a year after
I think somehow, that this may be my proverbial entry for what i'll have to start calling the "POST-COLLEGE BLUES" where i confess my confusion and uncertainty about my future and whether i fit right in the career my course decided for me.
Right now, I'm working at this NURSING HOME and thankfully getting the hang of it. Although my boss implied days ago before i went home that she'll be VERY DISAPPOINTED if I suddenly transfer to an ACUTE HOSPITAL in 6 MONTHS. She got it wrong though. It's more like 6 WEEKS. And yesterday, my boss gave me her scrubs that she hasn't used in a while, which i gratefully accepted since good quality scrubs here are expensive. then she told me that she has a 21 year old daughter in Oklahoma who didn't take up nursing because she said that she was a bad example for a nurse because of her late hours. So, if you get the picture, i'm kind of her surrogate daughter who took up nursing.
Which makes it doubly hard for me when i give her my TWO WEEKS' notice on the first week of January 2008 because i'll be undergoing NEW GRAD TRAINING from an acute hospital for NEONATAL ICU near the end of January. (yes, after taking care of wrinkly GERIATRIC patients i'll be moving on to the still wrinkly NEONATAL patients) But, as my brother, mother and a co-worker said, it was to be expected. I won't be leaving for the pay, that's for certain. My future job gives out a lower salary than my present one.
I'm leaving the nursing home for the experience and the feeling of certainty that I've been searching for in this field of nursing. And I feel that i could only get that if I work in a hospital. Because while i'm still able and still young, and if i found out that even after working after a year that Nursing isn't the right path for me, i would like to take up MEDICINE since it was the career i originally wanted to take.
Hayyyy. a year ago, i never would have imagined that i'll be in a situation that i am right now. a year ago, i was STILL in the philippines, STILL in school, STILL totally dependent on my parents for everything, STILL not making any money aside from my CREAMPUFF(!) business, STILL dreaming about life in the U.S. as a nurse, and was STILL hiding my relationship with Joel from my parents and our families don't know much about each other.
A year after, i'm NOW here in the U.S., NOW employed, NOW slowly but surely becoming independent, NOW making money as a nurse, NOW living the life of a US RN, and NOW in a "legal" relationship where my family knows Joel's family.
And NOW, STILL as confused as ever. I may be the person what my parents planned me to become, since i was the obedient child. But what plans are made of are not of feelings. And now my mother is holding me back from taking up medicine if ever because their PLANS would be essentially ruined. Add to that, they seem to think that I'm their only child that they could rely on for their future. Seriously. My dad even told me "ikaw na lang pag-asa ko". Since they think that my brother would be marrying/living in with her girlfriend soon and my older sister has a child that she has to give priority to.
oh.... the PRICE TO PAY. I don't want to begrudge my parents their dreams, that's why I'm holding out for a year before I make my definitive decision to take up Medicine. It would have been easier if i can take it here and make a student loan. But i can't. I have too much missing units that i can't take up medicine here as easily as i would have if i took it in the Philippines. And there is also the matter of the U.S. Citizenship, which is now the factor that is holding me back from taking Med school in the Philippines.
PATIENCE is a VIRTUE and i should start taking that to heart before i do something that will make things go all haywire.