here’s a tour.

Today is a clear day.

Walking out of VONS.

Walking out the front door.

A good day.

Video tour of the grounds! (Sorry it’s a little bumpy)

yet again.

The past several months have been a continual lesson in learning that God’s timing is perfect.  Absolutely perfect.

And so, although I was surprised when I learned the following story this past week, should I really have been?  I mean, really?

First, I should tell you that I recently began my journey as a graduate student in USC’s Occupational Therapy program.

Next, I should define something for you.  Many of you who are reading this probably wonder, What exactly IS occupational therapy? It’s a common question with a complex and ever growing answer.  My short answer is that an “occupation” is any activity in which a person engages that is meaningful to him or her, and so occupational therapists are problem solvers who help those people to become independent in whatever occupation they want to thrive in.  It could be helping someone create an office environment that is ergonomically friendly to his body so that he can thrive in his occupation as “employee.”  It could be teaching someone with arthritis how to modify her movements and engage in movement-specific hand and postural strengthening exercises so that she can continue to engage in her occupation as “gardener.”  It could be working with a stroke victim who has become paralyzed on one side of the body, teaching her muscular and behavioral compensatory strategies for engaging in activities of daily living (ADL’s), including how to use adaptive equipment that will help with things such as dressing, showering, cooking, driving, etc., so that she can take part in her occupation as “independent participant in everyday life.”  It could be playing with shaving cream, markers, scooter boards, swings, spin boards, and more, in an effort to teach children with autism to integrate the disorganized sensory perceptions that their bodies often experience, allowing them (with TONS of practice and support from therapists, parents, and teachers alike) to thrive in their occupation as “student/child/sibling.”  And the list goes on.  See what I mean?  The answers to what does an OT actually do? are complex and ever growing.  OT’s do anything and everything.

Lastly, I should fill you in on the “Centennial Vision” of the AOTA (American Occupational Therapy Association), the national governing body for OT.  In 2017, the AOTA will turn one hundred years old, hence, the Centennial Vision:

We envision that occupational therapy is a powerful, widely recognized, science-drive, and evidence-based profession with a globally connected and diverse workforce meeting society’s occupational needs.

It’s a big vision, yes?  And in order for it to come to fruition, the profession needs to be made up of people who are driven enough and talented enough to make it happen.

Okay, so back to the way in which God’s timing is perfect.

While in conversation on campus last week, I learned that this year’s entering class (the one I’m in) is supposed to be one of the most powerful and dynamic entering classes that we’ve had in a while.  Why?  Because they wanted people who would embody the Vision and do everything they could to make it happen.  And you know who they thought would be great at that?

Athletes.

To put it frankly, Have you ever met an athlete who didn’t want to win?

OT’s are commonly some of the nicest people you’ve ever met, and coupled with that, they tend to also be some of the most encouraging and helpful.  But, usually, they also tend to not want the glory or the attention or to “make waves.”

Athletes want to make waves.

And athletes who want to be OT’s are like a double whammy.

That’s me.

[I should step aside for a moment and say that in any field, especially in OT, diversity is a key to the success of the profession.  And so there need to be OT's who are amazing at what they do and who are happy to do what they do and gain satisfaction from knowing they have helped another person.  And then there also need to be OT's who are amazing at what they do and who gain satisfaction from knowing they have helped another person, but who also want to push the envelope and make positive changes in the field that can have a widespread impact on how OT interacts with other sectors such as education, government, public policy, law, social welfare, etc.  It's like micro- and macro-OT's, and you need both for the field to have the greatest positive impact on people's lives.]

So, how exactly does this all relate to God’s timing being perfect?

Well, it took me a year after graduation to discover occupational therapy and kick around the idea that it was something that I wanted to do.  It took me another year of OT-related experience and research to really decide that I wanted to do it.  And then it took me another year of going back to community college to fulfill my pre-requisites in order to be able to apply to OT school.  Every so often, I would get mad at myself for taking so long to “figure out what I want to do with my life,” and I would also get mad at God for taking so long to “show me what I’m supposed to do with my life.”

But now?  After learning about this year’s emphasis on admitting OT students who have been athletes (among other things, of course…remember what I said before about the importance of diversity in OT’s) – individuals who possess a competitive streak, who are driven to succeed, who are likely to take roles of leadership, and who are not afraid to push the envelope – can I really ever digress into being upset with God about how long it took me to get here?  Because now…this year out of all years that I could have applied to and been admitted into OT school…now, I am surrounded with a class of powerful people, many of whom eagerly buy into the Centennial Vision and want to be a part of it, nay, want to be a part of making it even bigger as they become advocates for and leaders in our powerful and diverse profession of occupational therapy.

So I reiterate my point.  God is faithful.  He knows me.  And His timing is perfect.  Yet again.

life right now

means going to school and studying in ways that will help me actually remember and competently apply what we learn in class.  Right now, it’s Kinesiology, which is an absolute blast.  Having a gymnastics background has made this class come alive because every time we learn something new, I think about how it relates to the ways we use our bodies in a sport that consists of you versus gravity.  Lever systems, torque, the way muscles and ligaments work together, and just the biomechanics of movement in general – all fascinating.  I’m in a good place right now…

simplicity.

Not something I’m too good at.  I like to make things complicated.  If given an easy task, I will find a way to make it harder.  My husband calls this “Christie-izing” things, and it’s true.  Maybe it’s the gymnast in me.  Or the masochist.  I like things to be difficult.  What’s the point of doing something if it’s easy? tends to be my mindset, though I know that it’s completely absurd and unnecessary.

Same goes for my daily schedule.  I have always been one who typically has every waking and sleeping moment of my 24-hour period planned out down to the minute, but this past year was a little over the top.  6:30am-10:00pm usually involved any minute-to-minute combination of working one of my three jobs, going to class, studying, volunteering, leading or attending Bible studies, and making sure there was time for “planned socialization” (though, while fun, still can be draining at the end of a long day).  All of those things are good things, but taken together, and in the volume and pace at which I took them, was overwhelming.  I managed somehow.  But I didn’t feel like I could thrive.

Enter Pasadena.

For now, all I have to do is go to school all day.  That’s it.  Nothing else.

Life is simple.

It seems too easy.  And that part of me, that part that screams for complexity and overload, that part of me is getting a taste of life devoid of those things.  I’m not bored.  I’m engaged.  I’m intellectually challenged in my grad school program, and yet, I come home and I am not stressed.  I have  time to do everything I want.  After a year of wishing that I could invent an IV that would administer a caffeine drip into my arm throughout the day because I just didn’t have time to do everything I wanted to do AND get a good night’s sleep, I am at a place where that is no longer necessary.  I can come home and eat a snack, take a nap, watch some Friends, scrapbook, make a good dinner, soak in the tub, take my time getting my lunch and clothes ready for the next day, study, AND still go to bed early.  Who would have thought that was possible?

I know that this eutopia will not last forever.  In fact, I know that once Fall semester begins at the end of August, this flow vanish.  But for now, for this time that I am thrust into balance and simplicity, I am embracing it.

“hi, my name is”

This is a phrase that I have used a lot in the past 3 weeks.  Bring uprooted from a city of multiple circles – and being intimately known in each of them – and transplanted into a new reality where those old circles must be replaced with new ones is . . . well . . . it’s where we are right now.  More so for myself than for my husband, simply because he hasn’t actually transplanted yet.

Every day since we moved into our cozy little niche in Pasadena on June 10th, I have introduced myself, re-introduced myself, made small talk, shared some version of my story, listened to other people’s stories, asked follow-up questions, made connections, laughed at the similarities between strangers and gone on my way.  Again.  And again.  And again.

Each day I meet someone new in my incoming grad school class of one hundred students.  Each day I talk with a new member of our apartment complex, where we live as a community, sharing meals and chores and cardboard boxes for moving in and moving out.  Each Sunday, I go to church and look around at people that maybe I will know someday.  The introductions just keep on coming.

It’s apparent to me that this stage of introduction, small talk, sharing your story, and learning others’ stories, could go on for some time.  A few more weeks, at least.

But then I realize that, in Oceanside, I had three years to invest in people.  Three years to establish community, find my niche, and feel like I was “home.”  I had three years to “be known.”

And now that is starting over.  Starting over in every aspect.  New living situation.  New neighbors.  New grocery store clerks and bank tellers.  New classmates and professors.  New potential for mentors and employers.

And here’s the thing that I find interesting.  With every introduction, with every “Hi, my name is . . .” it’s an opportunity to present myself however I want.  I mean, think about it.  Isn’t that amazing?  Sure, when it comes down to it, there’s a “baseline me” that people will eventually get to know.  But with every introduction to someone new, it’s a chance to unveil my ideal self.  Maybe this sounds weird, but we all have an image of how we want to be perceived – it’s our “ideal self.”  And each time I meet someone new, I have the opportunity to get started on the right foot, and come across the way that I want to be perceived.  (This is the Psych major in me coming forth.  Metacognition, or “thinking about how you think,” is a great thing.)  Additionally, with every first encounter, I have the opportunity to show the other person that I am truly interested in their story and that I value what they have to say.  If that doesn’t happen on the first time, then how will they know that that’s who I am?

So, when you think about it, until the introductions die down and we begin to settle in to our new little world, I could potentially be constructing and re-constructing my ideal self in the midst of reality for the next few weeks.  It almost feels like too much responsibility!  And so I have to decide how I want to present myself – as the high-strung one?  the ultra-busy one?  the cool, calm, and collected one?  the ambitious and goal-oriented one?  the good student one?  the responsible one?  the peaceful one?  the bossy and self-absorbed one?  the caring one?  the people-oriented one?

Do you see what I mean?  That’s not to say that I am all of those things, but imagine the possibilities.

And so I go about my daily greetings, contstructing a social image of myself that either measures up or falls short of my ideal self.  I mean, let’s face it, they’re all going to get to know the “baseline me” sooner or later, not that that’s a bad thing.  But, for now, I suppose I can embrace this time of being “unknown” as an opportunity to be aware of how I transition from “that person I met in class/the apartment/church/town yesterday” to “Christie, that person who is the ___________ one.”

And then the introductions can subside and the relationships can begin.

Anything that can go wrong . . .

. . . will go wrong.  That’s Murphy’s Law.

Saturday started out rather pleasantly.  Woke up to the biological clock, made some coffee, did some scrapbooking, listened to some radiolab, listened to the drizzle of the rain outside, and stayed in my PJ’s until about 3:00pm.  Little bit of this, little bit of that.  Decided to go to the grocery store, then watched a movie and finally decided it was time to do some studying for Monday’s exam.

That’s when it started.

I packed my binder and my purse and headed down the road to a little sidestreet coffee shop recently recommended to me.  I discovered that parking is not so easy in that neck of the woods.  My first time past the coffee shop, I saw an open curbside spot  sandwiched in between two very nice cars, so I passed and just thought I’d park on the next section of curb on the other side of the driveway.  I pulled up, grabbed my stuff, and began strolling to my destination.  That’s when I noticed the faint writing on my curb: Passenger Loading Only.  It was right in front of the Pasadena Playhouse.  Strike one.

So I loaded myself back into the car and proceeded to circle the block to look for parking again.  Pasadena’s seemingly random one-way streets serve to taunt visitors – you know you want to go to the right, but we’re only going to let you go to the left.  Strike two.

After finally getting my bearings and circling the block a few more times, I eventually parallel parked into a spot right in front of the shop.  Okay, that’s a good sign.

Upon entering the indie-style cafe and ordering some sort of soy latte, I presented my debit card as payment for my treat, only to find out that they only take cash.  I was clear out of cash.  Strike three.

The barista told me I could walk over to the mini mart on the other side of Colorado Boulevard and get cash back, and he would save my drink for me.  I exited the establishment and decided to toss my school binder in the passenger side of my car so that I wouldn’t have to carry it with me.  However, the ear-shattering screech of the bottom of my car door on the pavement told me that I had apparently misjudged how high the sidewalk curb was.  As if the noise wasn’t enough, a mark was left on the cement as a sort of momento of the time that my car’s door and the sidewalk had spent together.  And if that wasn’t enough, it just had to be less than four feet away from the patrons who were trying to enjoy their coffee amidst the peaceful atmosphere of a clear summer evening in Pasadena.  Strike four.

I scurried across the street, grabbed a pack of $1.25 gum, and presented my debit card to the cashier, requesting cash back.  He told me I had to spend at least ten dollars to get cash back.  Ahhh!  Strike five.

I decided to make a trip out of it and grabbed for a jar of peanut butter and a container of honey, when I noticed the blue and red stainless steel mini water bottles.  I’ve been wanting to get one for some time, but they’re always too big for me, so these were just what I needed.  Peanut butter and honey and pack of gum (which I was now emotionally attached to and was determined to buy, even though I didn’t need it) in hand, I strode over to the water bottles to grab one and go.  They were lined up in two rows: red in front, blue in back, and just high enough that I had to stand on my tip toes and reach up to get them.  Red I would not purchase, so as I juggled my three grocery items and reached over the reds and into the blues . . . you guessed it . . . I knocked over the reds and they came crashing down onto the floor of the mini mart.  Stainless steel x 5 + a hard and echoing floor + people standing nearby = me embarrassed.  Strike six.

So I finally plopped my items onto the counter, checked out, and headed back across the street.  My quest to get five dollars had turned into thirty.  Sheesh.  This coffee better be good, I thought to myself.  I got my binder out of my car, got my coffee from the barista, and scanned the shop for a place to begin studying.  This little place is just that – it’s little.  So there is very limited seating outside, and even more limited seating inside.  I found my way to the only open spot, the bar counter next to the blender, which meant that, every time the blender whirred, the entire counter vibrated.  Great.  Finally settled in to my little area, I aggressively took a gulp of the foam on top of what I thought would be my now-lukewarm latte.  I was wrong.  Because I had tipped it back so fast, I failed to burn my tongue and just went straight for the throat.  Burnt throat.  Awesome.  Strike seven.

I pulled out a handful of writing and highlighting utensils so that I could get started with my studying, and as I clicked on the end of my mechanical pencil, I quickly discovered that it was out of lead.  Of ALL the pencils I could have chosen from my bucket of pencils, I had to choose the one that was out of lead.  Strike eight.

With only about 30 minutes remaining before I had to evacuate my one-hour-parking-only spot, I grabbed a pen and dove into my lecture notes but really didn’t even get through the first lecture out of four.  I was beginning to think that tonight just wasn’t my night.  So, after making much less progress than I had hoped, and spending much more time and money than I had anticipated, I drove the mile or so back to my apartment.  There, I pulled out my box of Safeway brand Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Very Vanilla soymilk, cleared my whiteboards, grabbed my bucket of dry erase markers, lit a study candle, and got to work.

Maybe my next attempt at studying out in the world will be more successful.  But if something goes wrong at the beginning of my trek over there, maybe I should just head back home.  Because Murphy is out to get me.

Loyalty.

It’s only the end of the first week of grad school, and already I have had to defend my Bruin loyalty.  Today was Trojan Spirit day in our class, and instead of wearing Cardinal and Gold, my fellow Bruin, Michelle, and I insisted on donning the Blue and Gold of our alma mater – UCLA.  Weird looks were given by most.  One girl called us “traitors” and the professor, astonished when she saw our Bruin gear in the front row,  joked that she should have to send us out of the lecture hall.  But our loyalty remains with Bruins.  Below is a photo of the lecture hall before class started and, even better, you can watch a short video of the experience by clicking here.  Go Bruins!

moving day.

This was moving day.  Transformation coming soon.

6 things I’ve learned in the past 2 days.

1. The side street off of Colorado Boulevard that leads to the glorious 2-story Target Store is one-way.  Somehow managed to learn that the hard way.

2. People who live in Pasadena are proud to live in Pasadena, and readily welcome you to their little town.

3. People who don’t live in Pasadena say it’s crowded.  People who live in Pasadena say it isn’t crowded yet.

4. Lots of people in the neighborhood have wireless internet, but nobody wants to share.

5. There are SO MANY churches in Pasadena. They remind me of the historic churches I toured in Europe.

6. Fuller is only about a mile down the road from our apartment. It has a Prayer Garden.

More to come…

sound effects baby.

A good end to a good weekend.