In Which I Talk About the Same Darn Things

"Change your thoughts and you change your world" - Norman Vincent Peale

1. Alas, I lament for my failure as a narrator!

Is my life so monotonous that all I ever talk about is work? And my neverending regret for my inherent weakness to change myself and the world around me? And forget not my penchant to dramatise everything - surely there has to be a limit to what nonsense I get off on!

(If I'm not making any sense, blame it on my lack of sleep last night - all in the name of work!)

In some aspects, surgical is not too bad. Sure, there are those things that still irk me every now and then - such as the impossibility of finding for things when you need them (e.g. X-ray films and case sheets and even the...gel thingy) and how we keep on running out of things (We have too many admissions! Stop getting yourselves sick, people!) and how people still keep on thinking I'm a nurse (Dangit, what the heck is wrong with the world!?) and specialists demanding things that are close to impossible.

There are a few nurses that are helpful. Certain PPKs don't mind sending down the blood samples that I asked for. Certain nursing students didn't mind helping us to do ECGs. So yeah, maybe it's not too bad.

But it still hurts being pressurised by those on top.

We're still understaffed.

The system is still as abominable as ever - if not worse.

I lament for the health state of the general public, and their awareness.

I weep for my own state of being human.

...And I pray that I will not later on become like those I despise.

2. Have you any idea what you've done to me?

I am now a stranger to myself. All these feelings that I can't contain...I can't even pour them into a sonnet, a hymn.

...Then all the feelings manifest as gastritis. And so - foolish that I am! - I can only go, "Wait, what!?"


Current Music: Drive By - Train

An Ending is Just A Beginning of Something Else

*If you are looking for happy stuff, please cease reading at once and look elsewhere. If you are looking for a glimpse of the darkness that has consumed me at the moment, then so be it; My advice, carry on with caution.

Done with 2 weeks of tagging in the Surgical Department, and honestly, I dislike it immensely.

Somehow the hospital always manages to throw one surprise after another - and not in a good way, I assure you. Just when I thought that the Paeds nursery actually runs on havoc alone, along comes 4-2 and somehow, suddenly nothing actually makes sense.

The passover system is stupid, hands down. We are not nurses, and honestly, we are burdened with enough unnecessary tasks as it is. And the rounds take too much time, leaving us with little time to get things done before the next rounds begin.

And it's horribly ridiculous when you have more MOs than HOs doing the rounds. At one point I just wanted to purse my lips and just do what we HOs essentially are - secretaries.

We are understaffed. How can we complete any of the ward work when we are expected to go for OT (one person for elective, one person for emergency operations), daycare, scope room, and the radiology department to go begging for urgent scans? 

Also, the schedule is crazy. There is no making sense when all you have in your hands and around you is insanity.

In whatever establishment, there needs to be a system. No matter how many times I have emphasised the fact that I thrive on entropy in the past, it no longer applies when there are just too many people in the picture. Hence there needs a good teamwork, a good sense of responsibility, a mutual feeling of "I've got your back".

Here, it's like people's negative qualities manifest only too easily. Everyone is too busy saving their own skin. We're too busy passing over things that the ward work is compromised.

I like to think that I'm not as negative as people make me out to be, so imagine my rage when I was accused of being too judgmental over people instead of trying to be more positive about the whole situation.

I frankly am quite tired of trying to look for a positive aspect when it's greatly overshadowed by the negative and the insanity.

And tomorrow...honestly, I'm scared to face tomorrow.

Can't today stay instead? Because today, after one week of torture...I savoured joy.

Current Music: Rolling in the Deep - Adele

Anomaly

"The woman who follows the crowd will usually get no further than the crowd. The woman who walks alone is likely to find herself in places no one has ever been" ~ Albert Einstein

It's difficult being the odd one out.

Positive people would label this as 'being unique', but how does that stand in a world where one might be punished for being different?

There is a Japanese proverb that describes exactly this: The nail that sticks out gets hammered...Or something that sounds like that.

Is there something that I missed? Am I so terribly uninformed that I have this naivety, this tendency to float about in a world of my own creation, made up of enchanting lies and blissful ignorance? Was my childhood so utterly traumatising(?) that it managed to put my entire perspective on life in jeopardy?

Perhaps I am guilty of assuming, of passing judgments too easily after all. Of being unable to appreciate those that may be obscure at first glance, or being blind to what are glaringly obvious to the rest of the world.

Funny how personal opinions and beliefs can taint our outlooks with prejudice - and vice versa.

But when I observe the world around me, with the myriad of people and all sorts of drama that they embroiled themselves in unwittingly, my mind automatically wonders - Is it just me, or has the world gone cuckoo?

Maybe, with regards to Mr. Einstein's quote above...this is one of the many ways that the term "Forever Alone" can be applied to yours truly.

Current Music: Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You) - Kelly Clarkson