Yesterday and today I celebrated my birthday for the first time ever by spending the afternoon laying on the beach, in my bathing suit, eating local, tropical fruits. I'd like to think that this will not be the last time in my life I'm able to do this, but I think for the foreseeable future, I will be back in the States braving the cold as usual. However, I certainly managed to live it up for my one year of tropical birthday fun (and managed to get the strangest sunburn of my life...only the inside of my bellybutton. To quote Will Ferrel 'I'm not even mad, just impressed). Thank you so much to all of you who sent along birthday wishes, I really appreciate them! The rest of the day, not spent at the beach, was also delightful. My roommate, Steffie, surprised me with pancakes in the morning, and chocolate cupcakes in the evening (in addition to the brownie cupcakes with peanut butter frosting I made for myself). School was really nice, as we had an excursion (more on school in a moment), and then I went out to a fantastic cocktail bar with fellow Williams '10 Liz Miller. The drinks are some of the most interesting I have ever had, with all sorts of interesting fresh fruit juices, just lovely. Liz and I also went back to Old Biscuit Mill this morning, and I treated myself to a delightful chocolate tart topped with a little bit of gold leaf, just because it was my birthday.
I've also gotten started at Alpha School for Learners with Autism since my last post. The first week and a half I was just observing teachers and classes, with very little idea of what to be looking for or understanding of how these classes worked, which was really really frustrating and boring. Because the term was just starting, the teachers were mostly focusing on just getting the kids back into the routines of the classroom, and adjusted to new classrooms in some cases, so they weren't really doing much in the way of teaching with them. Thus, there was one afternoon where I literally sat and watched 7 boys sit quietly and read magazines or play with toys for 2 hours. At least until one of them finally did something interesting and threw a tantrum saying "I can't stay here any longer, I have to go home!" In my head I was thinking,"I'm right there with you my friend".
However, this past week I was finally out of my observational period, and have been given 9 learners with whom I will be doing occupational therapy this term. They (and I) need your prayers on this as I have basically given myself a crash course on OT, and yet here I am trying to help them with their motor development in the next four months. The certified OT (Eleen) with whom I am working has assured me that just the one-on-one attention and exercise I give them is important and that I shouldn't get discouraged if I feel like I'm not "doing anything" with them, but I'd like to actually help these kids if that's what I'm here for. All of them are really sweet and range in age from 6-14. After one meeting, they have all been mostly cooperative, but I still am working on trying to parse out when they are not following directions because of lack of ability or understanding, and when they just don't want to listen to me. We're getting there. I've also started to get to know the other intern at Alpha, who is an American woman my age named Britany, from Scranton, PA. She's very opinionated and sarcastic which makes her a fun person to listen to when she gets going in a rant. Luckily, we share a lot of the same views, so I've been having a good time laughing with her in our volunteer room while we do "administrative work". Lately, this has mostly meant coloring and painting, so I can't complain.
Well, I have a date with a movie, a cupcake, and our house's rooftop pillows, so I am going to say goodbye for now!
No comments:
Post a Comment