I got a $1,000 scholarship!!

I got a $1,000 AOTF-derived scholarship! I applied for it quite a while ago. I just found out! YAY!

http://www.aotf.org/html/Awardees2009.shtml

Volunteeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeering…it all helps with OT indirectly!

But wait! I realized I forgot to mention my 2 hours at the Alzheimer's center, chillin' with my elderly peeps!

Two of my favorites had died 🙁

But a surprising number of them – and staff – were still around, which was great.

Various scenarios:

1) Lady showing me her fake dog that she carries around with her at all times, she can press a button to make it bark and walk. Adorable. But it was clear the way she talked about it that she thought it was real, just “really easy to take care of”….awww. Glad she had the little doggie though.  We were folding cloth aprons/bibs together and I put one of the aprons around her dog's head to make it a babushka and she liked that, lol.

2) Lady, talking to a staff member about when her daughter was coming:
Lady to staff member: “If she isn't here soon I'm going to cut your throat!”
Me, standing next to lady: “Yikes, is my throat safe?”
Lady, looking at me, considering. “Yes, your throat is safe.”

3) Two ladies (one black, one white) sitting on either side of me, hanging out. Black lady asks me if I'm married and I say no. Handsome black man (activities director) walks by and I say, “Ooh, how about him? Can I marry him?” Black lady grins, white lady pats my hand and says politely “He needs to be your own color, dear.”
Luckily the black lady didn't hear her, so I just nodded and let it go because elderly ladies with dementia won't gain anything from a lecture on racism, I don't think!

I think that's it for specific stories. I just hung out with various people, distracting them away from the door or reassuring them their loved one was coming soon, or just sitting and holding hands. Sometimes people do random things and you are like huh? And then if you know their history it all makes sense.

Like one lady is always smoothing down my sleeves, feeling my fabrics, looking distressed at any loose threads…..turns out she was a seamstress. Another lady is always writing down notes (but it's more like her signature), and she used to be a doctor's secretary.

Today I went to the pediatric cancer hospital to do some shadowing for about four hours. Very fun. Seems like they all have huge scars running down the back of their heads. I've been volunteering there over 4 years now, and you really do learn the lingo. Osteosarcoma, rhabdomyosarcoma, gliomas, medulloblastomas, you just get used to it. The kids are so cute. I love it there. I need to read up/practice on the Peabody, the Batelle, the Oregon Project, the VMI, HELP, and a few other assessments!!

Anyway. Tomorrow I'm going to another pediatric hospital to hold babies (I might go on easter too, I like to hold the babies on holidays), and hopefully next week I'll hit the Assisted Living facility to chill with my elderly peeps there too. So within 7 days I will have hit all four of my volunteer haunts for the first time in a long time because of fieldwork, so that makes me happy to get to be with my babies and my old people! Two pediatric hospitals, an AL facility, and an Alzheimer's facility. No middle ground….lol I guess I'm not too big of a fan of teens/adults!!

So random even a random word generator would explode

I watched “Deuce Bigalow, Male Gigolo” tonight, again, randomly, on TV, about a dude who tries to be a gigolo (in their terms, “man whore”) but ends up finding his niche in befriending some of the clientele that were otherwise shunned. He did this by finding ways to help them fit in or be accepted. For example, he took the girl with Tourettes with a propensity for swearing, to a baseball game, where her shouting horrible curses on the opposing team were loved by all the fans. I know the movie is incredibly silly, but I like it because it has an element of OT philosophy in it, even if he didn't realize it. He looked at the client's personality characteristics and abilities and then found ways to work with them to improve their quality of life.

Because this is a random post, I included two random pictures.

One is a picture of an art thingie me and my mom did in La Jolla, CA, this past summer. She loves to collect rocks and she has kept a blue M&M in a hole in a rock in the house for years (it's gone now). So I decided it would be fun to get a bag of M&Ms, collect holey rocks at the beach, and make impromptu art.

Weird as hell, but mom was totally willing to go along with it…

Second picture is the masterpiece of a girl named Michelle who is in love with Lester. The mentioned “Patti” is my good friend who is an OT student in New Jersey, where, oddly enough, small world as it is, one of my professors has transferred.

ANYWAY. Enough weirdness for one day.

Sooo tired.

Going to the Alzheimer's Adult Day Care Center today…I did a Level I (Two week) fieldwork there about a year ago. Gonna chill with my elderly homies for a few hours.

I had HORRIBLE nightmares one after the other last night. I kept waking up terrified. I'm having a LOT LOT LOT LOT of nightmares lately, every single night, multiple nightmares. Funnnnn. I wake up exhausted!

Just worked out with Virginia…gonna do some errands before I go to the Alzheimer's place. Then meeting a friend for dinner that I haven't seen in a long time. And then lots more errands, studying, and chores, interspersed (sp) between those events. But mostly I just want to sleep after all those nightmares…

Doot doot doot…work application, graduation, exams….the real world beckons. GO AWAY REAL WORLD I AM SCARED OF YOU…

Oh come on. Nobody thought my jail cover letter was amusing? Apparently I'm only funny to myself. No real surprise there….

I am in contact with an OT student named Kuma & some of his classmates. We collaborated on an article on diversity (including people with disabilities being a form of diversity often overlooked and how we need to recruit more ppl with disabilities as OTs) a long time ago, and it's finally ready for submission to OT Practice. Kuma offered to have me submit it as I am used to it by now so I know what to do (3 times now) but I told him I wanted him to do it because it's a thrill to submit your own manuscript and I wanted him to have that bragging right. I sent him the link and gave him some basic tips and told him I'd do it if he gets overwhelmed. But I hope he does it for that great feeling of accomplishment!!

I went working out with my OT classmate Virginia this morning…have been talking about the OT practice article with Kuma, and now it's time to work on my updated resume, my hospital application, perhaps my taxes, and some graduation stuff. Borrrrrring. But somewhat exciting too.

Yesterday I took my friend Sarah out for a birthday dinner – we had Muddy's cupcakes for dessert and I threatened her bodily harm if anything happened to the cupcakes. Before that I hung out with Virginia – we had lunch, talked about geriatric mental health & specifically proper assessments, evaluation tools, and group topics, in preparation for her upcoming job, and played Frisbee!! And studied a tiny tiny bit for the NBCOT exam. We will probably take it at the end of May. I also hung out with classmate Kerri & her husband some too. So yesterday was a pretty good day.

Okay I'm procrastinating because I don't want to work on all my errands. I better start.

OMG, I am INSANE

So I am updating my resume while applying to a job. I went back to find the resume/cover letter we wrote for a professor, and I had written this awesome paragraph at the bottom of my fake cover letter (applying for a fake job as a student writer to OT Practice magazine) AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!  I don't even remember doing this. I crack me up.

” Please let me know if you have any questions regarding my resume. A few of the chronological gaps may be explained by brief prison stays, although I’m sure you’ll understand once I explain. That’s another way I may be able to help student readers, since I now have a firm grasp of the difference between a felony and misdemeanor and can provide valuable tips for students with a criminal background, trying to take the NBCOT exam. I will look forward to hearing from you soon. Thank you very much for your time.”

AHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHA

AHAHAHAHHAHAAHHAHA

Okay back to work 🙁

Hmmmm…waiting to graduate.

I haven't blogged in a while because I haven't really had anything specific to blog about.

I miss my fieldwork but am glad to not be working for a while. I'm studying for the exam. I keep hearing about people failing the new format, but I'm a great test-taker, so I'll remain optimistic. I'll probably take the boards in May.

Graduation is May 29th. My mom, dad, and grandma are flying in from CA I think, plus a few other friends from this area may come.

A lot of my classmates already have jobs lined up or are interviewing. I haven't even started that process. I've been offered several jobs but do not feel they are the right fit for me at this time.

My first choice is a pediatric cancer hospital in Memphis which may have an opening in a few months. If that doesn't work (fierce competition), I want to consider spending a year living in Asheville NC. I've decided not to try CA for a job until I've had at least a year's experience around here – it's easier to get a job if I'm not a new grad, and I'll have more money by then.

It's fun but scary to be job hunting, starting a career. I need to update my resume…

I don't think I'll be blogging much daily for a while, since I don't probably have daily OT-related experiences. I do have a lot of catch-up blogging to do on stuff from comments, emails, stories, etc, though. I'll try to keep up and not neglect this blog!!

Thanks all for comments, e-mails, I appreciate them. I'm behind still…as always…but slowly catching up.