Ways to decrease possible study time - volunteer!
So, I started volunteering at hospitals a few years back, when Keltie and I lived like two blocks away from one. I volunteered on a ward mainly filled with hip and knee replacement patients, and got my roommate's kitten PATS certified (behaviour tested and fully vaccinated etc.) so I could bring it inside the hospital to visit people. That was a slick way to break the ice - even a sick ornery person is probably going to soften if you start off with "would you like to see my kitten?" and you wave a furry squirming ball with 7 toes on each front foot. The biggest problem was just visiting the patients . . . going past the nurses station was made difficult by the mob of employees that would rush us, to get at the kittens. Even the nurse who swore she was really just a dog person was a sucker for the 'mutant furballs'.
This summer, I lived with the parents and volunteered at the local long term care ward where my grandpa lives, mainly helping out with Sunday morning bingo. Basically, most of the patients couldn't see the numbers, hear the numbers, or understand the numbers . . . you might think this would be irritating, but it was much more rewarding than I expected. I got to know the patients, and say when a dementia patient had a good day and caught on, I would be just as charmed as when a small child learns a new trick.
This summer was especially useful in that I rapidly learned how to asess mental states. Of course I try not to speak in idiot-sugary-voice to anyone, but obviously it takes a very different mindset to get the most out of a conversation with residents who are more coherent than I am, and those who don't know their own name on a good day. It takes practice to do the mental reset in one second between Alice (who does her 4 bingo cards and easily helps the 2 deaf people beside her), and a stroke patient who says 'buh-bye, buh-bye' as her only word, and it means everything from "I'm thirsty", "I need you to wheel me to my room" and "See you later". (I don't know that resident's name, and I'm not sure if she does either anymore).
I came back to my university digs this September, and decided to take advantage of the long term care hospital right around the corner. (Or maybe decided they could take advantage of me? They say that volunteers save the health system untold millions of dollard in BC alone). My volunteer coordinator gave me just two people to visit with each week, and after hearing of my previous experiences, she gave serious thought to my matches.
My first match is an Aussie just recently confined to a wheelchair without the use of his arms. It took like two minutes for me to realize that he was willing to let me use acronyms in Scrabble because there was virtually no way I was going to beat him without help, despite the fact that he can't poke and rearrange his letters around to stimulate word formation. His mind is far more orderly than mine, and I bet he's used to hanging around with university profs, like his wife . . . let alone his old coworkers from one of the few newspapers even I read. Anyways, next time I am going to show up early and bring an Oxford dictionary, so we can get me up to current competition standards. I am already brainstorming ways to bring other people into the game . . . preferably people who I can beat by just a little.
I asked the other resident that I visit if he would like to play . . . he said sure, but he can't spell. He's always needed full-on care, so maybe he didn't go to school much. This doesn't stop him from knowing far more than I about current movie download sites. When he answered 'women' to my obligatory "what sort of interests do you have" question, I thought it was pretty entertaining. I told him that I wanted to hear one really cheesy pickup line, each week . . . like the "Excuse me, have we met before? Oh, only in my dreams" variety. Him and his roommate thought that was hilarious, and we went on and talked about horror films, bad movie endings, massive ammounts of coffee consumption, etc.
So, please leave any scrabble tips, or any cheesy pickup lines of note, below as comments!
This summer, I lived with the parents and volunteered at the local long term care ward where my grandpa lives, mainly helping out with Sunday morning bingo. Basically, most of the patients couldn't see the numbers, hear the numbers, or understand the numbers . . . you might think this would be irritating, but it was much more rewarding than I expected. I got to know the patients, and say when a dementia patient had a good day and caught on, I would be just as charmed as when a small child learns a new trick.
This summer was especially useful in that I rapidly learned how to asess mental states. Of course I try not to speak in idiot-sugary-voice to anyone, but obviously it takes a very different mindset to get the most out of a conversation with residents who are more coherent than I am, and those who don't know their own name on a good day. It takes practice to do the mental reset in one second between Alice (who does her 4 bingo cards and easily helps the 2 deaf people beside her), and a stroke patient who says 'buh-bye, buh-bye' as her only word, and it means everything from "I'm thirsty", "I need you to wheel me to my room" and "See you later". (I don't know that resident's name, and I'm not sure if she does either anymore).
I came back to my university digs this September, and decided to take advantage of the long term care hospital right around the corner. (Or maybe decided they could take advantage of me? They say that volunteers save the health system untold millions of dollard in BC alone). My volunteer coordinator gave me just two people to visit with each week, and after hearing of my previous experiences, she gave serious thought to my matches.
My first match is an Aussie just recently confined to a wheelchair without the use of his arms. It took like two minutes for me to realize that he was willing to let me use acronyms in Scrabble because there was virtually no way I was going to beat him without help, despite the fact that he can't poke and rearrange his letters around to stimulate word formation. His mind is far more orderly than mine, and I bet he's used to hanging around with university profs, like his wife . . . let alone his old coworkers from one of the few newspapers even I read. Anyways, next time I am going to show up early and bring an Oxford dictionary, so we can get me up to current competition standards. I am already brainstorming ways to bring other people into the game . . . preferably people who I can beat by just a little.
I asked the other resident that I visit if he would like to play . . . he said sure, but he can't spell. He's always needed full-on care, so maybe he didn't go to school much. This doesn't stop him from knowing far more than I about current movie download sites. When he answered 'women' to my obligatory "what sort of interests do you have" question, I thought it was pretty entertaining. I told him that I wanted to hear one really cheesy pickup line, each week . . . like the "Excuse me, have we met before? Oh, only in my dreams" variety. Him and his roommate thought that was hilarious, and we went on and talked about horror films, bad movie endings, massive ammounts of coffee consumption, etc.
So, please leave any scrabble tips, or any cheesy pickup lines of note, below as comments!
posted by Lu Hill at 6:55 p.m.
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