Orientations and Expectations

Yesterday, I met with Daniel Chapdelaine for the second time to discuss my internship that I'll be starting Monday. We discussed my schedule, which will be Monday-Thursday 9-5, Friday 9-3:30. I'll be doing a large variety of things including helping with exercise, Morningside bakers (a cooking class), social hour and various other events, doing research on activities for special needs residents (visually and hearing impaired in particular), taking lots of photographs, shadowing an OT for a couple of hours each week, and hopefully getting the opportunity to host my own event a few times!

I'm really excited about this internship because the staff at Morningside seem very friendly and open to providing assistance and engaging in meaningful conversation. The more time I've spent at Berea, the more I realize that everyone is just so stinkin' busy, they rarely take the time to have good conversation with others or just relax with others that aren't in their friend niche. For me, this is discouraging because I really enjoy getting to know new people and hearing their perspective. Often times, just through casual conversation, I can learn a lot about a person's outlook on life.

One thing that I really hope to get out of this experience is to have a better understanding of what I personally want to do. Right now, I believe that OT is the career for me. I love working with people one-on-one and I enjoy feeling like I'm directly impacting someone else's life. With OT, from what I understand, you typically set goals for yourself and your client and each session you spend working towards that goal. After 4-6 weeks, you assess the progress that you've made on them, if any are complete, and decide on some goals if old ones were completed. However, having worked in an area similar to activities for the past 2 1/2 years, I have really come to enjoy it. It has similar aspects as OT, but is less confined. I get to really be moving all the time---talking to residents, preparing for events, going to meetings, and more---and I definitely don't want a job where I'm sitting all day. I'm to restless and easily bored for that.

Another thing I hope to gain is a new perspective on how things can be ran when working with the elderly. Currently, I have mostly worked with residents who are under the 'nursing' category---meaning they need frequent assistance and can not really do anything for themselves. At this facility, it is n independent, assisted, and nursing which means their residents can do a lot more on their own and are more cognitively sound. This will be a new experience for me.

I'm really excited to see what this experience has in store for me and will be updating frequently over the next 8 weeks!

ooo,
Megan