Prinsesa’s Anatomy

As I have mentioned before, I have been treating myself to some down by tinkering with Facebook using Kulot’s [my sister's] account, and  recently, to be a better farmer in Farmville, I have been also using my Man’s account to send gifts to Kulot’s account, ain’t I bright? LOL.

I was looking at my Man’s wall and I saw a quiz that his brother just took. The title was ‘are you a stalker, pedophile, murderer, or normal?’. It might sound dark but you know what result I got?

Pineapple Juice Musang Flavor

It said I was a PINEAPPLE. LOL. So how do you like me now?

Also, I would like to share a couple of photos, of my students interning at the local hospital. Today was their last day of duty in my area and it is very likely that it will be a long time until we meet again. Their words and gestures were truly overwhelming and it reminded me so much of why I became a teacher in the first place.

PM's kids

I was thinking of making a separate post about them but I guess I am at a point where I am just so speechless in joy. But looking at their photos, I believe it says it all.

Giving PM a sense of purpose

PM has always conceded to life.

I cannot imagine how many bazzilion, godzillion times I have told myself that life is tough. I remember writing in a past newspaper column that life is a multiple choice question, either sink or swim. Now I realize, if life is really sink or swim, I am in deep trouble – I cannot swim. LOL.

Following a good friend’s advice, I have built my own bubble, one that is supposed to filter the world that the ones I permit will only be the thoughts and experiences that will reach my consciousness. I can tell you that it has worked well, until I noticed that bubbles are thin, globe-shaped air films that cannot filter even an ant without bursting into pieces that can hurt your eyes.

I have been braving annoying winds lately and I would like to think I have remained strong. But you know what? Times really do come when you just want everyone to disappear so that you can have enough oxygen to breathe.

Life is generously unbelievable that when it throws something at you, it is always grand, nauseating, and asphyxiating.

But I guess I’m keeping my head above the water. Maybe, life is supposed to be really unforgiving – that’s what heaven is for.

__

Picture is not mine again LOL Got it from googlesearch.

PM's portrait

Last night, Kulot and I were tinkering with Facebook apps and we came across an interesting quiz titled ‘How Evil Are You’. She insisted that I take it, and assured me that it was certain as hell I would get the most evil-est score possible.  After I took the quiz, what do you know, this was what I got:

Pure Evil and Pitch Black Darkness

OMG that was so funny, how can you get over pitch black darkness right? LOL. Though these quizzes on Facebook are no way standardized, I don’t think you can argue with it when we took another one, ‘Which Greek God Are You?’ and I landed as Ares God of War. Coinciding much? LOL. I was not surprised. I am Musang after all.

But seriously, I attribute my being somewhat princess from hell from my childhood. As a form of discipline, I was spanked. And if you remember the article ‘Spanking did not kill me’ buzz before, you can guess I have a lot to say about it, but of course, as you might’ve noticed, I do not like reacting to issues on their heat.

Obviously, spanking did not kill me, but built in me an idea ala the famous Hammurabi code. When I did something wrong, I was spanked. When I messed up, I was scolded. Of course, all the spanking and discipline measures made me the straight person I am today, to which I am grateful for, but as a side effect, I admit, it made me ‘cruel’.

The effect was an ideology that is built on justice: if something or someone goes and does something wrong, I strongly believe they should be punished for it, against all odds. It does not always entail hard feelings, but it is always necessary to give penance. I guess this is why I am short of pity for some patients I see in the hospital, if it was their own doing that got them there, then that’s that, they should deal with it.

If someone does me wrong, they should pay for it, and I would never be able to rest quietly until I get redemption. I can forgive, but without retribution, I just know I will never forget. It may sound harsh, but what people learned early on is difficult to unlearn. Punishment may be a strong word, but in a world divided, it is always necessary.

Certainly, spanking did not kill me, but it gives me an idea why I always get pure evil and pitch black darkness everytime I answer personality quizzes.

Static

Like lightning that rips the evening sky apart

In a split second, it was as if you’ve read all I tried to conceal,

As the dark of yours pierced into the paleness of mine

From across the dimly lit room, causing a celestial collapse,

Surprisingly, transporting me into an alternate reality,

Where in the coldness there exists only you and I -

Where it is possible that you and I… can be us.

—

I am terribly suffering from lack of sleep, and as usual, I am pretending to fill my noggin with creativity, even when in reality, I am horribly spacing out.

BTW, the photo is not mine, though it is very beautiful. I just downloaded it from google search.

Somebody tell me what animal do you think this is:

Very interesting

a. Naked MoleRat

b. Hairless Cat

c. Pig

d. Weird Dog

Sleepy Jin

Amongst the many patients I saw yesterday at the hospital OPD, two struck me most.

One was a beautiful innocent girl who had a huge lump on her left chest. It was still unknown what was contained in that cyst-like lump – we did not have sophisticated machines in our primary hospital – but the doctor said it could be abscess or water, and it could also be malignant or benign, depending on the laboratory work that will present.

As I watch the little girl leave with her mother, it was as if I heard my heart broke into small pieces, looking at the pure innocent face of that little girl and how fragile she was in her early childhood, yet the state of her health – or her life – was so unstable.

It just felt so unfair. Here was a soul who was so young and fresh and had the whole world ahead of her yet was threatened with illnes and suffering, or death. Of course, there is also a chance that everything will be okay, and the sparkle on her eyes before she was out my sight, made me wish that it would be so too.

However, the next patient that stuck with me got a different side of me involved. She came in for anti0rabies shots because apparently, she got bitten by a kitten whom she found in her house and when she was trying to dispose it like some unwanted thrash, the kitten bit her on the arm, the appearance of the wound got her disturbed so she immediately sought medical intervention. Trying hard to keep my tone neutral, I inquired about the state of the kitten, and uncomfortably, she said her kid killed it.

It felt like I went blind for a few seconds because my pupils constricted so much because of anger. I really cannot imagine how inhumane some humans can be in treating animals. I cannot believe how some can call themselves human yet their concern for innocent and helpless animals measures to the emotional range of a monoblock chair. To be honest, I did not want to give that woman her shot, and I did not feel any guilt at all in wishing for rabies to get her. If it was any consolation, th doctor did not allow her to have her shot at our hospital, because her referral from the health care facility where she got her first shot was incomplete and vague.

Inside me, I felt some sense of redemption for that little kitten, whom I know for sure is now playing with a giant ball of yarn and is given warm ear scratches by the Absolute Whiskers up in cat heaven.

Life has preoccupied me so much I realized all of my recent posts are asphyxiating to some extent! LOL

Because of all the drama work, there has been not much time to breath relax but since I am fine now, allow me to stress it further by posting something fun for a change LOL And what better way to have fun than be with my fat cat Jin!

Did you miss my fat cat Jin?

Wolverine watch out

Can somebody lower the air-conditioning?

Also, I would like to say thank you to Ched’s friend, Clown, for sending me this adorable bucket of gummy bears. It’s like catnip but on a gummy level.

Bucket Uh Bears

Catnip

My family and friends were stirred by an e-mail, apparently sent by me through my e-mail account, saying that I was in Nigeria and needed help financially because I have lost my wallet and I needed $2500.

Mother Goose told me about it last night and truth be told, my e-mail account has been hacked, and I cannot gain access to it this morning.

It amazes me how much spammers can do. For one, they have active imaginations, faking out stories for who knows how many accounts they use to create scams. My family and friends knew of course it was not me. If that was me, I’d ask for a bigger sum of money. LOL.

To everybody who was on my address book at prinsesa_fajardo, my account has been compromised and you can have the honor to ignore or curse any weird messages that you will receive or has already received.

***

Yesterday, my students at the emergency room received a reality check on what nurses really do.

We had a poisonous snake bite case and our primary hospital did not have anti venom. The patient, who was a mother of two young boys who came with her to the hospital, had to be transferred to Manila, about three to four hours from where we were.

When the woman came in, she could talk and breathe normally, though she said her eyes were blurring. By the time we got her lying on the ER table, as we were starting the IV line and oxygen, she was numb and blind, her speech was slurring and she could not breathe.

It was all very quick, from the time she came in to the time she was transferred. My students were there to see it all and they told me it changed how they looked at nursing – that it required so much strength and compassion at the same time.

One of my students told me she wanted to cry but she knew she couldn’t. She said she was so moved by the way the mother kept on saying, “look after my children, look after my children” time and time again until she could speak no more.

We were informed that the patient died on the road, during transfer, not long after she has left the ER.

I told my students that experiences like this were not uncommon in the hospital setting, and this was just the start of the many life and death scenarios that they would see. If there was anything positive that came out from it, my students said they were motivated to study harder, so that next time a life was in the balance, they would know exactly what to do so that they could help more.

My heart went out to the family of the patient, and to my students, who gave me a glimpse of how beautiful their souls were, for being brave, for being emphatic, for being strong.

It has got to start with a lot of love.

To make a positive impact on this world has been an advocacy of mine, something I wish to accomplish everyday I am conscious about it. LOL.

To be honest, there has never been a time when I felt I was too little to make a change, or too small to leave a mark. It is simple really – I believe that even the smallest, most random acts can change the course of life; after all, when you add a pile of small good things, the end result has got to only be best big things.

Like today, Ma’am PM was back teaching, but this time on the clinical setting. I had my first day of duty as a nurse clinical instructor for the university at a local primary hospital. My students were also sophomores but coming from a different campus. I handled two groups, 22 students all in all, who were also having their first time of clinical exposure as student nurses.

I have only left the nursing academe two years ago, after graduating as a part of class 2007-2008, so it is a fact that how it feels to be a student nurse is not very far from my memory, no matter how much short-circuit it seems to be sometimes. I can perfectly recall how it felt like, to be wearing that hospital uniform, excited and anxious at the same time, eager and fearful all at once.

It did not help that some of the clinical instructors I had certainly had no clue about teaching. Basically, a typical clinical instructor is someone to be feared, someone who is a foe, and it seems, is someone who has made it his or her life’s mission to embarrass you in public.

If it was any consolation, if not for the weird teaching principles and methods I received when I was in college, I would not be a teacher now, with a certificate on professional education I earned just last March. Also, because of all the horrible things I’ve seen, I have made it my mission to be a better clinical instructor – way better.

I made sure I related to my students, made sure that they saw me as a teacher and not as a three-headed monster. I ensured that they were learning and that the learning experience was both fruitful and fun, and more importantly, that it improved their confidence, not only in doing things right, but in being brave enough to try. After all, the essence of nursing is supposed to be caring.

Back in college, I would often hear instructors say that if they would not be mean the student nurses would not follow or would not learn. You know what, I never believed one bit of it then, and with what I’ve seen in my students, certainly more so not now.

It was heart warming, how they evaluated their first day of duty with me, telling me that they learned so much, and that they had so much fun actually working. Seeing their faces, I could not compare mine, nor my groups mates’ then, with how we concluded ours.

My students learned; more than that, they were happy.

But of course, I was happier.

After a month of whining work, PM has finally settled down, and as I’ve said before, I am more than fine, I think I am happy now. LOL. Thank you for all of your words of encouragement and discouragement. LOL. Much appreciated.

When I started to find my focus, I started to see so many interesting things again, and be able to laugh that hearty laugh – I sure missed it. For one, last Saturday, my sophomore students were having their return demonstration of administering medications – in other words, they were practicing giving injections on each other all for my joy. LOL.

It was surprising that so many of them cried. During my days, nobody on our class cried, maybe because of embarrassment or fear of being called super sensitive or overacting. OMG did I just use the phrase ‘during my days’? LOL. I am getting old, aren’t I?

However, the most interesting thing happened when one of my students, a girl older than me, was having her turn to be injected by her partner. She did not cry during the firs two shots – they were having three – but after the third one, which was intramuscular, she passed out! Goodness, it was most surprising indeed. But she became okay soon enough. Maybe I should thank her for passing out because it made the experience more fun for me. LOL.

Also, if you are wondering what ever happened to my crusade against office politics, I have brushed it aside because I realized, for the longest time, I have operated as if the world is a fat ball of yarn and I am the cat that toys with it, and at this point in my life, there is sure no way I am going to let it be the other way around.

Plus, I have long known that being good is not a crime. It is not my fault I am brilliant. LOL.