First 15 Days of Classes:
1. Classes never start at the assigned time. Forget a 3 PM class time even if that is what the class schedule, your level coordinator and registration card says. The teacher says you can come at 3 if you want. But he won't be there till 4. Teachers take days off for birthdays and class gets dismissed early when the teacher has a date or is picked up by her boyfriend.
2. If the students pester the level coordinator enough, Holy Week becomes a legal reason to miss 5 days worth of classes and then play the catch up game at the end of the module.
3. Security at the college is so non existent that I get away with not having a student ID for the rest of the month. A guilty conscience forces me to go get one anyway.
4. A scrub suit is worn during return demo exams. Official color seems to be any shade of green. (Note to self: A Mint Green scrub suit is not a good color to wear in the streets, It starts traffic even when the real traffic light says red and stop.)
5. A lecture means a "temporary lecturer" will come over, give copies of hand outs written in English and then proceed to translate the English tongue to vernacular.
6. Just because there are suggested textbooks, you don't have to buy it because there are hand outs anyway and as long as you can write fast, who needs the books? (I bought both books and saved myself the ink and carpal tunnel syndrome)
7. Turning off the lights and reading off a Power Point presentation to the class is considered a lecture. PS.- It is almost impossible to take notes in that kind of darkness.
8. The Caregivers mantra: "You don't scold the geriatric. You do not hit the geriatric, you do not beat the geriatric." Then always remember the published story of the Filipino caregiver deported for beating his patient who happened to have a toilet accident after being bathed by the caregiver.
9. Following the US Caregivers handbook gets you graded down and in trouble for not doing it the "normal hospital way." More about the normal hospital way in this country when we get to my OJT postings.
10. According to lecturers, the Caregiver's Handbook method written by an American RN for treatment of Americans is WRONG. I believe that is because I was using a US set up for the Return Demonstrations in a Philippine setting. Silly me, I thought we would be caring for AMERICANS and CANADIANS :p
11. My classmates seem to think being a CG is a job they will never have to do even though they are studying it and are using it as their jumping board to leave the Philippines. They all have "options" when they get to wherever it seems and they can just forget their employment contracts. I on the other hand look forward to actually caring and nurturing patients who need it. We'll get to why I feel that way later.
This covers my first 15 days in class. I'll get to the rest of the month tomorrow. In the meantime, my bed beckons me to lie on it and shut my eyes
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