Carle Volunteer - Acute Care

Last year, I volunteered at Carle Hospital's Rehab Unit. I helped an Occupational Therapist (OT) assist in activities of daily living (cleaning, dressing) and start rehabilitation exercises.

This semester, I volunteered at Carle Hospital's Acute Care Unit. In this unit, the patients aren't in rehab yet. This department of OTs are in charge of assessing whether or not a patient needs OT. I shadowed an OT as we went around to all parts of the hospital--Cardiac Center, Primary Stroke Center, Intensive Care Unit (ICU) etc--to evaluate the patients' level of functioning.

I can't wait until I can continue next semester. Hopefully, my schedule permits me to volunteer in Outpatient. When I first volunteered in Carle Hospital's Rehab Unit, that was inpatient. After their time there, some patients would go to an outpatient facility (out of the hospital) where they continue their rehabilitation. During outpatient, patients are usually stronger and more independent. They've regained a lot of strength, but they may still need help getting back to their normal level of daily life functioning. For example, if a stroke patient has lost their ability to use their right side but they're strong enough to work with their left arm and leg, during outpatient therapy the individual may work on adapting new ways to cook and clean and change and bathe. They're relearning skills to regain their independence.

I haven't had an opportunity to observe here yet, but we'll see....maybe next semester.

I Quit...

I thought about it all the time...before class, during class, while eating, while homeworking, while studying. It became such a big part of my life, and I loved it. But at the same time, I hated it. It was draining so much of my energy day in and day out and frankly, I really didn't need it in my life right now. It was useless. On December 5th, 2011, I had a kind of intervention with my roommate/best friend Jeff. It was time I let it go and call it quits.

On December 5th, I decided to officially stop playing Tetris battle on Facebook.

I tried to make it sound really dramatic in the beginning, but my bad habit probably isn't thaat dramatic. It was pretty bad though. You know you have to stop when you wake up in the morning groggy as hell, turn on the laptop, and immediately start playing. You know you have to stop when you stay up until 4am in the morning on school nights just playing Tetris. And you definitely know you have to start when you imagine tiles falling in all your lectures. Day dreams are supposed to be cooler than that!

In all seriousness, it was a nasty habit and whenever there's a habit, you gotta kick it! That's one of my philosophies--I don't like making habits of anything. The idea of being so dependent on something is so unappealing. I don't want to have to do anything. I don't want to have to clean or have to exercise or have to ... shower. LOL! If I don't do it, it won't kill me. I want to have the control... I don't want a habit to control me. I wanted the freedom of choice, but there was no freedom from Tetris until I quit it. It was very obsessive and it wasted so much of my time--time I could have spent with my friends or myself or my studies ETC ETC ETC.

Since quitting tetris, I was able to allot my time so much more productively. My proudest achievement is that I started reading more. ("What?! Henry Guan reads?!") Yeah, jerks!! I've been reading!! AND MORE!!!

Reading. Blogging. Yoga. Reading Blogs. Reading About Yoga. Reading Blogs About Yoga.

My name is Henry Guan, and I'm a Tetris-holic. NOT! 


^^^----that was a lame way to end a post.

                        ^^^----that was a lam-ER way to end a post.

Pasta Tex Mex Mess

We all love food. We all eat food...so I'm going to keep having food posts. Besides, as I said in an earlier post, I'm really happy with myself...that I'm cooking things.

/goes back to check previous posts.

Okay... I can't find if I actually posted anywhere that I'm really proud of myself. It may have been another one of those things where I only had the thought in my mind, but I also thought I said it or wrote it or otherwise. You guys have had that right?

Person 1: Hey! You never reminded me to take a shower yesterday!
You: Yeah, I did. I called you right after The Price Is Right.
Person 1: I never got any phone calls.
You: Hm... I must have just thought I did all that. 


As I'm reading that, I'm getting confused. Basically, I made up a memory. I have a lot of those moments. They're pretty funny in hindsight though.

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Anyways, I was really hungry and just as I was about to make rice, I decided to make pasta instead. I haven't made it all semester even though we have about 8 boxes of pasta in our apartment.

"Macro"

"Flash"

Ingredients

-whole wheat pasta

-potatoes (cubed)

-onions 

-Ragu pasta sauce

-Tex Mex Fiesta seasoning

-sharp cheddar cheese

My thought/cooking

-Scooping rice. "Hm...I've never made pasta. Let's have that instead"

-"We still have potatoes from the beginning of the semester and onions from Thanksgiving"

-Cuts up potatoes and onions

-Boils pasta, potatoes, and onions all together

-Once ingredients are fully cooked, brought it from Med heat to Low heat

-Pour in Ragu sauce

-"Hm... I want to add more stuff" Scans counter of seasonings--salt, pepper, olive oil, soy sauce, cinnamon, lemon pepper, TEX MEX FIESTA SEASONING. "I don't know if I've ever had this."

-Dump a bunch of Tex Mex Fiesta Seasoning onto pot and mix.

-Dump pasta into bowl

-"Hm....is there anything else I can add" Sees bag of sharp cheddar with a little left

-Sprinkle cheese on top of pasta and microwave.

-Eat!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The other day, I was talking to my little cousin Jerry about cooking and how neither of us really know how. I can throw ingredients together and create foods that are edible (at least for me), but I'm not even close to being able to say I can cook. Jerry and I are planning to learn to cook over winter break. We don't know what we'll be cooking, but I'm super excited! 

Fried Ricer

Man oh man, I've been really happy with myself lately. I'm actually cooking things. I know it's nothing fancy, but I'm actually choosing to cook real food instead of just eating cereal or eating out. My main motivation -- not wasting food.

Today afternoon (does that sound right?...."today afternoon"), I made fried rice! Yum!!

Ingredients
-leftover rice from two days ago
-leftover green beans from two days ago
-last egg left
-spam

"Got rice, ____? Got rice? Got food, got soup, got spice?"

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I just finished my fried rice, and I'm still hungry. Now I'm gonna eat some cereal.
.
.
.
.
.
Yum...Oatmeal Squares.

We Got Stacks

Boy oh boy! The first week back to work after Thanksgiving break was rough!!

I don't know if it's that I'm not used to the work anymore after a whole week off, or was it really as busy as it felt?

A half hour felt like an hour. An hour felt like two hours. By the time it was the end of the 5-hour shift, it felt like a whole day has gone by.

Regardless, we still gotta have fun in the dishroom, right?

Sadly, I only have two more weeks working in the dishroom, so I want to enjoy it while it lasts. It really was a great job!

Feeling French.

I had about a whole loaf of bread I've had since two weeks ago, and I was afraid it'll go bad....


"it has already gone past it's 'sell by' date...but it's been preserved in the fridge...but it's been two weeks...but it's a whole loaf of bread"

....so I ate it all.

I ate 4 slices on its own and I French toasted about 11 and I still have a few slices left.

HOW?!?!

Anyways, it was delicious but dry.....but delicious.

Ingredients
-bread
-eggs
-Vanilla extract
-ground cinnamon
-table sugar
-LOVE (<----womp womp...uncreative...lame)