They did it...

So as hard as it is for me to do this... we have a 2011 World Series Champ... As the playoffs were narrowing down the field and as games began for the World Series, the Cardinals fans came out in full force. (Below is a picture of McGee Hall as you walk onto campus from the parking lot.- 'Lets Go Cards'.)

My wife's parents got tickets to the CRAZY game 6, and gave us a call that Friday morning they could get tickets for game 7. Since my Cubbies have been waiting for 108 years, and the Royals haven't been playoff ready for a few years now, I figured this might be one of the only times in my life that I could get up and go to the game. So we packed up the car and headed out to see our family friend, Ryan Theriot...and the World Series.

The game 7 wasn't as exciting as the game 6, but Freese did come through again to give the Cards an early momentum shift that carried them to the 'W'. Theriot played most of the game, which we enjoyed and St. Louis was CRAZY after the win. So in all good sportsmanship- congrats Cards, the celebration looked fun and if it was my Cubbies I would be freaking out as well. I have never been to a playoff game- let alone a World Series- and due to the craziness of cubs fans and my lack of funds, I don't exactly see myself being able to make it up for a Playoff or World Series game in Chicago. The atmosphere was fun, the fans were crazy, and I wore my halloween costume (a STL cards hat). Well played St. Louis, well played. (The pics below are of my game 7 ticket and a picture from our seats.)

fantasy football anyone?

FANTASY FOOTBALL (FF for this blog)

As I mentioned in last week's edition of the blog, football tends to consumer my fall semester and tends to make it hard for me to balance class and doing any homework on Sundays, Mondays and Thursday nights.  I have been doing FF with my in-laws for the past 3 seasons (and now this season).  I was the league champ last year, pretty much by luck and a certain DeSean Jackson returning a punt return against the Giants to seal the deal for me to win.

WHAT IS FF?
If you have never played fantasy football (FF), it brings in a new element to just having a favorite NFL team.  The gist of it, is that you 'draft' players at the beginning of the season, you are allowed to play a QB, Running backs, wide receivers, a tight end, a kicker, and special teams/defense and they each score points based on how well or not so well they play (my starting line up from last week is posted- left).

 Each league can set different rules for how to score points and how many players each team can have.  The nice part about FF is that it makes you tune in to many of the NFL teams across the league and the individual performances of selected players that add points based on the productivity for the day.  Even if my Bears go 0-16, I could still win the league in FF by drafting the best team and having FF team play well. 

 

LEISURE ACTIVITY

                 The Occupational Therapy Practice Framework (OTPF) defines leisure as "a                 

                 nonobligatory activity that is intrinsically motivated and engaged in during discretionary

                 time, that is, time not committed to obligatory occupations such as work, self-care, or 

                 sleep." 

 

Watching football and playing FF is an occupation that I enjoy because it is part of what OT's call 'leisure activities' (or a hobby).  When I used to watch football it was a good social event but we did not get into the logistics of who is doing what on the team as long as your favorite team won.  Now with the added dimension of being able to compete with other people and having to think of each individual match-up, there is more to think about in 'competing' week in and week out.  It is my 'break' from school work and the much needed element of competition in my life.

SO JOHN, WHAT'S YOUR POINT?... (OTS Thoughts)

My point is... I love fantasy football and my brain tends to look at every activity how an OT might view the activity.  An OT takes every situation and thinks of how it can be adapted, made relative, and be functional for our clients to keep them engaged in daily activities.  I think that FF is such a great idea for competition that puts people with all different abilities on the same playing field.  FF adds a level of competition as it has been doing for several years now and could be a functional yet fun activity to possibly work into therapy one day down the road.  

There is many executive functions (ie planning, working memory, attention, problem solving, verbal reasoning, inhibition, mental flexibility, multi-tasking, initiation and monitoring of actions) as well as social factors (sportsmanship, competition, dealing with stressful situations) at work here .  As an OT we must think of 'functional activities' to elicit the therapy that patients are in need of and helps meet our goals.  FF might not be that therapy for everyone, but I feel that it is thinking in the right direction to meet the client in the goal planning. As of now, it is just my leisure activity.

Good luck this season (if you have a team), and make sure to not let FF or football overrun the focus on the semester. Thanks again for reading. 

Summer's over... Europe trip...Last Fall Semester...EVER

Well, after a rough, but good summer semester filled with neuromanagement lecture and lab I made it through another semester. Since I am part-time, the neuroscience component was completed the summer before and neuromanagement helped bring the science to the application of neuro disorders that we, as OTs, will come across in the field. The lab helped teach us more about neuro diagnoses and what types of assessments we could complete to get a better idea of what is happening with the patient and how to treat him. The semester was capped off with finals and a consumer simulation. The consumer simulation was a random case with a patient that had Guillan Barre and myself and a fellow OT student has to assess what was going on with her, set up a treatment plan, adapt equipment, and see how much she had progressed 2 weeks later. The patient was a professor acting as a patient. It was a great learning experience and it feels like all the time and effort and learning that I have put into this program has started to come together.

             

After summer semester, My new in-laws took a trip to Europe. We back packed it to get the most bang for our buck and see as much as possible over 11 days in Central Europe. We started in Berlin, then to Prague, Czechy Krumlov, Vienna, Bratislava, and finished in Munich. It was an awesome experience and we saw a lot in that week and a half spent overseas. My next posts will be a little breakdown of a day by day what we did- and will have my take on travel tips. What worked and what didn't.

Fall 2012. We started class a few weeks ago- the 1st years are into the fun that is gross anatomy, and 'senioritis' or 'grad school almost graduating-itis' has hit most of us. Peds and Musculo are chocked full of information and are getting our class more excited to get into the field. Peds is helping get us in touch with the current pediatric research out there as well as different pediatric assessments and Musculo has been teaching us more about different PAMs (physical agent modalities) and how to work with different hand injuries. That is all I have for now, thanks for reading.

OTS thoughts: When we entered the program and over the past several semesters we have heard the phrase "After this program you will never look at people the same way." I think we had a general sense of what we were getting into as future OTs, but as I enter this final 'in class' semester I now see what our teachers were talking about. I now see people with disabilities differently, I view diagnoses differently, and my brain is stuck in an OT mode to look holistically at people and see what an OT would to for a patient to adapt, restore, modify the patient or context that they live within. I still have a lot to learn as I work into my level II fieldworks but I am excited for this semester and what my future as an OT holds.

Back to school- Honeymoon Cook Islands

Here is a picture of our honeymoon destination. We were fortunate enough to go to the Cook Islands in the South Pacific. There are several islands and we were told through tripadvisor.com that Aitutaki was the prettiest and least touristy of them. The lagoon surrounds the islands and its smaller islands (picture left) the dark spots are the reef and the island lived up to its expectations of being less touristy with great people and overall beautiful.






We decided to roam around the island for a day as all of the island cruises were booked. So my wife and I tried to see all that the island had to offer via moped. The main road was one giant circle/oval with many roads intersecting it. The picture (left) is of myself enjoying some ice cream. The prices for food etc are a bit higher than the US, the NZD or New Zealand Dollar is a little bit less in exchange rate- but the island has to import many of its goods from New Zealand, Australia, and other locations.

We had a great time and I will be putting up more posts about the beautiful islands and our adventures.


OTS Thoughts: It was hard to leave such a beautiful place, but my wife and I did take note of the possibility of coming back to work with the local population. Their lives are much different from our in the states. They live very simplistically with tourism and local crafts being their main income. If I had more time I would have loved to see what the hospital had to offer as we heard that it was a pretty basic hospital (luckily we didn't need to visit it this trip for health reasons). OT on the island would be much different than what is needed in the states and I had not interviewed enough of the population to see how OT would be used. I would speculate from what I saw that we would deal with energy conservation, hand injuries, and some of the children in the school. The island more or less stabilizes a patient and then flies the patient to nearby New Zealand for more in-depth health coverage. We talked with a massage therapist that was trained in New Zealand for the purpose to come back to the island to work and we talked with our driver from the hotel that said she had never left the island.

Arbor Day- early and Happy Easter

Every Easter I find myself going back to visit my parents 13 acres and planting something new or rearranging the acreage in a different way. Several years back my parents had bought some small evergreens that were not so 'ever green' anymore since they were not put into the ground.  Since their future looked so bleak, on Easter Sunday I said "Lord, if these are supposed to live and grow- I will put them into your hands." I put them in the ground and 8 of the 9 are still thriving pretty well today. 

 This year my brother and I, or as my mother referred to us on this day, Ding and Wing- took to the yard with a 4 foot Silver Maple tree, a sledge hammer and some stakes to help brace the young tree.  Since Arbor Day is coming up on the 29th I have deemed this our ARBOR DAY TREE.  My brother usually doesn't participate in my shenanigans of the outdoors, but today he helped me by holding the stakes etc.  Since he did come out of his element to help, I let him use the sledge hammer to hammer in the stakes while I held them.  This image of my brother and I hitting the stakes into the ground with the other one holding the stake wave predestined for injury (hence the name Ding and Wing.)  My mom and sister had the cameras rolling for a rare chance that he would miss and we could win thousands on America's Funniest Home Video, but fortunately (or unfortunately) no accidents occurred.  The picture to the left is me punching in the last stake. I hope everyone had a good Easter and on the 29th- good luck on planting a tree to celebrate Arbor Day.

OTS thoughts:  My thoughts on this entry are how the spiritual, social, and daily activities help give balance to my life.  An OT takes all of these holistic factors into account when working with patients to make their interest inventory and help guide their treatment.  My family, my faith, and the opportunities to work outside are really a blessing to me.  I feel more fulfilled in meeting my purpose on this earth by being able to  get out of the house, play in the dirt,  and enjoy nature in the countryside.  These activities give meaning to my life and as an OT I will keep these in mind when working with clients, especially those that enjoy nature and hard work outdoors like I do.

Getting back in the grad school groove

Well now that the blizzard has come and gone, we are back in the groove of classes again. The Capstone groups are working their project's by setting deadlines, meeting with their mentors, and balancing their capstone work with the other classes. Today we had our first Med Con II test, and the full time students have had their Kinesiology test with their movement lab checkouts coming up soon. Each week in my planner has been slammed full thus far- which is good and bad, but I am sure the whole class's planners are similarly slammed full.

The picture (left) is on Rockhurst's campus right outside of Van Ackeren (where PT/OT faculty's offices are). Since the snowman doesn't have legs- how do you think he got up on the bench? discuss.



Since we had a day off classes- during the snowmageddon- I decided to enjoy the lovely weather by reading, what else...but my Willard & Spackman book (on the back deck). (it's kind of a big deal in the RU OT curriculum)




OTS thoughts: Since I am not a qualified and registered Occupational Therapist or licensed (OTR/L), I thought I would change this section to OTS (OT student) thoughts. This is to both give credit where credit is due and also to show that my expertise is only to the extent of education that I have completed thus far.

My occupational balance has thus far in the semester has been doing pretty well. I have been exercising more, studying more, eating well, and getting more hours of sleep per night. My next post will hopefully include how I believe that 'shoveling snow' is an occupation- to show some of my facebook friends that live in warmer climates that we don't exactly get a 'day off' when a blizzard hits the midwest.