(Almost) Nine years later…

I am definitely spending too much time on social media during this pandemic, but really, how else do I know that other human beings still exist?? And one night, I was scrolling through my Instagram feed and saw the post from three years ago where Imed11 were wishing everyone an Aidil Fitri.

Imed, 2011. I don’t quite remember, but we were on Audit RK, and we already were awkwardly-laughing at each other. In no time, we picked our batch-leader and thus becoming a batch. Two things that are very on-brand of imed11 is Chiiiill laaa beroooo and Shinze’s answer sheet. The former is how we address everything. Instead of saying “Chill bro,” we twisted it Tamil’s-style and dragged every syllable on it to reach its maximum effect of being well, chill. The later is our smartest friend answering past exam questions, and we would use it as short of a guideline when we attempted to answer it on our own. She always got an A and is a very diligent, quiet, kind-hearted friend so, she is, to an extent, our saviour.

Imed is sort of a weird and fun family (giving the fact that many of us were not from Jogja). It is not an everyday thing that you feel close to 100+ people at the same time, but with Imed, I do. Even with those I only spoke to while passing each other on the corridor shouting “Yoooww brooww, ngapain?”.

We spent three and a half years together, trying to occupy Grha Wiyata from watching movies to karaoke to selling Siomay to eyeing hot senior/junior/batchmates passing us heading to skills lab. We filled all the bench and tables at the grha's lobby and raced to draw PA’s report, borrowing each other’s purple pencils (thanks to PA, our purple pencil is disproportionally short).

We were also competitive and supportive of each other when it comes to sport. If ever anything, I remember spending A LOT of my times on soccer field, basketball field, badminton field, Padmanaba’s field, GOR Pancasila, swimming pool, running track, GOR UGM, and many sportsfields where I cheered for my batchmates. That is probably the answer to the question of what did I do during my undergrad. We were there, shouting and doing Kamate and painting our faces. Even a me, who before Imed was not at all a sports enthusiast, was spending my Friday and Sunday night at the mini soccer field, sometimes participating in soccer practice or just watching my friends playing. It wasn’t just any sport-match; it was us showing our support. We are rather close as a bunch of otherwise-very-individual medical students.

Imed 2011 also coming from a diverse background. Yet, we rarely quarrel about anything at all. We celebrate Diwali, Aidil Fitri, Christmas, the end of our exams (no?) together. We also happen to speak in whatever languages and everyone seems to be okay with that. Sometimes we spoke in English, another time it was Bahasa or Javanese or Melayu with extra Chinese and Tamil here and there. We had our peculiar plesetan jokes and shared lots of laughter with occasional tears that bring us closer. We spent almost every day from 7 AM to 3 or even 5 PM; Laughing, learning, lecturing, joking, eating, karaoke-ing, joking some more, laughing, hangout, and just more joking.

So, I reposted the particular feed on my story and talked to Josh about creating a digital iftar together, a.k.a bukber. I create the survey to decide the date and time, and we soon got help from other friends to contact more people on the batch and able to secure a day for our bukber. It was Friday, at 20.30 WIB. And it lasts for around two hours but man, was it lit! Most of the session was just laughter, and the jokes are still the same. Yet it was a heartwarming moment of just knowing that your friends are doing fine, and in a world that is no longer the same, you still get that warm, familiar feeling.

Di-mute karena...jujur aja rusuh banget ketawa-ketawa kalo unmute.

Karthik pake jaket Imed. Jaketku di...Jogja.

I miss Imed. It is just hard to call each and every one of them to catch up. Even harder because, as doctors who know and work on irregular schedules, matching a schedule is not that easy. So it is a good thing really, that we can have a session like this, as a more natural way to reach out and talk to many at the same time.

Jangan tanya kenapa ada botol Yuzu disitu. Terima aja.

That was 2-hours that brighten up my day, alas it brightens up my entire week. Especially during this lockdown moment, it truly means something to me, and I am sure it means a lot for many of my friends as well.

Until such a time where we can see each other again, I pray that everyone is in good health. Imed11: OPTIMIS!