrash-talking their opponents in every turn (Rasheed Wallace's reputation preceeds himself in this arena while Ric Hamilton can play up to 48 minutes straight as opposed to Shaq's playing average which hardly measures up to 20 minutes a game).
3. They must let the bench (a.k.a. supporting cast) play a pivotal role: the problem with the Lakers, and Phil Jackson too, is that they are so superstar-oriented. At the beginning of the season when Malone and Gary Payton (both NBA superstars and "old timers") were traded to the Lakers many thought, the Laker team was going to be THE team to beat, what many missed to notice was that, sometimes, winning in basketball really isn't about which team has the more stellar constellation of basketball stars, it is about which team harnesses most the talents in each player.
I guess in the end, what really made the Lakers lose was not in the egotism of its stars but also in the lack of drive from its coach -- no offense to him but sometimes, you really wonder, what Phil Jackson is made of, back in 2000, when the Lakers won its first championship under him as head coach, I have always been part of the small minority which doubted its win, for me, what Phil Jackson did, was to simply rehash the old Bulls Championship team (with Harper and his assistant coaches joining the squad) so that the Lakers could pull off a half-baked win (of course, then, I didn't voice out this doubt -- I was just so happy that the Lakers, after more than a decade of obscurity, have finally won) -- Phil Jackson does not mentor his players, he simply feeds their egos with all these superstar brouhaha (and, I'm telling you, it's not a great idea to let a man think he's a superstar! Ooooops, I guess I'm not just talking about basketball now, am I?), that is why, even with six NBA championships under his name, he still hasn't been inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame -- unlike Larry Brown (Pistons coach) who, even without a single NBA championship to boast of, until now, was already included in the Hall of Fame two years ago!
Of course, I could just be feeling this way, blaming Phil Jackson as well as Shaq and Kobe's over-sized egos, because the Lakers lost -- had the situation been reversed, I would probably be blogging about how great the Lakers were!
Hehehe.
It really was sad to see them lose, though.
Even with egos the size of Jupiter, I have never doubted, the spirit of Shaq and Kobe -- and oh alright, because I'm feeling guilty about blaming him, let's include Phil Jackson too -- to win.