My decision

[this entry, though drafted on 14/4, had been kept unpublished]

For a while I've been deliberately hiding this information from everybody, for fear that they would pry, gossip, or judge my sanity.

The much coveted information is very simple - I'm going to enrol at the Duke-NUS graduate medical school in Singapore.

If you think trying to camouflage and conceal this info for two months was hard, arriving at the decision was ten times harder. I still remember how exhilarating it felt to get the prestigious wellcome trust fellowship at oxford. Unlike my interviews in the states where i could answer the questions impromptu, laugh along a few jokes, and still walk away feeling like a millionaire, I actually had to work really hard at the oxford one. More than that, the prospect of studying in the uk was no doubt alluring, because it painted a picture of domestic bliss that extrapolated into a stable future.

When i got the good news from the GMS admission tutor i felt sad. My bubble of happiness burst too soon. And for a long time i became preoccupied with the question - could an apparently unhappy decision still be right?

In answering this question i outlined all the pros and cons into a laundry list. Small details such as extra salary and possibility of owning a car aside, the biggest cons was my tentative 8-year long distance relationship, the biggest pros my ability to practise medicine. With that I came to ruminate about the relativity of happiness, about perfection and my work ethics (as deliberately written in a somewhat cryptic manner in my previous entries).

By answering yes to the question above i have eventually come to accept and love my decision. I look forward to knowing better the kind folks in GMS to whom I feel so deeply grateful. I look forward to all the weird stuff medical schools allegedly entail, to the day i pick up the scapel. And in my greatest naivety, I believe my bf and i will last the long haul, that being an old houseman, even an old bride, would be quite ok.

I have thrown the dart, abandoning my doubts, fears and self-ego. Hit or miss, only time will tell.