Motivation.

Motivation...where art thou?
It's only 3 more weeks...and yet it feels like forever.
My friend told me today, 'there's light at the end of the tunnel'.

I think I'm suffering from a final semester syndrome.

3 more weeks.
That's 21 days.
And that's 504 hours!!

Almost there.

When I was 7, I wanted to become a florist.
When I was 10, I thought you can't make a living being a florist, so I wanted to become a kindergarten teacher.
When I was 15, I didn't know what I wanted to do.
When I was 17, I wanted to be a nurse but my dad opposed so I thought oh well.
Then my teacher suggested why not a doctor and I thought that sounded cool.
After coming over to Adelaide, I decided I don't want to become a doctor anymore because of long working hours.
I still wanted to work in health care sector, so I decided to apply for Health Sciences.
After I graduated from Health Sciences, I didn't know what to do next.

So I applied to Nursing and I am 5 WEEKS AWAY from finishing it!
I hope I don't change my mind again.

You know you are a nurse when...

You know that all bleeding stops...eventually.

Your diet consists of food that has gone through more processing than most computers.

You believe chocolate is a food group.

You disbelieve 90% of what you are told and 75% of what you see.

You have your weekends off planned for a year in advance.

You believe that unspeakable evils will befall anyone who utters the phrase 'Wow, it's really quiet isn't it'.

Your favourite hallucinogen is exhaustion.

You think that caffeine should be available in I/V form.

You shock someone with an unrecognisable rhythm...until you get the one you do recognise.

You can identify what kind of diarrhoea it is just by the smell.

Your sense of humour gets warped each year.

Every time you walk you make a jingling noise because of all the scissors and clamps in your pocket.

You've been telling stories in a restaurant and made someone at the other table throw up.

Every time someone asks you for a pen you can find at least 4 of them on you.

When checking the level of a patient's orientation you aren't sure of the answer.

Addit: from Joannies:
You believe in the legend of full moon night. Every patient will go nuts on those nights.

Chicken rice at 23 Chatham.

Hello audiences. I am still alive.

It's been an eventful past few weeks, from cooking the bestest best chicken rice to eating our Patricks, to eating every 2 hrs when Moses' family came to starting my final clinical placement.

Event number 1:
So Lynn and I arranged a date 3 weeks in advance (see how busy us students are) to cook chicken rice. After indulging ourselves with iced chocolate at a cafe outside the market, we hurried back to my house to start preparing for our dinner for the night. I think pictures can speak for themselves better than I do, so here they are:



And this one...is Breast cancer awareness...with one 'dot' missing hehe.

Event number 2:
We've slaughtered our little children last week. It was a bloody scene.


Event number 3:
Sorry no pictures! I've never eaten so much in my entire life! But all worth it, and heaps of fun!

Event number 4:
I've started my last (fingers crossed) clinical placement in my uni life at the operation theatre suite. I'm currently at the theatre, but will be rotating through anaesthetics and recovery later on as well. The highlight of the first week of placement was that I got to be in the same theatre as my friend who was the surgeon there. It's so tiring having to stand in the theatre all day, especially if the procedure is a complicated one which takes 2-3hrs easily. I can't move around so much in the theatre as well because of the 'sterile procedure' they perform. I have to be careful not to be so close to anything! Today I was in the orthopaedic theatre and watched a total hip replacement and something else I don't remember. Orthopaedics is really bizzare, they position the patient in such weird position and the surgeons perform surgery as if they are doing some carpentry...like drill drill...hammer hammer...cut the bone with a saw...! Through this placement I've come to realise that I'm really not scared of gross things. I don't think theatre is my thing, though. It's one specialty that is very very different from the other areas of nursing and it's a totally different world!
But anyway, this is how I look in the theatre (plus a mask).

Oh happy day!

Oh the sun, the blue sky and the beach..and sausage and egg mcmuffin! What a great way to start off the day. Moses and I decided to head off to Glenelg for Maccers breakfast this morning and the weather was perfect! I couldn't believe that just few weeks ago I was still wearing 2 jackets and a scarf to work. I decided to wear the new summer top that I bought last night (first clothes shopping in many months)but left the new skirt at home because Moses commented that I look like a maid of some sort. His taste and mine tend to clash a bit, like he thinks my shoes are very 'auntie'. But anyway. As we sat on the grass and opened up our burgers, we realised that we were not alone...there was an army of seagulls waiting for us to drop some food for them! How scary, but that's so typical of Glenelg. If the ice cream shops were open I would've gone to Baskin Robins but sadly it was too early in the morning. Seemed like we weren't the only ones enjoying the sun though, as we saw many cyclists on the way and dads running along the beach while pushing the pram. Kill two birds with one stone. Ohh I can SO feel that summer is around the corner (although Spring just started few days ago)! I can't wait to go summer clothes shopping and wear those flowery long summer dresses! Oh sweet.

Of Wiggles and nappies.

She is my new found friend. She's 2 years and 2 months old and I've known her for over half a year now. We have to say bye-bye in 1 month time when I have to start my full-time clinical placement. This is OH-SO-SAD. She taught me so many things, like how to 'know' when to change nappies (like you can smell it ha.) and how to cut veges into small pieces and mix with other food so that she would eat them. I taught her some Japanese as well and she now says Sayonara (bye bye) to me whenever I go home after playing with her. She knows quite a few words and also some Mandarin as well. I admire her tofu brain. She also taught me (or the DVD taught us) all the kids songs and our current favourite is Wiggles. She calls me Shi-mi and likes to pull my hair. Well what can I say, she's in her naughty two's. It's such a struggle to take pictures with her because she likes my phone and when I want to use it she'll take it away. See even in this shot her right hand is trying to reach for my phone already. Ok, I better sleep now because I need to save my energy for tomorrow when I go play with her for the whole afternoon again!

All natural.

Ohh look at the weather outside! It's so a picnic weather. But since I'm stuck at home doing assignments, I decided to go out to my backyard and enjoy the sun with my little children who are all 10 weeks old this weekend. So it was 10 weeks ago that I had a sudden spastic idea of planting flowers and vegetables in my backyard. Well I did all the choosing of the plants and Moses had to do all the farming (good for his muscles!). They were oh-so-tiny (about 5cm) when we first bought them, but tadahh..they are like bushes now! By the way, the first picture on the left is not weeds, but they are Jack the broccolis x7. Their waist circumference is about 2+cm now, so they are not for eating yet but hopefully in a few months time they'll be on our dinner table. Oh imagine eating your children urgh. I remember they survived through weeks after weeks of heavy rain and even hail..which makes me a proud mother. The next one on the right is Billy the lettuce trio. I think they've grown healthy and big, and they'll make it to our dinner table as fresh salads very soon *muwahha*. The first Billy in the line was the smallest of the three but he's slowly catching up with the other two brothers. Last but not the least for today's post is Betty the red rose! She was bald and naked when she first came to the garden but she's beginning to grow some hair (leaves) now. The reason for planting her and her sister Florence (white rose) was so that Moses wouldn't need to go and buy me flowers but instead he can just cut some from the backyard. Ha, being economical here! But you know, it wasn't all happy stories in my little garden. Jack the snowpeas have passed away during their 3rd week of being with us, and Moses the farmer had accidentally plucked out Jack one time mistaking him for weeds. Nonetheless, the remaining children are growing bigger and stronger, and not to forget, they are organic pesticide and fertiliser-free! But because of that some caterpillars (black and big and hairy!) like to chew on the leaves of Patricks and I had to scoop up the monsters and throw them over the fence to the neighbour's yard! (haha sorry! I tried putting them away in the corner of my backyard but they came back to Patrick the next day). Anyway...happy 10-weeks birthday kids!

Lead me.

It's one of those days that I feel like blogging again. Well I have a bad history of deserting my 2 blogs after no more than 3 entries. So, this time, *fingers crossed*, I'll last a little bit longer.

It's Friday night and people outside are eating, drinking, partying, or at OCF. I haven't been to OCF for a while now but at this point in time I feel it's okay to take a break from it and have a little bit of me-myself-and-I time alone at home. I kind of like the feeling of being alone at home though. Mmm solitude. In a good way.

Feeling a bit emo and all these days from lots of things, like, final few months of uni life (for the second time, ha), sending in applications for next year's GNP program and not knowing exactly where I'll be or what I'll be doing the same time next year. Come to think of it, it's quite scary how I'll be officially registered as a registered nurse hopefully by the end of the year and working on a full shift work, because honestly, I feel I don't know much! Haha. It's one thing to be a student nurse on a placement and another thing to be a fully responsible and accountable registered nurse! And though it might be a bit early I'm also starting to think of the paths that I may want to pursue, like specialising in what areas. Paediatrics would be nice, ICU might be exciting, but mental health is a no-no for me! Then there's another issue of not knowing which hospital I'll be at. This week I had to turn down the interview in Sydney because I want to wait for SA results to come out and of course, because my man is here. Hopefully, if God willing, I'll be here! But anyhow, please start being nice to me because I may be your nurse someday! :)

On a lighter note, I love how there's this tree near my house which looks like the cherry blossom tree in Japan! It's all fluffy and pink, and with the wind the petals all fly away. Oh how pretty. It's one of those rare occasions that I recall my life back in Japan (like when I was in primary school) and how I used to walk along this street to school everyday which had lots of cherry blossom trees planted along the sides! So the Spring is here and hopefully my Jack (broccoli), Billy (lettuce), Elijah (rosemary), Kate (sweet pea flowers), Heidi (unknown flower), Betty and Florence (red and white roses) and I forgot the lavender's name...will all enjoy the warmth that the sunny days will bring.

Oooo..exciting :)

xx