Have you ever had one of those times when you get so stressed out about so many things happening all at the same time.  And when it is all over, you get the inexplicable feeling of "That was it?"  It was as if all the effort in preparation was not compensated for by the actual event.  I just went through a series of these events.

The second half of the month of November this year was really very hectic for me.  It started with my assignment to do the print ad for the PSO-HNS Annual Convention on November 15, as I blogged about last week (link). 

After that task, and while attending the Convention from November 29 to December 1, I was also preparing for a talk I was tasked to deliver at the Philippine College of Surgeons Annual Convention.  I was assigned the topic of "Tracheostomy:  Current Trends."  This would actually be the first time I am delivering a lecture at a major convention, so my nerves are frazzled whilst preparing for the lecture date of December 3.  Especially when I found out that Melfred Hernandez, who was supposed to lecture with me in the same session will not be able to make it!  Anyway, since I was already committed to this, I kept on with my prepartions, revising my text and slides all the while up to the morning of the lecture istelf!  (Thanks to Dr. Jon Aranas for covering for my clinic that Monday, even if he had an appointment to pick up his wedding invitations that same day.)

When I got to Shangri-La EDSA Hotel that afternoon of December 3, I discovered that the venue of seminar sessions were not in the main convention areas in the Isla Ballroom.  The symposium where I was to talk was in the Sampaguita Room in the Garden Wing area.  Well, suffice it to say, there were very few people in that area.  Even fewer people in the room itself.  I even thought it would not push through!  Haha!  Come to think of it, I'm glad that I lectured to a small audience who went out of their way to attend my talk.  (You know how it is in big convention halls, where half the audience is actually not listening to the speaker, going in and out of the room, etc.)  Even the Q and A session afterwards was OK, I think.  Thank you to Dr. William Lim for the support during the talk.

Early the next day December 4, I had been invited to be a resource person in the monthly case conference of the Dept. of Pediatrics.  This was about a very interesting case of Neurofibromatosis  whose initial symptom was only hoarseness in an 11 yr old student.  But further examination revealed so many other problems.  I have never been to a Pedia conference before so I did not know what to expect.  Of course I had to prepare the night before by reading up on the ENT aspects of this disease complex.  However during the conference itself, all I was asked to do was describe my flexible endoscopy findings!  Haha!  It was in fact quite a benign conference in that practically no questions were asked to the resource people there, nor even to the residents who presented.  Quite a departure from the lively weekly Grand Rounds that our department usually has.

For the rest of that day, I had to squeeze in time to finish reading and digest the materials for my Curriculum Planning class that night because our group was supposed to meet and discuss how we are going to present our assigned topic on Knowledge and Cognition.  Our professor wanted us to deviate from the usual reporting style of presentation as much as possible.  However, when the time came to meet, our leader said he has not yet finished reading the articles, so we will have our planning session next week instead.

I am very thankful that all of these activities are all finished easily, and came off with nary a hitch.  Because all the stress that went into preparing for them, I can once again breathe another sigh of relief.  You would recall in previous blogs that we had to make time to watch "Into the Woods" (link) last November 30, and celebrate my daughter Haley's birthday at Star City (link) last December 2.  I am glad I did not sacrifice this family time to just concentrate on these other activities, especially since they all turned out to be less stressful on the actual event, than during the preparation. 

I really don't know what to make of it.  I am not complaining that they all turned out to be easier than I expected.  In fact, I am very grateful.  But maybe the fact that they somehow fell short of my toxic expectations still gave me an ambivalent feeling about them afterwards.  Believe me, this strange feeling will pass.