Student Blog
School/Life Balance

Student by Day, Athlete by Night ⟩
September 28, 2011, by Kimberly

Living in LA School/Life Balance

While in the OT program, our time is taken up primarily by either being in class or studying/doing projects related to class. But for those of us who need to get out and be active and were previously athletes in high school or college, finding time to work-out is essential. Last year a group of my fellow students trained and ran the LA Marathon. Others take classes through USC, surf, do yoga, or form their own running groups on the beach for example. This year, in order to keep myself on a work-out schedule, I decided to train for the LA Triathlon. I have done all three sports (swimming, biking, and running) throughout my life, so it wasn’t too big of a jump to combine all three.

The race was this past Sunday and it was a blast! We started in Venice Beach and swam in the Pacific, then biked up Venice Blvd and Olympic Blvd to downtown LA. The final run was right through the middle of the LA skyscrapers. It was neat to be a part of something so huge and with people who were as crazy as me to sign up for the race. Of course there were also the professional triathletes who do this for a living, and those who had the thousands of dollars’ worth of gear. But the rest, like me, were just interested in trying something new and completing it for the sake of doing so. Overall it was an awesome experience and one to definitely go down in the books.

Though school is our main job right now, many of us in the program do make sure to take time to enjoy the outdoors and get active. Some call it finding balance, others say we are “OTing ourselves” and making sure we don’t get too overloaded with reading. Either way, LA is the perfect place to explore all kinds of options to stay active. Just get out there and give it a shot!

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Another week of delicious-ness! ⟩
September 15, 2011, by Floyd

Living in LA School/Life Balance

I just had another fun-filled weekend! On Friday I went to a Gourmet Food Truck festival in Santa Fe and ate everything in sight! I got this delicious Mexican and Filipino infusion burrito that composed of garlic rice, chicken adobo, fried egg, and topped off with some Vietnamese rooster hot sauce, and it was delicious. I got a side of carne asada fries from a Mexican truck and a roll of tempura crunchy California roll from a Japanese truck. For dessert I got a basket of sweet potato fries and washed it down with some mango juice that I got from an Asian dessert truck. My friends and I ended the night relaxing in the hot tub with glasses of white wine, homemade chocolate chip cookies, lemonade tarts, and tiramisu. What a delicious night!

On Saturday, I went to a concert of variety of punk rock bands and indie bands at the House of Blues in downtown Disney. Since I have my annual pass to Disneyland, my friends and I hopped on over to the resort and saw the fireworks eating our jumbo turkey legs and drinking Disney’s Dole Whips (Like a root beer float but instead, it’s with pineapple juice and pineapple whipped ice cream).

Sunday, I ended my week for some “me time.” I went to Chinatown for some dim sum (Asian food that are miniature sized), and got a full body massage at my favorite place. Then I went home and lay on my bed and relaxed with some articles for class (I have to get some homework done sometime!). I canceled the rest of my other plans for the evening because sometimes, it’s just nice to be by yourself to reflect.

Ok, if you haven’t noticed, my world seems to revolve around eating good food and going to do fun stuff. That’s me!

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Back to Reality ⟩
September 13, 2011, by Chris

Community Living in LA School/Life Balance

Well, the first week of class has come and gone, which means it’s back to reality.

Although the return to class may not be at the top of my “things I enjoy” list, it was actually really nice to hang out with friends I haven’t seen since May. The start of fall semester also means the start of football season. This Saturday marks the Trojans’ season-opener against Minnesota. I’m looking forward to meeting up with some friends at the unofficial OT tailgate. I’m anticipating an excellent second year in the program (which will hopefully help me make a decision about the OTD).

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M.I. ⟩
February 15, 2011, by Yao

Classes School/Life Balance What are OS/OT?

A great opportunity and a blessing in disguise.

I just finished my first session and am about to start working on the homework for my second session of Motivational Interviewing. Motivational Interviewing is an elective class that is offered the spring semester over three Saturdays with days starting at 9am and scheduled to end around 4pm.  I originally elected to take the class not only because one of my favorite professors was teaching it but also because it was a method that I planned to use in my research project. I went into class that first Saturday with the mindset of just learning a clinical skill and perfecting and perfecting until I felt that I had it right. Boy did I have the wrong idea!

The day started off with the basics and the history behind motivational interviewing and some video examples of practitioners incorporating it into practice. Then it came time to practice. Like I had mentioned before it was not a skill that should just be learned cold and practiced numerous times, rather it’s a skill that you need to feel and experience. This feeling and experience will guide your use of the skill, a real feeling and investment in the person that you’re talking to. To me it’s not a skill that you can just practice with a partner and in the middle ask if you’re doing it right, but something that when given the opportunity should be used to help fully understand the origin of certain actions and feelings. And as my professor mentioned, “If you do it well, people won’t even know it”; not to echo what I mentioned in my previous entry but sometimes listening can bring about more answers and chances for change than automatically trying to fix the problem as soon as you hear one.

On another note this motivational interviewing class has allowed me to tap into my emotions for the first time in about a year and a half. When things happened over these past two years that required emotional investment I tended to push them aside because there was that ever present need to do well in school and live in the moment with school and my social life here in Los Angeles. I was surprised at how I felt, not to say that there was a huge revelation and that I was denying my feelings these past two years. But I was able to identify emotions and feelings that I thought I have overcome or had just died down over the past years. I’m looking forward to the second session to further explore these feelings and try and resolve them instead of just pushing them aside and making school the excuse for not addressing them. It’s a nice complement to the other coursework this semester. It also is a reminder that no matter what is going on you have to consider taking care of yourself so you can provide your best care to others.

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Working My Way to a Healthier Routine ⟩
January 30, 2011, by Carissa

Life Hacks School/Life Balance

Recently, I have been reflecting on how I can create a healthier lifestyle for myself. I realized that in order to create an exercise routine, I must take my aversion to the gym into consideration. I have tried to deal with it by going with a friend or bringing fun, energizing music. However, I always end up finding excuses not to go. It is a 20 minute walk from my apartment, and by the time I get there, my energy is already depleted, and I’m already thinking about going home. So this past week, rather than push the gym on myself any more, I bought myself exercise DVDs. With them, I don’t have to go anywhere to exercise. I have the privacy of my apartment. No energy is expended on picking out clothes to wear. I can jump in the shower as soon as I’m done. It is pretty amazing, as I was able to wake up early Saturday morning, complete the video, and have the time and energy to run errands and be productive the rest of the day. I feel like I can be much more successful with this routine than trying to include the gym in my day. Week 1 towards increased health. 😊 Also, regarding the creation of a healthier routine, I realized that I finished some homework early (accidentally). It feels good to not procrastinate, even though it was not really intentional. I need to try that more often.

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