You know your an OT student when...

You know you are an OT student when you are washing your hair and when you close your eyes you think to yourself, "Boy it would suck to be blind and have a problem with your vestibulocochlear nerve."
For those of you who don't know, your vestibulocochlear nerve is a nerve that helps with balance. If it stops functioning properly you will have trouble balancing with your eyes closed because you now rely heavily on your sight to keep your balance. In other words, if you were blind and you had vestibulocochlear dysfunction, keeping balance would be hard.

You randomly think to yourself while watching people move what muscles they are using for those movements.
Nerdy, I know. :P

When you fidget you now focus on joints that you either didn't know existed or had never thought about before. 
I am a fidgeter (is that a word?), always have been. Now when I fidget I fidget by moving my sternoclavicular joint (the joint between your breast and collar bones) and my carpometacarpal joints (the joints between your bones of the wrist and the bones of the palm of your hand. :P

In the circle is your sternoclavicular joint. You can feel it move by putting
your fingers on that spot and moving your shoulder forwards and backwards.
Source:
 http://classconnection.s3.amazonaws.com/533/flashcards/1013533/png/sternoclavicular_joint1351469769017.png

The circles represent the carpometacarpal joints. You don't palpate the joints
so much as make the metacarpal move ( the long skinny bones in the picture).
 Joints 2 and 3 don't have much movement at all but you can get 1, 2, and 5 to move. Try it sometime ;)
Source: http://www.mananatomy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/carpometacarpal_joints.jpg

Now that you know just how weird I am let's proceed to a recap of my week.

First week of classes are over, hooray, although, I will be a lot more excited after next week when I have survived a full week of classes.

The first week back is always an adjustment and next week will be even more of one, having a complete week of classes. Second semester always seems harder than first semester, I think it's because some of the novelty of being in school has began to wear off. Nevertheless, I will make it through. I always do. :P

Have a great one!
-Veronica

Final Days of Break

Can I just say that keeping my new years resolution of writing at least once a week on my blog is a lot harder than you would think. :P I mean you would think it would be easy but for someone like me, who tends to over think things it can be quite daunting. What's interesting enough in my life to share via my blog? What's too personal? What's so trivial that it's just ridiculous to talk about?

Alright, enough about that. :P As to my other new years resolution, about not procrastinating, it's a work in progress. Some days I manage to be productive but most days I fall into my old patterns of being highly unproductive.

This break has certainly been interesting. The holidays were very different without my little sister, Constance, but they were much better than I ever could have anticipated they would be, given the circumstances. It's weird feeling that way, that you can be happy when you have so much to be sad about but I guess that's what moving on is like. You can't forget the past but you can't live in it either.

I am nervous but excited to begin my new semester. I love learning, and in spite of all the work involved do enjoy school. I am also excited to see my classmates again and continue my journey towards becoming an occupational therapist.

Well, that's all I can come up with for the time being. Perhaps I will have more interesting news to report next week, after classes have began.

Blessings,
Veronica

I Love To Read

If you didn't already know, I'm kind of an introvert. I love hanging out and working with people but my favorite thing to do is to curl up with a good book.

My favorite thing to read is romance. Not just any romance though. I love to read inspirational romance. Also known as Christian fiction. Specifically I like to read Harlequin's Love Inspired Books. 

Though I like other forms of romance, there are several reasons I like inspirational romance better:

1. The focus on characters attributes are not on physical attractiveness or sex appeal. 

-I don't know about you but I do not focus on a person's physical attributes when I interact with them. I love people for who they are on the inside, as cliche as that may sound, and I expect nothing less from the books I read. Unfortuanately, more often then not, general romance focus's on attractiveness and you are left with appealing but shallow characters. 

2. Love or hate the book, I usually learn something.

-This is not to say that inspirational romance is preachy. Some of the books I have read have been preachy but this tends to be the exception rather than the rule. If you are not Christian or have a problem with people talking about God consistently you will probably feel that all the books are preachy but I don't usually feel they are. 

Most of the Christian teachings that can be found in the book relate directly to scripture and can be applied to most denominations of Christianity. These are teachings about things like strength and resiliency. 

3. I love how inexpensive the books are. 

-These books only run about $5.50 a piece new.
I am a poor college student and have not bought a new inspirational romance book in years but the inexpensive starting price makes for an even more inexpensive retail price. On Ebay you can often purchase the books in lots and it comes down to paying only about $0.50-$2.00 a book depending on the seller. 

4. The quality of the writing. 

-Despite the books inexpensive price, the books are quite good. There are some authors who can write better than others and there are some authors whom I cannot stand their writing style but overall the writing is high quality. 

5. Happy Endings.

-Okay, so all romances tend to have happy endings but that is one of the draws of reading these books. You aren't left crying at the end because of all the bad things that the characters never resolved. In my opinion that  makes for good reading.

I'll be done gushing for now about how much I love these books but I'm sure I will come back to it sometime in the future. 

Blessings,

Veronica 

Welcome to 2013

Hey Everyone,

Welcome to 2013. The year we weren't sure was going to come (Mayan Calendar Anyone?) but at last it's here. Adios 2012, I am so glad you are gone.

Last year I made a resolution to take more control of my life instead of just letting things happen to me. I am happy to report that although I do still struggle with this I am much better at it then I was.

For this year's resolution, I have decided to reduce my procrastination. I was really bad at this last year. I have always been a really bad procrastinator. I know that there is no way I can completely eliminate this but I would really like to reduce the amount that I procrastinate, especially when it comes to school work.

This semester I will not be able to come home as often as I did last semester. Since it's really only my family and friends who read my blog, my other resolution is to blog at least once a week. I'm not sure if this will work but we'll give it a try. :)

Happy New Year Everyone! Good luck with your own new year resolutions!

Peace Out.
-Veronica