I don't know how this happened but I have a job, yay, however its pro bono, sigh. But this is good, it'll give me purpose and something to do during the day rather than sit around eating M&M's, blowing bubbles for the dog and doing yoga dvd's which has been how I've been passing the time for a good while now.
I graduated from UC Davis with a neuroscience degree, but went into the petri dish research side of it for 2 years before I got laid off. I started looking around for a place to volunteer (I've completely accomplished every possible task I threw in front of myself after I lost my job, I learned how to cook, be mildly domestic, go to the gym, start a yoga regimen, garden, compost and knit...I even started an etsy store) and found a home for people with Alzheimers just down the street from me, I went in, talked to the director and man did she have plans for me. I'm now in charge of completely revamping their entire acitivites department at the home.
This is going to be a HUGE project. This place has been open for 20 years and it was just taken over by the daughter of the founders who is a surgeon from L.A. and she has a lot of plans for cleaning the place up administratively. So there's a lot of things to be sorted out and worked through. The place is great, they really want the best for their residents and I think they will be very forward thinking when it comes to working with me on ideas.
Needless to say however, I have NO IDEA what I'm doing. If you wanted to know what happens in the brain to ppl with Alzheimers I could give you a pretty good idea, but when it comes to working with them directly? No experience whatsoever. I'm now in charge of observing activities, and daily functions of the entire home; and then creating some sort of exam to administer to new and old patients to categorize them into appropriate groups that compliment their level of mental deterioration and comprehension. This is a whole new experience for me, but the benefit of it all? If I do a good job, and I create a usable, unique and professional program they're going to publish it and give me credit! So by the time I go to grad school this fall I could already be published. That's pretty cool man.
And given some of the things I've heard about the residents in this home? I could have some pretty interesting stories...
Posts
Congrats! That's awesome. Do you already know where you're going to grad school in the fall?
ReplyDeleteI'm going to Loma Linda University in Southern California for my doctorate in clinical health psychology. It's a huge change, I've never lived in So Cal, I've been a northern California girl my whole life. It'll be interesting.
ReplyDeleteCongrats on the job! I'm convinced that everyone is struggling right now, but this idea only generally comes from the blogosphere, so perhaps just bloggers are unemployed. And blogging their cares away.
ReplyDeleteMy grandfather has alz., and I really hate to say it, but it's not an easy thing to deal with. But to offer some, if any advice: my grandfather still really loves to sing, whistle and dance. He can't watch TV nor movies because he can't see well, he doesn't know his family nor where he is; but put on a Tom Jones song, and he remembers the glory days :)
Sounds great! Hope you do get published.
ReplyDeleteThanks Melina, all the advice I can get as to what to do with the residents is helpful. It'll be hard to figure things out for each person because we're all so different in terms of our likes and dislikes so the more things I can find for everyone to enjoy the better. Music is a good one. I've been told they all have a parade up and down the halls in the morning for exercise :)
ReplyDeleteFor me days are to short, days should have 30 hours haha I work from 6 to 3 o clock, right now I'm going to class just during the week I never can made exercise during the week because is always full, on weekends I don't work and I like to hangout alone mostly take pictures visit places that I never visit in my town, went to markets, use the morning to made exercise, sometimes on nights I hangout with friends, but that's just sometimes I prefer to stay at home and play piano, read, movies, anime, cook, clean, I almost never clean because I almost never at home, is kind of interesting because on weekend you can find must of the times something new to do.
ReplyDelete