Things have been quite wild these past weeks -- everybodys scampering away to do all sorts of errands. Especially that Community Diagnosis that kept me awake for three whole days and I had to absent myself from school just to meet the deadline. And thank goodness I was still able to come-up with a 247 page diagnosis during those three days. However yesterday, I was shocked to see my classmates with theirs so thin -- less than 50 pages. I was a bit curious as how it was that thin. I mean, our survey questionare had so may indicators that I find it impossible to put the tabulation, chart, and analysis on less than a hundred pages. And to think that there were still the nursing care plan for every problem identified. Some even teased me of selling encyclopedias T_T

COMMUNITY HEALTH NURSING

Four weeks ago we went to a rellocation site for the squatters in Metro Manila. The residents have only been living there for less than two years. Each family was given Php50,000 (approx. $1,000) to build their house and they still have to pay for the land they're living on even though they were rellocated. Surely enough Php50,000 is insufficient to build a house, hence there were a lot of unfinished houses.
During the conduction of our survey, most of the families we visited ranted about how hard life is there. There were also a lot of houses with earthen floors and without electicity, the smell was sickening and I can't even start at how sad we all felt back then and the things I was able to remember about my childhood.
Including the households surveyed by the other groups, only 30% of the population are working and a large number of 70% are dependents. Nearly half or about 46% of those working are earning less than P5,000 per month. If the next income bracket is included, we can conclude that 81% of those earning are receiving a monthly income of P10,000 and below. According to Ibon Databank, this is way below the living wage necessary for a family to meet the minimum basic needs. So for a family of 6 earning Php 5000 a month, they would be subsisting on Php 27 (approx. $0.54) a day. And thats way below the daily poverty threshold of Php233 for a family of 6. But 233, clearly, is not enough for a family to sustain any decent kind of living.
The community surveyed showed a relatively low educational attainment. On the whole, only 4 % of the population reported having graduated college, 6% reached college level, 1% attended a vocational school, and 21 % graduated from high school. These figures would sum into 32% of the total population that are more or less eligible for employment. This figure is very low considering the high competition in the labor market today.
High school undergraduates account for 14% of the population and 31% are elementary graduates and undergrads including the pre-schoolers.
Ten percent of the population was reported as not yet studying while 13% had no answer.
The community exhibits a young population pyramid with 0-5 years old account for the highest percentage. The percentage of minors from 20 years and below reached nearly half of population with 47%. In addition, there is about 2% elderly dependents present in the community.
This situation seems worrisome considering the very low number of working members (only 30% of the population) and with nearly half of those working (46%) earning P5,000 or less per month.
The community possesses some poverty indicators such as very low income level and high dependency ratio among its members of the population.

....these are just some of the problems I noticed. Fhew! Glad that's over...

Currently...

Anyway, I just finished watching the bitter-sweet finale of Hachimitsu to Clover 2 and it made me think what I really want to do. I mean, everyone wants to do or pursue something (well, at least that's what I want to believe). But will pursuing a "deam" be enough? Will it feed us as well as our families? Sure, a lot would say, "If I work hard enough, everything will be fine". But will it really? Many who toil everyday for almost all their lives and still struggle just like the families we visited. Is living our lives just about us and not include our family? When planning for the future and pursuing careers -- does that not include our family (parents and siblings)?
At school, I've been taught that children owe nothing to their parents for its their responsibility to raise their children to become responsible and productive members of society. Does that mean after leave their parental homes, they no longer have any obligation towards them?
Its really frustrating to want to chart one's own way through life yet be hindered by one's situation. I believe that we all act in accordance with our situations. Just like with my family. My parents put me in nursing school in the hopes of that in the future, I will have a good paying job. My mother and I discussed often that its good to have dreams but that I should also think whether I would survive. And I do very much agree with her but still...
I know, those who read my journals are probably sick and tired of my constant ramblings about my problems but that "Hachimitsu to Clover" brought it all up again. So, again to bring the setting to where I'm comming at, I convinced myself that I wanted to become a comic artist when I was in 4th grade (I think I was 9 or 10 back then). I didn't have many friends due to the fact that I'm a bit anti-social (but I am trying to become sociable now) and I drew to keep myself busy. I considered my pencil and paper to be my only best friends up until I met Erika in high-school. I wanted to draw, I wanted to keep on drawing FOREVER! And I wanted to enroll in art school to improve my skills. But charting my own way through the future never occured to me -- what carreer should I pursue? What will I do next after I graduate from college? What will happen after my parents died? What will I do to stand on my own two feet without having to rely on others for support?
I clearly didn't have any idea on what I wanted when I took Psychology because my parents won't allow me to enter into art school. But now that I've transfered into Nursing and have 2 years left till graduation (woot! there goes my 4 year college plan thanks to the evaluator who didn't allow me to take any more extra load, now it's a 5 year college life for me!). Now that I am taking this course, I think my future financial matters are okey but I still feel uneasy and depressed looking at my old sketchpads.
Honestly, is surviving or having life really mean "living". True living, for me, is the things we do and accomplish for personal fulfillment -- its the entire process or endeavours in our lives.

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FEATURES
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From now on, everytime I update, I'll be doing features of my faves from my friends gallery as well. Here's some of my friend's pieces. These'll be here for about a week and if one of your works isn't here, it'll be featured next week. This isn't alphabetically arranged or anything, its just random. ^^


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I'll add more later
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CLUBS



Death Note Spoiler Club

FRIENDS (please check these cool deviants out!^^)

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