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

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.

If there was one thing that PM has always hated, it has been ambivalence.

In matters that has concerned me personally, I saw to it that everything was either a yes or a no – that was how I operated, and operated well I did. To be able to function properly, it was imperative that my disposition towards things was clear and strong. It gives me purpose and focus. This was the philosophy behind the house that Musang built.

Barely half a month into my new work, I have probably felt a godzillion, bazillion times torn between liking my work and loathing it to death. I hate talking about work but it has been all that I’ve blabbed about in my past entries. Gray area much. Ugh. The indecision is killing me and the last time I checked, I am too young to die.

Wait. Let me rephrase that. Teaching I love. Office politics I hate. My salary I love. Dying of cancer because of stress I hate.

Okay. So there is a sense to this after all.

I think I should go and make more paper cranes before I pass out due to hyperventilation. Ack!

My day was 50-50. No, not dying, though I wish someone died today. LOL. I was happy and annoyed, contented and disgusted, giddy and nauseous. Whew, can you imagine feeling all those at the same time? LOL.

However, I am ready to conclude that my day was great and forget all the hassles because my creative swap loot bag arrived today all the way from Japan, and of course, my partner was caryn! Thank you so much for the wonderful gifts that I enjoyed so much.

Creative Swap Loot

Fun gifts from caryn! Thank you so much!

The knot bag was so cute I used it immediately when I went to FairyGodMommy Fe's birthday bash tonight.

I shared the snacks with my Man and Ched. We had so much fun sampling them.

Participating in the creative swap made me appreciate blogging even more. It is such a wonderful experience to relate to fellow bloggers on such a different level; it is so much fun! I am looking forward to the next roundm, especially that piapot is also joining.

Also, today is FairyGodMommy Fe’s birthday. Happy birthday Mommy! I wish you all the best in life and I love you so much!

]]> http://prinsesamusang.wordpress.com/2009/06/16/heaven-sent-by-japan-mail/feed/ 29 prinsesamusang creative swap package crafting materials, loot bag knot bag rice cookies cat with cake http://prinsesamusang.wordpress.com/2009/06/14/split-second/ http://prinsesamusang.wordpress.com/2009/06/14/split-second/#comments Sun, 14 Jun 2009 06:13:40 +0000 prinsesamusang http://prinsesamusang.wordpress.com/?p=642 ]]>

PM is a very busy girl because school is about to start tomorrow. My thoughts are scattered in a thousand pieces, if not a bazzilion pieces.

I am back in the hospital because my new job description is clinical instructor. However, I still have classroom subjects, and I think I will enjoy that slight diversity, or it can kill me because I have so many things to do.

I have been seeing my new work area. I think it has caused my Asperger’s to hit its peak. Either I die of a heart attack or they die from a wild Musang attack. I’m keeping my fingers crossed. The heart attack sounds better.

I know I am not making any sense because I am clouded and asphyxiated but I’m keeping it cool.

Hit back at you when I’m normal again. I mean, normal on my standards.

PM is petrified at the site of kids.

There is really no rhyme and reason in trying to put together PM and small children. There is something about the way they stare, the way they talk, the way they move that makes me squirm. Clearly, I cannot understand them.

I remember going to church with my sisters and sitting on a row that has empty seats. Three giddy, tiny kids sat next to me and I just felt horror sinking on my stomach. Luckily, they left after a minute or two. They must’ve felt my shivering frame and got scared.

After the mass piapot told me, she and my two other sisters were also horror struck when the kids sat next to me, but in a different way – they wanted to tell the kids with urgency, “Run, run! run for your life!”

Yesterday, PM was being a good nurse and spreading the word against A(H1N1) since there has been confirmed cases here in our province. I had to speak to so many kids, interrupt their classes and conduct health teaching sessions.

When I entered the first room, the kids were silent and staring. I wanted to pass out. But I can’t so I proceeded with what has to be done, over and over, room after room, with kids ranging from 4 years old to 12.

Normally I should be dead by now. But what do you know? I am not and I actually enjoyed talking to them this time. It is indeed very surprising, albeit a little disturbing too. But I guess, it is because of the quality of the kids I was with yesterday. I never thought I would say this in my entire life but they were ‘perfect little angels’. Hmmm… I think it has a lot to do with the fact that they go to a private school that really focuses on their proper growth and development. I should know, my FairyGodMommyFe runs and owns the school.

I guess what I am trying to say is I really had fun with the kids yesterday. Because of that, I think I should check out if pigs has grown wings by now.

I was tempted to title this post ‘look younger in seven days’ but I found it too annoying to do so.

Just moments ago, I was chatting with my student in Chemistry 214. We did not have a class but he decided to come by and we ended up talking about so much about his life, his studies, his lovelife, and finally, him being my student. Apparently, my student has stayed in the college for eight years on the same engineering course he was taking up since Day 1. He was now 27 years old. I am 21.

He told me that sometimes, he and his classmates talk about how awkward it was that I am their teacher, which translates to, how akward it was that their teacher was either the same age as they were or worse, much  younger than them.

I had to laugh a good hearty laugh, not to undermine their trouble, but because sometimes I end up thinking the same thing – how almost ‘inappropriate’ it was to look at that I, their teacher, looked more like their younger sister. But my student said my ‘Musang mode’ takes them out of it. I told him that there was a need for me to be authoritative (Musang mode) because of the same thing – that if I would be soft on them, definitely our classroom would be in chaos because of our’ age similarity’. I was starting to think I was redefining life inside college because instead of the usual age gap complaint of students against their instructor, mine were having issues because of our similarity.

However, through all this, what I like about myself was the fact that I am very comfortable in my place in the world at my age, and to be honest, I really have no issues at all about being too young or being too old for anything I do. It’s just that I am happy as to where I am now and I have no regrets whatsoever looking back. In fact, you might be surprised, but I can think about aging and be very happy about it.

It might’ve been because of my Asperger’s personality, but ever since, I reveled in the presence of older people, and the ones I admire most were also older people. I found that when you are older, you are wiser and more experienced, plus you get to do things that you want to do, as opposed to being young where you are always told what to do, where you are always insecure about things, or worst, always getting into trouble because of being too immature, too insensitive and too naive. If you ask me, if being an adult is overrated then being young is just over the top overrated.

Don’t get me wrong though, all I’m saying is that people often mistake aging as being nothing more than an old rotting tomato or potato or whatever vegetable you can think of that rots. But, no matter how the commercial industry makes it appear to be that way, aging of course is more than that, because it comes with wisdom and experience, that you can never buy in a bottle anywhere in the world.

At 21, I am not very young nor am I very old. What is important to me now is that I know I am a sure and secured person, loving and knowing everything it is about me, what I can do, and what I will eventually become.

In retrospect, I think what my students are worried about is not really about my age, but about the fact that it is embarassing to fail in front of a ‘girl’ that is everything like their peers… well maybe only a tad smarter.

One thing very strange with me teaching chemistry is that I am not exactly brilliant with numbers – and it is a fact that chemistry deals with so much computations.

The second thing I have to say is that I spent the whole afternoon facing numbers and dialing on my Man’s calculator, computing for the semifinals grade of my students. I am happy to announce that in Chemsitry 214, 20 passed out of 29, and in Chemistry 114, five out of eight – not bad at all.

What is bad however, is the headache I got after computing all of the grades in two and a half hours straight with no breaks for breathing.

My third concern is the number of tv shows, commercials, and movements that I am seeing, already mobilized this early, a year from the 2010 RP elections. I am really starting to have a bad feeling about next year’s elections. I do not want to be a doomsday soothsayer here but all the hype just means it is going to be rougher than usual.

I also saw a brief report on ANC about an interview they had with possible presidentiables – among them, Sen. Mar Roxas, Sec. Dick Gordon and Sen. Chiz Escudero. There were two news anchors talking about it, I think it was Pinky Webb and Ricky Carandang, and she was asking him who for him stood out, and I liked what he answered, “All of them exceeded my expectations.”

If not for Don Domeng I would have not registered to vote for the simple reason that I do not want to because of the choices of candidates – all traditional politicians, and that means, same old, same old.