Hello and welcome to my blog tablet addition! I am currently using my tablet to write this, as in I am writing on the tablet
It is different , l am going to leave this unedited to see how well it holds up !
I am currently sitting in a room with the nerds I know and love playing games. It has been amazing. A lot of literature about maintaining ones health as a nurse talks about the need to recharge or even switch off after work. I always figured that video games would fill this gap and while it does most days the atmosphere from being around this group of friends is really comforting. It makes me feel like I am not doing too bad at all with this job.
I guess it also helps to have the boyfriend who looks after me. He just got me a cup of tea and everything, good catch this one.
I feel sleep is needed now, I will hopefully post again tomorrow!!
I am not sure what to focus on in this post, I have had a few days in a row of work broken up by one day where I slept for 16 hours, so I feel like most of my mind hasn't left work since this evening.
Other than work I am thinking of getting a bicycle, that is a thing. I have a bicycle but it is... kinda older than I am. I am also concerned over the very thin tires + Large lady + Old worn out country roads with no footpaths combo that I have going on. There is also one shop in the town I live in that sells bikes and I have a feeling that they are more aimed towards kids. Gonna suss that shop out tomorrow I think~
Nursing?
Work has been going fine, just really busy. We have had some people in assessing us against different criteria that show that us, as a Aged Care Facility, are effectively and safely providing care to Care Recipients following the Age Care Act 1997 using the money provided via government funding. And yes, they are called "Care Recipients" now for the term "Resident" is not politically correct enough.
Bad news was that because I sat and talked with them I ran late on some duties and missed out on a morning cuppa, ending up having my first meal of the day at 1330. My dietitian would not be pleased.
So that has been... interesting. I can't say much but I can say that those who did the assessing where really nice and open to any stupid questions I asked. In the end the assessment does come down to how effectively we are caring for people in the sense that we are using funding in the right ways. Some of the assessors can be quite picky I hear, the ones that I saw were doing their job.
Luckily, because my workplace is rather good at this, while there will always be pressure coming from management to say the right thing for the best result, pointing out the flaws that we have to these people isn't going to change the way I am treated at work. Wonderful!
Through this experience though it has allowed me to see how disconnected between management and it's staff within medical areas can have drastic consequences on peoples health. For example. a case in England revolving a Mid Staffordshire National Health Service (NHS) Trust. This issue came about when it was noticed that this hospital had much higher mortality rates. The public outcry from the families was growing and while it was beginning to come to light the hospital was given "Trust" status, a status (and benefit) given to hospitals that have been recognized as providing a higher quality of care.
So on the floor, reports were that patients were left in soiled beds and dirty pans left in shared toilets. It was even to the point where some nurses reported that medications weren't being given to patients because they were cutting costs. The concerns and fears of the workers not being recognized by management can end up drastically effecting the care given. The case is starting to come full circle with those responsible for not following their role leading to these drastic issues have been punished. The Director of Nursing during this time has been taken of the register and is no longer permitted to nurse in the UK and the decision has been made for the Trust to be dissolved.
Again, my workplace does it's work pretty well and it has been reflected by their assessment. Woohoo!
Video Games?
So I recently bought a Yoshi Wii Controller (YEAH YOSHI) so that I may play Just Dance 4. Although I thought I would whack my hand on the furniture around my small lounge area, I did not. I did however, become very out of breath after about 2 songs. Exerciseeeee
Art?
This week has been a week of spending. I bought a tablet off of a friend the other day. A Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 to be exact. I know she was trying to get rid of it but the price we agreed on was only... a few hundred less than what you would buy it for <_<
Main reason I got it was because it has a version of photoshop on it, I felt it might be a nice thing to try out. Has been pretty useful overall though. I haven't made much with it that I feel like sharing at the moment, touch screens are hard.
As I mentioned in last weeks post I recently started playing the video game, Life is Strange. It has recently been taking a large chunk of my time not just for game play, but it has made me think a lot about my moral ground, specifically to do with death.
I also found out today that my neighbor who I have known all my life, passed away yesterday.
He was one of the kindest men I have ever known. My memories of him are vague but very warm. I remember when I lost my rabbit and he found it over his fence in the neighbors yard. He lifted me on his shoulder so I could see over the fence. His cost for finding my rabbit was a kiss on the cheek, I gave that without hesitation.
I also remember the conversation I had with him before I moved. He was dying, but smiling. He happily talked to me about what exactly he was diagnosed with and how grateful he was to all of the nurses who looked after him. He also told me how proud my grandmother would have been and that he himself had no doubts that I would be an amazing nurse.
Nursing?
The question of euthanasia is one that is often angled to nurses as nursing is the profession that is always seen to actively care for people. 'Actively' being the key part here, I have found that often the acts of kindness that mean the most to patients are the ones that are fairly immediate and those are the ones that people see nursing making. The other point is that people feel that nurses understand better, maybe this is because of the horrible things that nurses go through just to have that moment where you feel like you are genuinely helping someone.
I used to believe in euthanasia. My viewpoint has changed quite a lot over the past few years. I had the belief that people should be able to live and die on their own terms and while I wish for this to be true, I just can't see it as an option anymore. I look at the people I see now and the ones who truly feel that they need it are the ones who can't do or think for themselves. Then again, how can you assess ones need to die?
Perhaps the saving grace that I can always fall back to when this conversation starts is the fact that should I assist people in this way, I would lose my job.
As for my neighbor who died yesterday, he had in some way made peace with what was happening and stated that "I will live till my dying day" and that is exactly what he did. I feel I have no say in taking that ability away from anyone, even if they want me to.
Video Games?
This brings me back to Life is Strange. Life is Strange has given decisions that require a lot of thought, while most of them have made minor differences so far, some of them have such an emotional weighting to them that it is very difficult to make the decision. Just like real life!!
So why has this game had such an impact on me? I will tell you of one decision you are forced to make.
In this scene, you have met your best friend who was involved in a car accident and at the age of 18 and is now paralyzed from the neck down. She tells you straight that wants to be able to make one decision for herself and that she wants her last memory to be her enjoying the day with her best friend. She instructs you how to increase her morphine drip. Do you? I did not.
It took me 15 minutes to make this choice. I then had to follow this choice with a 2 hour long nap and a lot of hugs from my boyfriend.
Perhaps this hit home so much because of my job and while no one has asked me to kill them in this way I have had many people tell me that they just want to die. Maybe also it is because I have seen people in this situation before and Life is Strange completely nailed the layout of the room and it's equipment that it reminded me of what care I had to give for those patients.
This in-game decision terrified me so much that at the time I made it I did end up falling back on the "I would lose my job" argument. In a way I also felt that if I said yes in-game that I would be tempted to say yes in real life someday.
Interestingly enough, the game shows world stats for who chose what option. 56% Killed her, 44% did not.
Art?
I drew this little thing today, haven't drawn a character in profile for a while, it took me a bit of a think before I could come up with something.
Lets face it, scarfs are fucking awesome.
I also invested in some more acrylic paints!! Gonna fiddle with them when I am not working I think~
Bringing the mood up, here is a picture of my boyfriend keeping it fresh
This week has had it's strange moments but overall I feel like I am starting to get better at things.
Today I went to go see a dietitian to try and actually start the road to being healthy. I decided to be as honest as I possibly could. In doing so, the lovely lady who looked after me today didn't make me feel like I was doing as horribly as I thought. She recognized that I was indeed making an effort, and reminded me that you have to take small steps towards these goals, as trying to do everything at once easily leads to everything falling down.
Nursing?
I was told by my boss a little while ago that nurses need to be able to do 3 things.
1. Be compassionate
2. Be caring
3. Be able to look after oneself
She then followed up by saying that I was good with points 1 and 2 and that 3, I had to judge for myself.
I don't think I look after myself very well. This is partly the reason why I finally got myself an appointment to see someone to follow up about losing weight. The problem is, and the dietitian agreed, I know what I need to do, it is actually get around to it that is the issue.
If I will be honest here, the issues to do with weight gain started when I was about 13. I remember this because my mother, who had been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes around that time, was telling me that I had to get better at this. She warned me of some of the issues that being overweight could bring socially as well and in fact, some of the issues she mentioned had already started happening at school. So we went to a gym to go sign up and they were very confused that someone my age wanted to join but in my mind, the decision was also to support my mother. Of course, they had to review their rules and put in a policy that said minimum age was 14 year old to join. This, like many other things I have tried to do, did not work for very long.
Problem is that I have been trying to do everything at once. I have recently noticed that I do it for nearly everything. I always tell people that it'll be fine, that these things take time but then what I do is expect myself to get it perfect first try and do it all. My mother does this all the time. When I was studying she would set herself goals that starting tomorrow she will: quit smoking, follow her diet, go do a huge gym session, cook all the meals for the house, paint the inside of one of the bedrooms, do at least 2 hours worth of gardening, plus try and make sure that her daughter was studying. Anytime one of these things would fall, the rest would fall. It would start off with small cracks but as soon as she would light up a smoke my Dad and I knew that it would get worse before it got better. I am fearful that I do the other thing my mother does when this happens, become very controlling. When things aren't working, she takes hold of one of these goals and puts all her energy into making it work now. Usually, this would land back on the family and cause upset on us. I really hope I don't do that to people and if I do, I'm sorry.
This isn't a blame to my mother, more of a trait that both share. It has it's advantages just as much as it has it's flaws. It's flaws however, certainly did not help during my adolescence when I was already full of angst. There is no real blame in how I am the way I am. In the end my body is mine and I have the ability to change it.
What video game are you playing?
I started playing Life is Strange!
I am really enjoying it. It is a "cinematic game", a story told though the actions of the player with different consequences that are following though the entire game as I play it. Just like real life!
I find the decision making for the story telling very compelling. A lot of the time you have decisions that are based over how much of a dick you want to be to people but some of them, the ones that truly effect the story, have you in a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. There is one particular scene that sticks in my mind where you have to answer to the principal (and maybe even the police if you had a slightly different story) about an incident where you have to chose who you taddle on.
I do really enjoy the art style, I will admit that the character models were a bit uncanny valley at first but I have really started to warm to them. Or maybe I have warmed to the characters? Hard to tell. I have found that a lot of what I like about it is the lighting.
All in all, I recommend this game. I would say though that as much as I like it, if this game is not your cup of tea, jog on.
Art?
I haven't been doing much but I did do this sketch. Better than nothing, right?
From these I have learnt a few lessons that I would like to share with you.
So on the 3rd Blaugust night I sat down to begin my post knowing that my boyfriend would arrive for a weeks visit at some point that evening. As it turned out though, my boyfriend had not planned his fuel very well and got himself stuck in the small country town of Robe late enough at night that nothing was open.
Lesson 1: After 9pm country SA closes for the night.
Naturally the best course of action was to go save him.
I pulled into the petrol station to go see if I could purchase a can of some sort so that he could drive his car the rest of the way. As I pulled in however, in the darkness I was unable to see that there was a curb where I was heading and this lead me to burst one of my car tires.
Luckily though, I had a spare.
Lesson 2: Make sure you have a spare tire.
I have only changed one car tire in my life, it was under supervision when my parents told me that should I be living in the country I need to learn how to change a tire
Lesson 3: Listen to your parents (sometimes)
As I was getting the spare tire and jack out of my car friend of mine from work pulled in, she asked me what I was doing. Upon explaining the situation she said that while she can't help she would call her boyfriend who can.
Lesson 4: Good networking gets you places
I continued to change the tire, began raising my car when a car pulled up at the station, a man got out and asked me if I needed help. I told him what I did and we both laughed at how stupid I was, at this point my friend's boyfriend arrived and the other man left.
Lesson 5: Being nice to people brings joy
With the car tire fixed I went and bought a 10L petrol can, filled it with petrol and set off to go save my stranded man.
I arrived an hour later, took the can out of the boot, sat it next to his car when we realized that the can didn't come with a funnel. It looked kinda like this:
Fuckkkkk
A few minutes later with a frantic phone call to his parents for ideas, I was taking rusty screwdriver to an old water bottle that had left in my car, to use as a funnel to get the petrol into his car.
Gotta keep it until I buy a funnel
We managed to get safely back to my house, with another 20 minute detour because as we also learnt...
Lesson 6: Road signs in the country take you on the scenic route
All went well in the end and I am thankful that my boyfriend is safe. I will admit my heart sank when I saw 7 missed calls and I originally thought my boyfriend was dying in horrible car crash using his last ounce of strength to call me to give me a tragic parting goodbye message.**Disclaimer: This is not something my boyfriend would do.
I got to bed in the end at about 2am then woke up for a 7am start at work. I was surprised I was able to function at work the next day but I guess a part of me had accepted that I did what I needed to and that I felt I made the right choice.
Lesson 7: You don't have to be good to get the job done.
I have been thinking a bit over the past few days about the stress that this job brings and ways that I can show that I still am enthusiastic about my job. It has been a little hard when I am tired all the time. It also doesn't help that waking up in the mornings is quite a struggle for me. Not quite sure what to do with that at them moment other than keep showing up to work.
I am also in a mood where I am trying to think of where I want to go do with my degree. Travel is something I would love to do but not for a holiday, to work and live. America always sticks in my mind, lord knows why. I dislike a lot of what I have heard to do with their healthcare system and it makes me wonder if I would be able to work within it. Not to mention the issues that would come from trying to get a work visa. England on the other hand, much more feasible. A lot of Australia's health care is based off of England's structure (and viscera), getting a work visa will be a lot simpler for me and they are also apparently on a call out for nurses from Australia.
Here is the problem, silly heart has given me this somewhat reoccurring dream that I will be able to make the America idea work then magically find myself in California with a nursing job also doing something to do with video games on the side. What video games stuff has depended on the night, some nights it is game development and others it is shout casting. The destination however is eerily consistent. Practical sense though, England has a lot more support for me, I am more familiar with it, relatives live there, work is available, and it has the stuff that I am after anyway. So why America?
The more I type this the more I realize that I want to make moving to another country work, figuring out when is the fun part.
What video games are you playing?
I am still on the Splatoon and Dota 2 train, not much else to report from those. I did however buy the game Life is Strange yesterday, it is downloading at the moment. My friend said he enjoyed it from a storytelling perspective saying that it hit the right notes. I haven't read that much into it so I will report my first impressions when I play it.
Art?
I have been trying to do a bit of art but I feel I have not gotten that far. During the 3am phase I came up with this while listening to Little Person by Jon Brion.
Issue now is I don't really know what else to do with it. I will come back to it when I get a chance.
Watching/Reading anything?
Still watching some AGDQ speedruns! Youtube has provided for those that I missed watching live.
Reading however, I started that search I sometimes do for Shojou manga. I have read about 5 different series in the past day, favorite one being Moe Kare drawn by Ikeyamada Go. Part of what I liked about this one was that is filled all the general things I expect from a shoujo.
It also gave me this amazing page:
The other one that I kinda enjoyed, drawing by the same artist is called Kobayashi ga kawai sugite Tsurai. Now this one is fantastic because it revolves around twins that switch gender roles then fall in love. Big bonus for the male side of it making out with our heroine before they knew that she was cross dressing.
It also had an interesting pairing where the hero was falling in love with a girl who was deaf and was thus learning sign language to communicate better. Was interesting to see how that was drawn. They don't really touch on it often enough but I like it being there.
I should really create a checklist of things I expect these manga's to have then grade them based off of that.
Be warned, I have found some Yaoi to read and I will be talking about that later on.
It sure has been a while since the last time I posted so let start things off with a picture of a happy dog
Dawwww
I have decided that the best way to approach this years Blaugust is to create a quick formula with subjects that I will try to discuss everyday. Here are some headings to go by:
Nursing?
What video games are you playing?
Art?
Watching anything?
What song have you got stuck in your head?
Firstly, looking back on last years entries it has made me feel a bit better as it has made me realize how much I have actually achieved. There is a large part of me though that feels like I am still not doing enough with everything I want to get done, perhaps I am just too inpatient.
Nursing?
Nursing has become a lot more stressful than I prepared for. I knew that it wasn't going to be an easy feat but as it turns out, being an adult really really sucks. A true skill that I feel I have learnt from this experience is to be able to smile and enjoy talking to people about the simple, mundane little things while knowing full well what the grim reality of the situation is. Keeping up those conversations everyday is what makes me tired.
There have been many nights where I have cried myself to sleep because of the cruelty that life brings to people. When you see genuinely nice and loving people suffer for no other reason than fate. While a lot of people have told me that they follow this career path because it gives them a sense of control, I will admit that I feel the exact opposite, everything I do merely fits into place, While it is comforting, and necessary, to have someone care for you, it doesn't mean that those actions will effect the control that one has over bad situations. Again, maybe I am too impatient.
My work in aged care continues to remind me how scared I am of death, when those I care about leaving me. This may not be helping with my struggle. I can say though that it has gotten easier. Traditionally I have found that when someone dies around me I cry and the closer they are to me, the more I cry. Fairly recently there was someone who left us that I didn't cry for, and I loved them. During my first few shifts as a RN they were supportive and understanding to the difficulties that I was facing, and reminded me that no matter how much I stress, I am still able to show people that I care. Perhaps I didn't cry because for how peacefully they left and how it seemed that everyone had had a chance to be able to say goodbye. Maybe it was because that unlike others that I have seen die they weren't afraid.
Overall though, I am still employed. I can't be doing as badly as I sometimes feel I am.
What video games are you playing?
I invested in a WiiU last week! I now have Splatoon and Yoshi's woolly world for that console.
Splatoon is a pretty fun game, it has been really satisfying to be able to play online with my friends. I have only slight regret for one playing-till-3am session, only because I was unable to rest that well enough for work the days following. Got to level 20 and I have just started to branch out into playing with other weapons. Or at least, learning a bit more on how to approach other players to murder without getting murdered myself.
Yoshi's wolly world I actually played on my boyfriends console while I was on holiday at his house, it was pretty fun. It has a similar difficulty to Yoshi's Island, and that is a good thing. I learnt from this experience that my boyfriend, god bless his cotton socks, is one hell of a back seat gamer. I would be jumpin, you know, being a Yoshi and that when he tells me that I have missed something. Trust him to be a completionist..,
I have also been playing a lot of Dota 2. It has turned into one of those social things that I can do now that I live far from the civilization that I once knew. A group of us gather on mumble, stack as a 5, feed, play badly but above all, have fun. I recently noticed that while I have opened up to some of these wonderful nerds, I haven't met some of them in real life. I might have to actually do that at some point.
Art?
Developments in art have been fantastic! I put some of my art on an art table at AVCon this year. I made more money than the cost of the table so I call that a success! I will try and post some more art this blaugust! My art page (www.facebook.com/havrac) has a few more likes and I might have some commissions coming up, how amazing is that?!
Watching anything?
At the moment I have been following Awesome Games Done Quick (www.twitch.tv/gamesdonequick), it finishes tomorrow but it has been amazing to watch when I have not been at work. I donated at one point as well and it got read out, internet famous.
