Editor's Note

Greetings College of Nursing!

            As our college has reached its 65^th anniversary last February 12, The Nursing Journal (NJ), your only and official student publication has dedicated our 2^nd Lampara Magazine issue to celebrate this milestone by highlighting the commemorative events for this momentous occasion while still preserving the essence of a campus journal.

Starting with its cover – a depiction of how the lamp shines through and gives light to everything we do. In the middle of our personal and academic challenges surrounding our pursuit of advancing in the profession is the lamp which illuminates and emanates the very much needed light that guides our paths and allows us to clearly see the way. With our Thomasian culture, we are able to shine amongst others and stand out as well-rounded and competent nurses.

Followed by its content, our publication was opened to hear the voices and views of the Thomasian Nursing Studentry and served as a venue where their thoughts, views, and opinions can be heard, or read in this matter, in the form of either feature articles or literary pieces. We hope that through their insights, you’d be inspired to work better not just as a student but as a full-blown nurse. We also hope that by welcoming contributions, we promote the love and passion for the art of writing. Hopefully, this would open the doors for all student nurses, not just the NJ staff, to send us their own compositions, art works and photographs and maintain their creative and expressive outlets. We believe that this is our way as your official publication to unite our college – through what we do best.

            To further celebrate our 65^th anniversary, back-to-back with this issue is our first ever literary folio housing 65 literary pieces, either previously published or current masterpieces, giving a glimpse of the life of a Thomasian nurse put into literature. These pieces arise from the thoughts, feelings, experiences or stories of student nurses or professional nurses. We hope that as you read through them, you’d be able to relate and recall your own experiences or perhaps be inspired by them and keep the desire to serve others alive.

            As the quadricentennial year was approaching and the college has turned 65 years old, the publication has truly transformed from initially being handled by the faculty, the responsibility of keeping the publication alive was placed in the hands of the students. Variations have been made to allow the flow of creativity amidst maintaining the traditions of our publication. We believe that things will only get better from here. Congratulations to all of us for a wonderful quadricentennial year and for a great 65 years!

I leave you now with a literary piece I’ve composed for the first Lampara issue last year.

Lampara,

Liwanag mo'y gabay,

nagbibigay-buhay,

sa mundong madilim.

Munting ilaw ng pag-asa,

pagyamanin

murang adhikaing nakatuon

sa pagpapaunlad

ng mga pangitain

ng kabataan

Lampara

nagsisilbing pag-asa

sa sandali ng

kapanglawan

Umaapoy

Lumiliyab

Nagsisilbing inspirasyon

sa paggawa ng kabutihan

Ating gawing huwaran

Maging ilaw para sa bayan.

-Mervyn C. Tan (Editor-in-Chief A.Y. 2009-2011)