WTH?!

excuse the non capitalized blog entry. i just need to get this out of my head.

not gonna lie, i'm having a WTH?! situation right now.
no, not a moment.
a situation.
as in...it's longer and bigger than a moment.

no, it's not a bad "i'm hating this" kinda WTH?! but in a more..."i'm so confuzzled by this turn of event, but hey i'm going along with it" kinda WTH?!. what gives you may ask?

lemme explain.

for more than 5 years, i've wanted to be a nurse. i still do. i went through tough times, jumped a lot of hoops, and made sacrifices until i finally graduated from a nursing school almost 2 months ago (has really been 2 months already?!). i hold a bachelor of science degree in nursing, heck, i'm now a registered nurse. so i'm not wrong in expecting that i'd be doing a nursing job right about now, am i? like, you know, working in a hospital, taking care of patients, the way i have dreamed myself doing for the past, oh, five years? i'm not insane for thinking that it should happen right about now or anytime soon, right?

the reality is, i'm not doing that thing i've been dreaming myself doing for the past, oh, five years. a few months ago, i thought i had everything lined up and everything would go according to what i have dreamed myself doing for the past, oh, five years. but nope, as it is with life, it has a penchant for screwing over your plan. okay i take that back, not "screw over", i don't like to call it "screw over" because i believe that the big Guy up there always has surprises, and those always turn out beyond what i thought was best.

anyway, the point is, i'm not doing anything that i'm expecting and expected to be doing. not YET. i think "yet" is the key word here. jobs are scarce, even in the nursing field, which a lot of people don't believe but it's true. so finding a nursing job is harder than it used to, interviews are hard to come by, and competitiveness increases. not to mention my international student status that has become a hindrance. i believe the job will come. HOWEVER.

i'm doing something else right now that just comes out of the left field. something i've never dreamed myself doing in the past, oh, five years. it just sort of...happened, like a small snowball that grew ginormous as it rolls down the hill.

it's called...photography.

i've always have a thing for photos ever since i moved to the states 10 years ago. it came from being away from my loved ones, and wanting to share this new life i'm rebuilding with them. i'd buy film rolls all the time, making sure i was ready to capture every event to be sent back to my family and friends back home. as if i needed to let them know that, look, i'm okay here and this is what's going on with me. as if i needed to tell my parents that they made the right decision in sending me so far away at such a young age without them, because look at the pictures, i'm getting the opportunities they wanted me to have. it started from there, but i wasn't intrigued until eight years later (by this time i've said goodbye to rolls of film and have said hello to digital photography).

two years ago (ironically, this was also the time i started nursing school), i don't remember what sparked it, i became enamored with photos. i saw photos more than just a way to preserve memories. there is an art to it. there is a thought and a planning that goes into creating a photo. it's more than just a snap or a click. it's beautiful.

i then dived into the world of flickr. i'd become enraptured by the photos i see, the different subjects by the different styles of the different photographers. i wonder to myself, how can one creates images so...amazing? soon enough, i found a select group of photographers i like, and i follow their stream of photos daily. from those photographers, i started learning how to take pictures, and what to do with them afterward to make it your own.

it grew from an interest, to a hobby, to a serious hobby, and now to something possibly bigger that i've yet to know what to call it. when i posted pictures on my facebook, it was and is for the fun of it. i didn't expect the overwhelming positive responses i've gotten, and definitely didn't expect people to ask me for my photographing service. this is when the WTH?! comes in.

speaking of the now, i'm supposed to be doing nursing, but i find myself being asked "can you take my baby's pictures?" more than one occasion. so you see why this is a WTH?! situation for me? a confusing one at that? because i know more about nursing than photography. i went to school to be a nurse, not to be a photographer. i can figure out how to handle a crashing patient faster than i can figure out what aperture, shutter, and iso setting i need to use in a room. i can understand an ecg strip better than i can understand what those buttons are for in a photoshop software. i know very little about photography. my knowledge and technique are minuscule. there is a phrase "play it by ear", well, so far i play it by eye when it comes to photography.

recently, people have come out of the woods to tell me i have talent in photography. my nursing instructor said i could revert to it if nursing, by some weird kink in the universe, doesn't work out. my own mother said it and even encouraged me to take photography classes. some even went to say that perhaps i'm in the wrong career path and should switch to photography (to that i refuse to believe. i'm not in the wrong career path, i just have to make it bigger in the future for two careers. i can be a nurse and a photographer on the side, and i will be).

here i am, wondering, how on earth did this turn of event happen?! me, who's supposed to be a nurse right now and who only has a small grain of knowledge in photography, have people actually like my photos enough that they'd ask me to take photos of their kids?! taking pictures for someone is an honor, let me tell you, and these are their children they want me to take pictures of. so excuse me while i let out a big WTH?!

i'm not abandoning nursing. i'm a nurse. i still love nursing and it's still my priority. i'm still looking for a job, the job i've been dreaming myself doing for the past, oh, five years. for now, photography is just something that falls on my lap while i'm on this job search. but the rate it is growing, the irony, and the unexpected element of it are just enough to warrant a WTH?!. God makes life funny for me sometimes, and i'm like, haha *nervous laughs* good one, good one.

i don't know where this leads me. it's nice, i'm not complaining. i enjoy photography, it gives me a different satisfaction than what nursing gives me. but i'm just confused and wondering what's gonna come outta this and why now when i'm supposed to be doing something else. it's a good WTH?! though, because i'm going outside of the box here. photography isn't my comfort zone, it is an uncharted territory that's been given to me, and i'm taking it.

i don't know what He has up His sleeve at the moment, but alright, i'm going with His flow. but, for now, i just can't help but to let out a WTH?!....