Hi to all of my blog friends who dropped by and said their hi's and hello's in my message box. I missed blogging too and I missed reading your posts!
I was very busy these past few months after the NLE of course, as I have to think of the next step that I have to take for my family's future, make a move and not just simply get stuck in the euphoric stage of passing, heheh. Life must go on, Aileen. Plus the sad fact that my laptop isn't done yet. I just don't find using windows XP convenient anymore, switching to it from windows vista is sort of difficult for me. But anyway, here I am, alive and blogging!
After finding out that I made it, I was high for weeks. Kept coming back to the site where they first posted the names who passed the board. Kept telling myself that I wasn't really dreaming. Thanked God for giving me this chance, promised Him that I will do my best to be the best nurse that I can be. Texted all of my friends and classmates and exchanged "congratulations". Called my family and relatives to announce the good news. Thanked my mom and siblings for all their support and prayers. My in-laws who took care of Andy while I was gone for the review and my husband who still puts up with me up to this very day.
When I was attending college, I thought that after graduation, this will be over.. I was wrong. When I attended the review class, I thought that passing the exam, this will be over.. I was wrong again. After the result was posted, we have to go back to PRC to verify and to get our ratings. We need to buy the tickets for our oath taking and register as full pledged nurses. Pay for the certification of passing and board rating, pay for the metered stamps, pay for the registration, diploma, etc. Neverending fees indeed. This isn't just simply falling in line and then your turn to the window. Oh no. You will fall in line against 69,000 graduate nurses. Plus thousands more who are applying for the exam on November. Including the retakers. We have to undergo these challenges to somehow take a glimpse to the possibility of our dreams in effect. It isn't easy, yet not impossible.
The last day I went to PRC was to sign for our license ID. I was told to come back on November 7 and after that, my precious PRC license will be in my hands. I am all done with all the paper works. I passed my application for licensure in California, still waiting for my eligibility though. But what the heck, with the economy in the US, we are talking about 3-5 years in waiting, so I am really not in a hurry to take NCLEX.
What's next?
After passing the exam, though still high, I kept myself updated with nursing issues. I log to allnurses.com every now and then to keep me posted of what's happening and to catch up with the latest, be it local or abroad. I have to admit, but I don't see myself working in the hospital here in the Philippines. I just don't see it fair, paying the hospital big fees just to undergo training and do volunteer work plus long line in waiting. I have a kid to feed and considering gaining experience here, is far from my options. After I graduated, I promised myself not to ask financial aid from my mom. I was thinking that if I do volunteer job, I will just end up asking for extra money from her, because it is not a paid work. Funds will not be sufficient enough for food and fare and it's like when I am still in school. No difference at all.
All this time, I have mastered the immigration law of US, New Zealand, Australia, Canada and United Kingdom with regard to nurses. I have weighed my options and after months of confusions of what to do and where to go, I have decided to leave the country. And hopefully before 2008 ends, I am gone.
Sad but true. Overproduction of nurses in the Philippines somehow made the quality of nursing education below standard. We have to battle different tests just to prove that we are "quality nurses" as we claim. I have read a lot of stories about Filipino nurses working in different parts of the globe, some good and some bad. So it's really up to us to stand up and prove ourselves. I am inexperienced nurse myself but I am ready to learn and share the skills that I have brewed in school for quite some time now.
God speed to all my colleagues.
