#74 A Special Day

Where am? In my room at at the guest house of the university/hospital in Ponnekarra, Kerala

How am I? Marvelous.

Yes, my dear Loved Ones, tomorrow I am going to celebrate my birthday. There’s even a song about it….

"When I'm Sixty Four"
When I get older losing my hair
Many years from now
Will you still be sending me a valentine
Birthday greetings, bottle of wine?
If I'd been out till quarter to three
Would you lock the door?
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I'm sixty-four?

You'll be older too
And if you say the word
I could stay with you

I could be handy, mending a fuse
When your lights have gone
You can knit a sweater by the fireside
Sunday mornings go for a ride
Doing the garden, digging the weeds
Who could ask for more?
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I'm sixty-four?

Every summer we can rent a cottage in the Isle of Wight
If it's not too dear
We shall scrimp and save
Grandchildren on your knee
Vera, Chuck & Dave

Send me a postcard, drop me a line
Stating point of view
Indicate precisely what you mean to say
Yours sincerely, wasting away
Give me your answer, fill in a form
Mine for evermore
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I'm sixty-four?

Isn’t it amazing that when I first heard this song 64 years old seemed like forever away, and I AM THERE NOW!!!! It’s hilarious!

So anyway, tomorrow my friend is taking me to the Holiday Inn (a FIVE STAR Hotel here) for their Buffet Breakfast. Then we will go to a museum that she has heard is excellent.

On Monday I am going to a Resort Town for a fun trip with the same friend I am going out with tomorrow. She’s gone there several times and loves it. The name of the town is Varkala, look it up! It’s around 4 hours south of where I am. We’ll take the train. We’ll be staying at Kaiya House.

Here’s what Trip Advisor has to say about the place:
http://www.tripadvisor.in/Hotel_Review-g297639-d1634368-Reviews-Kaiya_House-Varkala_Kerala.html
So I hope it will be a nice Birthday Trip for me.

As for my work here, I was hoping to go to a meeting before I left and that never happened. So now the meeting with the Head of Nursing Department (HOD), the person in charge of the training, and the Representative from the Gov’t Ministry will be after October 27th, not before Oct 24th. I really don’t know when it will happen and what the meeting will produce.

All I know is I carefully read the syllabus they gave me which apparently no one else did. Here is the handbook of what the Gov’t Ministry wanted people to learn, to become Healthcare Providers. I showed it to the HOD and she laughed. It said that when they completed the course they would be able to “install elevators and escalators.” An obvious “cut and paste job” that they didn’t change correctly.

And the other project I had of editing the textbook for the IV Course, there were so many errors that I didn’t know how to keep marking it up so the corrections could be made. So instead of picking out the errors, I asked the HOD to please give me the computer version so I can make the corrections myself. Otherwise it would take me forever to go over the corrected copy to check if the corrections were indeed actually changed. I just rather do it myself.

So I am free for the next week to relax and enjoy myself and hopefully I will come back to lots of work to get on. Less than 4 months to go, I want to make it productive.

I’ll keep in touch and report how my birthday trip was.
Love you all.
Marie