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Foundations Blog 2

Within the last few weeks I have held the three occupations of work, leisure, and education.  The first of these occupations I will discuss is the occupation of work.  Every summer since I was around the age of 13 I have had a job in babysitting or childcare.  The first three summers in college I nannied for the same family with one girl and one boy.  Unfortunately, this summer the children in this family had outgrown the need for constant supervision so I had to find another family in need.  I ended up nannying an eighteen month old little girl named Cayli and she was the highlight of my summer.  While this occupation is considered work because it was technically my job for nearly fourth months, I highly enjoyed it to the point where it did not always feel like work.  This occupation relates to time in all senses; it brought nostalgia to me and my whole family with memories of myself as a child, it is present in time because Cayli made me live each day to the fullest and radiated happiness, and the future because it proved that I could handle caring for children in my career and possibly of my own. In terms of personal satisfaction, this occupation of work did fulfill a personal need of caring for another person that totally depended on me for 45 hours per week.  I have not had that sense of responsibility before when caring for another person, because usually the children I watch are elementary aged or older, and Cayli opened my eyes to the personal satisfaction one can get from helping care for another human being.  

 The second occupation that I have held recently is the occupation of leisure.  Even though I spent every Monday through Friday, 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM, holding the occupation of work by nannying, every weekend and one week of vacation let me hold the occupation of leisure or rest.  I know when I began my summer of work that if I wanted to maintain good mental and social health that I would need to build in time for leisure.  In order to do this I went to the gym everyday after work for an hour to an hour and a half, which provided me with great stress relief and a sense of personal satisfaction.  While other people do value the occupation of leisure because of its increasing importance to mental health, that was not the main reason that I gained satisfaction.  Instead, this occupation made me feel as if I was being good to myself by doing a healthy behavior that I also enjoy.  I could easily engage in this occupation of leisure by watching Netflix and laying in bed all afternoon, but instead this activity of going to the gym improves my physical and mental health.  This occupation relates to time in terms of the future.  I want to continue this practice of going to the gym every afternoon throughout OT school and my career to keep the maintenance of my physical and mental health.  This is very important to me as I have combatted my anxiety, and lost quite a bit of weight, by engaging in this occupation and I will strive to maintain that.  

 The last occupation that I will discuss here is my most recent occupation of education.  While I have been a student for seventeen years, this year begins a different level in that occupation.  I have worked very hard to have the honor of engaging in this occupation of education at a graduate level studying Occupational Therapy and I do not take it for granted at all.  This occupation relates to time in terms of nostalgia and the future.  It brings me nostalgia by reflecting on all of the work I went through just one year ago to apply to Winston Salem State only in hopes of being accepted.  It also brings me visions of the future because I can visualize what my future career will look like after learning all of the information this program will teach me.  I am very excited to see where my first job will be, in what population I will inevitably decide to focus on, and if my career will keep me in Winston-Salem or if it will take me elsewhere.  This occupation brings me personal satisfaction by making me self-aware of my intelligence and skills that lead me to being accepted into this program and also leaves me open to knew opportunities that will be presented along the way.  As an OT I have to continue this self-awareness as a student in fieldwork sites and this skill will only continue as I transition from student to OTR.  Also, as mentioned previously, I have to be open to new opportunities to work with populations and to travel to new locations that I have not considered before.  

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