nosocomial infections and hometown country girls.

Just like any movie, no story remains static, and no life remains carefree.

Her name is Justine.

Being a young girl, she had everything all that kids her age did: a life whose problems never outgrew anything over cartoons and butterflies and candy-coated treats over the rainbows. Nothing seemed wrong, and it would have been delightful, had it not been to nature’s prowess.

As she grew up into a fine, young lady, the cannonballs of life were thrown at her: one by one, slowly melting her away until none would be left. But if she’d allow this, no one really knows.

Insecurities paved the way to her greatest egoistic mis-tendencies. Continuously comparing herself with the crowd around her, she began to find art in feeling inferior to others, every now and then seeing that she’s not good enough for anyone but herself. A feeling she very well pampered up until the greatest test of maturity knocked on her face: High school. For most of human beings, high school is at extreme levels---either it’s the best or it’s the worst moment in your lifetime; and as normalcy dawned on her, it turned out that it was, for her, the worst. It must’ve been peer pressure and those tiny evil things lurking around, offering temptation to be a bad girl, which made her the way she was at the time. Cutting class every now and then, just like how you’d treat a hobby, she let loose on her academics, not minding much matter towards studies. She was a teenager, after all. But there will always be at least one hindrance to letting her continue this free-as-a-bird way of life. Those elderly people who keep us bound to restrictions and rules and rules and rules, and, oh, had I mentioned? More rules. Society calls them parents, and too bad for her late-night gimmicks, she had two of them.

Just like arteries clogged with unnecessary cholesterol, her parents interfered with her life and had gotten her transferred to another school the year she turned a junior. As if under quality control check, Justine did as expected and became a good girl by focusing on her schooling. She took this, though with a slightly heavy heart because of being taken away from her friends and former school, as a chance to prove her parents’ wrong notion of her capabilities as a student obsolete. And so successfully she did.

When she thought familial demands were enough, life tells her no. After putting trust on the shoulder of someone she thought was a real friend, Justine was yet to experience the biggest joke of her life. Like an antagonist in an animated film, the fake friend swooped up on her and talked behind her back, revealing their supposedly-secrets. The bitch wreaked havoc over the school population and everyone refused to go over Justine’s side of the fence. Nobody talked to her, accompanied her, nor empathized with the turn-out of the situation. She was all alone when she wasn’t the one who wanted to.

Then, senior year came: a dread, a threat, a conflict, a challenge, a dilemma, and a chance to acquire freedom from the ties that bind any girl from her parents. Other than the many talks about graduation and the up and coming college life, this point of time was a rebound for her. Soon enough, the whole universe conspired and fate did its thing, in the end freeing Justine from the judgmental looks of other people on her. The “fake friend” was later not believed by people anymore, as she turned out to be a lie factory to almost everybody else. As a result, people now believed in Justine, and all was well with her life. Aside from regaining trust, she also got some huge bonus to go with the package, a good old boyfriend. Ah, heaven, eh?

Finally able to focus on the yet to come, she found herself discussing with her parents which path to take in College. If asked, she would love HRM or Tourism programs—for herself, that is. Her parents, more dominantly her mother, let her so with these.

Until later that year, at least. Her mother was then out abroad, and one time she called, adding Nursing to the list of her course options. Actually, “forced” would be a better choice of word. Justine is the epitome of the current condition of most college students in the Philippines: that I-want-this-but-I’m-doing-that-instead-for-my-parents scene we all know. It’s a cliché and she is just going to so participate.

As if providing her with consolation, she got to study in Angeles City, where her boyfriend [since high school] also lives. Unknown to most people who view Nursing as a money-making method of sorts, Justine had to go through the painstaking moments of endless lectures and mastering facts, finding support only in her boyfriend and siblings.

Comparing the incomparable high school to college life, she now has no permanent friends. Well, yes, she has companions—but nobody to be there for her any time, no one to be there when she needs one. But she makes no big fuss over it. It will pass, for sure.

Though not a hundred and two percent confident about her scholastic status in the Nursing field, Justine does hope to make it through, even if just enough for her to experience hospital duty and to get capped soon. Being an open-minded and flexible folk, she puts a firm stand on her goal: to someday travel around (though not literally) the world, preferably with her mother. She eyes this goal unsure of the way of achieving it---be it by being a nurse or by being any other type of a working person (in any pessimistic manner of not making it through as a nursing student).

She also wants to have her own family in the future and shares her interest in being happy someday.

byshareeannnarciso

Based on the life events of Justine Pamintuan

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

grouped by two's, we were asked to write about each other's lives.