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nekoneko924
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Country: United States
State: Washington
Birthday: 10/22/1984
Gender: Female
Interests: Art, reading, writing when motivated, junking out online. Being me :P
Expertise: Kimmishness?
Occupation: Student
Member Since:
4/4/2003
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| Fortunately, this does not happen to me very often, but it kind of annoys me when someone says something about me "knowingly," as if they think I know what I'm thinking and why... and they are wrong because they think I am worse than I actually am. This is an example (from my past, yes): You make some innocent comment, and then someone twists the meaning because they're perverted, and then they label you as perverted because "perversion" is the only context they personally know. Logically, then, everyone must think perversely, including yourself. And then when you say, "Uh... no, that's not what I was thinking," they say with a wink and a nod, "Yeah right!" Now the question becomes, How do I convince you that I am not perverted? You obviously think everyone is perverted. And further, to try to convince you otherwise would just feed into your sarcastic disbelief.
This is an issue somewhat because it is a pride thing. I am not as low as you are, bottom dweller! It is a feeling of righteous indignation... that someone thinks wrongly of you, and you have to defend yourself.
I've also encountered this type of situation with someone who thinks I must think of relationships the same way they do... but actually no, my worldview, my history, the context of my thinking, does not revolve around another human. I'm sorry that is the way it is for you!
Which brings me to another subject. What is so bad about singleness? I feel as if singleness is not supported anywhere. In the secular world, everyone tries to get matched up with someone for life, and if they end up single, there is this sense that they have failed in life. I think this is the same at church, where I think singleness should actually be more supported and celebrated than anywhere else (Paul writes about it in 1 Corinthians 7).
At church, in the least, singleness is just the "default" state. It's hardly ever the intentional state, and even more rarely, the intentional state for the entirety of life. I've only known one woman who knew she was called to be single and vigilantly stayed single because of her calling (she reported that she had been proposed to twice, and rejected both men-- her point being, that it is not the lack of opportunity that she is single, but rather that she is intentional about her singleness). I've heard of a handful of males who have taken a year off dating in order to focus their life on God more... but that's about it.
Don't get me wrong. I really do understand that in life, it's nice to have a companion... someone who understands you, that you can be partner with through life. God even uses marriage as an illustration of his relationship with the church-- that it is even more intimate than marriage, but in this finite world, marriage is about as close of a comparison as you can get.
But I feel that that is where we get stuck. Everyone pursues marriage... there are no alternatives, only failure. Is it so easy to focus on what we want in the Bible that we forget 1 Corinthians 7? Because it's unpleasant and inconvenient?
Another thing I kind of wonder is, what if God asked you to sacrifice finding or having a life partner to Him? What if He asked you to remain single for life? How many Christians would be able to do that? Or would that be the straw that broke the camel's back? --I'm sorry, I can't be single for life... I have to find someone. I'm sorry God, that's where we end.
But I think this needs to be included in the pile of things to be given to God, if we are really submitting everything to Him.
It's kind of a scary sacrifice, isn't it?
I think it would be less scary if singleness were more supported in the church. But it's not, really. Currently, singleness is something to abhor... to reject, to end. I don't think it should be that way.
Eh... I'm not saying anything about my own calling, as I actually don't know it. But if God called me to stay single, I hope I'd be able to hear clearly and follow. Don't I want to find someone? Yeah. I do. But this is something I shouldn't keep from Him, author and perfecter of my faith. What He wills will be.
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| Hmm, it's been about 2 months since my last post. Then, I was at the beginning my internship, and now I'm at my last week.
I've been grateful for my placement at this hospital in outpatient occupational therapy. I think my supervisor and I worked well together, and the other staff here are really accommodating, understanding, and friendly.The patients have been interesting and nice to work with as well.
One standout moment for me was when I followed a COTA (certified occupational therapy assistant) around the hospital. On the inpatient rounds, we did a treatment session for a 40-something year old man who'd just had a stroke a few days or one week prior. His dominant side had become hemiplegic, and he was really frustrated by the major loss of coordination and strength in his arm. By that, I mean his arm was pretty much flaccid, with very little wrist and finger tone. He couldn't do anything with his arm except grip the putty a little with his fingers and weight bear with support through the elbow. We did some theraputty exercises for his hand as well as seeing how well he was able to function in the bathroom with brushing his teeth. The memorable thing about the session was that there were a few times when it was so apparent that his rage over the loss of his arm and function was lying just underneath the surface of his countenance. Sometimes it seemed like he was cursing out his arm. A few moments were pretty raw-- the COTA was trying to comfort him a little with her hand on his shoulder as he stared (...glared) at his hand, willing and willing it to work.
I didn't have to deal with such surfacing emotion with my patients in outpatient therapy. By the time they reach outpatient therapy, they've usually had a few weeks or a month to "get over" their losses, though there is no doubt most are fully invested in the return of function to their arm. They're ready to work hard, they understand the treatments we do will challenge them, so they will sometimes fail and sometimes succeed. They've found alternate ways to get things done in their everyday life. Sometimes they've found the silver lining. When I meet them, they're friendly, compliant, and ready to work without much emotional support from me.
So..... it seems there's still a lot of growth I've to do as an upcoming occupational therapist. I don't know if dealing with harsh emotions ever becomes comfortable or not-awkward, but I hope that in the future I'll at least be able to participate and be present with these people as they come to grips with their situations.
I have become more comfortable and confident in dealing with patients face-to-face in session, in planning treatment, and doing other OT things, but of course I'm no where close to perfect... yet. I suppose perfection is a line you get closer to, but may never achieve.
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Other good things...
Once (movie).
"In Your Atmosphere" - John Mayer. I wish I could play that, but it utilizes the retuning of at least one string.
Playing "Fallin' For You" (Colbie Caillat) on the guitar. I just found this one today. I think I like it because I learned new chords to play it :) That's probably what makes it the most interesting.
Ordering "A Rush of Blood to the Head" (Coldplay) and "In Rainbows" (Radiohead) sheet music for the piano from Amazon. I don't know if I'm skilled enough to make use of them, but I hope so. Excited to get them this week!
Currently reading Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks. It's an interesting collection of essays on different music related disorders and phenomena. I like it because I can read a few pages at a time (my current reading rate) and come back to it without having to review what I read the day before. If I were able to (or had the mind to) sit down for an hour to read, maybe I would be reading something more involved.
Hmm... all of that is music related in one way or another :p
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| My online life diminishes once the computer is no longer central to my work-- I guess a natural tendency :)
I've been at my "internship" or clinical fieldwork at an outpatient OT clinic for a few weeks now. We see a lot of neuro diagnoses, mostly stroke patients. Recently we saw a 15 year old with a spinal cord injury (SCI is rare to see at this particular clinic). It's pretty interesting stuff.
One kind of sombering realization I had is that therapists (speech, physical, occupational) can improve life for their [neruo] patients... but that often we can't totally fix the problem. We can do everything we can, but in the end, progress is determined by the limitations of the human body. For instance, if a stroke damages the part of the brain that controls voluntary motor control of the hand, we can try to strengthen the remaining muscles the person has control over, but we may never recover those areas of the brain that were lost, and so we may never recover those particular muscles. Sometimes the brain, in the miracle of neuroplasticity, finds a way to reconnect synapses and control previously lost muscles, but it doesn't often happen to the extent we need, though we encourage that new neurological growth much as possible. That is really frustrating to these individuals and to us, but that is often the truth. So far there just isn't a great way to assuredly regrow or reconnect a damaged brain or spinal cord. But we do what we can.
I think when your limitations are so much more apparent, your remaining degrees of freedom become all the more precious-- so occupational therapy has its value in revealing and engaging those, even as it tries to help recover what was lost.
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I forgot to mention that I got to see the entirety of a total knee replacement surgery! It was pretty gruesome, but I'm glad I watched it. You can kind of see why the patients hurt so much afterwards :p The surgery was surprisingly fast-- the actual surgical action only took 45 minutes, but the prep before took about 20-30 minutes and the postwork-- sewing up the patient, cleaning up, transferring the patient to a gurney-- took another 20-30 minutes.
There was an electric saw involved, as well as a drill, a chisel, a hammer, and a sander. It was nasty. The surgeon would kind of assume this staggered squat position (for a biomechanical advantage, I'm sure) and wield the saw on the patient. Meanwhile, there was a nice iPod dock and stereo in the back, and songs heard during this session included "Jumpin', Jumpin'" by Destiny's Child, "Try Again" by Aaliyah, and "Yeah" by Usher. Someone likes theirs a tiny bit recent-old-school, I guess :)
The first time I met the surgeon, he'd just come out of another surgery and had some blood splatter on his face shield. That was a little disconcerting.
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| I feel like I've been disappointed more than a few times in the last month or so. Disappointed in people... in circumstances. Often because things just didn't or haven't gone my way. And when it comes down to it, disappointment is embarrassing, especially when others note how these people have disappointed you.
Nothing huge. Just these small things. I had 3 in the last week. It wasn't awesome.
Rationalizations
.People are going through worse disappointments than you
.That is just the way it turned out, so accept it
.It wasn't the people's fault, it was just circumstance
.Maybe next time
.Suck it up and be an adult
I can rationalize away, and those are true things. It doesn't really salve the disappointment, though. I am disappointed. I am frustrated.
It doesn't do anything to tell the people who disappoint me that they disappointed me-- it wasn't their fault. They are bound by many things-- other events, other people, other responsibilities. Why make them more uncomfortable by being real and telling them that I am disappointed? They wouldn't be able to do anything practical about it.
So I fake it and dismiss their failure as fine.
Maybe a better line for the future is, "Honestly, that disappoints me. But I understand why you can't ____." I really need to get away from "that's fine." Cuz really-- it doesn't feel fine, so it probably isn't.
That is my line of thought tonight. Now if you hear me say that to you, you will know where it came from: some effort to be real, even if it makes you a tiny bit uncomfortable. I don't want excuses or defensiveness, so don't give that to me-- nor do I need rationalizations, because I have those already. I'm just letting you know.
Disappointment is inevitable, but that doesn't mean it should be ignored. Disappointment is hurt, and hurt is pain. If we only acknowledged the good, we would be rather one-sided. I think acknowledging pain (as gracefully as possible..., if it is possible) is probably more human.
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On a happier note: when I encounter good people, it really makes me happy. I'm talking about good quality people. There's this certain quality of goodness visible in them-- they're not just decent-- they're Good. And their good comes out in actions... big and small. Seeing those makes me smile. This realization of "good" doesn't happen that often, but when I see it, it means a lot. And it means a lot to be the recipient of it, too.
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| This is part of a journaling class assignment.
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Last week, for the OT in community class, we visited Little Bit. Little Bit is a therapeutic riding facility in Woodinville. They offer a service called hippotherapy-- therapy using horses as a treatment modality. For people with disabilities who do not receive therapeutic services at Little Bit, but who still want to ride horses, Little Bit offers sports riding-- modifying the sport with equipment and techniques so it becomes adaptive riding-- like adaptive skiing, for instance.
One major feature of hippotherapy is that it strengthens the body of the person riding the horse, while also being a motivating activity. Riding a horse requires good trunk, neck/head control, as well as optimally, use of the lower and upper extremities to stabilize the person and control the horse. Depending on the abilities of the person, the level of riding is graded up and down. On the higher end of ability is an activity called "vaulting"-- the person holds and changes between various different postures and poses while on the back of the horse. These poses might be difficult to hold anyway, but it is even more challenging to perform them while on a moving object. Sensory processing is also involved-- processing visual information-- depth perception, figure/ground; vestibular/balance + visual info; tactile/proprioceptive input from being on the horse; smells (woo...).
Some children have learned to walk after receiving hippotherapy services. The premise is that a horse imitates the kinds of movements people make when they walk better than almost anything else. When a child rides the horse, they can feel the kinds of movements involved in walking, even if they are not able to walk themselves. Through riding the horse, children can get a grasp on what "normal" walking might be like, and begin to do it themselves. On the horse, the individual experiences the movements of pelvic anterior and posterior rotation, side to side weightbearing, and superior/inferior displacements.
It was good to see where else OTs can work in the community-- I had never even considered horses to be a treatment modality. But while I really do think hippotherapy is effective for their young clients, I think there are limits to the beneficence of hippotherapy. It's good for strengthening, even sensory processing-- but as an OT, I don't think I would want to be therapist at a hippotherapy facility. The work is too limited-- I would rather work on everyday activities than sensory processing/strengthening on a horse's back.
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