Student Blog
Kaho

Shoot Your Shot ⟩
September 26, 2019, by Kaho

Life Hacks

More often than I would prefer, I find myself setting limitations for what I can do. I’m a pretty logical person and I like to think things through. I’ve always been the type of person to meticulously plan out my life and think WAY into the future. I first decide on a goal that I want to achieve and then work my way backwards to figure out the steps that I need to take in order to achieve that goal. During this process, I always run into a roadblock. I suddenly realize that a certain step is unattainable (or at least I think it is). I begin to overthink and stress out. I convince myself that my goal is impossible to achieve. It’s over, I must give up. It wasn’t meant to be. At times like this, it helps me to verbalize my dilemma and talk it over with a person I trust. He/she pulls me out of my dramatic act and knocks some light into my tunnel vision filled with darkness. I realize that there are alternative paths that I can take that goes around the obstacle. In other cases, I’m given the courage and determination to continue down the path that I had initially planned to take and deal with the obstacle once I run into it. In past experiences, I was provided with tools to overcome the impediment right before running into it or the obstacle turned out to be much smaller than I had anticipated. As cliché as this may sound, everything really does work out in the end.

I’m sharing this with you today because I experienced another self-limiting episode very recently. The application deadline for the OTD is fast-approaching and it feels like there is a huge cloud of anxiety and uncertainty hovering over the heads of second year students. Every corner I turn and every door I open, I hear students discussing whether they want to pursue the OTD or not and where they may want to do their residency. It seems as though I can’t even use the restroom in peace. My ears are hypersensitive to this topic because I am also uncertain about what I want to do and where I want to go. Once again, I see a goal for myself, but I also saw a roadblock in my way that’s telling me to not even try because I’m unqualified or I don’t have the means. I expressed my concern with a friend and she looked at me, very confused.

“Wait . . . what? So you want something really badly, but what are you going to do to get it? Nothing. That makes no sense.”

Worded simply and bluntly like that, I realized how irrational I was being. I was telling myself that I should give up before even trying. There’s really no way of knowing whether I qualify or not until I try. If I don’t apply, then there definitely is zero chance. There have been numerous times throughout my life where situations that seemed impossible somehow turned out possible, and yet I still haven’t learned, apparently. 🙄

The moral of this story is to first, find a friend, significant other, family member, mentor, or anyone that will honestly and bluntly tell you when you’re not making sense. Find someone that will validate your feelings, but will also remove your horse blinders and contribute a fresh new perspective to your situation. More importantly, however, shoot your shot. You never know if you’ll make it without trying and the worst that can happen is you miss, right? And in that case, just pick up the ball and shoot again.

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More Travelling with Less Money ⟩
September 13, 2019, by Kaho

Life Hacks

One of my favorite occupations is to travel. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been flying internationally since I was 4 years old between Japan and the US, but I have MAJOR wanderlust. For a student who is pursuing her master’s degree and possibly a doctorate degree (on top of pre-existing loans from undergrad), this is a struggle. There’s a constant battle between saving money and engaging in what I love to do, but I made a promise to myself my senior year of high school that I would visit at least 1 new country every year for as long as my career/life allows. To date, I’ve been to Japan, USA, Canada, Taiwan, Germany, Italy, Thailand, Indonesia, Greece, Spain, and Mexico. Over the past several years, I’ve accumulated some knowledge on how to travel on a low budget, so I’d like to share three tips with you today:

Use multiple apps/websites to compare flight ticket prices
I like to look on an app called Skyscanner before even deciding my destination. On there, you can set your destination to “Anywhere” and just select the month you’d like to travel. They’ll list out all of the countries you can fly to by price, and then you can see which city is cheapest within that country. This past summer, I flew to Spain from LAX for just $300 roundtrip!! Staying flexible and keeping your search general is key to finding cheap flights. Then, I go on other sites like Kayak and cheapflights.com to see if there are any better deals. Keep in mind that usually, the longer the layover, the cheaper the ticket. Most people dread long layovers, but use it to your advantage! With several hours, you can leave the airport and explore that city too. You can knock out two birds with one stone.

Pack light in a backpack and stay in hostels
Trade your bulky suitcase in for a backpacking backpack. Mine holds 50 L and it has padded straps around my hips and chest, so I can fit a lot in there and still be able to carry it around comfortably. I use this so that it’s easy to always be on the go. I usually visit multiple cities when I travel, so I don’t stay put in one place for long. This requires me to move about with all of my belongings on me. Dragging a suitcase behind me all day would limit my mobility and occupy my hands, which I need to take photos, read maps, etc. I also hop from hostel to hostel because they’re cheap and easy to book for just a few nights. I use Hostelworld to find them. The majority of my day is spent outdoors exploring anyway, so I don’t need fancy accommodation, I just need a place to shower and sleep. I’ve stayed in hostels that range from $10-$30/night, which allows me to spend more on activities and cultural experiences. Staying in hostels also allows me to meet people from all over the world that love to travel, like me. They often have amazing stories to share about their current and past journeys!

Use public transportation
I totally understand that being in a new country (that is often non-English-speaking) is scary. It’s tempting to just call a taxi or sign up for a tour that takes care of transportation for you. However, public transportation is usually the cheapest mode of transportation in any country and many countries have a better system than the US. I recently started using something called Mapway. They have a different app for each major city with a developed transit system. You simply put in your starting point and destination and the app will figure out the best route for you. It’ll tell you what train line to get on from what station, when and how to transfer to another line if need be, and it’ll even tell you whether you should ride towards the front or back of the train to be near the exit at your stop! Using public transportation will allow you to dive deeper into the country’s culture and have you feeling like a local. 😀

There’s so many more tips for money-saving on trips and I’m still learning more and more each time I travel. Feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions, want to hear more, or have some tips of your own! I’d love to hear about them. Happy Travelling!

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Why Occupational Therapy? ⟩
August 29, 2019, by Kaho

What are OS/OT?

I’ve always thought that I would pursue a career in the health field, but I thought that I was meant to become a doctor. It wasn’t until my sophomore year of college that I started to question whether I was pursuing a career as a doctor because I was actually passionate about it, or because I had never learned much about the other existing health professions. As I started to explore and research more options, I fell upon occupational therapy.

The first thing that pulled me towards it is the deep, personal relationship that OTs build with their clients. They get to know their clients as a unique human being in various contexts and they are dedicated to helping people engage in activities/roles that are meaningful to them. I love that occupational therapy integrates mental health with physical health because I am passionate about both. The more I learned about the profession, the more I fell in love with it and the more I felt like this was truly what I was meant to be. (Also worthy to mention that occupational therapy is ranked #13 by U.S. News as one of the best jobs of 2019!) I began the process of looking up potential schools and the prerequisites for applying to those schools. I began volunteering in various hospitals in order to see real OTs in action. For example, I observed a hand therapist during my junior year of college and over the summers when I would fly home to Japan for several months, I volunteered in the geriatric department at several hospitals. I still had trouble explaining to people what exactly occupational therapy is and I now know that my knowledge of the profession at that time was still very limited, but I was confident that I had found my dream job.

Occupational therapy is truly an incredible and beautiful profession and this past year in the program has expanded my interests on what population I want to serve in what setting. I am very fortunate to be studying occupational therapy at one of the leading universities of the profession and I am thrilled to continue learning and growing and see what all is in store for my last year in the program!

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