The last sembreak

At this point, it's painful to write about the sembreak in the past tense when the truth is, I still have a couple of hours left, but I had better because that's a good way to condition myself for the long haul ahead. Sembreaks just come and go, but this one . . . the one I had for the past four weeks was different: it was going to be my last. Come third year med proper, I'll be stuck in PGH, doing hospital rounds.

Books
I'll do a quick recap of how my break went, and I'll begin by enumerating the seven books I read:

• Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore
• Martin Amis' The House of Meetings
• Stephen Levitt and Stephen Dubner's Freakonomics
• Chris Cleave's The Other Hand
• Ann Pratchett's Bel Canto
• Malcom Gladwell's Tipping Point (which I have yet to finish—a couple of chapters more)
• Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's Good Omens

Films
I also watched seven movies:

• Fatih Akın's Yaşamın Kıyısında [English title: The Edge of Heaven] (2007)
• Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction (1994)
• Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon (1950)
• Christian Mungiu's 4 luni, 3 săptămâni şi 2 zile [English title: 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days] (2007)
• Ben Affleck's The Town (2010)
• Francis Ford Coppola's  Godfather I and II (1972 and 1974, respectively)
• New York, I Love You (2009) by American directors

I was planning to write about them. Some other time, maybe.

TV Series

I watched two series, Stephen Levitan and Christopher Lloyd's The Modern Family and Robert and Michelle King's The Good Wife.

The Modern Family is hilarious; it's the story of three unconventional families. My favorite character is Gloria, the Colombian wife of Jay, not only because her accent is weird—narinig mo pa lang, matatawa ka na—but because she is sweet and loving. 

The Good Wife is my favorite legal drama, a story of a wife whose powerful husband has gotten entangled in politics, harming their marriage. Alicia Florrick, a topnotch graduate of Georgetown Law, now has to fend for her family, so she works as a junior associate in a law firm. It's excellently written and never over-the-top.

Conferences

I attended and helped out in two conferences: Heartbeat NCR (October 22-23) and the CCM STEP Youth Conference (October 29-30). I have to write about them, but I'm still waiting for people to post pictures online. You know, for illustration. Meanwhile, let me tell you that God used these as venues for me to get a fresh view of His glory. Just what I needed after a tough first sem.

Family

What else? My mother was around for a week, and that was fun. I played with my nephew Zach, teaching him to play checkers. And I didn't go home to Koronadal, if that's what you're asking.

Epilogue
Writing this end-of-sembreak entry reminds me of a line I read in Gaiman/Pratchett's Good Omens:

Something told him that something was coming to an end. Not the world, exactly. Just the summer. There would be other summers, but there would be never be one like this. Ever again. Better make the most of it, then.

And, boy, I did.