life in the fast lane

So, I started reading through my concepts and, this was what I recently discovered: that I am my own woman. That being a nurse here in Australia is quite different from what I experienced earlier. Back in the Philippines, my profession was not that great- well, that was my experience simply because I felt that we have to obey/humour the doctors every now and then. I will not generally say that all doctors are mean or bad people but, there were those that I encountered who were better left off forgotten. One memorable experience  was  when I was a student. It happened like this: I was assisting with an operation and when I mistakenly handed a mosquito forcep instead of  a Kelly straight clamp, the surgeon suddenly  threw all the instruments on my sterile tray- making a complete mess. My clinical instructor did not say anything apart from apologizing- that I was a student and, she made a lot of excuses on my behalf. Is my tiny mistake enough to make anyone throw such a colossal tantr

Before going further, I did intentionally decided not to write anything about my student life during the past  12 weeks because, the stress and the daily grind of my academic life might lead me to write "emotionally."  In fact, I will never even start discussing how my clinical exposure went until its done because, I wanted to reflect more on the experience and, that would give me time to decompress and write in a less biased, less emotional, less defensive way. So moving on. The first thing that I have learned so far is accessing the moodle. I am not going to spend my time explaining how to get there but basically, I can access my subjects through it. I can submit my assessments, communicate with my classmates and lecturers and study. But to be honest, it took me quite awhile to get used to it. Coming from a background who spent majority of her life studying the "traditional" way, getting used to moodle as the basic mode of studying is weird. It does not als

So what's so special about the whole orientation thing? You get to know who are the boss in this and that department, you get to know what are their expectations. You get to know a variety of other things which, my jetlagged, tired, homesick and somehow ambivalent brain is refusing to absorb fully. But somehow, this struck me: Ask for help. I was initially touched to learn that the first thing that almost everyone had been saying is that, I need to take good care of myself and, I need to ask for help if I think that I cannot manage or feel overwhelmed doing it. For me, that was quite a different story. I was always used into asking for help from other people and then, I get to hear how incompetent or how I was not able to manage my tasks alone- there's an accompanying judgement on that folks. So, I got into this point when I try to do everything alone not because I wanted to be  a hero or martyr but simply because I fear the repercussion of asking for "help.&qu

We arrived in Cairns and this is what greeted me outside my plane window: copyright by wikipedia Somehow, I feel more at home with nature than I do in the city. Seeing some similarities with Aparri somewhat comforted me.                                                                                                    My early days in Cairns was a flurry of activities. Everyone wanted to make sure that I am all right and they are especially helpful in many ways. I have learned where to wait for the bus. I have learned how the transport system works and  the name of my bus stop (which I wrote in a piece of paper and kept in my pockets on those first few days- I have terrible memory folks!). Most of the  time, I feel groggy because of the jetlag and timezone differences. I almost always feel lonely and alone because, homesickness is kicking in. I feel very ambivalent over my decision to come here because, I thought I might not make it. But, I wanted to know how far I'll

Three months ago, I arrived in Cairns and, I was so ambivalent over this new chapter of my life: A part of me felt that I will never survive basically because English is not my first language, I am away from my family and, any other hang ups that I could think about. But I pushed through it because, I wanted to know how far I could go. I wanted tell myself that I failed indeed not because I gave up the first time but I tried but failed. This is the story of my life here in Australia as I study and experience life in Australia. It was fun. It was exciting but it was difficult at times.