Thanksgiving 2009

1. waking up at 6:30 automatically…
2. Thanksgiving breakfast and game 1
3. It’s mike’s favorite holiday… football and food all day
4. Playing madden with friend online and over the phone. It’s like playing in the same room but in your own home.
5. Reading ALL my blogs that have been backed up for weeks… and enjoying being inspired to be creative again.
6. Getting to blog again…
7. Seeing mike excited and happy all day
8. Parents both arriving home today and 15 minutes apart so we only need to go to LAX once.
9. Mike being such a great cook
10. Thanksgiving lunch & Game 2
11. Thanksgiving dinner with family on both sides
12. Black Friday Shopping at Citadel!!

I didn’t think this day would come

After 12 weeks, it’s here. My last day of my first level II internship. It’s been 12 weeks of feeling overwhelmed, stressed, anxious and out of place working in the acute/icu/snf/inpatient setting. It’s also been 12 weeks of intense learning. I see occupational therapy in a whole different light, and it’s been a crazy experience so far. Everything we learned in school and MORE came to life and manifested so differently than what the textbooks taught us. The text books do not teach us how to read labs, time manage, figure out all the lines that are connected to someone in an acute setting and it definitely doesn’t teach you how to deal with the loss of patients that don’t make it. My instructor pushed me to be better EVERY SINGLE DAY. Some days I left in tears feeling like I’m not experienced enough, smart enough, good enough to treat in this setting… but come evaluation time, she reassured me that I am and would recommend me to work in this setting if i wanted to come back. It was not all smiles and warm feelings with this internship but i walked away learning SO MUCH and it stretched me as a person to take on the challenge to learn what I felt was impossible to learn.

The day has come that I made it through this internship, passing above what I thought I would score. I surprised myself that I didn’t give up, cos in all honesty, i wanted to more than a couple of times… and as i question this call in my life, i’ve never held more tightly to God to give me His strength and perseverance to keep going. Every morning, I asked for God’s mercy, cos i knew in week 3 that there was no way, no way at all that I could have made it through on my own.

God’s calling in life really isn’t easy. There’s sacrifices that has to be made and most importantly, there’s a sole reliance on God to live out His calling in life.

So i’m ever so thankful for all the support from family and friends that have carried me through the last 12 weeks and for God’s provision and grace in my life during what seem impossible for me, He made it possible.

Halloween

Halloween

Halloween

Halloween

Halloween

Naga Naga

Naga Naga for dinner

A milestone..

Today, marked the end of the academic part of the OT program. I tried to take it all in this week but I left not really excited or happy… I think i feel kinda sad. It felt like a few months ago, I was dancing it out with my sister when I received the acceptance letter… a few weeks ago when I sat in orientation in a big room with 50 other people that had stories of why they’re pursuing OT. It felt like last week when I had NO IDEA how I was going to make it through the program with the amount of work they wanted us to produce. It felt like a few days ago when we admired that C3 was done with their coursework and going out to FW II… and it felt like yesterday when I didn’t think I’ll ever have my life back instead of always thinking and worrying about the next project, assignment, test, paper or presentation.

Community really is important. I think I felt sad today cos it felt like i’m leaving an awesome community behind. (we’ll see each other one more time in 2 weeks for the comp exam before graduation in may) but there will be no more lunches at loker, frantically using up all our prints at the comp lab, finding out how everyone’s weekend went, sharing stories of our families, encouraging each other on when we feel like we have so little left to give. The last 5 semesters would have been even more horrible without the people I got to learn with each week.

I’m definitely excited about our future as students and eventually our future as therapists. I think our cohort will go far and do great things… I think our professors believe that too.

Tonight, I celebrated this milestone by serving at Door of Hope in Glendale. I got to help cook dinner with Jon, Jenn & the teens there. After dinner, Jenn, Cons & I went outside to play with the younger kids:

• when asked a 4 yr old when her birthday is, she says ‘ when there’s cake’.
• there was a boy that inspired me to get back into playing with the most simplest thing. a rock. He played with a rock for a good 30 mins, fully engaged with trying to build a ‘castle’ with the rock and a piece of paper. it was awesome.
• surfer, wave, shark!
• Jenn being a giant. haha