I thought I would just pen down my thoughts regarding the attachement I had so far so I can accurately keep track of those thoughts and feelings while they are still fresh least they become bits and pieces here and there resulting in a what-did-i-do-on-the-first-week syndrome that need much time to be sorted out at the end of the 3 months. Yes, and here it goes.

I had a much overwhelming orientation on the 12, 13, 14 of november. At the end of it, I just wondered if I could pass this posting. Well, you see, every new day is like a fresh day for me to do my best yet on the 2nd day of orientation I thought I'd just give up after the drug calculations in which I admit I was a little slow in. While I'm still doing section A, they are already at section B and before my answers were out, ppl are already furiously solving the next questions. And more information came. Tubes of different colour meant for different oh-so-unfamiliar specimens. The numbers, the protocols, the procedure. There wasn't any notes, you gotta COPY yourself! So, you'll stare at this form with miserably tiny words and you wonder if you could remember all that was said about it. You wished you could get the slides but sad to say, no. There's so much to comment, still, i would say orientation is much needed, where people set their expectations and made things clear right from the start. Where we are exposed to see and know things we've never seen for the past 2 and a half years? and we are suppose to master them within these 3 months? It's a mental preperation too. Ha. I do appreciate them (the training department in SGH). At least when my preceptor asked me, "Have you seen this?". "Err... Yea, sort of... at orientation." Haha.

I thank God for a very nice preceptor and also clinical instructor! Approachable and willing to teach are qualities that defines them. I was guided patiently, step by step, even when I'm slow and asked lots of questions. I knew they could do it so much faster if they were to handle it themselves but I appreciate that they left the case to us. My lecturer, though only came to say "Hi!" gave me such a motherly and nice feeling. I'm slowly progressing from junior to taking a case. I like the idea of preceptorship, the idea of mentoring and grooming people which lacks so much when we were in our previous attachments. I remembered nodding away when my friends from overseas attachment told me about how they each have a staff nurse in charge of them and guiding them through. That is how it should be for all our attachments and not just during our final attachment. (well, maybe manpower is an issue here :s).

Mentors, like what Helen Lowerie Marshell tiltled her poem with is a people grower. They need to have the ability to see potential in people, are tolerant with mistakes in order to see the potential develop, flexibility in responding to people and circumstances, patience, knowing that time and experience are needed for development, persepective, having vision and ability to see down the road and suggest the next steps that a mentee needs, gifts and abilities that build up and encourage others, timely words of counsel and insight, and finally resources such as letters, articles, books, etc. Tim Elmor have insightfully then picked up these qualities through Paul and Barnabas in the Bible that I am still developing as God allows me to, training me wherever I am. I do have a very good mentor in campus crusade. A women who was and still is willing to be used by God to invest in my life and many others too. I just give thanks to God for her.

Yes and back to my attachemnt. Well, junior work isn't a problem. Having done it countless times, I took it on fearlessly and joyfully. Fearlessly because I'm confident enough to do it alone and joyfully because it's just such a joy to meet the needs of others. While all these are happening, I'm still waiting to do skills like insertion of NG tube, cathetherisation, tracheostomy suctioning, etc which I had learnt in school but didnt had by any chance to practice in clinicals. Confidence comes by experience and I can't imagine myself being a staff nurse without doing all these on a real person. And that's not the only problem though. As mentioned earlier I was given a case to take charge of. The thing about morning shift is I didnt have time to take my case that I was in charge of due to the never ending junior work BUT thankfully my preceptor was still kind enough to wait till almost 12pm when I was more settled and taught me how to do discharge (by right changes should be done before 11am). *BIG SIGH* Now, I'm thinking: "How am I gonna take 17 cases at the end of 3 months?"

Sides...
Well, attended an in-service training on the topic, "normal ageing." The thing that struck me was just a comment by the speaker when she says, "so often we tend to attend to the things that is more urgent than the things that really matters to us" How true! More urgent things are often our work, responsibilities, studies, etc that screams for our attention everyday. And what is it that really matters to us? Think about it, if you had only 3 days left on earth, what would you do? That would probably be the very things that matters, the very things that we treasure deep in our hearts. For most people, it is spending time with our loved ones. Who would want to earn anymore or study anymore? So have you been thinking about what have you been doing with your life? When 2006 is gone, did you ever asked yourself what have you been doing? And then 2007 comes and pass, you carry on with your routine. And then again you wondered, what have you been doing in 2007? Time flies you would say and start another year of routine in 2008. Have you ever really wondered why are you on earth in the first place? If so, ask the creator. As how Lance Lambert wrote "Therein is revealed the wisdom that, without the Lord, if we do not see what the purpose of God is, if we do not see what the burden on God's heart is, it is vanity, vanity, all is vanity. You might as well, eat drink, and be merry because tommorow you are going to die anyway. There is no great point to living. Do not be too righteous and do not be too bad because you are going to die anyway. Useless, useless, all is useless." But when you read Songs of Song and discover God's heart in which he desired union and communion with His own. Suddenly it is no longer vanity, vanity, all is vanity. The whole of your life, circumstances and situations are of much value and of relations in God's plans and purpose. There is something the Lord wants to do with us, something He wants to do in us. It is no longer emptiness, emptiness, all is emptiness. It is fulness, fulness, all is fulness; purposefulness, purposefulness, all is purposefulness. You won't know when you have another day. What is it that really matters? When everything else can be gone, even people can one moment be here and gone the next, so what is it that matters here on earth?