pause. stay away from people who could potentially make you ill.

The problem with perfection is consistency. I agree that we have perfect moments, perfect day etc. But just like most of life's accessories, consistency is ethereal. Like today, it has been a "lovely day". The sun was at its peak beaming over the clear sky. However, I am indoors nursing a sore throat and vertigo, an aftermath of the violent "flu-like" syndrome these past days. I hate being ill. You'd say, "Boohoo! We all get ill". I say, "Keep it to yourself. I'd rather be infestation free". Only if I could.

Good friends are hard to evade when they show signs of flu. Fact is, you'd rather want to share the bug than be ostracized and alienated by the very few adorable friends you have in the community. Therefore, all we could do is just be imperfect. When you sense the beginning of a perfect moment, seize it. Enjoy it. Tomorrow could be another battle against "flu".

ID

Someday, I would be able to announce two exciting news. For now, I have to keep mum about it until something affirmative comes my way. If it does, that's when I'd have the mind boggling task of weighing in situations as to the path to take. Cliched but we always hear "Things happen for a reason". The latter is another episode I'd tackle when the right time comes. It takes courage to process the apologue so I'd leave it for another moment of blogging motivation. The important thing is the NOW and the coming months. However, I believe that if not for the changes in circumstances, I wouldn't be able to map out possibilities and capabilities. 

I just hope that this mugshot takes me a long way.

test

It's pushing to four hours since I left Scarlet. I am not worried about her predicament. I am more perturbed by the possible flare of impatience from my side.

Patience is the state of endurance under difficult circumstances (thanks wiki). For me, it is when pressing the ignore button to nincompoops doesn't work and you're left to bear with the ramblings that are of less interest to you. It is like the sight of tumbleweed for eternity and the only movement you get is ocular muscle action. People are not the only precursors of patience testing. In equal measures, it's sometimes the battle against my very own will.

I have been shop hopping in the last four hours and I'm finally sat here at Costa. The less palatable ham and cheese sandwich is a necessity to my burning stomach but given that choice, I'd prefer a home cooked meal. In my mini outburst of impatience, I called the garage to follow up. I was answered with the worst customer service communication EVER and I half-lost hope for humanity for a minute. I was fuming and ill tempered. I wanted to shower the man with expletives but my GMRC prevailed.

We always say education is the key to everything. I don't think it is. Education doesn't teach good manners. It only reinforces it. There's something primeval about human conduct, something of evolutionary nature. If you know what's good and acceptable for you then you apply that to others too. OH WHAT DO I KNOW ABOUT THE DEPTHS OF PSYCHOLOGY! My point is... this man grated my carrot and I nearly lost it.

I am a very patient human being. I claim that with persistence and conviction. However, I must be partial to what this man is going through right now. In fact, I cannot harass him for Scarlet is under his care. If I don't play my cards right, my wait could be forever and I could be here in Costa until I grow roots. Badly, my phone is down to 30% and that's an apocalypse waiting to happen. Now that's pushing patience down the cliff.

imperfect

We bought the car last mid January. In just a matter of few weeks, its snazzy parking brake decided to demand for more attention and played dead. I know it isn't the life and death of my Scarlet but like us having this niggling pain, we attend to it. If you happen to be a hypochondriac like me, you assume of severe afflictions if not inevitable sudden death. I dropped Scarlet off the motors garage and leisurely scoured the vicinity for breakfast. I found McDo. Unsure of Scarlet's healing process, I decided to feast on a calorific brekkie: a massive double mcmuffin and a latte.

Few weeks ago, I had this recurring abdominal pain and being a nurse myself, I knew it was caused by stress. Life is never clear of stresses and that's the law of living. I had my blood test and few days ago, I was told to take a triad of pills for gastritis. Like Scarlet, I am imperfect, damaged (thanks Allegiant for the term) and human enough. Another call from the GP confirmed with me that I have thallasaemia. I was diagnosed of this years ago and never had a moment of worry until this doctor told me that there could be a bit of haemolysis going on within my system (my iron levels being high) ... and added that my liver enzymes were a bit elevated. He asked me to have another blood test in a couple of weeks and booked me for an ultrasound of the liver. Kudos to this GP, he was proactive in catering to my needs (if only most GPs are like that). Thre are so many things deviant circumnavigating my psyche and physicality at the moment that knowing the specifics of my being make it all the more fretting. Mortality issues just became my nightmare neighbour and there's no escaping  the process of attrition.

People seem to categorise me as this cucumber-cool person devoid of massive worries on earth. I may appear in control and a solution-orientated persona to most but like you, I harbour aches of holistic nature. Just like human, I am warned of substandard lifestyle but succumbs to it in a snap of a finger (McDo for one). Scarlet is undergoing her check. I just had mine. I am writing this blog not to educate my very few readers (two of them if I'm still correct). I don't want to be messianic and answer the world's question to people's malady and burdens. People know this sh_t already. I just want to ease a few burden off my humanity by self expression through blogging.

So there, I just felt better after eating McDo and idling the hours whilst Scarlet gets the pampering. In due time, I know I have a good 20-minute walk back to the garage and that's a massive dose of exercise I would be doing, enough to cover my past few months of sedentary existence.

groynes

In times of inevitable vicissitude, we default to life support mechanisms. Sometimes, you don't need the elaborate CONCRETE GROYNES that spread out and wide to interrupt water flow and limit movements of sediment. A few pieces of sturdy and reliable wood panels would suffice to weather the barrage of life's challenges until you are back up on your feet to swim against the tide.

Christian

Finally, TAMARAW Nurses in UK and Europe (I have this tied-up-in-knots feeling about the use of TAMARAW to characterise Nurses) are getting the worldwide standard of inclusion and affinity like many organisations sprouting every millisecond on foreign soil. This inaugural event is of course different in terms of  tradition and creed. FEU Nurses have been ruling the field for many decades, even before the boom of nursing mass production and exportation. Of course, I have to say "ruling" because I am faithfully partisan (being a TAMARAW myself - a moniker or an appelation on its own makes it sound even worse) first and foremost and secondly, that's the fact. The latter can be argued but I have so much pride that anyone in complete disagreement can ____________ (feel free to insert).

Christian Estrada is the reason.

He saw the light and was enlightened. Sometimes, too much redundancy makes a statement believable. The truth really is that... he singlehandedly annoyed and coerced the TAMARAWS living here in UK to create the FEUNAF UK & Europe org. Of course, that's what I call a person who has an overwhelming drive and dedication to pursue something that I could only realise in my fleeting and too preoccupied dream state. In other words, I am glad there's a Mister Estrada who willfully tapped the talents of FEU Nurses here in UK into submission errr.... action.

Come May the 8th, I would have to start getting used to the shadow of the fruitful yet daunting past. I am not going to deny that my FEU moments are an amalgamation of sweet and bitter retrospection. But I am who I am today because of that past. Cliched truth and there's no escaping that. I am hosting and performing on the event so I have an excuse to deal with the present and let the rest of the attendees rummage through their vault of memories. I am happy with that.

the elusive ingredient

Last December, I swore to the heavens that I'd be back up the saddle of blogging. Fired up by burning desire to write more, I underestimated the power of the simplest of elements that would eventually deter the process: our human inclination towards social belongingness. With the innumerable events that provided the distraction to the waning motivation, I was destined to fail.

These past months were execrable.

That statement should really be more than enough to motivate a major pouring out of emotion through this blog. In the last few weeks, I was bordering on discharging blog vomit and diarrhoea to the point that I'd be messing these pages with vile and wretched metaphors. But I stopped myself. That meager dignity left in me begged for impunity. I spoke with a friend and asked for an advice. He said, "You don't have to spill it out online. You don't owe anyone the specifics. A release of angst is still a form of release. Do it in your blog (not word for word but to that effect anyway)".

People go through a myriad of challenging phases in life. Others get it in dribs and drabs but mine was an outpour. I am obviously overreacting because frankly, there are still a lot of people out there who go through what I call the darkest and lowest ebb of living life. Someday, I will look back (hopefully in two months time) and say, I wasn't in the tunnel waiting for the glimmer of light at the end of it. It's because there wasn't a tunnel, end of.

I plan to write more.
I used to write blogs in the past because of happiness.
This time, the elusive ingredient must be pain.
Let's see if the pain score rises to 9 or 10.