By Mandy Esquivel (Class 2019)

I remember on my first day in UP, in June 2012, a classmate sat beside me, and started speaking to me in Filipino. I always understood the language better than I spoke it, so although I understood what he asked, I answered him in English. He took one look at me, and told me that I had given him a nosebleed. I was so sheltered, the colloquialism so foreign, that I immediately reached into my purse…and offered him a tissue. He burst into incredulous laughter. I Googled what “nosebleed” was, on the way home.

It has been ten years since I first entered UP Manila and PGH. Two years of pre-med, four years of medical school, one year of internship, and nearing three years of residency. When I say it like that, it sounds so straightforward – so quick. Truth be told, maybe it was. Nearing the end of my residency, I look back at it all and wonder where the time went. Perhaps it’s true what they say: the days are so long, but the years are so short.

I learned a lot.

So much,
Maybe too much,
And yet somehow, not enough.

I learned mundane things – like what “nosebleed” meant – and practical things – like how to ride a jeep and cross the harried roads of Manila – and important things, like how to save a life. I became a doctor, a photographer, an events organizer, a secretary, a dancer, a failed artist. I chose to become a dermatologist. I made friends, lost friends; fell in love, fell out; broke down, built myself back up; got sick, kept moving forward, anyway. I learned resilience, and patience; I learned to be forgiving, of myself and of others. I learned humility, because there were ever so many failures, and enjoyed quiet pride in jobs well done, because there were also successes. I learned how to speak to my patients without them asking me if I grew up in America; I learned what kwek kwek was. I learned how to be kind, and stay kind, even when the world was anything but. I learned how to live with myself in both sadness and joy. Through highs and lows, I learned that all things pass, and God does not change.

I learned about life and death and love and friendship and people and dreams and grief and faith and hope.

I learned about life, and the world, and I realized how big the university and the hospital had made the world for me — and how small it was, and is, still, compared to the rest of it.

UP taught a privileged and sheltered kid that the big, bad, and often unfair world owed me nothing, least of all an explanation for her capriciousness. But she made me strong. She taught me to look beyond myself and my small corner of the world – and to care, like I had never cared before, about the rest of it.

PGH and her stories broke my heart so many times – but maybe that was just as well, because it was through the cracks that the light poured in. It was in PGH that I learned that despite all the bad things, there is beauty and goodness everywhere, for those who care to look…and for those determined to make them real.

The seventeen year old who entered this university, the nineteen year old girl who walked into this hospital, will leave a twenty seven year old woman, utterly changed – and so much the better for it.

“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in.”

I will never regret checking that Intarmed box in the UPCAT form over a decade ago. It started me on a path that seems straightforward in hindsight, but was filled with potholes and turnabouts in reality. I do not regret any of my decisions since then. How could I? Cumulatively, they led me here, made me the person I am today: far from perfect, but at peace with myself; always trying, always growing. And that’s beautiful, isn’t it? Still: all things, good or bad, must come to an end eventually…and I will not lie – a part of me is glad that it’s almost over. A part of every journey is the end.

But I am so grateful – so very grateful – for all that was. It has been, all things considered and all angles studied, a very good ten years of UP-PGH.

I am looking forward to these last three months – and to everything that is to come.