Speeding Cars

I plan to finish all my things to do list in 24hours straight. It's actually quite impossible but I'll make use of all the time I have. It's been really hard for me to prioritize my duties and responsibilities as a student. It's even harder now because every step I take will not only affect me but everyone else in the group. It has been extremely exhausting the past few days and I know that the next few weeks (or months?) will be tougher. Ill drink more coffee than usual, eat more or eat nothing at all, sleep in class, not be able to study for quizzes, sacrifice movie dates for communication letters etc. For some, they say that I'm stupid for taking on big responsibilities when I can just sulk and be a bum. It is true. I, myself, find "me" crazy... but working for others or for a bigger purpose is something that makes me happy. I am truly blessed to be able to see how the very small things in life can be important parts of the bigger picture. I know that everything I am doing now contributes to the making of my vision  and accomplishment of my missions and goals (haha, parang student handbook lang ba?).

It's always heart fulfilling to know that I'm working for a purpose and not merely doing things because im required to. There's no guarantee that things will be easier or fun but the process will surely make me a better person and that, for me, is important. 


I'd really love to tell more about the first week of senior life but there's still way too much unfinished papers to work on.

100%

Related Learning Experience - Skills Lab.

This is the very first time we're doing a 100% grade for our return demonstration of various nursing procedures. Last semester, they were okay with an 85% so during our first day orientation we were just in total shock to have known that if we do not get a perfect score we automatically take the remediation. We were all against it and even complained but what can we do? It was the new imposed rule. Something we can do nothing about. We were all pressured and there was even a point that i cried in school 3 times. Fortunately, I didn't have to take any remediations. Although, I really feel so much for my friends who had one mistake for the most mababaw reason because...memorizing checklists is never easy. It never is. I think that the clinical instructors should've been a little bit lenient during Ret. Dems.

Anyway, after all we've been through for 5 days of Skills lab. I have finally understood the essence of pushing the students to aim higher. It really is for our own benefit and nothing will really happen if we always complain and whine with all the changes that's been happening. We thought it was impossible to get a 100% but we did. And it's just amazing because a friend of mine who never studied so much for a Ret. Dem. started kicking his butt off and even got a 100%.

With all honesty, that was the first time again that I felt so good to have achieved something. I mean, it's not even something so  big or great but when you know that you did all you could and put all effort into something you really want - and you get it at the end of the day, even if you're dead tired and you feel like all your neurons have died - you feel so much happier and fulfilled.

“People who soar are those who refuse to sit back, sigh and wish things would change. They neither complain of their lot nor passively dream of some distant ship coming in. Rather, they visualize in their minds that they are not quitters; they will not allow life's circumstances to push them down and hold them under.” - anonymous

Not so ready for school

Hello, checklists and paraphernalia :) BRIIIIIING IT ON!
Fudge, ive gots no ruler for tomorrow hahaha!

Hanging On

I will officially start my 3rd year, second semester tomorrow and with all honesty I'm not quite ready or prepared yet. It feels like the 3 weeks off I had from school wasn't enough to make up from all those sleepless nights and tiring duty days I had last semester. I am not fully recharged yet. I don't think my mind is even capable of memorizing checklists and listening to hours and hours and HOURS of lecture. Anyway, it's not like I have a choice...It's not like I can stop time or rewind life back to October 24th.

Okay, skip the negativity part.

Every new beginning, every fresh start of the academic year/semester, I always take into mind that I have to be better. I have to push myself harder to gain more knowledge regarding nursing so I can improve my skills and become not only a good and skillful nurse but also one who is compassionate, patient and caring enough not to let her laziness get in the way of her capability to help those in need. Because believe me, in nursing, endless monitoring of vital signs, admissions, bed bath, drug administration, utos-dun-utos-dito can make you feel like life is routine based and that idea of "being a hero to people's life" in the back of your head can just fall off with one snap. It's never easy to maintain these type of motivations ("nursing is a one-way ticket to heaven", "nursing is a rewarding personal endeavor", "nursing touches people's life in significant ways", "nursing is like being an angel on Earth beside a patient who has lost all hopes in living") behind my aching feet when I'm  busy caring for my patients. It's not everyday I get hopeful. It's not everyday (no matter how many times I impose to myself, to my brain, to my heart) that i get very eager to help people. I admit - I try everyday to be the good and loving person that I really am but there are just days when loads of work pile up and you forget to be
human
humane.

I never really become the person I always expect myself to be. Everytime na lang i list down the things im supposed to do - nothing happens. The moment I step in class, everything's gone in an instant. I can't be that student who can sit still and listen attentively to a four hour NCM lecture. I can't be that student who takes minor subjects as if they were majors. I slack off, i procrastinate, I cram, I find things useless, I find lectures boring, I sleep in class, i don't study BIG TIME for short quizzes (well, not ALL the time), I play fruit ninja while my classmates are reporting --- yeah, that's basically how my life as a nursing student is. And no, I didn't just list those down to show you that i'm proud because im one of those I-DONT-STUDY-YET-I-GET-HIGHER-GRADES-THAN-THOSE-PEOPLE-WHO-STUDIED-AND-WASTED-THEIR-TIME-LISTENING-TO-LECTURE-WHILE-I-WAS-SLEEPING-AT-THE-BACK-OF-THE-CLASS type of student. I listed all my faults as a student because I am ashamed of what i've become.

I've been constantly asking myself, what if I continued to be the student that i was back in first year college? Will I be as happy as I am now? or will I be as contented as I was before?

Without the intention to brag and i do hope that you don't get the information in such a way - out of the 5 semesters in college, I've been on the dean's list 3 times. It's a wonderful thing, y'know, to have all your hard work paid off at the end of the day. But everytime I look at my report card, I ask myself "Am I proud? Am I genuinely happy?" For some reason, deep inside - I never was. And that continually bothers me. Okay, maybe at one point I was and that would be during my first semester in college because I know (and my college friends know) that I kicked my butt off and worked tirelessly and poured all my strengths in studying. And at that moment when I saw my name on the list even though i was like...at the bottom part of the list -  HELL, I WAS A DAMN PROUD NURSING STUDENT. :)

And i want that feeling back. I want to be sincerely, profoundly and genuinely, genuinely genuinely HAPPY for all things i've done - without regrets and "what ifs".  I want to be eternally thankful for all those moments i decided to study instead of trashtalking people behind their backs. I don't want to be congratulated for something I didn't sincerely devout myself in. I'd rather get low grades for things I know I worked hard for than get empty achievements in life and praises I know for myself I never deserved from the beginning. Because, it's okay to fail. It really is. And this has been said a million times but you just gotta stand again and prove to them there's more to you than failure...that you're a better human being than they are. That you're so much more worth it. 

I really don't know how I'm going to regain back my old studious self ... I don't know how i'm going to relive my old values which I clearly promised to live by forever ( not forever, unfortunately).

Well, anyway. I was trying to remember what motivated me to study so hard before. For the past 2 semesters I've always put into mind that everything I do will not be for me, but for others. However... that didn't seem to motivate me as much. Maybe due to the lack of clarity. For "others" - but who?

A bond paper is posted on my wall that says "When you work, you always use the happiness of the people you love as your motivation - never for the awards or people's praises"

So to the people I love - my sister, my brother but most importantly to the two people i owe my whole existence to, my parents - This semester, Every hard work and every inch of success will be dedicated to you. My motivation for this semester will be centered on you. So that everytime I slack off - i will think of all the sacrifices you guys have done for me, for all those days you have worked tirelessly in order to send me to school. As of now, I have no capability of producing enough money to make you travel the world or to repay you with all the great things you've blessed and shared with me. So this is all I have to offer - sense of responsibility, passion and hard work.

Time is ticking much faster than we've all expected and I believe that aside from my studies and grades, there's also another thing I want to promise - Visibility. I want to be "visible" to my parents. To have my physical presence with them whenever they're home or when we're together. I need to stop spending too much time in my room and living in social networks. I need to spare time for my parents. I need to love them more. I need to show them genuine love through the little efforts I make. After all, life is not about the big things, it's about the little small things that mean the world to you.

*sorry for the long post! :)