choicemob

A movement being started by a friend that has the potential to change the way that we do business:

“Business is changing the world, right now, every day, more dramatically than ever. Our industrialized, globalized, informationalized economy has offered billions a ladder out of poverty and improved livelihoods around the world. But it simultaneously exploits our planet and our fellow men at unprecedented levels. And it doesn’t have to.

Business is the most radically adaptive form of organization, constantly testing the marketplace and shifting to accommodate. If we speak our values loudly enough business will listen and adapt. But we must speak in the language of the market – money and attention.

That’s why I’m starting the choicemob. It’s a simple idea: A community of people committed to improving the way that business operates by supporting companies that uphold our common values: Fairness, Compassion, and Respect for the Earth.

By driving sales and attention for these companies we will improve their bottom line and draw the envy of their competitors. We will help make social value the next disruptive force in the marketplace.

The first choicemob starts in a week in support of Better World Books. Check them out – they’re an amazing company. We need as many people as possible to buy gifts from and write articles, posts, statuses about Better World Books – hundreds of people, thousands of people – the more the better.

If you agree that business should reflect our common values – Fairness, Compassion, and Respect for the Earth – please join the choicemob and invite your friends.”

choicemob Statement of Purpose:

A Community Wedding

Nearly two months ago I introduced you to Allelous.  Allelous is the Fuller Seminary apartment community that my husband and I live in.  But it’s more than just apartments.  It’s a family.

I John 4:12 says, “No one has ever seen God.  But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love has been brought to full expression through us” (NLT).

In the next six days, God’s love will be clearly seen in our Allelous community like never before.

That’s because, in the next six days, we members of Allelous will be planning and putting on a wedding for two of our beloved.

Last week, one of our community members and his fiance had their lives changed when they found out that she has a brain tumor.  Miraculously, they managed to get done in two days what usually takes 3-4 months.  Appointments.  Referrals.  Tests.  Consultations.  Follow-ups.

Surgery to remove the brain tumor has been set for December 10th, which is two Thursdays from now.

For the past six months or so, their wedding date has been set to take place in the Midwest during the first week of January.

Now, it’s been moved up to December 5th.  In Los Angeles.  At Allelous.

That’s six days from now.

Tonight we met as a community to discuss everything.  The situation.  The miracles.  The surgery.  The statistics.  The wedding.  And the next several weeks of unknown variables.

In this smallish room where we observe the tradition of eating dinner together most nights of the week, we now met to observe another tradition – the tradition of loving one another.

Because that’s what Allelous is.  It means “one another.”

We live together and love together because that’s what we do.  ”If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (I John 4:11, ESV).  The groom told us that, once they had moved up the wedding , he knew we would come out of the woodwork to help put it on.  They know that we are here from them, and they know that they will not be going through any of this – the wedding, the surgery, or the recovery – on their own.

We have no budget.  We have no funds.  But we have our own resources and creativity.

So as we embark upon a challenge that I don’t think any of us have ever undertaken, we embrace the fact that we are praying and planning this wedding out of love for God and love for one another.

And if someone who knows of this wedding has never seen God – well, now they will.  Because his love lives in us and is brought to full expression through our love for one another.

That’s how our Allelous family works.

like water spilling off the top.

If you haven’t figured it out by now, I like to write.

I don’t really consider myself to be a brilliant writer.  But I really like it.  Ever since high school, I’ve always enjoyed getting my thoughts on paper and communicating my ideas through words on a page (and now, a screen).

But it wasn’t until recently that I was able to fully understand exactly why I enjoy writing so much.

Early in my first semester of OT school, our mental health professor brought in a guest speaker.  The purpose of his visit (and of the 14 previous years of visits to this classs) was for him to share his life story in the sequence in which an OT would administer the Occupational Performance History Interview-II (OPHI-II).  Our job was to practice making a narrative slope that matched his occupational history, a task that can be done with a client to get a better idea of how occupation has influenced or participated in the ups and downs of his or her life.

As this man shared his story, he talked about how he really liked to write, and he described his need and passion for writing in a way that really resonated with me.  This is what he said:

You know how, when you’re holding a full pot of water, you have to walk forward really slowly so that the water doesn’t spill off the top?  But, then, if you do spill some off the top, it allows you to move forward faster?  Writing for me is like spilling water off the top so I can move forward faster.

That’s exactly how it is for me.  I always knew that, but I just couldn’t articulate it with such clear imagery.  When I am working through thoughts or issues, and then I am able to articulate them using written words, I am then able to proceed with my life and my thoughts.  When I don’t work through my thoughts in writing, they either bottleneck and I can’t focus on anything else until I write about them, or they disappear and I miss out on adding that block to the foundation of discovery I am building toward my personal and professional future.

Sometimes these thoughts are related to my Christian faith.  Sometimes they are related to relationships or discoveries about how the world works.  And sometimes they are related to my education or profession, which is why I wanted to start an OT blog.  I don’t want the things that I am learning to bottleneck or to disappear.  I want to make the most of them, and continue to build on them as time goes on.

And so, I will continue to process my thoughts in writing so that, like water spilling off the top, I can move forward more quickly.

But as an OT student (of course!), this realization about my own need to move forward in life through writing makes me wonder: is this how other people feel about the occupations they enjoy?

If a person really enjoys gardening as a means of enjoyment and dealing with stress, and then she has a stroke and now can’t garden like she used to, will she feel like the effects of the bottleneck?  Like life can’t move on in the same way until she can get back to gardening?  That’s how I feel about writing.

If a person really enjoys playing golf because it’s fun and competitive and it gets him away from the stress of life, and then he sustains a spinal cord injury in a car accident, will he feel like life’s demands are piling up, because he no longer has that outlet in the same way that he used to?  That’s how I feel about writing.

I think this realization about why writing is so important to my own well-being has opened my eyes to just how influential the use of occupation is in everyday life.  What a great time in my education to discover this!

So now I feel like I not only better understand myself, but I can better understand why it is so important for people to engage in or return to occupation as a means of engaging in life.

Perhaps we all have some sort of outlet (or at least we should!) which will allow us to move forward more quickly in our lives.   And unless we use those outlets, and let the water spill off the top, we will feel stuck in one place.

Here’s to letting the water spill off the top.

Dear Mamaw,

For 99 years, you made this world a better place.

I remember…

…that my first airplane ride was to go visit you and Smitty, your husband of over 50 years,  in Arizona when I was only one year old.

…when we used to go visit you and Smitty in Arizona and go for walks around the pond to feed the ducks.  The geese were really scary, and they fought those ducks violently to try and get the bread.

…that, one year, our family of five stayed with you and Smitty in Arizona for Easter.  We did an Easter Egg hunt in your yard, but we couldn’t find all of the eggs that had been hidden.  The following year, you didn’t have to search for the eggs.  The stench brought you right to them.

…one time, when our family was driving from Sacramento to Arizona to visit, our Volvo station wagon broke down on the side of the road somewhere in Southern California, and we had to stay in a motel overnight.  It was scary to sit on the side of the road late at night like that.  I really wanted our car to start.  That was the first time I remember really praying hard for something to happen.

…how you used to wear your wide-brimmed hats whenever you went outside, and you told us that if we protected our skin from the sun, we’d live a long time like you, too.

…when you moved up to Sacramento and you and Smitty brought your giant Motorhome with you.  It was like a house on wheels!

…when you would invite our family over to your mobile home.  You and Smitty would play cards with my parents, and you would make popcorn for me and Rachel and Daniel.  You put garlic salt on the popcorn, and you let us use the toy dinosaurs’ arms to pick up the popcorn and eat it.  No one else let us do that.

…how you used to give my dad such a hard time.  You could joke with the best of ‘em.

…how you used to always tell us, “Jesus loves you.  And so do I.”  And I didn’t doubt it even for a second.

…the stories you told me about how the small town you were born in didn’t have birth certificates, and by the time you needed to know your age, your mother had forgotten what year you were born in.  She couldn’t remember if it was 1910 or 1911.  I always told people you were born in 1910.

…when you told me why your nickname was “Tommy” – because you were a tomboy and you liked to compete with the boys.  You were pretty good at that.

…when you told me about how you and Smitty eloped right when you turned 18 years old.  He lived a few miles down the road, so after you got married at the courthouse, you stayed at his parents’ house.  Your mother was worried sick for several days because you never told her where you were!

…your stories about how you were a “Rosie the Riveter” in World War II.  While the men were off fighting the war, you worked on building the airplanes that they would be flying in.  You were so hard core!

…that you told me about how you were required to practice your penmanship in grade school so that you had excellent cursive.  Handwriting just isn’t as beautiful as it was back when you learned.

…when we got the phone call that Smitty had been in a serious car accident.  He passed away not too long after.  It was the first time I had ever seen my dad cry.

…asking you if you knew who John Wooden was, and you said “yes.”  I told you that you two should get together and you said, “That would be a fine idea.”  Both so wise and witty.

…that when you asked me what I was studying in college, and I told you “Psychology”, you told me to make sure that “all that psychology doesn’t turn you away from the Lord! Always keep Him first, and remember that He loves you.”

…that after you first met Brian and we were just dating, you told me, “He’s a very handsome young man.”

…when Brian and I got married, and you told me how beautiful I looked, and what a nice young man Brian was.

Mamaw, you were a rare breed.  You were independent and feisty, loving and compassionate.  Competitive and driven, soft and caring.

You made the world a more loving place, and those of us who knew you are better for it.

I’m sad to see you go, but you have passed the baton.  Now it’s our generation’s turn to use our passions to help others.

Thank you for the 26 years I had with you.

May we never forget that Jesus loves us.  And so do you.

glee and the wheelchair assignment.

Before I started my Occupational Therapy program, I had heard that, for our Physical Disabilities class, we were going to have to do a “wheelchair assignment” similar to what was portrayed this week in the FOX show “Glee.”  For 24 hours, we would have to use a wheelchair as if it were how we lived our life every day and, hopefully, it would give us some insight and help us empathize with those who use a wheelchair rather than their legs to get around.

Once that class began, however, our instructor quickly explained to us why we would not be doing the wheelchair assignment.  Apparently, it turned out to have an unintended effect on the previous year’s class.  Rather than learning to empathize with wheelchair-users – as was the intended purpose of the assignment – these students became overly exuberant that they themselves were not “stuck” in a wheelchair on a day-to-day basis.  If they couldn’t find a ramp, they just picked up their wheelchair and took it up the stairs.  If they needed to go to the bathroom, they left their wheelchair at the door and waltzed right in.  And when the 24 hours was up?  They literally got up and walked right out of the wheelchair, thanking God that they would never have to do that again.  When they wrote their reflection papers about their experience, many vented about how they were so happy that they didn’t ever have to use the wheelchair again.  Not really what the professor was going for.

So what about for those who don’t have the option of getting out of their wheelchair and walking whenever there isn’t a ramp or curb cut-out in sight?

There are many suggestions about how we can become more aware and empathetic of the needs and experiences of wheelchair users, and the wheelchair experience is not one of them that is suggested in the current dialogue on this issue.  The reasons against it are pretty much in line with what last year’s class experienced.  You don’t know how to use it, you’re in pain because you have never used it before, and you just get plain frustrated because you can’t do what you’re used to.  It doesn’t give you an accurate experience because it’s just not enough time to acclimate to what it might actually be like over an extended period of time.

Instead, people are encouraged to engage in activities that will increase their awareness of accessibility and experience.  Some suggestions I have heard mentioned include walking a building’s premises to figure out where and how many wheelchair-accessible entrances there are; engaging in a daily routine with someone who uses a wheelchair; getting to know and asking questions of a person who uses a wheelchair; and reading an autobiography or watching a movie about a person who uses a wheelchair.  I’m sure there are many more that you can think of!

If you watch the FOX show “Glee”, then you know that this week’s episode revolved around the theme of difference.  In particular, it centered on the experience of Artie, the high schooler who uses a wheelchair, and the effect that his wheelchair usage had on his ability to participate fully in Glee Club (this episode did also address issues of difference related to cognitive limitations and sexuality).  It was a really interesting episode, and although it wasn’t completely perfect or sensitive in its use of the wheelchairs and the language associated with them, I thought that it highlighted some great scenarios (students in wheelchairs being too low to reach things they needed in the cafeteria, or realizing through their own experience that there is only one wheelchair accessible ramp at the school) and dialogue (When the girl with a studder admits to Artie she’s been faking it all these years in order to push people away and get out of public speaking, and Artie, heartbroken, replies, “I would never try to push people away, cuz being in a chair kinda does that for you…I’m sorry now you get to be “normal” and I’m gonna be stuck in this chair the rest of my life.  And that’s not something I can fake.”  Chills!).

Click here to watch the entire episode from www.tvshack.net.

And click here to read a group wheelchair reflection paper written by some students in Maine – replete with professor comments – who seemed to actually complete the assignment correctly and understood what it was trying to teach them.

For those of us who are going into OT, these issues of experience and difference are critical for us to try to empathize with and understand so that we can help our clients gain maximum function.

And for those of us who are simply living in the world every day?  We need to have respect for our fellow human beings.  Because whether we use legs or wheels to go from one place to another, we are all worthy of respect.

America’s Best Careers 2009

This afternoon as I was clicking around on the internet, I came across a list of “America’s Best Careers 2009.”  U.S. News & World Report looked at jobs with the “best outlook in this recessionary economy (and beyond), the highest rates of job satisfaction, the least difficult training necessary, the most prestige, and the highest pay. These careers have staying power: They’re smart moves now, and they’ll be smart moves for years to come.”

Can you guess, of the 31 careers that made the list, which one is on there that makes me smile?

Occupational Therapy.

If you’ve clicked around on my blog at all, then you’ve gotten somewhat of a feel for what OT’s do on a day to day basis.  You can read U.S. News & World Report’s description of Occupational Therapy by clicking here.

The following video was also included on their website as a supplement to the article about Occupational Therapy.

I’m so proud to be a part of the profession of Occupational Therapy!

why i’m proud to be an OT

With each day that I learn more about occupational therapy, the more proud I am to be on the road to becoming an OT.

This pride really became apparent to me last Friday.  Our class had just finished listening to a 90 minute medical lecture, given by the heads of Psychiatry and Occupational Therapy at our university’s hospital.  They flew through the neurological implications of conditions such as schizophrenia, major depression, and bipolar disorder.  It wasn’t the first time our class has learned the details of those disorders, so we have become fairly well acquainted with them by now.  Throughout the lecture, these men addressed ways in which OT’s could intervene with people experiencing mental health disorders such as these.  It was a fantastic lecture, but as soon as I walked out of the classroom, I had to shift my thoughts to my upcoming midterms I needed to study for and paper I needed to write, all for my physical disabilities class.

That’s when it hit me.

I just sat through a medical lecture about these intense mental health disorders.  Given by the doctor who is the head of the psychiatric unit at University Hospital.  And I totally kept up.  And now I’m gonna go study for Physical Disabilities. Those things are so different. OT’s can do anything!

And it’s true.  No two occupational therapists are really alike.  We are so diverse!

While one OT may be working with a premature infant in the NICU, training its reflexes so that it can learn how to use the suck-swallow-breathe pattern that it was supposed to have at birth so that it can begin feeding through its mouth, another OT may be working with an 85-year-old woman who has experienced a decline in her independence due to injury or aging, teaching her how to use some adaptive equipment or how to modify her home environment so that she can regain her independence.

While one OT may be teaching a teenage boy with a spinal cord injury how to navigate in his wheelchair, care for himself independently or participate in things that are important to him, another OT may be helping a homeless man learn what technical and social skills he needs in order to get back into stable housing and a job.

While one OT may be helping a woman who had a stroke, teaching her how to care for herself and participate in activities she enjoys, another OT may be working with someone who is struggling with schizophrenia, offering them strategies for increasing their quality of life despite their difficulties.

While one OT may be playing with a boy with autism, teaching him to interact socially with other children or how to manage his behavior when he gets upset, another OT may be teaching a girl with cerebral palsy how to ride a horse, knowing that horseback riding can help improve her trunk alignment and strength, thus contributing to improvement in her hand skills so that she can do things like feed or dress herself.

And those are just a few examples.

I am so proud to be an OT.  We are creative.  We are smart.  We are powerful.  We care about improving people’s quality of life, which means more than just working to improve their physical condition.

What we do matters.  We are unique in what we offer and, yet, we are not pigeon-holed by it.

When we say that we help people “live life to the fullest”, we accept the fact that people’s “disabilities” affect more than just their body.  Physical and mental disabilities impact every aspect of a person’s life.  And we, as occupational therapists, get to look at the person as a whole and say, How we can improve this person’s quality of life? What’s going on in their body, brain, environment, and social life that will impact their everyday living?  What do they want to get back to doing that they can’t do now?  What’s important to them?  How will this disability affect the way they feel about themselves as a person…or how other people feel about them?

And after we ask those questions, we get to work.

I don’t know any other profession that operates like ours.

And that’s why I’m proud to be an occupational therapist.

Fieldwork

This week I finished my first round of Level I occupational therapy fieldwork in pediatrics.  In two weeks, I start my next round, this time, in a psychiatric inpatient setting.

Here’s a description.

The Psychiatric Inpatient Program provides intensive psychiatric care to voluntary adult patients with acute psychiatric disorders, such as major depression, bipolar illness or schizophrenia. Patients are immersed in intensive daily treatment, with the goal of returning them to the familiar surroundings of home as quickly as possible. Therapeutic activities focus on issues of self awareness, family matters, social skills and personal problem solving.

Quite a contrast from playing with kids on swings and tricycles.  Looking forward to it!

To Save a Life.

Two summers ago, my husband and I got to take part in the experience of a lifetime – making a full-length feature film.  Now, I don’t want to make it sound like we had any sort of responsibility in the matter.  The screenplay was written by Brian’s boss, Jim Britts (who was a screenwriting major in college and is now the Youth Pastor at New Song Community Church in Oceanside, CA).  This was his vision.  And the movie was gruelingly given life by many many volunteers from Oceanside and professional actors with hearts of gold.   Brian and I just hung around the set and served as extras during various scenes throughout the filming process (including us being one of the “make out” couples for the filming of a high school party scene – ohhh yeahhh, haha).

The movie is called To Save a Life.  It’s an indie style movie that adresses the real issues that teenagers face.  Things like suicide, self-inflicted injury, and popularity.  Check out the trailer below.

You can learn more about To Save a Life by visiting its website at http://www.tosavealifemovie.com/.

If you are a person who works with youth, you can visit http://www.tosavealifeleaders.com/ for more information on how this movie can be used to make a positive change in the lives of teenagers everywhere.

Coming to theaters January 22, 2010.  Spread the word!

Allelous Video

As a follow up to my recent post about Allelous, the Intentional Community that Brian and I live in, here is a fantastic video about our community, made by our very own James Tedford.  Thanks for sharing your skills and passion, James!