Right now, I’m listening to loud music, the only thing I could hear out of these earphones inserted in my ears. Although I’m currently indulging with the beautiful melodies of my favorite artists, later on, there will be sudden shift of situation. Silence will overwhelm within me of course because I’ll be going to a place where sick people will be lying on bed, asleep. That specific destination is the hospital where I’ll be staying for the whole night til the sun rises. However, even if I’m in hospitals, I still have the chance to sing, hum, or think about selected songs. That habit keeps me awake though. Also, it’s amazing how I could manage to be in different situations, yet I’m still satisfied of how music dwells within me. I mean, whether there is noise or silence, I am still enjoying the power of music.

I usually pray the nurse's prayer whenever i'm in need of guidance to pursue my nursing career.When everything seems to be doubtful and problematic, all i think and ask for is to be guided, for there will always be moments in a student's life when she wanted to quit and resort to other alternatives. With all the other personal prayers i offer, the nurse's prayer becomes a habit of mine to recite and keep in mind because the words or the message behind this prayer is very strong and sincere, inspiring every individual to keep on going despite the stressors surrounding him or her. moreover, the lines highlighted below are my favorite ones in the prayer that makes me happy, always, every time i come in contact with my Lord.

NURSE’S PRAYER

O Divine Healer,

Guide me to be the nurse I ought to be,

who, with great care and compassion,

with gentle touch and affection,

Nurse those whom you can entrust to me.

If in the journey of my profession,

I stumble, fall, and wither,

Lift me, assist me, carry me,

and be my source of strength, courage and divinity.

Let every word, deed, and thought

be filled with patience, love, and serenity.

Lead me the way, O Lord,

To the path, not to selfishness, but to generosity

and that, through me, may this calling be,

a vocation and an offering to You,

the Great Miracle Worker. Amen.

When I was still in preschool, my imagination has been activated. All through out these years, I’m living under the pleasure and power of daydreaming. It’s just that, I have crazy ideas or stories in mind and I apply these things in my fictional life. I created a new world beyond expectation, a place where only I can be truly happier. Wherever I go, I'm always imagining things. When someone sees me being quiet and preoccupied, you can sense that I’m already daydreaming. The technique I guess of enjoying the idea about daydreaming is to make stories that will take many days to end. For me, sometimes I get the plot of my stories from the movies I watched, stories I read or from many other sources available. It entices me that much when I am the main character and my partner would be someone, who’s currently my crush. Yeah, wishful thinking! Either way, whatever makes you happy, you have to go for it as long as you’re not hurting other people. I mean, daydreaming is free right? So why not avail? I suggest that one ought to daydream, though not always, when he or she is undergoing difficult times in his or her life because by doing so, you’re already using one of the known defense mechanism present.

Yeah I have been to many hospitals, serving variety of patients. But for the many patients I have encountered, only a few sincerely thanked me for what I did. As a person, you can verify an individual telling gratitude from his heart. There are those who says ‘thank you’ either in English or Tagalog just in a second while others say it with a tone, lasting for many seconds. There’s a difference, really. Because of that, I mean, for those who sincerely express their appreciation, they made me happy. They enlightened me. Even for the simple care you’ve given them, these patients could touched you or moved you, making you more motivated to help them in any way. However, I can’t ignore the fact that in any manner my patients will thank me, I am already happy that somehow they say ‘thank you’ rather than disregarding my presence as a student nurse. As a whole, we should recognize the importance of appreciation in any given situations because the words coming out from our mouth are strong enough to come in contact with other people’s feelings.

Of all the diseases I’ve encountered and learned, diabetes mellitus has been one of the most popular of all. Unfortunately, I still can’t fully comprehend the disease process of such condition. It gets into my nerves that the disease will most likely occur to me. Also, no matter how eager I am to study about diabetes, I always fail to do so, thus, contribute to my inability to understand the disease. I just hope that I’m gonna learn more about diabetes mellitus before its too late or whatever.

This week’s exposure to the hospital has been memorable because I have established rapport with my patients. Each day, I enjoy myself conversing with them. No matter how stressful or tiring my body was, I tried my best to accompany these patients because I believe promoting divertional activity will aid in temporarily suppressing their emotions about their current condition. Being able to talk personally with my patients is what I do best... I guess… and it’s just amazing how we, who were once strangers, suddenly became friends. Establishing friendship is great and it makes me sad how some people could be unfortunate enough with their lives. I sympathize almost always to my patients and if I could only do something to help them. However, as a student nurse, what you can merely offer is your presence as an active listener, showing that you’re strong so that those patients will realize that hope is still out there, no matter what situation they’re in.

How will you know that something is enough already? I mean…if you’re being bad.. how can you tell that you’re already at your worst? If an individual is being too much inclined to a negative action, is it not in his or her conscience that what he’s or she’s been doing is disgraceful? When you are into 'it', there’s no stopping? There are a lot of sinful actions inevitable to human beings. It’s natural to cling to something that will give you the unique pleasure that can’t be found in video games or in watching movies. However, if we’re into that earthly pleasure all the time, can we be labeled as terrible shit? Come to think of it…if you’re into ‘it’, you’ll become addicted to ‘it’ to a point that you can’t control the impulse that ‘it’ gives.

But for me…we should not judge right away…especially if you haven’t experience the ‘it’ I’ve been talking about. I, somehow, understand those people who’ve undergone the earthly pleasure life has given. Thus, I can relate…I clearly misunderstood other people and I’ve given my opinions right away. Now I know that there’s more to what ‘bad actions’ mean. Our unwanted actions could sometimes be difficult to control especially if our impulses are stronger than what our rationalization can offer before doing that ‘bad’ action. Hence, I suggest that whenever you want to learn something, you must also experience that something for I believe to that popular saying 'experience is the best teacher'.

Summer class has started and the first rotation of our exposure to hospitals just ended. Recently, we had our case presentation and it was all about ‘end-stage renal disease secondary to diabetic nephropathy’. It was a pretty good experience to present that type of diagnosis because our group was assigned to a jolly clinical instructor. He was also smart to the point that many questions were formulated. Then I was assigned to that difficult part of the case, namely the pathophysiology which was done by my group mate. When it’s my turn to report, I was so stupid to forget about our lesson in diabetes (since our case was highly related to that specific disease). In front of my clinical instructor, I felt so dumb, seriously, because…I experienced flat affect then my mind went blank…totally, the spaces of my brain were filled with air and it’s like my brain cells were extracted. As a result, I don’t know what I was discussing and questions were thrown in front of me…to the point that we wasted so much time on my part. Oh well…maybe all of us can experience to be empty and stupid in front of someone…and my advice to you…just smile…and be confident to stand in front (don’t cry…)

Today, I just missed Sunday mass. I don’t exactly know why (though I woke up early to prepare myself) but maybe I’m not in the mood to attend or I’m just lazy enough to stand on my own. Then I was thinking deeply…I will only render an hour of my day to God and yet I still can’t fulfill this responsibility. It’s my own loss I guess. However, I already said to my father I will attend mass but only in school, during school days. I don’t know why I like it in school but at least, I am compensating for not going today… yes, I usually attend masses on my own... I even walk and visit one prominent and old church in my city just to light up candles and pray. I guess, I’m just fond of doing things without someone’s company; I independently do my religious duty because I could pray wholeheartedly and undisturbed; I attend masses on time unlike when we go to mass on Sundays.

Also, I observe that some adults merely go to mass because they are mandated to. When the gospel and homily were being proclaimed or shared, there were some who were not listening because you can see them sleeping, watching over their kids, or chattering with the person beside them. It’s as though they were physically present but not spiritually and emotionally devoted. And that’s what I want to avoid. When I attend masses on my own, I attentively listen to every word uttered by the priest and at the end of the day, I’m inspired of what I learned in the mass. I’m happy being this type of person who learns from the good news of God. Its just that, long before, I was that typical person who merely attend masses physically, and my mind was wandering somewhere. Now, things have changed. I have changed. I’m hoping that others could change too…

What I do best is to be honest… especially in class, in this blog, and sometimes with my friends. Hehe. I mean, I guess we all have our secrets, our own private life that we can’t express or share with our close friends. What we intend to share with them are mere experiences and feelings which are selected, though special as well. It’s like in class, I don’t cheat. In this blog, I post not just those happy experiences or stereotyped things like what others usually do. Rather, I want to express those that can’t sometimes be expressed. Thus, conveying unique things (in this blog) means that I only communicate or even disseminate some delicate parts of my life and in return I don’t expect readers especially those who know me to react in front of me or whatever because I would prefer they keep quiet and act as though they didn’t read my posts.. in that way, I don’t have to explain myself or I don’t have to know that you already know what I’m up to…

Sometimes, when you've already done all the available divertional activities, you can’t think of anything else to do in this world. There will come a point where you’ll become tired and bored of the cycle of things that you’ve already been doing. Thus, you wanted some rest. Either you want to end your life or just sleep like there’s no tomorrow. In that way, you cannot feel the pressure of being disgraceful, lonesome and unwanted individual; in that way, you do not possess the sinful mind, for it makes you weak and worrisome to all the possible actions you might do someday. So, with regards to what I’m feeling right now, I wanted someone to help me with my situation for I don’t want a life like this. I don’t want to have a mind like this. I don’t want to have this feeling of bitterness. Maybe, the best thing I could do is to sleep coz maybe….when I wake up, all these shit will temporarily be suppressed and then I’ll be bound to be cheerful and enlightened again.

Music is food for the soul. What would this world become if music wasn’t born? Everything would be dull. We have to listen on what the music tries to teach us, or preach unto us. Those talented souls chosen to be the creator of music are very lucky to be part of this realm where anybody could hear the melodies of the unknown. It is amazing how music change my life. Though I’m not a musician myself, it doesn’t hinder me on indulging with this beautiful creation. Music makes me cry, it makes me smile, and it even makes me indifferent. But to the extent, music helped me a lot. Now, I’m promoting the therapy, the magic behind every song. I wanted all of us to listen, to share, and to be part of redefining life through music. Don’t let the speakers mute; tune it in to the loudest expression of the soul. Let’s appreciate music. Let’s love music…

I think these would be the basics for a student nurse to succeed
(base on my experiences):

1. you should be interested of the course;
2. you willingly choose the course;
3. you chose the course not for the sake of money but for pure service;
4. you ought to always study ahead of time;
5. read anything related to the course;
6. don’t procrastinate;
7. be optimistic;
8. presence of mind while on exposure;
9. bring paraphernalia;
10. always in proper uniform of course;
11. know how to compute and regulate for IVF flow rate;
12. befriend your clinical instructor;
13. show empathy to patients;
14. coordinate with group mates;
15. always pray

I think all of us ought to learn variety of lessons everyday. These lessons may come directly through our education (in schools) and of course through our day to day experiences in reality. However, we neglect some of these lessons in our lives because we merely pass through them without acknowledging their presence or impact to us. That is why, we tend to face different situations with the same message of “Hey! Learn from me kiddo” because these relevant and identical experiences will only seize to produce if we reached the point that we actually learn from them. For an instance, I used to pass behind schedule my requirements to a major subject. In that circumstance is the point that I have to pass on time whatever is needed to be passed on time for me to get good grades. Or do not procrastinate because you’ll cram and soon will be stressed out with all those other subjects. I hate it when procrastinating becomes a habit of mine. I also don’t like it when I feel so stressed when there’s nothing to be stressed about. If I only have the discipline and time management to systematize and work things out… though somehow it makes me happy knowing that I’m not the only one experiencing such situation (hehe). Hence, don't just ignore the lessons presented in front of you for these are as important as building the values within us, making each one of us worthwhile in this world.