This year, this girl finally got over the adolescent angst birthday crap-- that internal conflict of "loathing the birthday attention" but "monitoring who remembers and who forgets" while denying caring about the entire thing. She embraced all the attention, the love, the presents, and the people, without keeping a mental list of undelivered greetings. All this due to the anatomate agreement to celebrate each anatomate's birthday with personalized shirts.
It was a morning of pee and an afternoon of ethics. I woke up, unplanned, at 2:30am in order to read on urine and finalize the bioethics group paper. In my favorite purple scrubs, spent the morning discussing and examining pee at school. Then, spent the afternoon in a chair, surrounded by dear friends, listening to a doctor discuss the PMA code of ethics. The evening was spent in fellowship with the favorite org, and then second dinner while watching research groupmates work on the CM lantern. However, the groupmates sent me home early to be with the family.
All day, people reminded me of my birthday. Even the day before, people were singing. On the day itself, the "hi/hello" was replaced by "happy birthday." They'd repeat it when they have nothing to say to me. Thay sang while we lined up for urine centrifuge. They sang after the first afternoon lecture, during fellowship, during worksesh, whenever I'm around. It was a noisy day; I was almost never alone.
The birthday lunch with the sort-of med best friend was the first libre I made. Bought her ice cream. The chocolate-covered marshmallows bought from the nearby supermarket for the fellowship was the first "blowout" I endeavored. On the second day, bought the frat friend I miss ice cream. Two days later, bought the AP friends an assortment of street food.
And then, there were presents and surprises. The first greeted me upon waking up. Father gave light. Because of faulty electrical connections, we've been living in lamp light for the past four months. He fixed it for about four hours. Now, bathroom filth is visible.
Mother didn't cook wintermelon. I had vegetable-less meat for lunch!
Chocolate from the silly, noisy orgmate who dubbed me "favorite person in the whole world."
A cake with a singing candle, and the shirt from the anatomates.
From the G1 and G2 small group leaders.
From the small group and friends.
From the classmate I picked for acquaintance but regretfully (because we could've been friends by now!) exchanged for someone else.
What I ate for second dinner, the strangest I received, from the clingy BSmate-classmate.
And an autographed book by the favorite activist professor (possibly even, favorite living human) that is yet to come from the AP friends.
Greetings were prolonged days after. Less facebook greetings than before since the date is not displayed on my timeline, but everything's more meaningful. I prefer personal greetings, and smiling in return. It's the nicest birthday, yet.
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