I went for the blood donation drive today, which was something that i've always wanted to do for a very long time. i would have gone last year, except i was in boarding school and forgot to let my parents sign the form T_T so basically, you start off by completing a health questionnaire, then your blood pressure gets checked. after that, they check your blood haemoglobin levels by pricking your finger (honestly i didn't feel anything at all). after you get the all clear, the fear-inducing parts come, and it was even worse for me because me nurse had a very large "trainee" tag. so anyway, you get a local anesthesia jab in your arm, which felt surprisingly non-painful, even less so than those vaccination shots you get with the impossibly thin needles. then the big needle comes in; the biggest needle i've ever seen, even larger than the one used to draw blood samples during the NS checkup. the panic was definitely there for a split second as the needle gleamed in the light, but it was actually less painful than the anesthesia jab. of course it's common sense that the jab after the anesthesia wouldn't hurt, but judging from the sheer size of the needle i thought that it was only supposed to mildly suppress the pain. so anyway, you lie down in the chair for about 15min hooked up to a bag of your own blood, which is actually kinda cool. i couldn't resist prodding the bag just to see what it felt like, until the nurse warned me to stop :P and when it's all over, you get to rest in the refreshment lounge, with free flow of biscuits and drinks :D and you also get two weeks worth of vanilla-flavoured iron supplements! :D all in all, i'd say that the stigma surrounding blood donation really is just a "fear factor" thing; there honestly isn't anything painful about it at all.
i think i might have to make it a ritual to stay back after school to study. as much as i hate to admit it, it has proven to be far more effective than studying at home, and when it comes down to the crunch i think it's safe to say that all of us will be perfectly willing to push far beyond our comfort zones just to survive.
maybe it's not so much a line of separation as it is a line of symmetry. maybe we shaped our own mirror. maybe our mirror can shape us.
