“Perhaps, it’s more than humor. It may also be viewed as tenacity, perseverance or the gambler’s mentality. It may even be the scammer’s mentality.“
-Connie Veneracion

The line was meant to describe the Filipino’s amazing gift of deception.

Updating what I have written here, the review center has finally realized the need to talk to us about what happened and about us not taking the Nursing Board Exam on June 1 and 2. They sent two representatives, a Lecturer and a Nurse assistant from one of their branches, this afternoon.

Unfortunately, a lady named Daisy, posed as a PRC representative or something, met with one of the real, real owners of the review center. She told her, according to them, that she can help the review center to file our documents to the PRC. And since this is the Philippines where fixers fix everything, the owner of the review center gullibly believed her. Instead of queuing at the PRC, the management instructed us to file our documents to them so we can conveniently focus on the review. Since we TRUSTED them we sent them our PRC requirements and sat conveniently reviewing for the board exam. And the rest was a history. Daisy did not file our documents for the board exam and fled away with all cash. One of the co-owners, named Vivian (not the real real owner, just a co-owner), is now also missing.

According to them they filed a request to the DOLE and PRC to extend the date of filing of application for the Nursing Board Exam. But now I lose all the hopes of ever taking the exam this June. Some of the girls were already crying as the dialogue was going on. It is really disheartening. We couldn’t focus on our review anymore, not that it really matters now. I just feel bad really. I thought I had the worst of my ordeal when my father suddenly changed his mind and ordered (ORDERED) me to enroll in this review center. Yun pala, it was just the beginning. All the plans, all the enthusiasm, all gone. I am in the lowest of my spirit and I hate every minute of it.

PS Prinsesa Musang’s mother was there this afternoon and she was really cool. I decided not to attend the lecture this afternoon.

I was really down during the first three weeks of April. It was because the night after my graduation, my father and I had a really huge shouting match. I planned to leave the house and spend the whole summer reviewing with Neil and his girlfriend [as i partly mentioned here]. I already paid the house and the reservation in a review center as early as late February. But for no reason, my father retracted his decision. I didn’t have anything against the review center here, I just felt bad because I have already laid a two months worth of plan in my mind and his abrupt change of heart really frustrated me.

I didn’t have a reservation in the Review Center nearby, so when I enrolled, they put me in section two. I know some of the people there but I wasn’t really close to any of them. It was really difficult for me. Everyday was a torture until the time came when I was already doubting my self. Thoughts of boycotting the review and even the June board exam visited me everyday. My heart was so heavy, and even though the lecturer was really good I decided to cut the class last April 18.

They say that sex is the best stress reliever, but since that cannot be arrange at the moment, I settled for a second Plan. Last April 19, I decided not to attend my class anymore, the next day [April 20] I dropped by the section 1’s building and asked the administration if I can be a regular student there. Some of my friends are there. Angelo, Hanzel, Lallaine, PrinsesaMusang, Asase, and even some of my classmates way back in Freshman attend the class. I felt so relieved.

Though they are two subjects ahead of me, I was still able to cope. They were really supportive. Yesterday, since my father left for Manila to attend my sister’s open heart surgery on Monday in Philippine Heart Center, I went to Lallaine’s house and asked her to teach me. I was always among the top three in the exams in section 2, still, my scores are considerably miles away from Lallaine’s scores who is always in the second or first spots here in section 1 [my new section], and I am really happy that she said yes when I asked her to give me a tutorial. She joked that her tutorial fee is really expensive while feeding me with their own version of halo halo (halo halong fruit cocktail). She’s one of the nicest people on earth… really.

About my sister’s heart operation. She was the one who decided to undergo the operation. Early last year, she started complaining about some symptoms of her disease. My oldest sister accompanied her to Makati Med and they found out that her heart condition is worsening. Her lab results show that she was already developing a left sided heart failure as evidenced by her Left Ventricular Hypertrophy (meaning, due to her underlying heart disease, her heart has to pump harder to nourish her whole body, which resulted for the cells inthe left lower chamber of her heart to rapidly multiply. Imagine your biceps, by the fast cell multiplication your biceps’ mass increase when you exercise. This increase in size is good for our skeletal muscles but is greatly detrimental for our heart muscles.) and pulmonary edema (meaning, fluids in the lungs. This happen because the left chambers of the heart receive the oxygenated blood from the lungs, but due to my sister’s heart problem, her heart cannot pump out all of the blood coming from the lungs to her other body parts. As a result, the blood that was not pumped to the systemic circulation flows back to the lungs resulting to her pulmonary edema… in Filipino term; pamamanas ng baga).

My father left yesterday morning to be with my sisters. He’ll be there until April 30, they were expecting that my sister will be discharged three days after the operation. So I was left here alone. I am optimistic because she has a very positive outlook on her upcoming operation. She was the one who decided this. She was waiting for this moment. In fact, for the last three months, she was using GlutaThione to withen her skin. I even joked, “Baka mamaya di mo hinihilod yang singit mo nakakahiya sa nurse.” It turned out that she didn’t know that they are going to strip off all her clothing, she only thought of baring her breast so I said, when she looked at me disbelieving, “Eh pano kaya nila ipapasok sayo yung catheter kung di mo huhubarin yang panty mo?” She posed for a moment then said, “Ano kaya kung sabihin ko sa Nurse ‘pwede ba ako na lang yung magpapasok nyan?’” Then we both laughed.

I really wish my sister well. I know she’ll be okay, but a heart operation is still a heart operation.

Writing this blog helped me a lot to cope with stress , though I really couldn’t say everything. Sometimes I just post screams as a form of catharsis and whatever burdens me inside miraculously vanishes and I’m back on track again. One thing that I really like about blogging is that I stop thinking about my problem the moment I click the publish button on my screen. Even the mere pleasure of reading other people’s blog has in some degree helped me in combating anxiety.

However, I find it harder now to ease my self just by writing. I mean it doesn’t work for me anymore.

CHANGE TOPIC

This morning, in a bus, I met an old classmate from Grade School. She was on her way for a job interview. We talked for a moment about some stuff until the subject change to my Board Exam Review. A guy who was sitting in front of her seat overheard us and joined our conversation. It didn’t take long until he was already talking about his own board examination. He just recently passed the December 2007 board exam. He started giving tips and inspiring words, then he said, “Kung gusto mo puntahan mo ko sa bahay ko, ” he gave me his address and told me that I can borrow his books gusto raw naman nya kasi akong pumasa talaga. Though we came from the same university it was the first time that I actually met him, I haven’t seen him in my four years of stay in college (kahit isang beses), so I observed his gestures if he was lying. He was constantly looking at his left side… in Psychology the Left and the Front sides of the head are the seat of logic, therefore there is a big chance that he was telling the truth (the Right and the back sides are the seat of imagination, therefore a person who is making up a story will probably look at his right side or nod his head backward).

I was already praying a thank you prayer to God for sending me this person. I was like, “Jesus,” I am more comfortable in calling God Jesus, “Did you send this guy to prove me that you won’t let go of me?” Hanep! So I asked him, “May book ka ba ng Pediatrics, wala kasi ako nun?” Then he was like, “yun na nga eh, marami kasi akong kaklase dati ang di nakapasa. Eh alam nila self-review lang ako. So marami ng nakapila sa books ko baka swerte daw.” That’s when I realized that this guy doesn’t really care if I pass or not. He just wanted to brag. I looked at his shirt, may logo ng UP tapos nakaprint, UP Tangway, an organization of Bataaenios in UP Diliman. Sa UP siguro sya nagtapos nung unang course nya… second courser kasi sya at kahit ilang taon na ang lumipas hindi pa ring sya makamove on.

XET TALAGA! Lumaki tuloy yung butas ng ilong ko. Hay ang daming mayabang sa mundo. Kaasar.

My day started weird, now I am feeling weird.

I checked my horoscope and here what it says, “It’s a day to listen to someone’s arguments and then educate them about what you know to be a better way. Verbal communication will be your secret weapon.” This is wrong. Actually, it is the other way around, I should stop talking and start listening. I think Im in a big trouble now. HAAAAYYY… I wish I can tell you the whole story.

hello.
musta ka na?
nu gngwa mo ngaung summer?

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What ’s up y’all!
I am very sorry for not keeping in touch.
Sana kilala mo pa ako…
I’m hoping to hear from you.
you can also contact me through my cellphone, here’s my number: 0922*******.

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how are you?

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kmusta na??

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Besides my nightly arguments with my father, which tackles all sorts of things like what kind of adhesive to buy, the review for my upcoming licensure examination takes up almost all of my time. As much as I want to say the infamous line, “I don’t feel any pressure right now” I am indeed in a very tight situation right now. Last Monday I took a 250 items mock board examination and I only got a score of 152, most of which came from the Psychiatric Nursing part. It didn’t come as a shock that my answers in Medical-Surgical Nursing and Pediatric Nursing parts of the exam were mostly incorrect. I am not really good in pathophysiology, especially with medications.

Yesterday, I brought my bag that was given to us by our reviewers to the review center. We don’t have our IDs yet so they told us that our bags shall be our identification to enter the building where we take the review. As much as I wanted to leave the bag that looks like a give-away from a grocery store I didn’t have the choice but to bring it with me. When I got home my father saw me using it, then he said, “dinadaladala mo pa yan. Kapag ikaw bumagsak nakakahiya ka.”

I am the type of person who goes home every after class, no left turns, no shortcuts. I go straight home, something that I do not share with my younger sister. But now, every night, if not just because of the TV program that I love watching, I don’t feel like going home anymore. Now I know why my classmates in high school with dysfunctional families wanted to stay in school or any where away from their own homes.

I will not be able to watch the whole TEEN EDITION of Pinoy Big Brother since I’ll be leaving my own house next, next week. As a tribute to my all time favorite show let me tell some amazing facts about PINOY BIG BROTHER.

• Philippines and United Kingdom are the only Big Brother Houses that have Teen Editions, however, while Big Brother teen was a regular edition in Pinoy Big Brother, UK teen Edition was tagged as an experiment only, it was filmed beforehand on July and August of 2003, and was later on aired on October of the same year.
• Among the countries with Big Brother franchise, Pinoy Big Brother holds the record of most Housemates ejected by Big Brother himself, the last victim was Jon of Celebrity Big Brother 2, 2nd January 2008. The other house mates who were forced evicted were; Bob: Big Brother 1, 9th October 2005, Franzen: Big Brother 1, 19th November 2005, Mich: Celebrity Big Brother 1, 25th February 2006, Bam: Teen Big Brother 1, 6th May 2006, Maricris: Big Brother 2, 30th April 2007, Baron: Celebrity Big Brother 2, 27th December 2007.
• Jason [Big Brother 1], Cass [Big Brother 1], and Dionne [Big Brother 2] got the most numbers of nominations in the history of Pinoy Big Brother. Each got four nominations.
• All in all, 74 legitimate housemates have already entered and lived inside the Pinoy Big Brother House, add twelve on Sunday for the Teen Edition 2.
• Season 2 had the most number of housemates, 18 in all.
• Ruben was the first male Big Winner.

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The Nursing Skills Lab used to be our classroom in our Nursing Jurisprudence and during our stay there in the past semester, the whole class used to take some small Nursing Paraphernalia in the unlocked glass cabinets that neatly line the wall. I used to take IV sets, IV cannulas or syringes and play with them at home. Sometimes I use them to replenish my items in my bag for duty. Most of the things that we stole during our stay were either too cheap or expired already so I didn’t feel any guilt whenever I pocket a couple of items. I guess what really hindered me from taking the bigger stuff was the fact that the more expensive things are put away in the locked cases at the back of the laboratory.

Now, one time while we were waiting for our Saturday Class lecturer to come after lunch my classmate asked me to go with her. While we were walking across the school, we saw the lab’s back door open. We went inside and checked on the more expensive stuff. There was a mob of Juniors outside and we knew that we were clearly seen through the glass doors and windows but we didn’t care since they didn’t have a CI with them. The sliding glass of the cabinet was locked so I pushed it upward then pulled it down so I was able to remove it entirely [I learned this technique from Alex]. I held the glass while my classmate ransacked the whole content of the glass cabinet. My hand became shaky and sweaty. The handle of the glass slipped through my palms and I almost broke it. The last time we tried to nick some stuff from it my classmate cut her hand so I was really worried. I nagged at her to get the sphygmos, the plasters, everything her hands can grab on. A CI or a staff might come by at any moment. She took all that she could and we ran out of the room really swiftly.

I wasn’t entirely guilty of what I did, in fact it was really such a thrill. But then as the lecture went on a student knocked on our classroom and said that the Fourth Year coordinator shall be talking to the whole class at the end of the session so that’s when I got really nervous. I was like, “What if the Juniors squeeled?” My classmnate didn’t think so and was pretty indifferent. “Hindi ka kasi sanay gumawa ng kalokohan.”

I was like “c’mon what does the Student Manual say about first offense stealing?”

“I dunno. Who reads that book anyway?”

“Well… me.”

She snorted and listened back to the lecturer. The lecturer was the best one we had and I hate myself because I couldn’t focus. I sweat with beaded perspiration and started to hyperventilate. Things came pushing in my mind like; what if I dropped the glass, what if I cut my hand, what if the third year squeeled? It was torture. My mind was like in a limbo and my classmate was so relaxed.

I told her that we got to get out of the classroom after the lecture.

“We can’t. We have to meet the Coordinator.”

“Exactly.”

“They wouldn’t allow us.”

“Make up a story then.”

She pulled her seatmate and told her I feel like pooping and I had to go to her house to use the bathroom. It didn’t take long until everyone in the line knew about this and they believed her; with my beaded sweats and agitations, who wouldn’t?

After the class I pulled her outside. I Said we’d just wait until they have finished talking with the Coordinator and just ask them what it was about. While waiting, she told me she wanted to go to the church so I asked her if she diesn’t even feel guilty or at least bad for what we did. I argued that it was bad especially the amount of things we stole, Alcohols, stethoscopes, plaster, sphygmomanometrs and even thermometers. She said that we own them since we paid for a laboratory fee in the enrolment. We argued for some time until I decided to go back to our room and ask a classmate. I said, “Hindi ka ba nakokonsensya?” We were running so I didn’t see the nuns who overheard us.

One of the nuns stopped me and said, “How come? You should go to church then.”

“Oh you don’t know the whole story.” My classmate sniggered.

I had to transfer from one bus to another in commuting back and forth the Regional Health Unit where I had my most recent duty. As my first bus slowed down as it approached the terminal where I had to ride the next bus, I had a glimpse of a karaoke bar. It was one of the multitudes of Karaoke bars that line that street. Stood in front were more than a dozen girls in skimpy attire. A lady in her early forties was clearly visible as she talks with a mob of more or less than twenty Korean men. The age of the guys ranges from early forties to as young as early twenty years old. I saw the two youngest men exchanging conversation with uncertainty in their faces, which they passed into giggles.

The other day, as my girl groupmates made some finishing touches on our scrapbook (a requirement of our CI), I opened an unattended drawer. There I saw some pictures and Bio-Data-like papers accompanied by pink Identification Cards. As the description on the cards tells it, the women’s age were from 18 to 25. Majority are 19 years old. Their job description; as they are euphemistically called, GRO-Guest Relation Officers, my Clinical Instructor prefers the term Commercial Sex Workers.

The accompanying pink IDs are, as I learned, necessary to the establishments where the girls work. Just as how a normal restaurant have to maintain the cleanliness of its building and the foods it serves to get their sanitary permit, a Karaoke Bar has to ensure the “cleanliness” of the GROs it “serves” also- in short they have to make sure that all their girls are free from any Sexually Transmitted Diseases. Here comes our job or at least the Thursday-to-Saturday group. You see, the RHU has a specific program at a specific day of the week. Every Monday is day for General Check ups, every Tuesday is for pregnant women, and Wednesday is for immunization, while the Pap smear sked falls on Thursday. I belong to Monday to Wednesday group so I do not have the chance to do any of the pap smear of the ladies.

Hanzel asked me the same questions I asked our CI when I showed him what I found. Isn’t prostitution illegal here in the Philippines? What is the use of raids if a Government sector extends its program to something that is “illegal”? Aren’t we tolerating something that is “illegal”? Our CI answered me saying that the fact that prostitution persists alarms the health sector, especially with the issue of Sexually Transmitted Diseases. Whatever “legal” issues surrounding the infamous “industry” is beyond our concern, what are important are the women’s health and its possible effect to the community.

Which made me think; can’t we just legalize prostitution here in the Philippines? Wouldn’t legalizing it extends the program to a higher degree and could prevent the abuse and exploitation of women and the minors? However, isn’t prostitution in itself a kind of exploitation?

I still teeter on the verge of agreeing and opposing to this subject.

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When the second bus I rode finally moved to escape the bus terminal, it has once again treaded the same street where I saw the Korean men. This time, I saw them walking away from the Karaoke bar exchanging dialogues and probably jokes, which they all returned with a wave of laughter. I found myself smiling; I guess I still do have some biases on this matter.