Tomorrow is the big move! Okay, I know this is crazy and any form of explanation is just futile.

Not that I will officially be a Jaro resident, since my mailing address is still (and will probably always be) in Lapaz. Plus, I don’t know how this is going to go down since most of my things are still here with me. I think we’re supposed to lug them around to Metropolis tomorrow or something.

The point is, 

(Okay, I can’t even continue my blog post because I’m chatting with someone and this is just unbelievable. He’s doing it again. Unbelievable.)

ANYWAY. The point is! Aside from the fact that I’ll be living like a hermit starting tomorrow, I’ll also be staying in my new room fulltime. And, I want to buy more furnishings and make it look more and more and more like the team dream room that it already is. Okay, I have to shut up now because I really don’t know what I am talking about. What I really mean is that I’m just thankful I have a new room with enough space where I can study 24/7.

I also have only the slightest idea on what I should do to prepare myself for the next few months to come. All I know is that I’ve painted my toenails baby green and that I have homemade French manicure, and that I’m currently downloading an epic playlist that could last me 3 months (hopefully) and that I’m reading both fiction and nonfiction (the fiction part has to stop by the 16th of April), and that my iPod is now so prepped I have deleted some of my game apps (with only Temple Run, Hello Kitty, and the occasional bunjing game for sustenance), and that I am attempting to be physically ready for all of this by eating healthy and trying to exercise (see: Workouts app.) and that I am (proudly) one month sober! For caffeine, that is.

And yes, I sleep like 9 hours straight nowadays compared to the regular 6 hours during the past 4 years. But hey, I’m keeping up for lost time. Although, sadly, my regular sleeping habits will probably be back by next week.

I hope I am holistically ready for all this. #DearGod

P.S.

I’m excited for this. As they don’t often say, it’s the journey that counts but make destination count, as well.

I don’t know how most people spend four years. But, I know how I spent mine.

There is no word, phrase, sentence, paragraph, three-page movie analysis, haphazardly-written nursing process in substance 16 paper or bound thesis that could explain the past four years of my life. While we have, some months before, established that nursing, in actuality, chose me, I would like to say that I have chosen it, as well, not just because of what transpired two days ago but because I felt like I have lived it. There is nothing more solid than living, and there is nothing more for commitment than for one to stay.

In moments of despair or in times of being buried under Brunner and Suddarth or Chulay or Pilliteri, I used to think nursing is not my calling. But, how can I think that? I am here and I will not be here, in soul and in practice, if I had not answered. The truth is, I am beckoned by a few things in my life and one of them is nursing. And the truth is, if nursing calls, I answer. I will answer again and again.

To call it a blur is an understatement but to call it fleeting is an insult. The four years have been both smooth as sea and rough as the dirtroads in Napnud. Some days, I bathe in glory and some days, I want to kill every single person I come across. There were nights I slept with the heavy burden of workload tagging along my dreams, and there were nights I haven’t slept at all. There were zombie days where I would go on duty for eight hours, go home, sleep, dream that I am on duty—- for another eight hours, wake up, and go on duty again—yes, for another eight hours.

I liked those days where I feel the hope I have longed for, when I witness life and life being lived. I resent the days when I feel like the life as I know it is crumbling, the days when I feel like I am in the brink of giving up, and the days when I come to a point where I just refuse to care. But the days I hate the most are the days that I see suffering. Those days, I cannot stand.

There were times when I had to cut my lunch/dinner short because we had a baby to deliver. There were times I cried so hard not because I was about to give up but because in a world where you have to hold on so hard, all you can do is cry. There were times I thought I fell in love, and there was a time, just one time, when I really did. There were times I fell out of love— with a person, with nursing, with hope, with the world. And then there were the times when I would just be a comeback kid and these times, I will never forget.

Nursing and the four years that came with it changed me. It took me to places I never thought I could go, physically and holistically. It enriched my medical vocabulary. It gave me a sense of autonomy and a flicker of confidence. It made me get over my “people allergy.” It gave me allergies. It induced my acute hyperventilation syndrome. It made me want to fight this urge to just stop everything and go home. It gave me new friends and made me reconnect with the old. Without these friendships, I could never have finished one scrub at a time, one NP at a time, and one post test at a time. Without these friendships, the diploma at the end, would mean nothing.

A long list of things I will miss awaits. I will miss the cranky ladies in the canteen and in the stalls. I will miss the long jeepney rides of CHN. I will miss seeing my crushes in the hospital. I will miss twisting my wet hair into a bun (Okay, no. I will probably NOT miss that when all it did was give me headaches for the entire day.) I will miss the quek quek in the university hospital. I will miss meeting new people, hearing new stories, and asking the universal meaning behind the line, “Aanhin mo ang damo kung patay na ang kabayo.”

I will miss suppressing my laughs whenever patients do something outrageous. I will miss doodling in classes I know I should have not been doodling in. I will miss the unbelievably heavy clinical bag. I will miss locker wars and the locker-drama-free senior year. I will miss staying up late, putting myself at risk for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and finishing an award-winning nursing process. I will miss the after-duty TV Show therapy. I will miss those days in the OR and the hours of Grey’s Anatomy after. I will miss the OR. I will miss being terrorized by clinical instructors. I’m kidding. I will not miss that.

I will miss case presentations, return demonstrations, and early morning swimming for freshman year second semester PE. I will miss sakuting. I will miss my Majors: Land Taxation (where I skipped most of the time,) Philippine Constitution (where I hated the teacher,) Sociology (where I liked the teacher,) Logic (let’s not even talk about it,) and English Grammar (where I got test scores higher than those taking up A.B. English.) I will miss Anatomy and Physiology and the most awesome girl group ever invented. I will NOT miss Microbiology but I will miss studying for it and memorizing causative agents like “Neisseria gonorrhea” over and over again. I will miss the fact that I think I never remembered anything I was taught in Organic Chemistry.

I will miss Nursing-infiltrated posts such as this one. I will miss my uniforms. I will miss Lopez Jaena Hall. I will miss you. Most of all, I will miss the smallest role one could ever assume in the art and science of saving lives.

There were pitchblack moments when I would wonder if my decision, four years ago, was a mistake. Well then, this could just be the best mistake I ever made. I have learned so many things but what I will always remember from hereon forward is that I am ready.

I am ready for the rest of my life to begin. I am ready to move forward and to take what life has to offer. I am ready to throw my dreams into the air and run after them to see where they take me. I am ready to accept both hope and darkness, both glory and sacrifice. I am ready and I am ready with God by my side.

That I am here right now and that these four years have abled me to face what lies ahead, I believe that these four years will be lived again and again.

Status: Sometimes I’m the friendly, sometimes I’m the sociopath.

I like talking to people and I hate people at the same time. Your mixed signals make me dizzy. It’s a good thing we don’t have to study that much (yet) this (last) semester or my immune system would have given up. I’m looking forward to studying hard (very very very hard) the next few months. Why am I using too much parentheses? I don’t get why some plural forms are like this. I have spent my money on books (WISHLIST GRANTED! See: The fault in our stars by john green AND his other book Let it snow with three other great authors maureen johnson of 13 little blue envelopes and lauren myracle of ttyl.) My mom forced me to buy a prom dress and now, I am a proud owner of a prom dress who is (still) unsure if she’s going to prom. I have to sleep. The universe knows I need it. I HATE ANXIETY/PANIC ATTACKS. School Nursing in Fort San Pedro High School has triggered excessive high school reminscents with April. Sometimes, it’s still so hard to believe that the four years (of college) is nearly over. I feel so scared and so excited at the same time. This is it. The next steps I will take will be amazing.

Status: What status? I have to sleep.

Extra-academic stress and the spawn of Susie

I’m just gonna rant for a while then I’m gonna shut up because I need to watch my weekly fix of The Vampire Diaries (streaming done!) and read my favorite magazine of all time, Nylon. I’m getting off track so here it is:

We are doing our best for this seminar. This seminar is a culmination of whatever grit we have acquired in our four years. This seminar is important to us and believe me, we have spongesqueezed our minds to come up with epic ideas for this seminar. We are willing to sacrifice our time, effort, sleep, and daily sanity for this. AND YOU BE SUCH FREAKING BETCH. I hate that. I hate that you have to be so mean all the time and be so imposing and I hate the fact that you always do powerplay. We are just small people (HAHAHA NO PUN INTENDED) and we need your support. AND WHAT ARE YOU DOING YOU CRAZY FREAKING PSYCHOOOO?!

Okay, I’m done. Goodbye.
I’m still really gonna love this seminar, though.
And I am still so so so excited. 

Let’s do this in chronological order.

If not for the Pap Smear, the live visual of the inner workings of the female reproductive tract, and the emotional and social burden the social hygiene clinic has brought to my otherwise carefree, unexposed 20-year-old brain, I don’t believe I went on duty this week at all.

I’m not here to talk about my experience during our few hours of exposure there but I am here to have a mini post conference with myself about how I felt being there. (Since, we didn’t have a post-con. We did, though, have a self-awareness regarding sexuality, but that’s not the point.)

First off, I just want to say that I don’t understand why this world is so cruel. I don’t understand why these marginalized women have to have no choice than be commercial sex workers. I don’t understand why the city allows this kind of operation to exist. I don’t understand why the government can’t provide opportunities for women. And what I can’t understand the most is why these men, physiological need aside, are so disrespectful of women that they use them this way.

What happened to women’s rights? Do we instruct women to choose what is right or do we stand by them with their choices, be it right or wrong? For most of them, these women believe that they have no choice but to work there. I respect their choices but I also have my own beliefs. I believe that we always have a choice in doing what is right.

It’s not like this is a new problem. This has been going on practically ever since the world began ranging from concubines to mistresses, from whores to hookers. In the advocacy of women’s rights, since eradication is IMPOSSIBLE (try a thousand years) the only thing one can do is to protect them from further abuse and illness such as sexually-transmitted illnesses.

For people who have strong (or even just moderate) moral beliefs, this is hard to do. I guess the only way is to refrain from passing judgment. After all, we are all just people. And, people are people.

Sometimes, I get so appalled by my own stupidity.

I should say up front that I am never an artist. I’m just a pseudo-typographist with bibliophilic dreams.

Still an hour away from an episode of Gossip Girl, I decided to (finally) place a marker in my planner since I am always scrambling to find which week it is. It was all going so well in our dinner table (since the light is brightest there and the table is the biggest in the house) until the superglue eventually backfired.

For some effed up reason, the superglue went through the ribbon and I had to air dry it. While dabbing in some more superglue to the planner and the ribbon, large amounts of it started oozing out of its blue Made-in-China-esque container. I started panicking and spreading the unnecessary superglue into the receipt lying on the table.

After a sigh of relief and a you’re-so-pathetic look from my brother, I waited, once again, for it to air dry. I started to fix the table when I realized I superglued the receipt to our dinner table (glass, antique, and special in all other ways in which my parents will eventually give me hell in the event of its ruination.)

This awful discovery is more mortifying than the tremors I feel every now and then due to the aftershocks.

With some art first aid, I rushed to the kitchen (a few steps, but whatever) and spilled vinegar all over the table. I started scratching out all the dried-out-sticking-into-glass-this-is-the-end paper of whatever is left of the receipt.

I eventually cleaned out the table but now, my hands smell like vinegar.

There is no actual intellectual advantage to the story (except for the fact that vinegar “heals” superglue fiascos) nor is this relevant to the more important universal decrees which we must all know.

What I learned is that, sometimes, we make our own problems.

The moral of the story, however, is that we should never do art projects in the middle of the night while waiting for Gossip Girl to finish downloading.

The art project, on the grander scheme of all things, is an enormous success. As I said before, I am never an artist. I just like to pretend that I am. After all, we are who we pretend to be,

Days are approaching like rabid pitbulls and this time, I can’t even run. So here are the things I will have to do in order to face them, limb for limb.

Note: Not in any particular order.

(1) Survive this week’s social hygiene clinic duty with less trauma than expected

(2) Desperate-move-February-pinky-swear (with Aien)

(3) Seminar: contact violinist for solo or string quartet (seriously, so expensive, too bad you had love affair/s with my best friend/s)

(4) Seminar: make orientation script

(5) Seminar: do the actual design and printing work

(6) Seminar: help facilitate the videos and program

(7) Save money so I can buy a signed copy of John Green’s new novel: The Fault In Our Stars (irrelevant with my whole college senior situation, but what the heck i need this betch)

(8) Go to prom (I KNOW RIGHT UGH Don’t even ask, I have no answer for your question)

(9) Buy toothbrush, handsoap with moisturizer, and intermediate pad

(10) Study more (actually, review is the right word)

(11) Feed the dog

(12) Duty for less than four weeks, scrubs, compre exams and other graduating class shiz

(13) Finish downloading Hart of Dixie and Gossip Girl

(14) TEMPLE RUN. Nuff said.

(15) Seminar: the search for (America’s next top) speaker

(16) Stop being so paranoid of the aftershocks.

(17) BREATHE.

I can go on and on and on and my goals (both long-term and short) will also go on and on, one crashed list to the other. I won’t always blog this way, since I have a planner. I’m just, you know, saying.

#7 is the best and #17 is really important.

Anyhoo, my life.

(18) Don’t forget smock gown for tomorrow.

LATER, LITIGATORS,

Today is definitely one of those days where I feel so privileged to be exposed to a job like this, at an age like this.

Sometimes, I can only get so weary, at twenty, that I have seen an abominable amount of misery come into the center of the Earth, of my earth. I have to admit that where I am now has made me so jaded and… anxious about several things that we cannot change. :)

Meanwhile, on a higher scope, as much as I have seen the world end numerous times, I have also seen new lives made, may it be in a one-day-old child or magnificent rebirths that most of us have longed to experience when dipping into the sour disposition of life-as-we-know-it.

Above all of the things I have learned in the past accumulative four (freaking) years, I have learned that whether I pursue the same field or chase my wildest dreams, eitherway… I will be okay. I have learned, through both God’s will and the universe in the face of hope and despair, that I will be able to achieve anything I put my mind into.

There’s still two months left in college and several more for nursing and PNLE, but I think I have received its greatest lesson already.

One of these days, I will look back to this day like I have looked back, over and over again, to that day I have decided on nursing. Like the best Pokemon we have hidden in the Pokeballs in our pockets, I conclude that I did not choose this at all. It chose me.

I’m not even beyond questioning the fact that all I seem to ever do in my online blog is post filtered photos from my instagram— small and bits of pieces from my life right now.

I like to think that this measly effort on something that before was actually a top priority of mine is just a pitiful indication that I actually have a life already— a life too busy to blog about.

Or maybe it’s just because I’m so scared that I spend my time quivering instead of my usual blog-ranting. Or maybe, I’m just waiting. For what? I don’t know. But, I am waiting.

Then I think, I am never the one to wait. I hate waiting. I was never born with the magnificent gift of patience in waiting.

OR MAYBE. Maybe, I’m just not accustomed to qwerty touch screen just as inept as I was before at qwerty buttons.

Oh, wait. A LIST!

THINGS I WOULD LIKE TO TALK ABOUT (IF ONLY I BLOGGED MORE VIGILANTLY)

(1) I like to rant on how stressed I am but the lack of sleep and the sad complaining state of my digestive system are topics that have gone and returned from hell. A dry discussion of those would only lead to further distress and panic.

(2) I don’t like to talk about this but ten years from now, I would wonder how I feel and I don’t want to guess. I would want to know. I’m okay with living in two houses at the same time. Some people would be confused and stressed out and be boggled by the physics of it all. Although it IS confusing and stressful AND mind-boggling, I feel okay with it. It is not a healthy living condition (with half your clothes in one house and half in the other, with having two toothbrushes and with getting all panicky because electronic chargers are left in the other house and i am on the other other house) but how can one even complain at that? The truth is, I feel so blessed. I am aware of world hunger and people having no clothes and shelter and with that, one can only thank God for all the blessings.

(3) On the brighter side of things, my room looks more like a room now rather than the initial impression of being a library. I bought a framed fabric photo and a framed glass photo of New York and placed it in my wall (my plan since well… forever.) I also placed trinkets in each of the shelves.

(4) Regarding #2, I’ll probably live in Metropolis full time after graduation.

(5) Sometimes, I wonder. But wondering gets me so tired. So I just stop wondering and just do things.

(6) After PNLE, all the time in the world will be mine and all the old movies from old Hollywood will be mine. Loljk. I’ll probably go and find a temporary job.

(7) Maybe, it’s time for me to crash out some things in my to-do list.

(8) By the way, university week was really fun and I barely stepped into school. I went out with friends and ate good food. I did some shopping. I bought about five books! And, I went out of town with my family. Plus, I accomplished school work. Sigh. Moreplease.

(9) Goodbye, designer’s block!

(10) For some unknown reason, I am motivated to go to prom this year. My mother won’t let me have a dress made nor does she want me to borrow from dress shops. She wants me to buy a new and expensive off-the-rack prom dress. I DON’T WANT SOMETHING EXPENSIVE. I JUST WANT TO WEAR MY OWN DESIGN THAT I’LL HAVE FOR HALF THE MONEY I WOULD HAVE SPENT FOR A NEW DRESS IN A FANCY BRAND. If not for the fact that it’s my 2012 resolution to exert myself more to the world, I wouldn’t even bother anymore. ASDFGJKL.

(11) Just keep on swimming.

This.

And you have missed the past three weeks of my life— the majority of which I have spent in Napnud, Leganes sharpening my Community Health Nursing skills.

Along the way, I have had endless karaoke wars with the hobbits (sans the terrorist Jason) and have (surprisingly) catched up on my shows. On November 19, I got my Starbucks journal after a mere 16 days (thank you to my friends who helped me.) The whole of November, I prayed the most. I tanned a little due to the golden blast of heat whenever I stepped outside the Multi-Purpose Hall.

The past three weeks, I met so many people and I balanced it out by sleeping early. My natural suffocation reaction whenever I interact excessively with human beings have dwindled a bit. Hopefully, it has to do with the fact that I am in nursing. What kind nurse hates people?

I have also (somewhat) figured out what I want to with my life (until I change my mind for the nth time.) And, I have made an unspoken agreement with myself to live in the present and to be more flexible with life. To understand that it is important to make plans and give it all to God is the only key for my peace of mind.

My (even) busier schedule (yes, even busier than the past three weeks where I have relied on reblogging on this site) started last Saturday where I will lead our NCA presentation (this week.) For our first week of duty in the medical ward (the busiest ward…ever) I will be a bedside nurse. Next week (just a few hours after the NCA presentation,) I will be our team leader, still on the medical ward. Plus, we will have to finish our case presentation preparation for this rotation since it will be on the day after New Year’s.

WOW.

It’s a big headache. All before Christmas, too.

Oh well. Sometimes, we must work our ass off to achieve our goal.

P.S.

I never expected to enjoy CHN. =)

P.P.S.

Dear God, please help me on my last semester.
Gamefaceon 

Nope. Not those rainbows and butterflies.

I’m sick. I need antihistamine to be able to sleep for the past several days.
That’s okay. I’m liking CHN so far. Good thing, Kai is still (and the story behind this, gosh) my partner. You can never have a better CHN partner than her. Plus factor: she doesn’t like it, too!

I like that I see my crush(es) twice a day. Once before we board the jeep and once after we arrive from Leganes. What more can I ask?

Well, that.

One the brighter side of things (Part II) 24 hours down! Maybe that’s why I feel so exhausted. After three days of duty that we normally do, we insert another 16 hours. By Saturday, we’ll know. I need to have energy (still) to be able to do videoke.

HAHAHA

Okay. I want to sleep early.
(Whoa, shocker) 

or

The Story of How I Became a Tree-Hugger

:))