Monday, 12 July 1999

It's great to wake up to a new week and know that you're headed for school and not the working world! :) Sure school carries with it it's never-ending cycle of assignments, tutorials, tests, exams, etc but well, I prefer this sort of stress anytime to working-world stress. I guess this three-year course would do great to cure me of my burnout - I was totally stressed out and burnt out balancing work and night classes these past seven years that I really need to revitalise myself. :) Besides, nursing is a great calling and three years is just about right to not only equip myself with the knowledge and skills, but also, to cultivate the right temperament and character for the job. :)

We're progressing to Bones this week in Anatomy lectures and the Physiology part will cover some Chemistry basics. I've decided that when push comes to shove, ie. when the stress and demands become unbearable, I will aim for only a pass grade for the Behavioural Science module, what I consider to be the 'periphery' subjects and not the 'mainstream', so to speak. Of course, I'd like to shoot for the stars in all my modules this semester but I recognise that it would be a very very heavy burden to take upon. Of course, I dream I'm up to this great challenge but at the same time, I do not want to jeopardise my grades altogether by being overly ambitious, which is my one big character flaw. :P

Clinical Education is covering Vital Signs this week. While I was in the Polyclinic on Saturday, I watched a video they happened to be screening, on the how to take care of family members with hypertension (high blood pressure) and I got pretty excited when I saw how 'easy' it seemed to take the blood pressure.

Well, it's not that 'easy' afterall. I guess the video was produced to make everything appear simple so that family members who have to take the blood pressure readings for the patient wouldn't be intimidated. Nurses are expected to have a higher degree of skillfulness in taking BP (blood pressure) readings.

We learnt to take temperature, pulse and respiratory readings today and tomorrow, we'll continue with BP readings. Oooo! Exciting!

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