New home

I found a new home at Counting My Blessings. Please come and visit, and don't forget to leave your mark. :)

I'm no longer a student!

My life as a student nurse officially ended today. Hehe. I can't really say I'm happy. Why is that? Relieved, maybe, but happy, nope. I guess I should be happy. Okay, here's something better: I'm grateful. I'm grateful that school is done. But I can't really be happy yet because finishing school is just step number one. There's still step number two, which is a bigger challenge: The local board exam.

I'm not sure yet whether to take the June or the December exams. But I'll be reviewing for June. If at the end of the intensive review for June I'd still feel that I'm not yet ready to take the exam, I probably won't. Because there's just less than two months left before the board, and I feel that time is not adequate for the preparation.

Tomorrow we'll start our orientation for the intensive review. Then after that we need to go to the PRC to file the necessary papers for the board exam, and there's quite a number of these requirements! What displeases me is the thought of queuing in the PRC.

Giving

We had a recollection in Tabor Hills yesterday, and it was so wonderful. The speaker was wonderful. His name is Alejandro Espina. A super funny guy. And because he is super funny, he was able to effectively impart to us the message of our recollection.

We had a lecture in the morning, which started late. In the afternoon, we sang, we danced, we laughed, we offered our bodies to the Lord. We had a confession and then heard Mass afterwards. I wish I could go to a similar recollection in the near future - or better yet, a three-day or week-long retreat.

To love - that simply was the message. Love, he reminded us, is a verb. What action does it involve? Giving. Not just of things, but of one's time. If you love someone, you give him or her your time. When you love the Lord, you offer Him your time, in prayer or in serving other people. I was once a member of Singles For Christ, and we understood that loving and serving God involves three things. In addition to giving one's time, one also has to give one's talent and treasure. We call it the three T's: Time, Talent and Treasure. Thus, the weekly prayer meetings, the monthly chapter meetings, fellowships, conferences, seminars, and many other wonderful activities that we did regularly. Thus, we offer what talents we have for the community - singing, dancing, playing the instrument, offering to give talks in seminars. Thus, the tithing.

I really miss SFC...

I've learned this, too, lately: I've realized that all the wonderful experiences in my life -- the things that brought me joy, happiness, gladness, and peace -- are all "gifts" to me by other people. I have absolutely nothing to do with it. I say this because I often have the tendency to think highly of myself whenever people treat me kindly or commend me, but actually I don't deserve their goodness. They just give them to me willingly, because the goodness is actually in themselves and they want to share it. So now whenever someone treats me well, offers me a kind comment, etc., I acknowledge that it is not due to any quality or characteristic that I might possess, but it is due to the kindness and the goodness in the other person. So from now on I will take a more proactive stance, I want to give more than receive. :-)

Last clinical duty

We had our last clinical duty as nursing students yesterday. Yes, our very last, as nursing students. I don't know whether to be happy or sad. To tell you the truth, I feel quite sad, because I'll never have another opportunity to work with my group mates in the clinical setting ever again.

I was aware of this fact from the first day of the week. I looked at my group mates and absorbed as many details as I could of them, of their conversations, and my own conversations with them. I wanted to store them in my memory. I knew, that many, many months and years from now, I will look back at this very ordinary week with fondness and a little aching of the heart.

Nag-awas-awas nga kalipay

Nag-awas-awas akong kalipay ganiha!

Nakit-an ra jud nako thankfully ako Operating Room and Delivery Room notebooks. Whew! I thought I lost them!

I was so worried, since last month, because I left my notebooks in the Faculty. I thought someone has got them; I thought I was doomed! (For those of you who don't know, the OR and DR notebooks records all the OR and DR cases required by the school for graduation and by the PRC for the board exam). Kumpleto na raba unta ko sa tanan; the thought of losing it, at this very point in time when I am about to prepare for graduation, just made me wanna go mad.

But this afternoon after my duty at the hospital I stormed the Faculty and dugged through several stacks of OR and DR notebooks submitted by those who have also completed the requirements. After 20 grueling minutes I finally found them! I bathed in my own sweat despite the air conditioning because I was so fearful I could not find them. Haha.

Now there's only the minor (?) problem with the thesis and this one last signature by a C.I...

...

I can't add links!

Finally read a Marquez novel

I had a great time last night. We had dinner in Acha Pizzeria instead and then afterwards we went to the Breakfast Club in I.T. Park since Acha was a bit crowded and noisy.

We talked about a lot of things - of course, mainly about love, and many more naughty things besides hehehe...

I'm really thankful this club was realized, because it gave me the opportunity to meet a lot of very nice people.

For next month we will be reading The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus and A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle. The first one is an essay and the second one is a short non-fiction book, so I guess we will be able to discuss them together next month.

Sisyphus... that's heavy existential stuff. Probably will make for a lot of interesting discussion. Our facilitator is a teacher of Literature and Philosophy, so I've heard, so this should be great! Eckhart Tolle... that will be my first book from the guy. Don't know what its genre is exactly (spirituality?). Whatever it is, I hope it's not New Age stuff...

I hereby congratulate myself for finally having read at least one Marquez novel!

Later today we leave for San Remegio for some beach and fishing, and, of course, reading.

Book Discussion: Love in the Time of Cholera

WHAT: Dinner + Discussion for "Love in the Time of Cholera"
WHEN: Feb 23, Saturday
PICK-UP: Dimsum Break area, BTC @ 6:15PM
VENUE: Ananda Marga Wellness Center, Pagsabungan, Mandaue City
DINNER: Vegetarian Buffet (with a Caribbean flair) @ 90.00/person only
OTHERS: Yoga demo, brief orientation on the center's services

Friends who might be interested to try the vegetarian buffet are welcome to join the dinner. Just sign them up.

Hapit na amo book discussion for this month. Actually, ugma na hehe. This gathering is open to the public, provided you have read the book; but you can come just for the dinner (if you want to try a vegetarian buffet).

Haven't finished the book yet; I'm down to the last few pages already.

Great lecture

Our lecturer for Medical Surgical Nursing refresher review last week was awesome. A very intelligent and articulate guy. And to top it all off, a stand-up comedian! Hehehe. What a great combination for a lecturer. It was a treat to just listen to his discussions. I tell you, we started at 9 in the morning and ended at around 7 in the evening every day for two days, and there was not a moment that I got bored!

Today's PIBJ episode: Entrepreneurship

Today's Preacher in Blue Jeans episode is about enterpreneurship:



Bo is interviewed by enterpreneurship students from Assumption.

His advice on those who want to start businesses (to summarize):

1. Discover and develop your core gifts (talents/ skills/ unique attributes that you have). What are you good at? Or, what are your passions? What are the things you like doing? Singing? Dancing? Making/mixing music? Writing? Speaking in public? Theater? Selling? Reading and collecting books? Cars? Bags? Fashion? Wellness? Foods? Travelling? We can pursue them. The idea, I think, is to follow your passion; the money will just follow.

2. Never say you've learned enough. Continue learning. Read, study, listen, observe. He used one of the interviewers as his example. She plans to open a restaurant someday. Bo's advice: Work in a restaurant. Know everything there is to know about the business. Work as a cook, cashier, marketer, manager, bartender, and yes, waitress. His other advice is to find a mentor. One who is successful and who has been in the business for many years. It doesn't matter if you have to fetch him coffee every morning, as long as you learn a lot from him.

3. Know the true purpose of wealth. The true aim of business, Bo says, is not to amass profits but to serve. Money can be used as a tool to help and enrich others. When you do that, you are truly rich!

PIBJ's Valentine's Day episode

I used to watch Bo Sanchez's Preacher in Blue Jeans almost every day. Now I rarely do. But watching it daily is a good habit to acquire. It can nourish your soul!



I'll try to write down my insights for every episode, just so I can remember them.

The above show was aired last Valentine's Day, and the topic was about - what else? - love. Bo talked about two kinds of love: eros and agape. Eros is romantic love while agape is a deeper kind of love, or what he referred to as "true love", because it is the one more lasting. Agape requires sacrifice.

My date last week was thousands of miles away - in Davao. So I was all alone, and she was alone. But it was okay, we were used to it hehehe. That's the surprising thing about our relationship: we've been geographically apart for almost two years now, and somehow we managed to cope. So we haven't spent Valentine's for two years now!

One thing I remembered with Bo's talk is that honesty is really essential in any relationship. He said he "quarrels" (small "one-minute" tensions/ conflicts) with his wife at least 5 times a day! He might just be exaggerating. I guess that's just normal, and healthy. Better to have 5 small "quarrels" a day than to have a huge one every week or every month, because then it will be like seeing a volcano explode, with all the repressed hurt, misunderstanding, wrong assumptions, and failed expectations that each spouse hides inside him or her. So it's better to have an open relationship, one wherein you can freely say to you partner, "Ouch, what you just said hurt me," or "I don't agree with you on that," etc. etc. Then you talk it over and settle your differences. We can be too polite with our partners sometimes, afraid that we might hurt him or her. Tension and conflict can be healthy if handled properly.

Love

"If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing.

"Love is patient, is kind: love envieth not, dealeth not perversely, is not puffed up, Is not ambitious, seeketh not her own, is not provoked to anger, thinketh no evil: Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth with the truth: Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things."

1 Cor. 13: 1-7

Happy hearts day!

Badian

I will really miss our duty in Badian; it was our group's last district assignment, so no more out of town trips and week-long stays in creepy dormitories together. Sigh.

What I will miss most is the freezing shower in the dead of night. We wake up at around 11 every night. The hospital was just 2 minutes' walk away from the dorm, so we had plenty of time. Going to the bathroom takes so much effort. I always felt a hint of panic, because I always did not get enough sleep during the day. But when the icy water hits my skin, though, all anxiety fades away, and I hum to the tune of the RnB music our C.I. always plays in the background. She played it so often that we were all able to memorize the songs by heart, and their sequence.

It wasn't very much busy in the ward because most of the patients are asleep during that time. All we did was monitor the vital signs every four to two hours, prepare the medications and write the SOAPIEs. After that we go to the library and get some midnight (not exactly) snack. Then we carefully prepare the chairs and benches where we are to nap. Hehehe...

Those of us who didn't want to sleep entertained ourselves with reading patients' charts (as if that's entertaining), reading a book, or watching movies on an iPod. I saw portions of Snakes on a Plane. Ate R had a Freudian slip when I asked her what the movie's title was: "Sex on a Plane".

On our last day an old man was brought to the ER because of gunshot wound. He was already dead. They said it was politically-motivated. The shooting occured in Moalboal, over an hour's drive from Badian, at around 11 in the evening. It was already 4 AM when he arrived.

The play

The play was, um, okay. I don't know, but I didn't enjoy it as much as I've expected. It's probably just me. I have a few things sort of bothering me lately, so maybe I was not in the right mindset when I watched the play.

I was more moved by the book.

But Bart Guingona and the guy who played Morrie were really good... Maybe it was the dialogue that at times were not very clear, or which were garbled a bit.

The theater was filled to capacity. Majority of the audience were students from Sacred Heart School.

In half an hour I will be preparing for my trip to Badian. We will have our second week of clinical duty there. I haven't slept. I spent the rest of the night editing the final copy of our thesis.

Badian is a very nice, quiet little town. There's a very old church beside the district hospital. I'm not sure when it was constructed; probably sometime in the 19th century.

We're staying in a dorm just within the hospital compound. It's really creepy. The hospital itself was built in 1911, if I'm not mistaken. In fact, it's rumoured to be haunted. But no ghosts appeared last week, though. This week, well, I'm not terribly excited of seeing one.

They say that the room below our dorm is actually a morgue. Horror of horrors, I know.

Tuesdays With Morrie theatrical adaptation

You probably already know about this. Premiere theatre group Repertory Philippines will be staging an adaptation of the bestseller Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom. That's tonight at SM Cinema 2.

I got my tickets yesterday. I'm going with my cousin and my ermats. I'm very excited!

For my friends, by way of an explaination

I'm so sorry I wasn't able to reach out to you
for so many days now, weeks even.
I have counted -
three, four, or five weeks maybe.

I have remained silent in my seat.

But how my heart longed to reach out to you,
reach out to you guys.

You are all my friends
but now I have alienated you all.

You cannot understand my behavior.
I've been very, very quiet
each and every day,
morning and afternoon.

You suspect that I have something against you?

But no, there's absolutely nothing wrong with any of you,
and neither of you has done me anything wrong.

It's just me!
I can't understand myself.
I can't understand why I've been acting the way I've been acting.
It's very difficult to explain, even to myself.

I know, you would think, that at my age, I'd be mature enough
not to behave the way i've been behaving lately.
But this is really happening to me.

Let me tell you something about myself that I've never told anyone.
It will be a sort of confession:

I have deep-seated insecurities inside me;
buried very deep inside me.

Many, many years ago, something happened to me that was very painful.
I failed at something.
And each day for two years I lived with that failure.
I slept with it, ate with it, took a shower with it, and breathed with it.


I was able to overcome it, eventually, of course.
The years have a way of making you forget
even the most painful and dark of experiences.

However the seed of failure and rejection have always stayed inside me.
I learned to live with it; even learned to value myself a little bit,
learned to love myself a little more, learned to laugh and live.

Yet the seed have always been there.
And every now and then it rears its ugly head;
it sprouts and blooms and bears bitter fruit.

I've learned, since that painful and traumatic period in my life many, many years ago,
to become a warmer person; I've learned to become more friendly,
learned to trust others and make friends,
learned to smile and give others a glimpse of my soul
-- I've learned all of these wonderful lessons because of you!
Of people like you! Each and every one of you!
who showed me warmness and kindness and shared with me your smiles,
who trusted me and did not hesitate to give me a glimpse of your own souls
-- I've learned all these, and many more.

With your love and kindness and trust, you healed me.

You healed me.

But I still carry the seed
inside me.

No matter how deep I bury it
it is still there
and sometimes it forces its way up towards the surface of my personality,
and when that happens, I lose my energies;
I become apathetic and aloof,
and I seem to draw away from people.
I draw deeper and deeper into my own self,
into my own hollow self.

But this will pass, of course.
It always does.

I guess what this long ramble is leading to is just this:
I simply want to say thank you
for being my friends,
for touching me with your warmness and made me
shine a bit brighter as a person.

Thank you!

Book for February: Love in the Time of Cholera

Love is in the air! Can you smell it?

Our book for the month of February, the month of love, joy and broken hearts, is Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Want to join our book discussion next month? Read the book and drop me a line for further info.

Some books

I went to Booksale in SM today. Bought two books: Possession by A. S. Byatt and Atonement by Ian McEwan. I was delighted when I saw a copy of the latter.

I also spotted a copy of People of the Lie by M. Scott Peck. I placed it back in the shelf and continued to browse for more books, thinking I'll just pick it up later. Big mistake. Another guy got it while I was away. Of the tons of books in the store, he had to take my book. Yes, it was mine! It became mine the moment I laid eyes on it!

I stalked him for a while and hoped he'd change his mind, that he'd put it down. He never did.

First Book Fellas book discussion, a success

Our first ever book club discussion last Saturday was a success! I'm so glad it went well. There were nine of us in attendance, four of whom I met for the first time that night.

We talked about a lot of things. The protagonist of the story, the setting, the plot, the author's purpose for writing the novel, the ending, and everything in between. It really was a stimulating discussion.

Only one thing got my goat, though, and it's the level of noise from the restaurant's other customers. The place was very quiet earlier in the evening. It was later when the place started to buzz with people.

But Turtle's Nest is really a lovely place. It was my first time in the place. The books in the shelves made a perfect backdrop for our discussion.

I'm happy we're done with our first book. We don't have a second book yet. We're thinking that since it's February we'll read something.... um, "romantic".

Book discussion: I Am Legend

We will be having our first book discussion tonight. The venue is at Turtle's Nest in Lahug. There will be dinner before the discussion. Time: 6:30.

Those who wish to join must have read the book. :-)

Going outta my head

I still haven't finished Argumentation, The Teaching Company lecture I have with me. It's become incredibly boring... It's so irritating. The course is just way over my head... It sucks to know how incapable my mind is at grasping argumentation. I just find it so difficult to understand. The first few lectures I understood enough. They were just about the basic structure of arguments. But the rest of the lectures just became... uh, *gag*...

The material is not working for me. I'll try reading a debating book na lang.