it's been awhile

I'm sad that I've pretty much given up on this blog. I remember writing in this almost every day when I first started in Korea. :/

Well, just to keep the engine running...

This quarter is going to be nuts.
I look at my planner (especially the month of May) and I feel nauseated. Projects among more projects among papers among quizes and exams. It's just too freaking much.

Summer quarter's going to be just as bad, if not worse. Actually, yeah it's going to be worse.
Going up the back-killing hill in 100+ degree weather every day, just to sit through hours upon hours of what's said to be the most intense classes of our OT program? Uhhhhm... I'm sooo excited.

Last quarter, I BARELY passed the mark for Dean's List. Whew! I also finished 5 paintings.
My painting "business" has started to take over my life. For example, one night, I compromised about 4 hours of study time just to paint the background.

... only to have had it repainted the next time I worked on the painting. 

(Is is just me....? Or do all painters do it, too... because I feel like such a noob taking so freaking long on a simple background. Seriously, it happens with almost every painting I paint.)

I have about 7 or 8 more paintings to work on, 3 of them being due sometime in May (the busiest month of the quarter, as I've mentioned). I finished one of the harder ones last night! I can't wait to see how the next one's going to turn out. 

Well, time to make up for lost time and work on my childhood schizophrenia paper.
Yes, at 10:21 AM on a Friday. 

this quarter sucks

I really want to continue with this blog, but this quarter honestly sucks and I feel really burdened by so many things right now.

I think I've been updating my tumblr more often.

ot-sku.tumblr.com

:) <-- actually that's a fake smile because I just... don't feel too happy right now, thinking about all the crap I have to do this weekend.

Yay for Disneyland tomorrow, though. --> :)

a random tumblr question

A random follower of my OT tumblr blog asked me: hey. hows OT school? what are the top 3 things you love and the top 5 you hate?


... Well...

"OT school is fun, but equally tough. Sometimes, I feel like I'm in kindergarten and other times, I want to punch myself in the ovaries because I feel so dumb and inadequate. 

I like how you asked for top 3 likes and top 5 dislikes. I like random numbers :)

I LOVE IT TOP 3:

1. I love how my professors actually care about my success. They're so helpful, personable, and always have crazy stories to share about their past clients. Oh, and they know my name... and they want us to call them by their first name. Feels weird, but.... coool...... heh.

2. I love how I'm learning something ACTUALLY useful. College in a way felt like a waste of time because I feel like I learned close to nothing. (Oh, I learned how to ditch class and pull all-nighters without any caffeine.) I love how each lecture I'm in now makes me feel that much closer to becoming an OT, instead of just an "OT school graduate."

(sidenote-- For our Therapeutic Media class, we get to do things like: play elementary school games, make jewelry, get facials, drink tea, bake stuff, go hiking, do aerobics (I wanted to die), go lasertagging, etc. "Wait... are you really in grad school???" Why yes, yes I am.)

3. I love how I know all 52 of my classmates' full names. I love how comfortable we are with each other, even though it's only been 6 months. I also love how willing they are to help. You forgot to do a wheelchair-to-toilet transfer, mod assist? At least one overachiever will have videos they recorded of the professors' demonstrations ready to upload onto the Facebook group. 

I HATE IT TOP 5:

1. I hate how I study the material and think, "Pshh.. I got this. It's totally common sense" EVERY FREAKING TIME before a quiz or exam, only to get rocked by it, like half or so of the freaking time. (Well, I guess they're just preparing us for the board exam, which they say have answer choices that all make sense and you just want to rip your hair out and flip your desk.)

2. I hate how expensive the textbooks are (actually, aren't they all...) and how I can't resell them because they just might be useful in the future. UGH. Maybe I WILL sell them and just end up googling everything once I start practicing. (just..... kidding......)

3. I hate how it's making me sleep and wake up so early. I mean I guess  I feel productive or whatever, but when am I ever gonna be able to sleep in again (other than some weekends and holidays)?? If my future = OT, wife, mother, grandmother, etc., then.... almost never.

4. I hate how my school is making us fulfill a portfolio every year. "Attend a presentation about blah blah and write a reflection blah blah." "Volunteer somewhere for 60 hours and write a reflection blah blah." "Go save some animal's life and write a reflection blah blah." "Whisper sweet nothings into a stranger's ear and write a reflection blah blah." Just kidding, but not really. There's like 20935805 things we have to do/write a reflection on by fall quarter of our 2nd year. I want to barf just thinking about it. 

5. I hate how OT is a predominantly female profession. My class has about 11 males and 42 females. I heard from a friend who goes to OT school at another university that their class has only about 18 males out of 100 students. Why is that? I don't get it. Maybe because most men are simple-minded and intimidated by the idea of using their creativity for something other than... nothing. (just... kiddingg....)"

things i learned

This past weekend was like a mini-break. Thursday's 8am class was canceled on Wednesday night, due to my professor being sick with the flu. Yesterday was MLK. 5 day weekendddd!!


So from Friday to Saturday, I was at Big Bear for GNC's single young adults' retreat. The theme was Fellowship, I think. I don't remember that word ever being mentioned. But, I learned a great deal about love (never a boring topic) (and I guess you need to know about love to have genuine fellowship) and idolatry. I don't feel like going too deep into it because in my mind, I'm hyperventilating from the thought of all the reading I have to do and the material I have to study for. (Thought within a thought... inception?)

But a few things about my time at the retreat:

1. I learned that my 2 biggest idols of the heart are Approval & Control

APPROVAL
Good it corrupts: affirmation, love, relationships
Price we will pay: less independence
Greatest nightmare: rejection
Others often feel: smothered
Problem emotion: cowardice

CONTROL
Good it corrupts: self-discipline, certainty, standards
Price we will pay: loneliness, spontaneity
Greatest nightmare: uncertainty
Others often feel: condemned
Problem emotion: worry

Pretty self-explanatory and if you know me well enough, it would make sense.

2. The speaker for the retreat was Pastor Alex, founder and pastor of Sovereign Grace Church in Los Angeles. Yes, the church particularly known for its gorgeous churchgoers in their best outfits, not because they want to glorify God in their appearances, but because they want hollers, numbers in their phonebooks, marriage, whatever.
Anyway, I enjoyed him a lot.... too much that I laughed really loud when no one else did and made him forget his next point. It was... truly... embarrassing.
Anyway (again), he was so freaking hilarious. But more than that, his points were so well illustrated by his personal stories and helped everyone to better understand the value of the gift of salvation and God's unconditional, sacrificial love for us.

"We work so hard to avoid the things that the Gospel confronts -- our deepest issues of sin. Just accept the unconditional LOVE of Christ." So true and so simple.

3. My 3-year-old leather boots, which I splurged on in 2010 as part of my once-in-a-blue-moon/only-in-severe-cases retail therapy, are now ruined from the snow. Goodbye, leather boots.

4. It was great being at retreat and worshipping God together with 13 of my fellow UCSanDiegans.

the beauty of occupational therapy

The beauty of being an Occupational Therapist is -- I mean, other than helping people with disabilities to regain their independence -- I have so many options to choose from. If I get tired of doing one thing, I could just switch to something totally different and still be called an OT.
For example, I could be a hand therapist for a few years, decide it's not right for me, and go into pediatrics via school or private clinic settings. If I can't handle children no mo', I could work for big companies and educate the employees on ergonomics/proper body mechanics. If that bores me, I could work at a mental health clinic and get cussed out by the clients every day. If they start to drive me insane, I could leave SoCal and become a traveling OT. .... and etcetera etcetera, of course.

Right now, as I'm learning more and more about the different areas of Occupational Therapy, I'm hoping to narrow down my interests so that once I graduate and work towards getting my license, I'll know exactly which areas I want to go into and which jobs to apply for. Today, we watched a video on Total Knee Replacements. ...Well... I didn't watch. I was smart (or dumb) enough to put my head down the whole time, while my roommate was nice enough to watch the whole thing and narrate it to me, with a few "oh shoooot"/"ew!!!"/"omgomgomg look, Sarah, loo-- no, don't look!!" here and there.

She said there was a lot of hammering and pieces of cartilage/bone/(???) flying all over the place.
Perfect, I'm sold.

So what do OT's do with these patients? We educate them on the precautions they need to take post surgery, teach them to use different assistive devices for daily activities such as showering and putting on/taking off clothes, and help them manage and overcome the pain and limitations that they have due to the injury or condition by working on their range of motion and endurance.

"Oh, that doesn't sound too bad!" you say.

Well, what if you have to see THIS:
(I'll spare you (and myself) and not upload worse pictures. This picture is a PG version.)

Oh, that metal stuff? It's called an "external fixator" and it's screwed into the patient's leg... 

and we as OT's have to educate them on caring for this new "pet".

Here are a few key steps (aka the grossest steps):

"Dip cotton swab into cup (of saline and hydrogen peroxide) and use a cotton swab to clean one pin site at a time, moving outward away from pin."

"Remove any crust that may have formed around the pins." (yum.)
"Using cotton swab, push skin around pin downward." (oh fun.)

Orthopedics.... mmm yeah... no.

this quarter

MMM.... I honestly don't know what to write about right now, so I'll just write whatever comes to mind.

1. I just finished day 2 of winter quarter -- my 3rd quarter here.

My schedule is both good and bad:

Good - I get to have 3.5-day weekends (+ two 4.5-day weekends)

Bad - I start class at 8 AM three out of four days of the week and end at 5 PM two of those days


2. I have 3 wisdom teeth growing. The top right one's halfway out and it's growing outward, so it's not really impacting my other teeth and the dentist says he could just take it out like a normal tooth extraction. The bottom two are growing inward. The good thing is, it's not hurting at all. The bad thing is, the dentist would have to make a surgical incision, break my teeth into pieces, and then remove them. Just fantastic. I need to make an appointment soon, but... I am deathly afraid.

3. Why is the whole world getting engaged? I attended a surprise engagement breakfast party for a church friend during my winter break. And then after that, I heard that a random fellow ex-KCM classmate was proposed to. And then I saw on Facebook that two of my OT classmates got engaged over break as well, and just last night my cousin sent me an invitation to her private dinner wedding happening a few days before my birthday. ... mmm okay I guess the holiday season is a pretty romantic time to propose.

4. I also sense new relationships forming as well, and though I admit to being a little anxious when it comes to this topic, I am motivated to surrender it to God and trust in His perfect plan for me. I will not be paralyzed by the desire to be married!

5. I need to start hip hop abs again.

goodbye and hello

Goodbye, 2012
Each year, at this time, I step forward with hesitation. I don't know when it started, but I tend to step into almost everything with low expectations. You might think it's not bad, but I kind of dislike that about myself. It sort of means that I doubt the possibility of whatever I participate in to be great. I don't know,  like a Debbie Downer.

Anyway, I began 2012 thinking it was going to be whatevs. At this same time last year, I was living at home in LA, serving at church, working at Lovaas as a behavioral interventionist for children with autism, about to start Physiology at LACC, and eagerly waiting to hear back from Loma Linda for an interview. I was itching to get out of the house (with my aunt nagging the whole world and my grandma needing supervision all the time), and for some reason I had a feeling that God was going to humble me by giving me yet another year of "rest". The rest I really didn't want.

He indeed humbled me -- by doing the opposite. He let me out of the claustrophobic room labeled "Uncertainty" and allowed me to finally enter the door to my future. Now, I'm 6 months into my OT program at Loma Linda, the only school I applied to, and loving every bit of the chaos that it shoves into my life, as well as all the friends that are experiencing it alongside me. I am loving the luxury of having a home away from home (my own room and bathroom).... a chance at redemption (because my grades at UCSD were close to trash).... opportunities for new/unexpected friendships (I've never had so many non-Korean friends that I actually hang out with in my life) and lifelong sisterhood (seriously, thank you God for my 2 OT sisters)... and a map that will for sure lead me to "Sarah Ku, OTR/L" aka a life of personal fulfillment, joyful struggles, priceless relationships, and financial stability.

I say 2012 was a great year. And I guess starting out with low expectations helped me in concluding the year with this fact.

Hello, 2013
The previously stated fact, however, doesn't mean that everything was almost perfect ("almost" because nothing ever is). If I was to change one thing, it would be to eat less junk and more Bread. School, and the life that came with it, was an excuse to get away with it, but it should've been the excuse to READ MORE of God's Word. I was becoming more and more selfish with my time and justifying all of the negative emotions felt/thoughts thought. And the worst part is, I knew it and yet didn't do much about it even if I genuinely wanted to. My desire to change for God was strong -- I was fully aware of my sinfulness -- but my willpower was weak.

This year, I hope to put this realization into action. I hope to worry less, think less, love more, and trust Him more. I hope to let Christ be the motivation for everything. And I hope to cling tightly to the belief that by doing those things (or even striving for them), God will take care of the rest.

This year, I have high hopes. 2013, good or bad, will be great.