Student Blog

Warrior Dash and CICLAVIA ⟩
April 16, 2012, by Chris

Living in LA School/Life Balance

Man, this semester has passed rather quickly. It seems like it wasn’t so long ago that I was just entering the program and now I’ll be graduating soon. I’m in the process of trying to find a place to live in San Diego for my upcoming fieldwork experience at California Children’s Services. Aside from that, a few weeks ago my friends and I completed the Warrior Dash 5K obstacle course. Crawling through mud, swimming in extremely cold water, scaling walls, and jumping over fire was the perfect was to punctuate the weekend. Yesterday, my roommate and I attended the bike festival in downtown LA called “CICLAVIA.” The city closed streets throughout downtown and let cyclists from all over LA ride without the risk of getting hit my a absent-minded driver. Next up, I really should start studying for COMPS, I can’t believe it’s almost here.

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Time Well Spent With Me Myself and I ⟩
April 16, 2012, by Floyd

Life Hacks School/Life Balance

I can only please one person a day, and today, I choose me.

Sometimes you just need time for yourself without any distractions of deadlines, projects, and assignments. And this weekend, I did just that . . . nothing! All weekend, I had the “Don’t bother me unless I am needed for surgery” mentality. It was awesome!!!

I got to sleep in, catch up on TV shows, read the first book of the Hunger Games trilogy, and ate ice cream. It feels great because I am refreshed and reenergized for the week to come. I know there will be a lot to do this week, but I don’t let it stress me because I know it will come and go in a flash. Hopefully I make the most of the last few weeks of school. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and I am skipping along, while stopping to smell the roses. Gosh they smell good!

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Living Green ⟩
April 13, 2012, by Kimberly

Life Hacks

This week in my Lifestyle Redesign class we learned about the rejuvenating effects of nature on our health and well-being. We all know that it feels good to be in the outdoors, but it’s actually backed by science! Research has shown that hospital patients who are in a room with a window overlooking nature recover faster, have less pain, and complain less than patients with windows looking out into a wall or cityscape. Other studies show that living in areas with more trees affects satisfaction levels, stress levels, and quality of life. Even things like having a nature scene as your desktop background can affect your day to day mood. Interacting with pets has the same effect as interacting with nature as well. So next time you take a coffee break from work or find yourself overstimulated by all of our various communication tools, walk outside for 10 minutes. Will do you lots more good than you might have thought!

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April is OT Month! ⟩
April 3, 2012, by Alix

Community Getting Involved

According to the American Occupational Therapy Association: “Each year in April, occupational therapists, occupational therapy assistants, and students in practice, education, research, and science host a month long celebration showcasing the importance of Occupational Therapy. It’s the time of year when everyone in the profession goes out of their way to tell the world about what we do.” At USC, we’re doing our part to promote the field for OT Month. Yesterday, we hosted an “OT Month Kickoff” event with entertainment from the dashing and talented ambassadors Chelsea Robinson and Chris Thompson. We also got free lunch (!) and custom-made OT buttons (also designed by the shockingly talented ambassadors). D’Andre (Dee) Holland emceed the event, which was incredible. Thanks, Dee! We hope that everybody remembers to represent occupational therapy this month by taking a few minutes to tell a friend (or a stranger) what you love most about the profession.

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The Hunger Games From An Occupational Therapy Student’s Perspective ⟩
March 29, 2012, by Chelsea

What are OS/OT?

After completely obsessing over the book series The Hunger Games, I finally got to see the film last weekend. Talk about occupational deprivation, if the citizens of the capitol have no better way to occupy their time than to watch a reality TV show of teens brutally killing each other then I think they are in need of some serious occupational therapy. I know that the games are a way to repress the districts and showcase the undying power of the capitol annually, but if the capitol just provided its districts with healthy, meaningful occupations and decent conditions to live in then there would be less cause for the districts to revolt and no need for such barbaric circumstances. Sure, call me biased because I am a student of occupational therapy and would make sure everyone had healthy occupations if I could, but I couldn’t help thinking “what if?”

There are many instances of relevance to occupational therapy in The Hunger Games. When Katniss becomes a victor of the games, she no longer needs to hunt in the woods because she is given plenty of food for the rest of her life, but she continues to break the law and hunt because hunting is meaningful to her and it defines who she is as much as being an occupational therapy student helps define who I am. In addition, although the capitol suppresses the districts of almost all meaningful occupations, even they seem to realize the importance of occupation and expect all the victors to take up a new occupation before their victory tour since they no longer need to work for a living. Peeta takes up painting, which becomes meaningful for him as a way to channel his anger and to manage his undiagnosed yet inevitably present post-traumatic stress disorder. The people of the capitol do not seem to have many occupations aside from altering their physical appearances and drooling over the victors of The Hunger Games. It seems odd that they are not the ones on a reality TV show since their lives are so unrealistic and strange. Unfortunately, the people of the capitol are not too unlike people of our society in their obsession with reality TV stars.

Is the book The Hunger Games a social commentary on how obsessed society has become with the voyeurism of reality TV shows? Millions of Americans are glued to their TVs during reality shows such as Keeping Up With The Kardashians, Jersey Shore, Sister Wives, Teen Mom, The Bachelor, and many more. I guess the term “reality” is a bit misleading because most of these shows are dramatic exaggerations of daily life that give unrealistic expectations of how reality should be. So if these “reality” shows actually do affect our perceptions of reality, how are they affecting our daily occupations?

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