Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells!

Christmas will always be the most important feast day of the year. It marks the birth of our savior, Jesus Christ - whom we refer to as the "reason for the season". We always hear our parish priests during our Christmas Masses say that we should focus more on the thought of Christmas rather than the superficiality of it - but are we really digging deep in doing so?

See, we have been so engrossed with making Christmas the most grandiose occasion of our year. I noticed, that when September starts, sales would usually be announced here and there, and bargains would pile up almost every mall store. People rushing here and there just to look for gifts for their loved ones, seeking for the best they can find. Mothers rushing to the grocery stores to get their needs for the much awaited holiday feasts.

As much as possible, we would like our Christmases to be beautiful, grand, and abundant. It's not a sin for us to want it to be that way for our families, but please, let us not be obsessed with such ideas. Remember that the season is not about such - it is about more! If you would just stop and consider the simpler pleasures of the season, you will find that it is more rewarding because it is in being simple that we become one in celebrating with Mary, Joseph, and the infant Jesus as they celebrate the first Christmas in the most simple way.

Just try and stop - breathe the cool Christmas air, feel it rush into your hair, face, and body; give time to look at the starry Christmas night, wonder at its beauty - as it take you back to the time when the Christmas was celebrated. Listen to Christmas songs - savor their meanings and indulge in the happiness of their tunes. Sit, stare, feel, and share. The true meaning of Christmas lies in the simplest of things, not in how we make things extravagant. One thing more - sharing. We share because we mean it, not because we need to. We give because it comes loosely from our hearts, we do not give with heavy ones. It is in sharing that we complete the spirit of Christmas because with Simplicity, it becomes in triad with Love, and this triumvirate can make you feel the most Merry Christmas ever.

The first Christmas was celebrated like this:

http://www.revelationillustrated.com/

I think what is important is that we become aware of the more important things about the season - that we are celebrating it with the people we love the most, that we have celebrated it well, and that we have offered it to our birthday boy. :)












Christmas should not always focus about the gifts, feasts, or anything superficial. It should focus on that on child who was born in a manger one night, with nothing but his family with him. He is our Messiah. That should be enough for us to feel the most expensive, merry, and happy Christmas ever! :)

The Home in Me

"Nursing is really, really hard."

You'd probably hear that from the mouths of every student nurse, staff nurse, and nurse volunteer if you'd ask them how the course Nursing treated them, or how being a Nurse feels like for them.

We live in a society where undermining exists among peers. Where there is deep competition among Universities, offering so much for their prospective students - and for those who are in? They tend to instill competition within the University by means of "who's got the hardest course?".

People tend to stereotype. We are in a world of the stereotypical, where the superior will always want to be superior, and those who are inferior to him will always be inferior and shall have no chance of becoming better. Nursing has become one of those targets of stereotypes.

Being a Nurse, it becomes insulting at first, when you come to think of it. You know that you are dealing with life, you know that these people underestimating you and your profession would one day seek for your help when they are lying in that hospital bed, coughing, feeling so bad, with an IV inserted on the dorsum of their hands. Of course, as compassionate as ever, we should care for them, for we have duties to uphold, and we have an oath to our profession, and to God.

Nursing was never really my fad. It was never my first choice. I saw myself as a doctor, primarily. It was my dream profession ever since. I would wear fake stets and write pretend prescriptions for my parents and look serious for it. I never imagined myself typing this blog entry because of Nursing. I must admit, at first, I saw nurses as subordinates to doctors - followers of those who know better. I shifted from Education to Nursing to take up Medicine- just to finish this course, then off to Med School!, I thought. But never did I imagine that this would start something deep in me.

My first year in Nursing was fine. I had a few bumps in my own road, but I was able to get through all of it. It was not until my second year that I realized the true meaning of the profession. I was opened to a lot, and I mean, A LOT. The superficiality of Nursing - the subjects, professors, schedules, and uniform, were thrown out of the window. It was time to mature and face something more realistic. My third year and fourth year were more of discoveries and reflections, they opened my eyes that there's more to Nursing than what the people think. It got me loving the profession more, without removing my eyes from being a doctor.

I guess people should know better than to tag Nursing as a profession with "so much money attached to it" because money can't buy their lives, if you get what I mean.

Enough of my ranting. I shall relinquish any negativity by blabbering why I love Nursing.

Well, for starters, WE SAVE LIVES, BABY! 'Nuff said.

Oh, don't get me started with the books. My goodness, I love the jargons! It's like we're so intelligent when we give health teaching to our families and they're like:

(taken from http://www.google.com.ph)

In all seriousness, we become so enriched by all the terms given to us by the profession and it feels so empowering and light to share it to people and later, finding out that it helped them a lot. :)

Aside from the cool jargons, we get to feel the real deal as we go on duties during our years as students! I get it that in some countries, they wait until they're in fourth year just to enter a certain hospital. But in our country, we get the feel of the whole experience as early as the second year, so, YAY FOR THAT! :)

Other than the hospital experience, uhm, is it just me or do the coolest people enroll in Nursing? Well, at least I can say that in my case because I know the best people in the world! Seriously. It's like all-stars in our University everyday!

Lastly, you gotta love Nursing because it gives you gratitude. The feeling that everything is a "Thank You". A patient who can't talk, smiling back at you. An geriatric (elderly) patient holding your hand after you have given him/her morning care. A pregnant mother crying after seeing her child for the first time. A child hugging you after her discharge. A mother saying "it's really good to have you here" after a tough medication session with a child. A dying cancer patient saying "Thank you..." after you have taken her vital signs. 

Simple pleasures, yes. But for us Nurses, it's more than that. It's gives us the thought that, at the end of the day, those stereotypes about our profession are cancelled. Those insults are thrown out of the window. 

At the end of the day, we are Nurses. We save lives. We don't care about how much we get for saving lives. OUR BEST SALARY IS SEEING YOU ALIVE AND WELL. :)

Jerome Christian L. Pelaez, Registered Nurse