Big Girl Job!!

I have done it! I have finished college (for now) and have gotten myself a big girl job. I am a direct one-on-one tutor with children on the autism spectrum and I absolutely love it! Once I take my OTA boards in a few weeks I will then switch over to the therapy department (at the same facility) and will be able to work more one on one with kids needing extra therapy. I am so excited and even though my job can be challenging, it is one that I go home smiling about.

The Last Chapter of my Life as a S/OTA

I have been working extremely hard to become a certified Occupational Therapy Assistant and I am in my final stretch to become one. I am currently a Level II student working at a facility that is contracted through a developmental disabilities board. I am at a location the hires individuals diagnosed with a developmental disability to work on jobs they are contracted to perform. It is a completely different realm than what I am used too (which is the medical world) and within the past three days I have learned so much. It is a completely different setting than what I am used and along with learning about OT and gaining knowledge of my career and how to become a COTA, I am also learning about job production! Many companies come to our business and have us perform tasks. We have a group that collates glass dishes into a box for sale, those boxes you see at Target, Wal-Mart, Kohl's, we do them. We have another group folding t-shirts and sealing them in plastic bags for distribution to stores. The major project we have going on that many of our groups work on his bagging rice husks. First off, I never knew that rice was basically enclosed in this husk. Second off, I never knew how important rice husks could be in the steel world and more importantly in making steel wheels for trains. The husks are important because they won't melt or burn unless they are heated to 1,800 degrees F. This is important because as iron workers are melting and setting the steel wheels they need a product that will help maintain holes in the wheel (for the screws to attach) and will help cool the wheel down effectively without causing cooling errors. This is where these rice husks come into play. Iron workers throw the husk on and the holes are filled and the rice cools the steel down because the husks are a natural cooling agent. Learn something new everyday!!!! I also learned the difference between habilitation and rehabilitation. Habilitation is where everyone is constantly learning new where as rehabilitation is where there was an injury and the person is re-learning a task or knowledge.

Recapping the past 4 months

January/February:
The biggest part of these months were dedicated to my job and my love for the Men's Basketball Team. The season was still pretty rough but, we became the tight nit family anyways and we enjoyed every moment of it. So between classes and games that is where those two months went. The worst part of those months was February 13th when I walked across the gym floor and officially became a basketball alumni. Knowing that my job and college days would be over soon was extremely overwhelming, especially since I would not be seeing my basketball family everyday like I had been.
I traveled to Louisville in February in between the ridiculous amounts of snow that my area received from the great Mother Nature. I think that overall we received 50 inches of snow in a matter of a month. At one point a snow storm was on its way and we weren't sure where it was going to go :) However, my friends and I always made it an adventure.

March:
This month deserves a section all to itself considering this was the best month of the second semester. I went on a fabulous cruise with some friends from college and my oldest best friend for spring break. We traveled with Norwegian Cruise Lines and went to the Bahamas. Our crazy trip started out with a nineteen hour drive to Florida, yes nineteen hours straight! We visited Grand Bahama Island and Nassau. We were supposed to visit Great Stirrup Cay (private island owned by the cruise line), but the waters were too rough that day so we tanned instead. I tried so many different foods and things that I didn't know who I was! :) Following the cruise my friends and I drove another nineteen hours home so I could travel to Washington D.C. for two days. My sister placed a wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier during her senior class trip so my other sister, mom, aunt and I went to see it. Next we went to the Smithsonian's American History Museum and then headed home.

April:
This month was semi slow but I did find a new love, Men's Lacrosse. Besides babysitting, volunteering at an OT clinic and local elementary school, I picked up working for Men's Lacrosse. I wasn't sure if I would like it but I missed my basketball team and wanted to work with a high impact sport. Little did I know how much I would love it. The best part of April was working with this team and seeing them beat our biggest rivals in an awesome game. Along with working I also participated in the Relay for Life again and all of my friends came over to my house for Easter where we had Just Dance competitions all day. April went so fast and then came dreaded May.

May:
The first sixteen days of May were an absolutely circus for me. I was finishing classes, preparing for finals, taking finals, and graduating that I had very little time for anything else but sleep (which I usually did not get). During finals week, a good friend of mine officially adopted two of her three children (the third is biologically hers). It was a very exciting time and we had a blast preparing and celebrating for it. Next came my graduation party which was exactly what I wanted: liquor and cupcakes :) Following my party, my fellow classmates and I entered six days of bliss where security allows pretty much anything on campus, no required classes are taking up our time, and all we had to do was smile and party because we were graduating. For six straight days we celebrated our great accomplishment. During this week my friends and I went on a pub crawl through the county considering that we typically only visited the same pub every weekend. I also went to the zoo to see the premier of the Polar Frontier and the return of the Polar Bears to the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium. Then graduation occurred and I am now moved home. It has not hit me yet that I have graduated but I am looking forward to the future. My plans for now are to be summer nanny and then go to school in the fall. I did not get into any masters programs, but I did get into a COTA (OT assistant) program that I will have completed in two years. From there I will work on my Masters.

Well that is a recap for now, I know that I will probably think of either more stories or have new experiences to tell you about. I am really looking forward to this coming summer and what it may bring :) I also and redecorating my room so I will be blogging about that soon as well!

Observations

For my practicum my fall semester of 2009, I have been observing two Occupational Therapists and I have learned so much from this experience. It is very interesting to see the two sides to the job. The first OT I have been observing works in a school three days a week and she works with high schoolers, jr. high schoolers, middle schoolers, and elementary schoolers. We mainly work on handwriting and fine motor with these kids but it is a fun time to get to know them and see how they are progressing.
The second OT I observe works in a clinic and it is very exciting to also see this aspect. She gets more time with each child and both OT's have different teaching approaches. Since the school OT must follow the IEP or 504, they do not have as much free reign where as the clinical OT can adjust her goals or the day as things progress while still following the IEP. I also like doing both because most of the children in the school do not have autism where as almost all the kids in the clinic are on the spectrum.

All Done

So last night was the last game of this Basketball Season. It was definitely a sad game in the sense that it was the last time the two seniors would play and we lost by a decent amount. There is a bright side to the game, since we finished the season 8-18 (5-11) we were able to play in the conference tournament. Unfortunately when in 8th place you play the 1st place team, thus resulting in a loss for the final game. All the boys played well and I think so far this has been my favorite team to work with throughout my three years of school. 

*To go back to the Beauty Announcement post, I was unable to try the new Clinique powder and will be going this weekend (for sure, I promise) to test it out. 

Another thing that I wanted to touch on was that while I was reading a magazine yesterday on our way to the game, an article caught my eye, it was titled 45 Ways to Feel Sexy and Healthy. There were some interesting suggestions in this article and the two that I liked the most and thought I would post are:

 #6 Memorize something- a password, stats for a meeting- quickly by chewing gum while you are reading it. Gum chewing enhances blood flow to the brain and can improve recall by up to 40%. 

#37 Fight allergy-induced sneezing and sniffling by locking lips with your guy. Smooching for half an hour has a sedative effect on your immune system, which keeps it from reacting to hay-fever triggers in the air. 

(please take note that I do not know how accurate these two suggestions are but I wanted to share them anyway.)

Snow Day

So I did not think it was possible, but it was. In my three years here at school we have cancelled classes two times due to snow. This is amazing considering that the first time they cancelled, my freshman year, they had not closed the school due to snow in twenty-two years. Now it is twice in three years!! The first time they cancelled it was Valentine's Day my freshman year and the ground crew at the school were not expecting the snow/ice to be that bad. It ended up being so horrific that the county it is located in was a level three and you could not walk without slipping. This year, the weather forecast said we were expecting 6-10 inches of snow and at least 5 inches of ice...well we got it :) and we also got the luxury of a snow day. Last snow day my friend and I trekked to my car to went somewhere, this time my roommates and I enjoyed our room by reading, watching movies, and playing wii. We also ventured off campus to grab some chinese food for a roomie dinner/movie night. Well we ordered our chinese and if you know any chinese place they always say 10-15 minutes...so we decided we should leave then cause the car was covered with ice and snow. When we got to my car we realized there was an 1 inch of snow completely covering the car. It took over 30 minutes to get into the car and chip away the ice so we could go pick up our food, but in the end it was so worth the delicious food and weird movie (we watcher Burn After Reading). 

Classes

So I have almost completed a full week of my junior year in college. Right now it is kind of stressful and not because of the class load but because all my classes, work study, and extracurriculars are trying to straighten out logistics. My classes right now are a lot of fun. Since I am on the path of becoming an OT I have Therapeutic Modalities, Intro to Psychology, Psychology of Sport, and Critical Pedagogy. Nothing to serious right now and I feel that it is going to be a nice work load to carry. Now if my work study would get itself figured out I would be in heaven. I work for the Athletic Training Room as a first aider for Varsity Athletics. This fall I am in charge of Volleyball. What this is entails is that I make sure someone is always down at their practice with a small cooler of ice and a med kit to take up blisters and cuts. I also have to schedule people to travel with the team which sometimes no one wants to do. I have 2 great girls that are working with me so I think it is going to be a great season, but right now we are trying to figure out who is going to what and what days everyone is working. I really enjoy working with the teams that I have been assigned and we sometimes get to travel to fun places. Like next week, I am going to Chicago!!! :)