Thanksgiving Day
Today is Thanksgiving Day in America. I have never celebrated Thanksgiving and probably will not celebrate it for the next few years as I am not interested in the festival. As any other foreigner, I chose to work on that day so that the Americans can go ahead with their festivities. But I wonder how I can relate to this Day. Do I thank myself for coming here to this foreign land and leave virtually and literally everyone I knew behind? I came here for the money but I am sick of this notion. Do I thank myself for leaving my comfort zone behind and coming to this unknown zone where I am a minority and a junior all over again? I am struggling to keep what I had when I left Singapore. The efficiency and pace of life I sometimes missed. I am forced to slow down here. And I began to detest that compelling force to slow down.
I am very weathered and bitter now. I am tired of being alone and am tired of doing everything alone. I talk to my closest friends on the phone and that’s the nearest to that. I laughed to myself and cry to myself in my own apartment.
Sometimes I hate my own country for not doing enough for the nurses. For not paying the nurses enough for their justification of their work. For not making an effort to expand their career and wages. Nurses have all gone overseas. They have had enough. And I am one of the many of them. Too much talk but too little action. Too many promises but too little truth. You hear the best of a nurse’s career during the annual Nurses Day where they promised advancement and recognition and you hear nothing thereafter the whole year round. Nurses who bootlick, footlick, apple polish, brownnose, lickspittle their way around the Nurse Managers got their spot on the polluted, slimy, foul and filthy political corporate ladder where all are brainwashed and hypnotised into believing that continuous and prolonged bootlicking, footlicking, apple polishing, brownnosing, lickspittle will guarantee them a step on that ladder.
The rest of the hardworking, honest nurses in my ward? They just worked. But they grew a bond amongst each other. They had an emotional attachment to each other. Everyone knew each other. There was laughter, there was fun and there were friendships. Real ones. Not the fake ones amongst the nurses who bootlick, footlick, apple ploish, brownnose and lickspittle. They were already brainwashed and hypnotised. They don’t know what is a friendship.
Why I left? I was tired and tormented by a tyrannical hierachy in my hospital. I was working beside a wall. A wall that needs to be broken down by nature. Or some natural disaster like an earthquake, cyclone or tornado that can eradicate all the assistant and nursing directors rotting in their ancient furniture. And then a new breed of young intelligent nurses can then take over. But will that day ever come when a New Nursing Revolution takes place?
I left.
So this is my Thanksgiving Day in America.
Uncategorized | Comment (1)What’s Up
Artist:: 4 Non Blondes
Album: Bigger, Better, Faster, More
Title: What’s Up
Twenty-five years and my life is still
Trying to get up that great big hill of hope
For a destination
And I realized quickly when I knew I should
That the world was made up of this brotherhood of man
For whatever that means
And so I cry sometimes
When I’m lying in bed
Just to get it all out
What’s in my head
And I am feeling a little peculiar
And so I wake in the morning
And I step outside
And I take a deep breath and I get real high
And I scream at the top of my lungs
What’s going on?
And I say, hey hey hey hey
I said hey, what’s going on?
ooh, ooh ooh
and I try, oh my god do I try
I try all the time, in this institution
And I pray, oh my god do I pray
I pray every single day
For a revolution
And so I cry sometimes
When I’m lying in bed
Just to get it all out
What’s in my head
And I am feeling a little peculiar
And so I wake in the morning
And I step outside
And I take a deep breath and I get real high
And I scream at the top of my lungs
What’s going on?
And I say, hey hey hey hey
I said hey, what’s going on?
Twenty-five years and my life is still
Trying to get up that great big hill of hope
For a destination
My Contradiction
Artist: Alanis Morisette
Album: Jagged Little Pill
Title: Hand In My Pocket
I’m broke but I’m happy
I’m poor but I’m kind
I’m short but I’m healthy, yeah
I’m high but I’m grounded
I’m sane but I’m overwhelmed
I’m lost but I’m hopeful baby
What it all comes down to
Is that everything’s gonna be fine fine fine
Cuz I’ve got one hand in my pocket
And the other one is giving a high five
I feel drunk but I’m sober
I’m young and I’m underpaid
I’m tired but I’m working, yeah
I care but I’m restless
I’m here but I’m really gone
I’m wrong and I’m sorry baby
What it all comes down to
Is that everything’s gonna be quite alright
Cuz I’ve got one hand in my pocket
And the other one is flicking a cigarette
What it all comes down to
Is that I haven’t got it all figured out just yet
Cuz I’ve got one hand in my pocket
And the other one is giving the peace sign
I’m free but I’m focused
I’m green but I’m wise
I’m hard but I’m friendly baby
I’m sad but I’m laughing
I’m brave but I’m chicken shit
I’m sick but I’m pretty baby
What it all boils down to
Is that no one’s really got it figured out just yet
Cuz I’ve got one hand in my pocket
And the other one is playing the piano
What it all comes down to my friends
Is that everything’s just fine fine fine
Cuz I’ve got one hand in my pocket
And the other one is hailing a taxi cab…..