"where the mind goes, the body will follow." -- pharmaton

I've been going to badminton training for twice a week now. I go with my school friends and we even wake up early in the morning to be on time-- 9AM and sometimes 8.30AM. It's really fun although it's hard because our coach is pretty anal about drills. He gets annoyed by our giggling and chismisan but it's all good because we're learning and he's a pretty cool guy too. He wouldn't be a trainer if he was lenient anyway.

We train for two hours per day and we sweat like crazy because we're only given a few minutes water break. I hope we learn from this because we only played badminton for fun before. We thought we were already good enough but apparently, we were wrong.

I'm usually tired when I get home and doze off after lunch but I feel good being physicially active this way. I also still go to the gym whenever I can with Alej that's why I'm pretty confident about my health these days. I also noticed that I can drink more without palpitating ever since I started going to the gym. YEHOOOZ. But I still can't take drinking too much because I don't really like the taste except when I'm well-rested and I'm in the mood to push my body to the limit.

I just have to make mental notes inside my head because there are still things to do for my next duty and an exam too after that. *gulp*

But life is good! It's true when they say that working out makes you less stressful and more happy because of the amount of endorphins working out gives the body.

Time to rest!

first week down, many more to go

First week of clinicals down, many more to go!

I go for clinical duty on Thursdays and Fridays. This was my first week. Routine goes like this-- I wake up at 3:30AM, eat breakfast, shower, get ready, and then grab my things and leave the house. And congratulate me! I am no longer chickened out by Manila driving because I drive myself to the hospital before 5AM and then back at past 2PM. Parking isn't that bad at the hospital where I go for duty too.

My group's rotation is at the Female Surgical Ward. On our first day it was orientation, lecture, then orientation again. We practiced our basic nursing skills-- vital signs! And then our Clinical Instructor taught us how to chart our patient's vital signs. We were also given one patient each to take care of. My first patient was a sixty nine year old female with 4th Stage Breast Cancer. She was post-op for Modified Radical Mastectomy when I first met her but she already underwent surgery when I went back today. It was difficult to interview her for History of Present Illness because Nanay is deaf. She cannot totally hear that's why I interviewed her daughter instead. When I came back on friday, Nanay wasn't on her bed anymore because she was in the operating room already. I got assigned to a post-op appendectomy patient and gave her morning care, regulated her I.V., and took her vital signs. It all sounds easy but it isn't because we also have charting to care of and computations and.....THE LIST GOES ON.

I enjoyed my first two days of clinical duty although it's very tiring aside from the fact that I have to wake up at 3.30AM in the morning to get to the hospital by 5am so that we'll have time to read our patients' charts before 6AM endorsement.

I can't wait for next week!

i'm right where i belong

There is a certain kind of tiredness that I like-- the one that I'm feeling right now. I feel like I can just curl under my blanket and hibernate until tomorrow morning but I'm still fighting the urge because it's still too early. I might wake up in the wee ours of the morning and then stay awake until morning. I can't be late tomorrow...it's day 2 of our orientation before clinicals start next week!

I got my duty assignment already, it's at a Female Surgical Ward in a hospital in Quezon City. I'm pretty psyched but scared out of my wits because it's my first hospital exposure. But I can't help but feel really happy too because finally I've found something that I really see myself doing for the rest of my life and I just can't believe that after all these years I still fulfilled my dream of wanting to work in a hospital. I know it's no walk in the park and I'm going to have to slave away to work hard to take care of people but there's a certain peace in knowing that I'm right where I belong. We went to our first day of orientation and lecture today in full clinical uniform (all white). It felt awkward to wear white stockings and white shoes at first but I love it more than my black shoes for lecture days because the white shoes are hella comfortable to walk in!

I've also made good friends with my batchmates and we actually hang out a lot. There's a favorite past time in the group-- BADMINTON! And it's quite addictive especially when my friends from school play well. We're usually dog tired after two hours of playing but it makes me feel good to stay active including usual visits to the gym with Alej. I'm playing again tomorrow after a whole day of another orientation/lecture before the school sends us off to our first rotation, our very first exposure to the hospital scene. For my other batchmates, they're going to the community. I'm actually psyched that I got to be in a group that's going to be based in a hospital first because I love hospitals (lets see if the so-called "hardcore scenarios" will change that a couple of months from now). But I doubt that it will. I feel that I'm going to be in love with the profession more than I already am now!

My duty is from 6AM-2PM. I'll have to wake up in the wee hours of the morning that's why I have to practice parking in just one week because I won't have a choice but to take the car with me otherwise I take a cab at 5AM in the morning. NO THANK YOU. I have a week to do it and I'm actually determined that I will learn in one week. IT'S JUST PARKING, GAIL! Besides, the hospital is just near my place so lets hope that gas prices won't hurt my well-laid plan.

And I'm off! Someone's going to have a very good night's sleep tonight.

I was eating late lunch this afternoon until I heard on tv that people are already singing Christmas carols. CHRISTMAS CAROLS! Oh yeah, it's October! And we're in the Philippines where Christmas is the most important of all "Ber" holidays. Nevermind about Halloween, All Saints Day, and Thanksgiving (we don't celebrate that here anyway), Christmas is the most celebrated holiday over this side of the world.

I'm probably one of the biggest fans of Christmas. I love the happy Christmas spirit that's contagious like it's a disease (the good kind!)-- everyone's happy, everyone's sentimental, everyone's family oriented, everyone's pigging out, everyone's giving out gifts even if they're almost flat broke from splurging on them and the list goes on. There are occasional Scrooges who will ruin the Holiday spirit for being a party pooper.

I used to be frustrated because as I grew older I noticed how enthusiasm for Christmas has dwindled. Some think that Christmas is just a formality to acknowledge the birth of Jesus Christ or that they have to put on a nice face and pretend to enjoy the festivities. It's not for me, it's more than that. I am my happiest when Christmas draws near because the preparation, the Christmas decors, the chilly air, and midnight mass on Christmas eve itself...they all give me a different kind of feeling that warms me in the inside. But as I grew older I also realized how I had every reason to be sad-- my family and I are always separated from each other on Christmas holidays. It's sad when we're away from each other on a holiday when everyone's supposed to be together. But such is our life, we make the most out of it by talking to each other on the phone or at least having them with us in spirit as we enjoy our Noche Buena. And my family has expanded as well including friends, new family (from my sister's new husband), and from Alej's family too.

Last year my fellow orphan friends and I celebrated Christmas together until New Year. We were together for a week! "Orphans" because their parents/families are out of the country too so we stuck together like glue to make our Christmas less sad than it already was. They stayed a few days and Cara's place and then back to my place. We had fun!

These photos were from the day after Christmas when we had dinner at Hugo's.






My frustration for people's loss of enthusiasm and being away from my parents for Christmas made me sad until I heard this line from E.R. It goes something like this: "Don't look for the spirit of Christmas from anybody else, IT'S IN YOU." So I will spread the Holiday cheer as best as I can. And yes, BE ANNOYED.

And hopefully next Christmas, my family and I will be together again.

Happy Holidays!

bend a little

I believe in the power of compensation. Better to bend than to break, yes? So when people cannot compensate because they're too stubborn to bend to other people for the sake of compromising so that both sides win, I think it's just sad. It's sad to let pride get in the way, it's sad to be too proud to even try to see how it is at the other side of the fence. Close minded people will never get their points through the other party because they don't try to compromise, they just want their way ALL THE TIME. They don't even TRY.

Sadly, it's a pattern. This closemindedness and lack of the ability to compromise becomes a bad habit to break. It has a ripple effect. Again, PRIDE is the culprit. This type of people, in my opinion, will not be able to work well in a group or as a team because a stubborn leader is hard to follow when all he acknowledges is himself. All he listens to is himself. A true leader is one who picks up ideas from brainstrorming of the ENTIRE team. PRIDE is like rust that eats away the outside until the core gets eaten too. It's just too bad because "no man is and island". A pompous attitude might work in an island ala Castaway starring Tom Hanks but in the real world, we have to deal with people, we have to consider their thoughts, their opinions, their feelings too and not just our own. It's like the way of the universe.

Bend a little, try it, it's easier to manage.