last minute hi-ho

on my last day before we fly,im supposed to be packing and arranging the last minute stuff. but here i am answering phone calls and emails from my university. they have emailed me regarding my essay (remember the dining table saga?), well i got really good feedback (and grade! woohoo!!) from that, and im absolutely ecstatic.

also, a phone call asking me if im interested in working in Learning Disabilities for Adults. DUh! would i just! absolutely, i am! Jobs like these comes once in a blue moon, and the learning opportunities are massive=) i spoke with the Clinical Lead and she told me the benefits and the responsibilutities,but i was too excited to concentrate. besides, the lady said, she thinks its tailor-made for me, *happy*.


the catch? i had to submit my application ASAP, as the deadline is the week after (and im in India). so the moment we ended the phone call, i had to submit my CV and the tedious process of filling up forms online.

talk about BUSY, i am really not exaggerating.


The good thing too, that means, i will have more time to entertain Kharla when she's here in September while waiting for the things to get finalized! (WOohoo again!)! September, roll on in=)


Technically, i dont have THE job thats being offered yet (as the powers that be has to go through red tape) , but its not a worry, as i currently am still working (well semi working as im in university too),and if i get the job, i will just slide into the new one from the old one. Praying it will be given to me too, as one of their requirement was flexibility working in the weekends (if needed, but swapped with weekday off), which can be a tough case, but lets see.


So, in between, answering emails, sending job applications,tidying up, blogging,haha and banking transactions, life is hectic..yet, life is good.


***

Flying to India in a few hours...

Excited for the possibilities that await me.


***


Things im looking forward to in this trip:

-a whole body massage at an Ayurvedic centre in one of the lodges we will be staying at

-Elephant safari

-the Keralan backwaters (which i heard is an out-of-this world experience)

-the safari lodge where we are booked to stay at

-the Tea plantation in one of India's peaks

-the authentic Indian food we will be served from our hosts

-the weddings im attending (and capturing,be still my heart, and Lord, please help me rise to the challenge)

-the Riverboat lodge cruising through the backwaters, where we are also billeted for two nights

-the castles and museums that were booked to see

-Ashrams were planning to visit and meditate at


-the Kathakali cultural show-- a highly costumed stage play reenacting the triumph of Good over Bad (the make up and costumes, i am so looking forward to see)


-the backstreets of a very rural Indian town

-the culture that im about to sample and witness (disclaimer: but obviously thru a visitors eyes)


-although i am sad, i wont be able to see jaipur and the pink city and the Taj Mahal, but i hope there will be a next time to visit it. for the meantime, i will be concentrating on the Southern part of India (the not so often featured part of India and apparently has the best seafood) specifically Kerala and Tamil Nadu, its food,its colours, its smells (Aileen, i will bring the pinchers as promised,haha),and its taste..


I am grateful for all the good things i am given, i just wish i can take you all with me=)



**

Thank you heavens, for always for knowing what i need before i do.

Thank you family and friends, for always being there.

x

Eat,Pray, Love (ok, copyright to Ms.Gilbert,haha).


The Rage
x




***

this is a sample of a video i saw for Kerala--often called as God's Own Country






copyright to ClaudioSilvano's Youtube account

in prison

the woods at work... where i normally park my car.. iphone photo, using "lomob apps"...


***


i havent been talking about my present work/placement: the prison service for alot of reasons.

i am bound by legal and ethical premise to my profession, and i really wasn't sure of what to say, without giving too much away. well, you can guess, the best bits to share, are the ones which would give away which place i am.

but me, being me, i cannot resist a good chinwag about what i am currently busy about, and getting so worked up every morning for.

so here are some interesting bits i want to remember about my current place of practice without making a distinct point to which HMP (Her Majesty's Prison) prison i am in.


-the first day i arrived at the prison, i was searched from top to toe. well everyday i am searched thoroughly. but because, my face has been familiar to the guards, they have stopped searching me like a fugitive, or someone with a plot to hostage the place.


-on the first day, i immediately learned that i am not allowed the following: mobile phone, USB drives, camera, tin foil (yes!, tinfoil!). i had to unpack my sandwhich and wrap it with a tissue, and put it in my bag (*sob*). and warned every single day that a chewing gum is not allowed in. i had to walk back to the carpark and leave the "goods"--mobile phone, USB, camera,etc..in the car.


-whenever a Vietnamese inmate sees me, they immediately speak to me in Vietnamese and think that i could immediately translate for them to the doctor. i apologize and say "im sorry,i do not speak Vietnamese. Im from the Philippines", and most often than not, they look disappointed (even annoyed) and even sometimes insist, that i should speak Vietnamese,LOL.


-i feel safe inside the confines of the prison. there are alarms and cameras everywhere. the sad thing is you cant pick your nose, or fix that knicker-wedgy lest the officers checking the cameras 24/7 will put it on YOUtube, LOL.


-eversince i started working there, i have been getting alot of water infection.

as a temporary staff, i am not given the set of keys to make me move from one part of the building to another. every part of the place has doors which are locked. if you're the secretary,and you need to photocopy some papers, you need to unlock your office to come out. once youre out, you need to shut it close and lock it with your keys. go to the end of the corridor to where the photocopier is, but in the middle of the corridor (between your office and the end of the hallway, there is another locked door, so on and so forth). you cant walk a few metres without having to unlock/lock doors.

so you can imagine how many doors we need to lock and unlock to get to the toilet to pass urine. and because i don't own a set of keys, someone has to come with me, to open and lock doors, walk to another part of the building, and lock/unlock doors again, and wait until i finish with my toilet business, and walk me down back again.

tiresome! and totally embarassing.

this made me think before drinking water (so i end up dehydrated) and i end up holding my wee until someone wants to go to the toilet. not good for someone who has diabetes.

thank goodness, i have won the hearts of the staff that they are happy to walk me through around 5 set of heavy doors, unlock and lock them, then wait for me while i pass water. oh! the joys. i know how it feels to be prisoner somewhat now. imagine not having control when to have a wee, or when to eat, or when to go out? its quite dehumanising.


-i hate closed claustrophobic work spaces. it has been a consideration eversince i started working, that i normally am better and more functional in places with access to big open windows with more light coming in. and guess what!

the health department office is quite small, and there are tiny windows. no wonder my migraine has been setting off every morning since i started in the prison service only because 'fluorescent' lights does that to me. it triggers migraine attacks. and boy do i suffer every day. no fail.

-the prison is hidden behind vast countryside, and you have to go through a walk of woods. the parking lot is quite a distance to walk to the big gates, where a guard meets you, then lets you go to another set of gates where another guard meets you, asks for your drivers license, writes your name,and asks to ring the department where you're going and asks someone to pick you up from the bottom of the building. that routine i know by heart now.


-the first few weeks when i first started working, i always walked quickly to the gate as i was scared if there was any escapee prisoner lurking around waiting to jump on me and asks me for my car keys to do a runner. now, i'm beginning to feel safe with my solitary walk.


***

a classmate of mine woke me up with a phonecall. we chatted about our present practice, AND they were worried why i erased all of them (16 classmates,and 11 schoolmates) on my FB.

i lied. i said, i'm keeping FB for family only now.

truly, i unfriended them in december because i didn't ask permission that i was going to be a week late from my placement because i was planning to overstay in cebu. i didnt want them to see photos of me happily enjoying the sun, while they were slugging themselves in the middle of winter being dedicated students. although my lecturer knew, i just felt it was too unsensitive of me, asking special consideration for a holiday while the rest aren't given he privilege.

plus, everytime they update their status' of how hardworking they are, i cannot update my status with glorious appreciation of blue waters and powdery sand. and the fear of tagged pictures of myself from my siblings looking worse for wear.

i didnt want the questions, and the reminders when i'm trying to unwind.

oh, and i think i got the second highest mark for my DVD/reflective work in december, so thank you to my lovely sister who taught me how to jazz up my DVD and my brother Roi, who was splendid actor in the DVD. (my lecturer commented: commendations to the actor who portrayed the role very well).

plus, thank you to myself, for the hardwork. *self hug*


rare, but it happens.


***

one day, i will post my video here. you'd find it funny and hopefully, informative about occupational therapy and adaptive equipment,LOL. x

i gotta ask consent from the main actor first.

new year, new challenge

My placement educator,Louise, has been emailing me when i was in cebu. She was updating me on which placement i was getting for the new year that will help towards my hours of internship to complete my degree.

When i got the word from her that i was going to be assigned in a prison hall (a very popular one in the country) to do my placement, i was a little bit frazzled. One of the things i specifically asked them that im not keen to do, is a placement in prison (im scared of the aggressiveness of prison inmates. Adrian said i watched too many "Bad Girls" episode,LOL).

Succeeding emails with her, she said, that i was the one HIGHLY RECOMMENDED by our course director (our equivalent of DEAN) in the university,i felt, i needed to say 'yes'.


but truth be told, i am still nervous. flattered, but nervous.


when i got back to the UK, i spoke with my placement educator on the phone, and she said how 'all praises' the Dean was about me, and that when this placement came up to their list, the first name the dean said was my name.


I told Louise, that's very flattering, unless of course the Dean thinks i should be put in prison, i have all the reason to be highly honored.

Louise went on to explain that this placement is the hardest out of the roster this year. Apart from this placement is unique in its own sense, this placement is a ROLE EMERGING placement.

Louise said, the very reason F, the Dean, thought of me was because, a role emerging placement means the OT practiitioner has to make the OT model in the prison, and that I would have to evidence why there is a need for Occupational Therapy in the prison.


Dang.

If anything could make you sweat in the middle of winter, are words from people who will give you your grades and pressure you into something you find too daunting.

She ended our phone conversation by giving me a rundown of the responsibilities i needed to go through and a brief background of the prison.

One word: yaiks!


Tomorrow is the start of this new journey into 'knowing myself more' whether i could hack it.

You will know soon. I will be pouring my heart (and guts) in here, whether i'd love it or hate it.


Watch this space.

blabble ...

(photo: family bonding time secretly captured one afternoon)

..i am a blabbering bubble right now (hence the title,lol). im so looking forward to the next few days.
i am handing in on friday my assessment marking (final grado, in other words)to my university, and im seeing groupmates for lunch.

but thats not what the excitement about for me. the excitement is. i can have a few days for myself during the week as i got no classes.

i promised to keep continuing to learn, but it wont be academic stuff this summer, it will be about photography, about myself, and anything other than my usual books.

i promise to wake up at dawn or spend a dusk of photography just to indulge my heart, things that i wanted to do but couldnt because of university and work.

that, and the impending arrival of my love ones to come and visit me.


just the thought alone makes me feel so energized and looking positively to the days ahead.

kamo, what are you guys looking forward to? i would love to hear about it too...

just a quickie

i would just like to say, that my powerpoint presentation went so well, the child development centre asked to keep my presentation hand-out in their files for references. *gulp*

i was told that the fluidity of the presentation and delivery was professionally executed, and that the clinical knowledge and understanding is very evident in the presentation. they added, the presenting style was confidently casual, interesting intespersed with appropriate jokes and eye-contact all throughout. they thought i do powerpoint presentations for a living.

the head physiotherpist asked so many questions (and even for advice), and i could see alot of them were jotting down points while i was talking. Priya, the head PT asked me whether i know of alot of clinical research regarding postural development, and seating for children,and if i would be happy to research it for the centre in a future time (with pay). i felt my eyes wanted to come out of its sockets because as much as that is a huge compliment to my (lazy) researching skills, i have not even time to look in the mirror in my working days. my reply was a polite, i might do it when i fully get the degree so that their paper will be written by a qualified therapist. (phewww!, lusot without sounding evading work,haha).

anyways, the wonderful comments after my presentation (its like an oral exam for end of placement/internship),as lovely as it sounds, all i wanted was putting it into paper, at the end of the day, flattery gets me nowhere. and alas, they did. a 1st grade was what i was hoping for to keep consistency to my previous ones (pamawi from my mediocre, boring academic essay marks).

my nervousness over, my fidgeting over my powerpoint slides done, but the emotions are quite overwhelming.

im leaving not only a set of people, and a set of wonderful amazing inspiring therapists in the centre, but im also leaving the children that has been my constant reason why i have a jump in my steps when im working.