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Recently, I've been a lot more thankful for everything I have in life. I made a resolve a few months ago to stop complaining at work (harder than I thought honestly -- some of the stuff that goes in the ICU really tests me sometimes) and try to live an overall happier life. I think all of this is after something I remember harping to my mom about -- "Ma, I don't think I ever hear a positive word come out of your mouth." "Isn't what you're saying now negative too?" she rebutted. Smartass!
As of late, I decided to finally resign from my second job. I'd been working two jobs for a year and a half now, and it didn't really hit me until now how much responsibility that really was. Though, I feel like in a way, I just wanted to hold onto something familiar before truly coming to the realization that I could still love my job even without being in an environment that I had always known. I think in some way that's the true essence of travel nursing. I also came to terms with what two jobs was really doing to the rest of my life. I had less time to spend with my family or friends, less time to pursue the things I needed to do in order to advance in my career, and how much stress it was all putting on me. Regardless of all these though, I still felt like I lost something special when I decided to resign. Still, I feel blessed to have been able to be a part of a workplace that great for so long. I'm sad to leave.
Perhaps the thing that made me happiest though was meeting a new person. I won't get into it too much, but I'm glad it happened. Though I'm happy I'm also a little frightened. But for some reason, I think I'll be ok no matter what. Stiff upper lip.
Maybe someday I'll get to blogging about something more worthwhile than the stupid annals of my life. </sob>
As a child, I'd played lots of video games an unfortunate side effect of being cousin to a game addict. RPGs had always been my personal form of heroin though -- my favorite one being the Final Fantasy series.
I think it was VII that really hooked me in. It was always really the plot lines though, that drew me in -- love stories! Though, I admit, I never really liked the furry animal Final Fantasy games -- like um, IX or the up and coming XIV... Maybe XIV will swing me though.
I'm dying for XIII to be released in the spring. Until then, I'm stuck drooling over videos of what's to come.^^
My favorite books lay in a bookshelf in my old bedroom at my mom's house. They're easily tucked away with a simple sliding mechanism that hides them behind the headboard area of my bed. The only permanent fixtures in this series of books are the Lonely Planets on the bottom shelf. The rest of my book collection is sprawled throughout bookshelves in that room. Some are still packed away in boxes because I don't have anymore space on the shelves. Over the years, I've managed to amass around 300 or so.
I need to get a Kindle.
Every year it seems as though I go through another 12 books (at the least), keeping the top shelf in flux. This past year, I'd been reading a lot of Japanese authors. My favorites (for now anyway) are Haruki Murakami's "Norwegian Wood" and Banana Yoshimoto's "Kitchen." This year's theme was also love. I love a good tormented love story (story of my life!).
My hope is that if I ever have kids, that they'll love reading just as much as I do. Hopefully by that time though, there'll be some kind of super Kindle out so that they won't have to go through collecting paper like I do.
Ah, but I do love the smell of a good book! When will they begin to digitize that, I wonder...?
I bought a netbook cooling pad a few days ago. I often use my laptop the way you see in the photo above. The hum of the cooling plate against the wood sounds a little bit like a quieter version of the sound you hear as you're flying in a plane. I can't think of anything better to fall asleep to.
I used to have recurring nightmares on almost a daily basis after I finished college. It used to be the same few ones -- one about a flying French midget (ridiculous, I know), one of running from a killer in a 'trap' house, or ones where I'd be helpless witnessing something I really didn't want to see.
Recently though, I started having a new one...
A family of four (father, mother, grandmother, and daughter) are off on a vacation in a small town located in deep beautiful woods. The grass and scenery is so electrifyingly green coating the landscape up to the small lake located near the houses where guests would stay for the country resort area. Of the many diversions at the resort is a novelty horse and buggy rental -- something probably better suited to Scarlett O'Hara's time. The family, partially out of boredom and out of their sense of exploration decides to take one out for a spin.
As they are carried quietly through the green pastures and thickets surrounding their resort, the quiet breeze and sunshine envelops them like a warm blanket. As father drives the horse (seemingly skillfully), the family notices a large building in the oncoming distance.
The building appears to be some sort of strange rest stop. It's massive -- shaped like a rectangular arch with a wide open area through the middle with a ramp that led upward, and outward to the other side. On the ramp there areas reserved to the sides where you could park your horse and carriage. The family, seeing this area, and the beautiful buidling, decided to make a pit stop of it on their country tour. As they got out, the mother says, "Isn't it beautiful? But why isn't there anyone around?"
"I feel like I've been here before," says the daughter, remembering that the previous day, she had indeed with a few other friends from the resort. "I don't remember there being much here though, we kinda just came and went." She stood by the horse, who was stirring, and gently patted him on his muzzle. Grandmother made her way into one of the shops that faced the tunnel/parking area. Daughter continued to pat the horses' nuzzle, but the horse continued to stir. By this time, the wind was really picking up. On the opposite side of the tunneled area, mother and father had made their way into the opposite shop admiring the glasswork on the windowpanes that faced the parking area.
"It's as if someone was just here, honey. Look at how clean it is," mother says.
Daughter, feeling the heaviness of the winds that are now almost torrential, looked up at the dark and gray sky. She decided she'd better get inside. She staggers against the wind, towards the half of the building where her parents are -- struggles to open the door, and finally manages to shut it with the aid of her father. It was just then, as they looked out through the shiny glass panes, that they see their horse and carriage swept away in a tornado-like fashion.
"Oh my God." father says.
On the other side, grandmother has her hand close to her face trying to deflect the wind as she makes a feeble attempt to cross the bridge area to where mother, father, and daughter were. But grandmother too, is swept away by the tornado-like wind to the onlooking dismay of her own family.
Mother, in a state of panic, flings the door open only to find that the torrential wind has gone and the gentle spring breeze that had preceded remained. A heavy aura now fell upon the remaining members of the family due to grandmother's sudden disappearance, or maybe now due to the sight of a large figure dressed in tattered coveralls walking towards them. He was pale with dark muted black hair with rings under piercing gray eyes that were narrowed and locked in on mother. In his arms, he carried a poker used for tending a fireplace. As he begins barreling towards mother, she ducks into the haven of the shop containing father and daughter. She babbles to them in panicked fragmented sentences -- unable to put the words together out of fear. Father, equally as terrified tries to make a plan for escape. "To where?" daughter wonders.
Just then, the dark figure that mother had seen outside, makes his way in the corridor of the shop grinning -- laughing even, his way towards the family with poker in hand. Father, without a word, gets his hand on a similar device from the fireplace conveniently located next to them and hurls it with a strange Spartan-like force towards the figure's gut forcing it clear through him. As the figure staggers around, blood dripping from his now pierced gut, the family attempts to make an escape.
Just then they hear the low growl of a seething bengal tiger.
"What the f*ck?!" screams daughter. Mother, now scrambling searching through the cabinets and drawers in the shop immediately surrounding them, manages to pull a large knife. "We're going to have to stab him underneath and from behind!" she screams. Father immediately picking up that mother wanted to stab it directly in its heart, gathered his strength as the animal now turned towards them preparing to lunge. The cat went for mother first, who at the least, had miraculously passed the knife to father as she's being chomped by the large muzzle of the cat who is screeching. Father, taking note of what mother had mentioned just seconds earlier wrenched the knife into the animal and attempted with all of his strength stirring the knife around. The animal, slowly lost its strength, falling to its side, still roaring. Mother, half-dead and bleeding grossly, is dragged by father as the animal wails, and daughter pulls the door open. The family, badly damaged, and frustrated, makes it outside to the silent spring breeze.
And I wake up.
I still can't wrap my head around this one, but I feel like I'm seeing flashbacks from Nam or something.
For my mom's 59th birthday this year, I got her a new bike. She'd been complaining about how Watson, our 4 year old Beagle, loves to run but that she just couldn't keep up. Mom had been musing about which kind of bike to get, but never pulled through. She's the type of person that never really buys things that are fun, or are considered non-essential...
My mom grew up in a family of 10 in the Philippines, poor (and when I mean poor, I mean poor by Philippine standards; something we in the west have no real clue of until we've seen it first hand in another country) -- but not completely destitute. My mom's dad worked at the docks in Manila as a supervisor of the shipments that would come in and out day-to-day, and her mom would wash clothes for different people in the neighborhood. Growing up, they never had much, and sometimes simple things like doctor's visits were things they couldn't afford. The four boys in her family of 10, all died -- one from tetanus, another from flu... and I couldn't tell you what the other two died of because in my family, those types of details are buried in the dark.
When my mom and her sisters were old enough to graduate from high school, they all went to college and afterwards were bound to a form of indentured servitude that even I can't wrap my head around. The oldest would work and use a majority of their money to send the next sister in line to college, and so forth and so on. It so happens that the last two in that chain apparently took that money from their older sisters and just went to town with it. Even 'til this day, I don't think that either of the two have apologized for what they did, but they are after all -- family, and the unspoken bitterness remains surfacing only during family fight nights on holidays, haha.
I don't know if it was because my mom was more diligent, or maybe if it was because she was just less socially free and spent less money than the others, but she always seemed to have more than her sisters by their account. By the time she was my age, she was already working for an accounting firm in Hong Kong and well on her way in her career to moving on to the United States.
In the U.S. things had gotten better for a while as she worked for one good accounting firm to the next. She met my dad, had me and things just seemed to spiral out of control from there. My parents, even though they loved each other, always had a lot of heated altercations about money -- the pressure of which was enough to eventually split their marriage. After the whole process left my mother broken and penniless, she moved to D.C. to live with some of her sisters (which had thankfully, by now, also immigrated to the U.S.). My mom's pride never allowed her to take money from my dad, and my dad never pushed her to take it. Even if she had been poor and struggling to support me and my brother, she never once yielded to my dad. I don't know whether to call that stubborn, or courageous -- either way, I don't fault her for it.
My mom worked two jobs for years, always leaving her daily full time one to do more work until the late hours of the night at the other. I barely saw her growing up, but not once could I say that I didn't have something I needed. I was always fed with clothes on my back and a warm bed to sleep in at night. When I got to college, it was mom that foot the bill for everything -- tuition, an allowance, books, etc.
She's always been this 'practical' since I was a kid. So on special occasions like her birthday, mother's day, or Christmas -- I get her something different.
It's too bad that this year's birthday gift is one she's falling off of -- after 30 or so years of not using a bike, she can't remember how to! :( Anyone have any advice for how to teach an older rider how to do ride one?
One of my favorite things to do while traveling abroad is hostel.
I really had no opinion of hostelling the first few times I did it -- I never saw that movie, and I didn't have friends who were into travel enough to do it. Most of my friends go the "all-inclusive package" route -- or, as most of the backpackers I know call it, "traveling on lite."
At the time, I was still a relatively a new nurse (with crappy new nurse pay), so the cost of the plane tickets alone -- whereever I was going -- were already a ridiculous burden. Hostelling was the way to go in order to save money if I wanted to get to where I was going. So I booked a stay for about a week on a trip I had coming up to Japan.
I stayed in dorms mainly (at $28.00/night -- you can't beat it..!), and just to be on the less smelly side, usually girl's dorms at that. I didn't mind having to share space, or even a bathroom -- the showers were always warm, room always clean... I didn't get what people had been balking about when I'd mentioned hostelling to them. "But don't you think it's unsafe? Those places are dirty anyway."
Like most anything else, a hostel is only as safe as you are smart. Don't leave valuables lying around and don't book hostels in sketchy areas of town. Most hostels are fun -- the kind of places where you can meet other travelers, share stories, drinks, and make new friends. I can't tell you how many people I've met while hosteling and am still friends with until now -- they've even given me more of a reason to travel, if anything!
The only real downside to hosteling is the lack of sleep I seem to get sometimes. You can't really sleep in late because of the noise factor in the morning -- it doesn't matter if you're in a girls dorm or a guys dorm, there always seem to be people who don't care that there are others sleeping. What's even more evil are plastic bags. I'm not talking about the Ziplocks, or toiletry bags -- I'm talking about your grocery store bag! PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, IF YOU HOSTEL: LEAVE YOUR F*CKING PLASTIC BAG AT HOME. NO ONE WANTS TO HEAR THAT SH*T RUSTLING AT 8AM!
Enough said. ;)
I started blogging again as a means of trying to have a more creative hobby than video gaming. All that carpal tunnel action from playing Rock Band isn't healthy! And thanks to Kyle's fantastic new theme (pictured above! -- I can't believe it!) I've got a new lease on life :)
I had an interesting conversation earlier this evening with my friend Matt L about an idea I've been toying with for a few months now. If any of you know me at all, you at least know that my mood and ambitions seem to change just as easily as the direction of the wind. A few months ago, I was willing to put it all on the line in hopes of joining the Peace Corps, and now I'm here talking about giving up everything to travel around the world instead.
Anyway -- about the conversation with Matt. We were discussing the current push here in the United States for healthcare reform. Most of CNN's (and other news sources') latest coverage is centered around the debate of whether or not our government should offer a so-called "public option." I realize that to many, this particular issue is their greatest concern in our government's attempt to change our nation's current health situation especially considering its financial impact. There is no question to me that this topic will be beaten to death over and over in the next legislative session. More important to me however though, is if or when healthcare reform is finally passed where we're going to get people to take care of all of these 'new' patients?
Our nation is currently so engrossed with the politics involved with which reform to pass that they've seemed to gloss over the larger issue of lack of healthcare professionals altogether. Of more impact to me though, is the effect a potentially larger patient population (potentially due to lack of reform or due to reform itself...) would have on nursing. We've heard through news, internet, and other media venues that age old, "there's a nursing shortage." Well folks, it hasn't changed -- 10 years after you first heard that news, it's still playing like a broken record in the halls of every hospital worldwide.
While doing research for my Fulbright thesis a few years ago, I came across countless articles that cited a worldwide shortage of nurses. According to a program I watched on PBS last year, government studies have shown that in the U.S. alone, the projected shortfall would be 1 million nurses by 2020. The upside in the research I did find about nursing graduation rates for the U.S. was that now, there is an unprecedented high in the amount of nurses we're graduating nationally. The downside to that though, is that we're still behind what we need to be in order to keep up with the demand. It's this shortfall in nurses that creates pressure within the existing nursing frame itself however.
Because of the shortfall, hospitals are almost always understaffed creating unsafe and stressful nurse to patient ratios. Staff in turn, are not only stressed but patients themselves aren't receiving the kind of care they could be getting. Travel nurses like me, or agency nurses also patch temporary needs, but are only short term solutions to a long term issue. Add to that growing and increased pressure upon hospitals to conform to certain 'standards' for safety, or quality of care and you have a system that is struggling to keep up with the demands on both government and patient fronts.
If you're a nurse, you probably understand where I'm coming from. We try our best every shift to meet our patient's demands and provide safe and quality nursing care, but there are always other issues interfering. If it isn't the staffing, there are things like old medical equipment, or in some cases, lack thereof. Sometimes it's social issues within a unit itself -- are the staff "eating" their young? are there limited areas for advancement? not enough staff cohesiveness to participate and divide administrative work loads? etc. Whether healthcare reform at the level of financing a public option takes place or not -- we're still left with these pressing issues that have plagued U.S. nursing for more than 10 years. With the current explosion in interest in healthcare it surprises me that there's been a lack of discussion of these types of long standing issues. Instead of hearing about maybe new government programs to encourage people to become nurses -- I'm hearing about how propofol may or may not have contributed to Michael Jackson's death.
Give me a break!
I can't post the years after this.... since, by a freak of nature, or rather this computer, I lost the subsequent playlists when I was copying and pasting. I hate myself right now, but in a few weeks I'll probably find a way to compile them all over again.
High School (Note: This is where it gets worse):
- The Dope Show by Marilyn Manson
- Santeria by Sublime
- 素敵だね by Rikki
- Buddy Holly by Weezer
- The Distance by Cake
- Head Over Heels by Tears For Fears
- D'yer Mak'er by Led Zeppelin
- I Will Survive by Cake
- Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger by Daft Punk
- Never There by Cake
- Everything by Lifehouse
- Crazy On You by Heart
- La Llorona by Chavela Vargas
- Thank You by Dido
- Mad World by Gary Jules
- Light My Fire by The Doors
- Paradise City by Guns N Roses
- Dock Of The Bay by Otis Redding
- Because by The Beatles
- Schism by Tool
- Lightning Crashes by Live
- Ain't No Mountain High Enough by Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell
- You Got Me by The Roots
- Killing Me Softly by The Fugees
- Big Poppa by Notorious B.I.G.
- Karma Police by Radiohead
- Gin And Juice by Snoop Doggy Dog
- California Love by 2Pac & Dr. Dre
- Thugz Mansion (Acoustic) by 2Pac feat. Nas
- Enter Sandman by Metallica
- Take Me Out by Franz Ferdinand
- Virtual Insanity by Jamiroquai
- No Such Thing by John Mayer
- Eternal Flame by The Bangles
- Father Of Mine by Everclear
- Inside Out by Eve 6
- Closing Time by Semisonic
- Bittersweet Symphony by The Verve
- Freshmen by The Verve Pipe
- If You Could Only See by Tonic
- Say My Name by Destiny's Child
- In The Meantime by Spacehog
- Teenage Dirtbag by Wheatus
- Lola by The Kinks
- Jane Says by Jane's Addiction
- Dammit by Blink 182
- To Be With You by Mr. Big
- Fat Lip by Sum 41
- Under The Bridge by The Red Hot Chili Peppers
- Scar Tissue by The Red Hot Chili Peppers
- Paranoid Android by Radiohead
- Guerilla Radio by Rage Against The Machine
Middle School Years:
- Satellite by Dave Matthews Band
- Down by 311
- Good Riddance by Green Day
- This Is How We Do It by Montell Jordan
- Danse Macabre by Camille Saint-Saens
- Crossroads by Bone Thugs n' Harmony
- Hook by Blues Traveler
- Celebrity Skin by Hole
- Transcendental Studies for Piano by Franz Liszt [note: No. 4]
- Take A Bow by Madonna
- Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin
- Ironic by Alanis Morrisette
- Black Hole Sun by Soundgarden
- Don't Look Back In Anger by Oasis
- Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd
- Sleep To Dream by Fiona Apple
- Kashmir by Led Zeppelin
- You Oughta Know by Alanis Morrisette
- No Rain by Blind Melon
- Wonderwall by Oasis
- Swallowed by Bush
- Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana
- Everlong by The Foo Fighters
- Creep by Radiohead
- Tonight, Tonight by The Smashing Pumpkins
- Spiderwebs by No Doubt
- Zombie by The Cranberries
- Lovefool by The Cardigans
- Only Happy When It Rains by Garbage
- Adia by Sarah McLachlan
- Never Let You Go by Third Eye Blind
