These past few weeks, I had to learn to rein in my wild side. I'm a very outgoing person by nature so it was a bit of a challenge for me to tone it all down and act all calm, cool, and collected in the clinics. Of course, learning these professional behaviors is a must if I want to survive out there in the real world when my time comes.

But once in a while, it feels really good to let your hair down and let your natural personality out to play. This is why I'm sooooo thankful to the UPM CAMP Society of Occupational Therapy Majors for a rad General Assembly today! It was the kind of event where you can relax and just... be. 

I feel like I've started to lose touch with myself ever since I've started my internship. I think I've become too focused on my new role as an OT intern that I've somehow taken for granted the fact that being an OT intern is not my end-all and be-all. Today, I felt what it was like to be a friend again... to be part of a social group that goes beyond brainstorming for treatment sessions or sharing admin duties. I miss my friends. It's just not the same not having them by my side. Three long, grueling years in UP formed bonds that cannot easily be broken by mountains of paperworks or time apart. When I'm with them, I feel like I can always be plain, old me without fear of being graded or judged. They make me comfortable enough to shove Teacher Gee to the background for a while and let good ol' Guia take the spotlight. 

I miss laughing so hard your stomach hurts.
I miss talking to friends that it seems you won't ever run out of topics to talk about.
I miss pigging out with people who shove just as much food in their mouths as you do in yours. 

Because, man, you don't experience that everyday in the clinics.

Days like today make all the stressful days worth it knowing that at the end of this long journey, I'll be standing on a stage, diploma in hand, with these same faces, ready to race headlong into the next chapter in our lives. 

Today reminded me that all these bad days only serve to make the good ones feel even better. Even after all the exhaustion and the stress, it really felt good to spend time with people you care about.

We may not have clinic duties today, but I did learn something valuable: LEARN TO LET GO. Let go of your inhibitions every once in a while. A little fun never hurt anybody. 

Live a little and give yourself time to just be you. Nothing is worth losing yourself. Sure, you can be the best goddamn OT there ever was, but what's the point if you start to lose yourself along the way. So tonight, I'm letting go. I'm not Teacher Gee tonight. I'm taking this time to do things that I like for a change. I'm making time for myself. I deserve it.

I bet you've been seeing quite a lot of these #ALSIceBucketChallenge around cyberspace. It's taking the internet by storm, don't you think? Well, this week, I received my fair share of challenges, not just for the ALS cause, but more importantly from my rotation at CTS-Pedia.

CHALLENGE #1: Working with other disciplines
Rotating in CTS-Pedia means that we get to experience working with other disciplines first -hand through the IDC or the Interdisciplinary Collaboration activity. One client each day will be selected to receive IDC sessions. This week, we had our second day of evaluation and I was given the task to be the group's facilitator. I believe I failed in that respect. I felt so boxed in by the way we do our OT evaluations that I found it reaaaallllyyyy difficult. I did not know how to elicit the behaviors that the other disciplines wanted to evaluate. 

I can't help but feel inadequate. I mean, they ALL say that as OTs, we should be the one who would be best suited for IDC because our profession kind of falls somewhere in between the SPs and the PTs and it's not that big of a jump. But I guess I still have a long way to go before I become that kind of OT.

As much as I feel like I let my team down, it was really encouraging that they were there with me through the whole thing, ready to fill-in what I lacked. 


CHALLENGE #2: No rest for the wicked

Okay, so I'm starting to get used to the loads. The most patients I've had in one day? THREE. Okay, it's not THAT many but writing all the documentation for THOSE patients kept me up last night. The fact that something else keeps bothering me (CHALLENGE #3) added another layer of stress to an already stressful situation. I'm glad that I was able to pass what I need to on time but I hope I was also able to make a good enough output. No, they're not the best I've made, I admit. But I'm gonna try my absolute goddamn best to make sure that each paper I write from now on would be better than the last. 


CHALLENGE #3: One foot in the grave

My baby is dying.

No, not a real baby! I meant my LAPTOP. C'mon now, really?!

Anywaaaaay. She got me through my last year of high school and my first three years in UP. She's been with me everywhere, done everything for me. I made my blog on her! I learned how to code with her. I wrote my first (unpublished) fiction novella on her. And now, she's:

So, right now, I'm using my brother's laptop and it just doesn't feel right. Plus, I can't borrow his forever since he needs it for all his engineering shit.

I'm bringing my baby to the doctors at PowerMac this weekend. I hope they can figure out what's wrong with her and make her better. I just know that I won't survive this internship without a computer to work on. I mean, A HUGE PART of what we do is write write write, and write some more. A computer in good working condition is essential. Good thing I backed up all my internship files online. Thank God for cloud storage!

Today, I just got a taste of that whole surprise IE every upperclassman is talking about!

I was in the middle of my first session of the day when our clinical supervisor approached me oh-so-casually to say, non-verbatim:

It took EVERYTHING I had not to react hysterically at that point. I wasn't expecting another IE until next week.

Outside, I was the perfect picture of a calm and collected OT intern. But inside? Well, that's a different story. THIS was how I felt inside:

The good news is that, after all the internal panicking, I was able to do the IE relatively okay. It's not my best IE, but given the circumstance, I think I pretty much nailed it! haha.

I couldn't have done it without the support of my clinical supervisor. She was there to guide through every "I'm lost" moment and it really helped me get through the IE.

Lesson learned: Sometimes, we're given extra loads that we do not expect but we won't be given those loads if we are not capable of handling it. It makes me feel good that my CS thought I was good enough to do an IE on the spot. This experience made me realize that I can conquer challenges as long as I set my mind to it.

The best thing about this experience is that I learned to appreciate how much my co-interns support means to me. When they found out about my on-the-spot IE, they were like:

Guess what? I just met my very first patient today!

Our Clinical Training Coordinator said that they'll ease us into this whole thing. I've never been more grateful my entire life. I only had ONE patient today and, man, did he tire me out. I feel exhausted physically, mentally, and emotionally. I still can't quite imagine how I'll manage doing this ALL DAY, EVERY DAY.

It feels so different to be prepared for something. I've always had the HORRIBLE habit of leaving things to the very last minute (sometimes even literally the VERY LAST MINUTE). After all my preparations since yesterday, I felt more confident about my session than I ever have before. I guess this is how productive people feel. I must admit, I love feeling like this SOOOO much. 

Coming prepared for a session down to every single detail emphasized one very important lesson for me today.

After three years of gearing up to this phase of my college life, I think I have grown to expect this ideal picture of how an OT session should be like. This afternoon's session served as one huge reality check for me. Apparently, no matter how hard you prepare for it, your session won't ever go exactly as planned. I should get that tattooed somewhere.

 I was confident about my plans when I started the session, but actually interacting with my client threw me off my high horse. My experience today forced me to rethink almost all of my activity plans. It was definitely very demanding to face that kind of challenge right on my first session but it made me stop and think about what I can do to manage sessions like this in the future. 

Being able to think on my feet... that's one thing I need to improve on. There are so many activities that I can do with my patient and I just need to learn how to use and apply each activity to improve whatever skill the client needs in order to do his/her targeted goal. After all, that's why we have these sessions in the first place. These people pay money to receive the services we offer, the least we can do is make it worth their money and their time by providing activities that actually help them.

For now, I still find it difficult to see whether what I'm doing actually helps my client. In the future, I hope I would be confident to say that I've made a positive impact on my patients' lives. 

Last night, I lay in bed not knowing what to expect for my first day as a bonafide intern. Although last week's activities were done to prepare us for this internship, I don't think it really sunk in for me until last night.

For the life of me, I couldn't get past the horror stories I keep hearing from previous interns.Internship is hell, they all say. My gut churns at the mere thought of going through the same thing...

So, bright and early on a warm Monday morning, I made my way to the clinic for my first day as an OT intern. And you know what? It wasn't as scary as I thought it would be because of the following reasons:

1. AWESOME CLINICAL TRAINING COORDINATORS
I think we just hit the jackpot when it comes to CTCs. As scary as this first rotation feels, the way our CTC oriented us to what we can expect from our rotation made me feel more at ease about everything. I appreciate how they're trying to make our caseloads as manageable as possible. Even if it doesn't work out, (because c'mon, schedules almost always get screwed up) the mere thought that they're trying reassures me that our CTCs are only looking out for our best interests, for our growth as OT interns. I just hope he wasn't just downplaying it, because man, the last thing I need is a false sense of security.

2. AWESOME ROT-MATES
I love my rot-mates. I swear, I do. I'm just really happy to get along so well with the people I'm expected to spend my next 7 weeks with. They played a huge part in making this first day as awesome as it was. We spent a great deal of our free time laughing our asses off and I think that's a pretty good sign of how we'll be able to help each other manage our stress levels. As early as now, I can see that I can count on them to get me through the most hellish days. 

3. AWESOME INTERN LOUNGE
Airconditioned, spacious (relatively), and conducive to thinking and writing papers. Need I say more?

See? I guess you can say that today went so much better than I expected. I started this day dreading the rest of this internship but now, the fear is slowly being trumped by excitement and anticipation. I just hope that doesn't change.