Hard days:

It gets hard in the field
Pulling thorny grasses
Making corny ridges
Slaving hard, serving to build
Finesse put to a test
Showing a compulsion to yield

It gets hard in the field
It used to be easy
Traveling on the road paved gild
O! how he thought he was skilled
These days it’s a battle
He fights, wearing a shield.

Last weekend: These days

Sunday 9:00 am
I’m sitting here in my room. It’s been a long weekend of sorting through school work and this health assessment semester project I’ve been putting away the past few weeks. I don’t have a choice but to finish them today, since both are due tomorrow. Don’t think me lackadaisical for procrastinating my work. It’s just been a lot of toil lately. I barely have time for myself. I look around at my room and I wonder what I’m turning into. I’ve never really been one for domestic chores, but these days get really bad: days old laundry calling out to me from the basket, dishes from last night begging to be cleaned. My room is in such a mess, reflecting a Kodak image of my many days of stress.

Typical day wakes me up @ 5:30am to arrive at the hospital for clinicals that begin at 7. Breakfast is a must when you basically have to stand the whole day. Lunch isn’t until 12. And it gets hard the days I get 7-7 shifts. Its certain I’m going home dreary and worn out. But sleep is never soon, you have to study. You have to go through your notes and look through the medical dictionary to find the meaning of all the strange words you’ve only encountered the first time. You seek to understand the mechanisms of action of your patient’s medications and why an alternate drug is given to counteract the adverse effects of the other, if there be any. Yesterday, you didn’t perform like you think you should, you showed a little nervousness as you tried to report your clients medical history and condition with your instructors and coordinators standing by, shooting questions at you with the sharp edges of an arrow that could maim a cow from a distance. And so today you resolve that tomorrow it wouldn’t be the same, you have to show them what stuff you’ve got. But somewhere near 11:30pm you slowly begin to drift into sleep, barely energy enough to do the dinner dishes. Some days you try, other days its goodnight until tomorrow. And when tomorrow comes, you already know how it goes. But I must confess, however, some days it’s not so bad waking up that early, with the thought of seeing the cute female intern on the MS ward again. The eye games and pleasant conversations we keep from a distance...in silence… hoping that someday, we just could bridge the gap.

2pm :
3/4 of the project is done, a slight feeling of freedom and pride starts to creep in. This would be a good time to do some house chores.
4pm: house chores finish, laundry washed, dishes cleaned. Lunch cooked. I feel good! Like like almost euphoric… but I still have to head to school to use the internet, upload my assignment and print off some pages.

8pm:
I feel euphoric, like I’ve been morphed into this coordinated and orderly gentleman. I got all of that huge pile of work out of the way, room feels fresh. Home cooked dinner never tasted so good.

10:30pm: sunday
So here I am, still writing. But I think I could enjoy the luxury of an early night tonight. Now I have to rest my fingers and hop on my bed. But first I need to take the last sip from my hot cup of surreal tea, and take the repeat off from owl city’s ocean eyes (They must be so tired of singing now)… Good night folks, thanks for staying with me today. I Promise to try to keep things orderly around here from now on (try I say)…catch you later!

December

Last night in November, one that I’d remember,
I lay in bed watching the stillness of the dark
That sits on the brink of December
Wishing for light from the one bearded in white and amber…

Winter winds whistling the sounds of joy and pain
Naked trees hoping for leaves to clothe them again
Some bleed, some feed,
Some to the slaughter, some filled with laughter

For after November comes that day in December
When the sparkling streets shall sing a song
The feet of smiling little children
Dancing to ho ho ho

Special

I know that you are special
Because in all these years
there hasn’t been another like you
somedays I walk amidst the crowd
and there’s many faces I see that look just like you
but just like driving on the highway
they disappear like the mirage they are
and I’m reminded again how you’re special and rare
knowing it’s the you in my mind causing me to stare…

I miss our walks in the park
And how we’d talk and laugh lengthy in the dark
The moments we shared that always lit a merry spark
Like dining at S.S or wining at O.J’s
Damn! I’ve been away for too long
But soon I’ll be coming back!
If I have to race the tracks or swim with sharks
This I know for a fact: soon I’ll be back
To see my special you!

She was gone!

Sitting alone in the stillness that envelopes this darkened room
I feel your hugs and touch, even from the distance
Soothing as it would when you were here
When we were bare,
skin to skin, bone to bone
The lonely nights when you were mine, and I your own

a distance flown, much feelings grown….
Its the end of another hard day
but here, still I lay,
Feigning for her touch
listening for her moan…
but really, in truth...
she was gone!

hold on...keep moving...

How to hold steady through the times
even when you can’t see a clear picture of the end.
Sometimes life beats you up
and you just get weary to keep going on
sometimes the troubles hit you hard
and though you want to stand strong,
it pushes really hard that you stumble and fall
but all you really have to do
is to get up, dust off the dirt and walk
keep moving, keep going.

Sometimes the picture of the end isn’t too clear,
it’s hard to see the way,
because the streets have been fogged
and vision appears blurry and fuzzy
you don’t really have to be in a hurry
just take the steps one at a time, slow and steady
follow the compass of the one that guides from within
the one who never leads astray..
the one who works together all things
for the good of them that love him.


He leads aright even in fuzzy vision
gives the strength to rise when we fall
and the fortitude to push against the resistance


How to hold steady through the times
even when you can’t see a clear picture of the end
is to hold on steady to the one
who knows the beginning from the end

Happy birthday!

These days roll by quite fast… I had my birthday on the 4th of October. Even though today is actually the 13th , it still feels like yesterday that I sat together with some of the world’s most amazing friends, cracking jokes, chilling, laughing and making precious moments that would etch deep within my memory… But the days have rolled quick. And since that beautiful Sunday, activities have shifted back to normal, with classes here and there; and the rigor of work that has kept everyone busy and separated… but regardless of the distance, in spite of the hassles of our NCU college life; these memories shared watching the Surrogates, sitting in front of Dominos with mouths stuffed full with pizza while laughing at jokes made on the bike man; will remain mine to keep, to revisit and to relive-- even if only for the pleasant smile I know it will always leave on my face…Thank you much guys!