My trendy Sister

When I first understood what a nurse is I thought it was a very noble profession. To assist someone in time of healing and rehabilitation, to administer medicine, to assist in operations and to be with old folks. But this perception has changed over the course of time---from good to bad, to trashy.

You may wonder why I named this entry as "My trendy sister" since all things mentioned above are not about her. But this entry believe it or not is all about my sister's plight of achiving the "All-Filipino Dream" of being the a nurse; in her person. Forgive me (for being a little bias in the process) Ging.

The All Filipino Dream of Mine

I never dreamed of being a nurse. It was never my option (guilty compensation). Well, it was but it was never the first. I had a cousin who was a sucessful nurse and don't want to be a lower comparison to her. I never liked it to be compared. I took exams, countless of exams to universities, different courses, different scores, different levels of frustrations. I did not pass the premier state university, neither my brother's sister-university (the universities I preferred) but I got accepted at a private, semi-cool (as what I could define it) university here in Iloilo.

I wanted to take up Hotel and Restaurant Management because I loved to cook. It has been in our blood that we cook great (no really, we cook great). I had been trained to cook for those who need it and I want that my future occupation be involved in the same scope. But I switched gears (for my parents) to this all-talked-about course NARSING (I spelled it that way 'coz that is what we really are, NARSES).

I've put my mind into "achiever mode" so that I can fullfill my parents' dream for me, to finish my studies with a degree. I studied dilligently and profusely. Sleeping less and reading more. Maybe beacause it's the "unproclaimed intellicence war" between me an my sibling since he frequently gets more peps in the academics whilst I get the low-down "kabit-kabit" grades.

And I looked at myself in the mirror, my once chubby fat-ridden face was now, thinning up, it tightens and I have a waistline now. This is great! If studying leads to better figures, then every chubby person that exists should study hard!

I was slowly transforming into what my classmates are!

Money hungry narcissistic quacks!

Though I admit that I am materialistic, I am not money greedy, it also runs in our blood to be narcissistic. No, this are not alibis, these are wholesome truths. I said to myself, I won't be a laughingstock in our family. I will not be the black sheep of the class. I am going to make a mark in history and live my life as a student nurse the way it should be.

And so I met friends, enemies, acquaintances, clinical instructors, patients (both well and terminally-ill), mountain people, barkadas, janitors, student assistants, boardmates, security guards, landladies, vendors, and jeepney driversalong the way of loving this ill-fated future profession of mine.

But I never realized that with this face (which I thought was beautiful all life long), I could entice someone. Really! And he is head of a fraternity at school! Kappa Beta Alpha, blah. Whatever that is. And in the end he won my heart and the rest is... well, reality! Were still together! after what? 3 years? Ang tibay diba?

I hid this from my family partly because they were expecting so much from me and partly because I want this to be a thing of my own. Two years of keeping that secret is very hard, very painful and very very very very very (too many "very's"?) heart breaking. I think I was cheating my parents. But soon it leaked out and my brother caught a sniff of it. He did not told our parent but he always blackmails me after that.

I continued my student life as what it is before "Dad" (my boyfriend, ooh, boyfriend!) but with his fun inexplicit addition. BUT this blasted clinical instructor, just ruined my (parents) dream. He gave me a grade far bellow my cut off grade and well, I got deloaded (term for not passable). Most of my friends were. It's the sad truth that my school forcefully or intentionally deloads students after they get their money's worth from them. I am one of those fortunate ones who got sliced off in the process.

I was angry and tired and sad. Mix-mix kung sa filipino pa! I never deserved to be deloaded for it was an unfair system. A pa-close-close system. I hate it. I cursed my school, myself, and that blasted stupid clinical instructor!

In the end, I had to repeat another semester, since the subject is not offered the next sem. I had to wait. PROBATION HIBERNATION PERIOD. Maybe beacuse of being depressed that I ate too much again and I swelled up back to my old self. The fat me.

But then I swallowed my pride, my procastination, my abhorrence and my utter digust to my school and started again on my never-ending journey of being a student nurse. Duty, lecture, duty, lecture. Dull but meaningful, now that I had learned to love this profession.

And after so much sweat, tears, saliva, sandals, duty shoes, and unifoms, wrecked, trashed, torned and wasted, I had managed to graduate. I walked that field with a lofty feeling; that I had made it to Everest. And I took my diploma(paper rolled with a red ribbon tied) with a smiling face. Fogetting all the pains behind.

But then it all came back when the prospected dread board exams came to a unstoopable countdown. 150 days. 130. 89. 75. 30. The reviews were brain draining, exhausting but very informative (the speakers were great). I was being paranoid of it and I though of it almost everyday. Yapping, and yapping to everyone who listens to my panicking soul.

Soon I was filing and falling (literally) in line at PRC. The line was making dizzy, it was making me more paranoid. We were going to every church I had ever visited in Iloilo, we prayed profusely (even at the review center). We were all desperate to pass.

And then the fateful day came like lightning. It's really true when they say, "Pagbugtaw mo board exam na." I Prayed and trusted my brain and the Almighty. I went through part 1 with ease, but part two got me stuck. 3, 4 were easy and again I was helpless at part 5. I trusted my now keen (as I have learened) nursing senses.

It was two days of pure terror. It caught us unaware. Were were like zobies answering, erasing, nudging, praying, killing our heads with concentration and mixed emotions. We swore that after that day, we would never speak of that "unfatetul day" again. Until the results came out.

And it did came (with fervent hope and anxiety). I was hoping that it would come earlier when everyone was at home. Everyday for the past week I would bug my brother over the phone to check on the internet to see if the results were up. It cauight me unaware on the third day of "monitoring" that Dad(boyfriend) called me that I passed. I was jumping and screaming all around the house (Nobody was there) and SMS were piling up my inbox telling that I had passed.

I was happy that I passed. Really joyously (is that a word?) happy. I could not believe I can, but still, the newspaper tells it all. That I had passed the 2008 Philippine Nurses Licensure Examination, November Batch.

Now what should I do?

*this post is my own interpretation of my sister, she is not entitled to anything in this entry. Except being the source of all these.Congratulations Ging!