'Occupational' Growth?

I always said I wanted this blog to be a true, personal reflection of my experience as a student; and that's just what this post will be.

To be honest I am once again feeling the pressures of masters level study as the upcoming assessed presentation grows ever near and with my research proposal also on the back burner. I'm finding it hard juggling the two with preparing for and attending classes, commuting and working. It also makes it harder when the rest of the uni campus is deserted as most of the other courses have finished for the summer... nope not us! Our research is not due in until the 14th August when we will finally get a small break before returning in September.

But, no one ever said it was going to be easy! So today I took a deep breath and I realised just how much I have developed over the past 9 months. 

In our final class for our Applied OT module the lecturer set us a creative task (which I loved of course!) where we had to create an image/metaphor to represent our journey during the module, and in fact, I feel it represents the whole course really!

My group created an image of a tree (I've decided I must have 'a thing' about trees!) and it represents our journey through theory and growth in knowledge and also the journey of a patient through the OT process. The little nest represents placement - an integral part of our journey where we reinforce our knowledge and fledge the nest at the end filled with new knowledge. The branches represent the different journey's of OT intervention, with liasing with different professionals, setting goals and revising each step throughout the process, taking different angles and making changes.

The course for me has been positive in more ways than one! If you have read any of my past posts from my last placement you will re-call me discussing realising some of my limitations in situations during placement. By this, I meant difficulties in my ability to learn and difficulties highlighted to me through administering cognitive assessments. This week I was assessed and diagnosed as having a specific learning disability, I have Dyscalculia. 

This is no surprise to me as I have struggled specifically with numbers and my ability to retain certain information my whole life! However, it has always been overlooked as I worked to a good level in all of my other classes in school. No one has ever really taken it seriously and I feel so re-assured now that I know the reasons why I have difficulties with certain things, and that there are other people out there like me and people that understand and can help/support me!

So over-all i'm currently feeling anxious and stressed however, this is such a positive adventure for me in which I have learned and gained so much so far!

To help alleviate some of our concerns - our lovely lecturer gave us another creative activity (which I loved!) To create origami boxes and fill it with positive words of support and thoughts to help us get through our presentations.

My little box of thoughts... yes, that is some chocolate too!

...And of course we will all be absolutely fine!