A large proportion of nurses are now trying to apply for a job in most English speaking countries like UK, USA, New Zealand, and Australia. But first of all, these nurses have to pass a battery of exams which are required for those countries. Examinations like NCLEX, CGFNS, TOEFL, IELTS, etc. They can be easy for some and hard for most nurses.

Taking these examinations may force you to enroll in a review center to increase the possibility of passing the certain exam. Some of these may be expensive as you may go abroad to take these examination. They may also include a fee in order to take the certain exam.
After I passed my local examination, I decided already to head for a certain country to bypass these series of examination. You just have to consult your friendly neighborhood search tool Google to find a country that really suits your preferences.

Some of us nurses prefer to earn more money by working more, some may opt to work, earn less but may have the possibility to travel the world more often than other nurses. But what I search is to find some place in this world where I can have both but bypassing all the expensive exams.

So here I am today, compiling all the necessary requirements for this certain country. The hardest part of all is learning a new language because the country I am planning to work to is not an english country. I don’t care though, as working in this country don’t demand any exam to pass their language skills. I thought to my mind that some Filipinos are able to learn some difficult languages, why can’t I?

My impression on learning a new language is like going back to basics again as if you were trying to enroll on kindergarten. Proceeding forward and it’s like going through grade school to high school in a matter of months. It’s funny, difficult at times, but very, very interesting. Going through each day of learning is something that I look forward for the next day. I have all the necessary equipment that I can use most especially the internet. Through this, even if I don’t formally enroll in a school I can still learn the language.

The latest licensure examination for nurses here in the Philippines was released last week. Almost 30,000 passed and I have to say the grades of the top 10 examinees who passed the exam is high compared to other exams. Every year it seems that there is an overproduction of nurses for the whole Philippines.

As what I have observed for the previous exams, most successful examinees directly go and ask nurses who had previously passed the exam for instructions on how to apply for positions. It could be here locally and about working abroad. But most commonly, I receive questions on how to apply abroad. To be honest, I was like this when I passed the exam last 2005.

There is an overproduction of nurses today and it can make matters worse. When applying for a job here in the Philippines, you cannot be accepted directly as an employee. Although some may be lucky. But mostly, some must first go for training and what’s bad is they have to pay for their own training.

I have worked long enough as a nurse to observe that there is a shortage of nurses in the hospital here in Davao City. But how come? Almost every year there is almost 60,000 new nurses for the whole Philippines but still there is a huge shortage. I heard rumors that next year, there will be only 1 licensure examination for the whole year - not sure though.

During my time, most of us who recently passed the examination go and apply for a job here in Davao City. Most of us do not prefer to go directly abroad and have a training here first as an employee then go abroad. But nowadays, I saw a big problem which is accumulating for every board exam. The number of unemployed nurses is swelling. I don’t know what’s wrong but most hospitals are making money out of every unexperienced nurse. First, they pay a fee for the training and later for the evaluation, they wait until all hopes are lost. This is bad because newly passed nurses need an employed status.

I am witnessing today the worst scenario for all professional nurses. Their trend as of today is not to seek an employment status locally but seeking a better professional status somewhere abroad. They are now considering the lowest pay possible abroad but still considered a higher wage compared working here locally. So this is an unfortunate news for all of us because what we are doing now is not making nurses for the Philippines but nurses for the other countries…

I just remembered today how terrible I felt a few months ago when I was transferred to a new area as a nurse in which I am not really oriented. I was stacked with a lot of work to be done in just 8 hours and making it worse, it deals with human lives.

Of course, I am bearing in my mind to keep in focus with all the things I have learned in school and being a professional at all times. Being a nurse is difficult but there’s nothing you can do if you are assigned alone to take care of 30 or more patients or in other words a whole ward.

What I did is just to prioritize what’s the most important thing to do or whoever needs the immediate care needed. I also tried to ask for help from other nurse station if someone could lend me some help. What I am trying to point here is that in every problem, there is a solution. Don’t take the problem single handedly because as nurses, we are can work efficiently by working together.

Today I have seen again the beauty of having trees on the surrounding. I drove for 55 kms away from Davao City and went to the center of Tagum City. Today it is one of the promising cities in southern mindanao. So much has developed in the city. One of the most noticeable improvement is planting of palm trees on each side of the road.

The road are a lot wider too and they have this center road islands which they planted some plants and on each side of the road there were palm trees. Entering Tagum City is very nice as you will be welcomed by these sights.

How I really wish that my very own city would also do the same. Planting trees around the road can really help absorb the gas emissions produced from the hundreds or even thousands of vehicles passing by. If someone from the government of Davao City would start implementing this, I myself would be very proud of him/her.

Most large companies here and abroad usually have meetings - important meetings that may sometimes include people from around the world. Of course these are very important because it is part of the company’s interest to further improve the welfare of its business. During these meetings, some people may come from the other side of the world - and these does not only limited to one person, sometimes it involves 10 persons - and they would do these just to have a conference.

When these people have their conferences, they usually pay high price for the airfare, hotel accomodation for the VIP’s and so on. I was watching CNN about a new technology based on internet conferencing. The concept is not new as it still involves a camera for each person and a display monitor to the other person. Problem is, if each of them is communicating on each side of the world, the quality of the conference may be low. But technology nowadays provide means to improve the quality of the conference. But the one I saw on CNN is quite innovative.

The system involves a high speed connection for the conference. A conference room through the internet is now made like an actual conference room but with a high definition TV showing the person you’re communicating with. But they noticed the anxiety that is produced when you are doing video conferencing - that is watching yourself on the mini window and worrying how you look at the camera. So they improvised, they provided an environment that seems like a real conference to you. No camera involved and looking at the display itself seems like you are talking face to face to the one you’re communicating with.

Although expensive, the reporter says that a lot of companies are investing already on this new technology. It can save them thousand of dollars in the long run and most of all, it can connect us more easily and do something good for the environment by preventing long range travel.

It has been a day since I had my xbox 360 running again. It has been a victim of the dreaded 3 red lights. I ran several tests since yesterday and it performs quite good already. But still, I am still afraid that it will repeat again as the technician told me that there is still a chance that the problem will happen again.

So, putting that in my mind, I started reading some forums about the dreaded problem and in my astonishment, some had already repaired their own xbox 3RL problem with their own hands. To my amazement, there are a lot of videos on how to disassemble the crappy console as well as to repair the problem. It doesn’t look too easy but most of the person who did it said that as long as you will be careful on what you do, nothing could go wrong.

So there I was today, calling someone who has some games for sale for an xbox 360 around 11am. After the call he said to me to fetch the game after 5pm. I went there at his office and to my demise, the game isn’t prepared yet. He said it will be done after 30mins. I have no choice, instead of going somewhere, I waited thinking about the ongoing oil crisis. I had it after the designated time and thought to myself, some of my fellow countrymen are making the oil crisis in our own country a lot worse…

Most of us adults often have jobs throughout the whole day. We do have a repetitive cycle everyday going through our jobs (except on weekends for some). Most of us don’t have enough sleep especially to those who have sleep disorders. The result can be devastating when working or even just part of our daily activities. 

During our work hours, some people may have an hour or more of break for us to take our meal and take care of our necessities. During my schooldays, I often have some spare time even after my lunch break. I usually do some nap to prepare myself for the rest of the afternoon. Just some 20-30 minute nap would help my deal some physiological stresses.

Research actually shows that taking short naps can positively alter the human body. Taking 20-30 minutes of sleep if you have time can help boost your energy, alter some aggressive behavior (helpful if you are driving), improve your judgement, and so on. Try to do this in between your breaktime on your work and see the difference. It really works.

I took an early Eucharistic Mass today and I was actually a bit early when I came to the Church. It was quite a long time for me since I attended an early Mass. And today, is a very beautiful Sunday. I had the realization that despite I fail to attend Sunday Masses regularly, I am still very thankful to God that I am always healthy and normal. Why I have said this? It is because I believe that the girl sitting next to me had suffered from a neurological disorder called epilepsy. It is a common neurological disorder that is characterized by recurrent unprovoked seizures. After the first few minutes that she was sitting, I notice that she seems very uneasy and is making some body jerking movements and there is none a 15-seconds gap that she does not move from the chair. Every time she moves, the chair on my row also moves. So it makes me very uncomfortable as well. I almost had decided to move to another row, but I realize that it would be better for me to stay beside her and just ignore her, because I was quite afraid that if I move to another row and some people would reprimand her from stop moving, then I guess it would be very embarrassing on her part. But after a while, I notice she was quite actually nice, though. Then I begun to wonder, how could she live a normal life like that? So you see, it is not easy for us to see a person whom we knew is suffering from such an illness. How much more to those people who personally does? We may be lucky that in one way or another we do not have an illness, but we must always remember that taking care of ourselves is the only thing that we could do in order to live a normal life, but most importantly, we should pray to God that He may give us healthy bodies and live a normal and happy life!

When I was still 13 years young, I already had experienced what it is like to have a niece (named Yenyen, the first daughter of my older sister) for the very first time in my entire life. At first year high school, I already knew how to carry a newly born baby. With the help of my mother, she taught me how to carry her like a real human being – not a doll, mind you! She also taught me how to bathe her carefully, how to feed her, how to dress her, how to make her comfortable whenever she is crying, how to calm her down, how to clean her shit, how to change diapers, how to know if she has stomach ache, and many many more. Things get complicated when her real mother went abroad for work and left her to my care – for my mother is getting older back then. So I intended to learn more about proper caring for a child. And so 2 years had passed and I again became a 2^nd Aunt for my 2^nd nephew (named Pael, the first child of my eldest sister) at an age of 15. So now is another different side of story because I still have to learn stuff about caring for a male baby. I was a bit curious at that time – to be gender specific. After a while, I learn different things about male babies. And so another 5 years had passed and I again became a 3^rd and 4^th Aunt for my 3^rd nephew (named Kikoy, the second child of my eldest sister) and 4^th niece (named Yanyan, the second child of my older sister). They are the primary reason why I enrolled in Nursing because they gave me the enthusiasm that, to give care to someone you love is the biggest achievement I could ever have. Another thing, I still want to learn more about caring. Lastly, when I was 22 years old, I was the 5^th and last Aunt for my last niece (named Love-love, the last child of my eldest sister). In all of them, my favorite is Yanyan, because she is half Filipino-half Norwegian. She is very spoiled and that’s because of me. You might want to know why they are so close to me? It is because I did took care of them when they are still 0 days old. Yes!! I actually consider myself as the best Nanny in the world!

They inspire me a lot and they tend to dismiss away my problems in life. They are so wonderful and so sweet. I could not end my day without knowing how my nieces and nephews are doing. My friends say that I am more than a mother to their real mothers. Yes, at an early age of 13 years, I couldn’t even imagine I was like a mother. Though I maybe older now and would want to have children of my own when the right time comes, my future husband would really have no problems about taking good care of children because I should say that I will be the answer to all his misery… He’s lucky, don’t you think? J