The coming qualifying exam, and some recently acquired books

We finished our final examinations last week. It went okay. I studied at the last minute (as is my habit). Fortunately, the exams weren't very hard. I still can't celebrate or relax yet, though, because we'll be having a qualifying exam this coming Friday. It will cover Anatomy and Physiology, and Health Care 1 and 2. The exam will compose 20% of our final grade. That's a lot. So we better do good on it. They said the type of exam is only going to be "multiple choice". I hope so. They said it's only going to be easy, as it is "general", and requires only "stocked knowledge". Gee, I sure hope I still got a few of our lessons in Anatomy and Health Care 1 stocked here in my head.

Maybe I'm very lucky to have found this very interesting book: Nurse by Peggy Anderson. (Notice the picture of the nurse on the cover of the book. Doesn't it look like a figure of a white lady??? Hehehe... creepy; you'd think it's a horror book.)



It's the true story of a nurse (Mary Benjamin, not her real name) as she goes about the daily challenges and routines of her work. From the back cover:

"Sometimes I help people live.
Sometimes I help them die.
Always, I help them. I'm a nurse."

"The shocking, inspiring, surprise bestseller, Nurse is the story of eight weeks in the life of a nurse in a large urban hospital. It is all here: the joy and pain, the death and drama, the mistakes, successes and secrets. Nurse reads like a novel, but sticks in the memory like a real experience. Because it is."

I found it this afternoon in RSO Bookshop in SM. I have started reading it and I'm enjoying the story so far.

I also found a second-hand copy (still in very good condition) of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.



I already have my own copy here at home, but I like the one I saw in SM because it's bigger. The texts are larger and more readable (Nindut unta palitun, pero it's a bit expensive, PHP350). The one I have is somewhat pocket-sized. I haven't read it yet because I'm still learning more about Theology of the Body. I'm still trying to finish the audio programs about TOTB over at the EWTN website and I am still planning on reading more about it at Christopher West's website, plus I also hope to read the late Pope John Paul II's work itself on TOTB (Whew, it's going to be a very tough challenge). I am also reading this book called Marriage: A Path to Sanctity, by Javier Abad and Eugenio Fenoy.



It's not an easy read (theological texts aren't usually immediately understandable to laymen like me), but the effort is worth it. There are gems of thoughts in the book. Here's an example:

"This should explain why married couples who engaged in pre-marital relations soon discover that they never got to know each other well. A relationship ruled by passion clouds the mind and maims the will: one loses the freedom to love. The sense of touch is not enough to discover a person's qualities and defects, which can bring about disconcertment, frustration and "falling out". We have said that courtship is a period of getting personally aquainted; and this is possible only when the couple use their mind to guide their will and thus freely decide whether or not they should go on with their relationship." (Italics mine).

The quote is significant for me because of my belief that pre-marital sexual relations, or sex outside of marriage, is wrong. My Pangga and I understand this... :)

I also bought recently The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality: Guidelines for Education Within the Family, by the Pontifical Council for the Family. It was pure coincidence that a saw an only copy of it at St. Paul's in Ayala. It was mentioned as a reference in the Abad and Fenoy book. I got it for only 25 pesos (it's only a booklet).

Tonight I'll be staying late to continue the bi-monthly report I have to make for my father's, or our family's, business. It's quite a tedious, monotonous work. The only thing that keeps me going is my listening to the EWTN radio over the internet.