After completing about 15 hours of volunteering with hospice patients, I have found that I keep learning more and more every time I meet with a new patient. I spent about 6 hours last Saturday with an elderly man named Paul, who is 86 years old but is still talking and walking like someone much younger than he. Paul was diagnosed with Malignant Melanoma (the deadliest type of skin cancer) a little bit over a year ago, and over the course of the past year the cancer metastasized (spread) to his spine, pancreas, and liver. I can’t speak for everyone, but I know that if I was diagnosed with cancer of that degree and only given a mere 3 months to live, I would be in poor spirits. Paul on the other hand, has accepted the fact that he is going to die soon and is just trying to make the rest of his life the best that it can be. Since my career goal is to become an Oncologist of some sort, I think that it is very useful for me to be volunteering with hospice patients because if I become an Oncologist, I am going to be the one telling patients that they don’t have long to live and trying to save their lives. It is extremely emotional but I am making it so far!
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Monday, April 28, 2008
Where Debot Goes #4
Friday, April 25, 2008
Where Debot Goes.
Hold your horses!
This weekend I had to come back home for some various things and offered to help out at the farm I volunteer for down here, which is a therapy riding center (for children with disabilities) they needed people to feed the horses this weekend. So waking up near the time I go to bed on the weekends I headed over there to feed. It was nice to see how all the critters were doing. I also found my Black horse, Dimma (which means darkness in icelandic), who is an icelandic pony and is all black with no bleaching Bleaching is a problem that I was having with the horses I was finding, where they are classified as black, but they have lighter spots by their legs, face, and mane from the sun. I also have to learn how to lunge a horse before summer, when I have to ride full time (oh darn) so I tried on this little fat mini horse, Steve, ( his head reaches about my waist) ... who is about the same size around as he is tall. He did not want to humor me! We would run down the pasture ( i would take big walking strides) and then try to lunge, as soon as we got set up for lunging (which is basically having the horse do circles around you while attached by a lead rope..) he started refusing, he would just turn his body enough, and then try to kick me. He is a very bitter little horse, he tried to kick me while I was feeding him earlier. I still have the rest of the weekend to work with him, if all else fails, I can work with one of the more trained larger horses, but wheres the fun in that.
I found it funny that when I was feeding I managed to tell one of the horses to well, hold you horses... I laughed out loud.. and horse just stole the hay while I was being amused by my unintended pun.
It was dumpy weather this morning so no pictures. Will edit the ones in of the critters at the barn here in MN.
Weekly Update
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Humane Society
Monday, April 21, 2008
Sturgeon Patrol
Friday, April 18, 2008
Cellular Respiration
Sturgeon Patrol
Andy and I are both looking forward to our service learning. It is going to be a big day. After class on Wednesday we are going to pack up a cooler of soda, some lawn chairs and some flashlights and our cameras. We are going to leave Stevens Point around 4:30 PM. We will drive 60 miles to Shiocton. We then have to go to “fish camp.” Here we get a meal and they then train us on what to do, give us a sack lunch, and assign us to and area. Once we get to and area, we are stationed there until 7 AM. While here our job is to make sure nobody harasses the fish or tries to catch them. If they do we will call it in on the supplied cell phone. Then we are going to drive back and be back in time to go to lab at 9. We are going to nap a lot before going to this because it is going to be a long time to go without sleep. I think it is going to be interesting to watch the sturgeon. They are such a prehistoric fish and a large fish.
autism night at the childrens museum
CPS Daycare
Service-learning project
dorm room sickness
Our project is coming along and we have a pamphlet made up. We are still working on ways to make it more aesthetically pleasing and easier to read. One thing I thought of overnight was do we have to get our posters approved for being able to be put up or are we allowed to just tape them to the walls. I know in the dorms some things are just on the walls but around campus theres things that say UWSP approved or something like that. On our pamphlet's we covered common infections and sicknesses you could get staying in a dorm becuase of the close contact and company of having a roomate. We tell how you get it, what it is, the symptoms, and how to treat it as well as the duration of the infections. As for now, thats all we've done but we plan on getting together this week and take care of a few things.
common dorm sicknesses
So far everything is going well. The members of our group are working together well and we are starting to see some good progress. Bathroom signs have started to go up and they seem to be going over well. We still need to figure out a date for an infomational and questions session but everything else is going smooth.
The significance of our work is to help educate students about some of the common sicknesses and diseases in the dorms and how to prevent them. I think this is important because keeping students healthy can only benefit there academic experience at there respected college.
Four Hoofed fun!
I have more pictures than I could imagine what to do with. Though its mainly because I have gotten distracted while at the horse rescue by either taking portraits of my friend for her mom to print out and hang on the fridge, or the sheer thrill of trying to take pictures of the horses as they run all over with spring fever, and taking pictures of that instead of my project. Everyone is still pretty filthy, even though we did go out with brushes these kids needs a hose or something!
So far I have 4 pigments on the page (Bay, Chestnut, Dapple Gray, and Roan) Though the roan is the only one in the format that I want it. Where there is a thumb of a focused point.. I am in the process of putting text on 4 more (Appaloosa, Paint, Palomino, and Silver Dapple) and than I still have to find a good picture out of my stock of oh.. 500 pictures of a good gray (which looks white) a black (without too much bleaching) and edit those.
As for the service part, the last few times we have gone out there, the owner Mary, had already gotten the chores done. So this last time we didn't know a head of time. So we just swept the isle and than picked up the trash around the pastures. I learned twice that the fence was on (which it usually isnt) due to that had a close contact with what I hope was mud, but I know it was 90% not.
I really could use some feedback on the website, since my roommate has no idea what I am going on about half the time.
and that is http://fadedoak.com/uwsp/project.htm
Also the pictures included are are Shakira, who decided to roll in what we are going to call mud, you can see on her inner leg and her face what color she SHOULD be, but isnt. There is also a picture of the farm from the road, its only one of the pastures, theres about 30 horses there or so. (PS, the on lying down is not dead, he just enjoys sunning himself) The pictures of the horses running are of the two new rescues, they are both untrained, and nearly ran me over. The cat is patches, who is just as much as this project as any of the horses, she will jump up into your arms if you want her to or not. That little dent in her fur is where she burned her head on a lamp. Shes not the smartest thing...
Animation
Our group also met this week Thursday after lab got out. During our time together we began making preliminary sketches of what the animation is actually going to look like along with a very primitive script which will be easier to refine later on. We discussed back and forth the information that we believed to important and what information we absolutely needed in order for the whole process to make sense.
Our next meeting time is after lecture next Tuesday.
Humane Society
Thursday, April 17, 2008
While talking with one of the patients, she asked me what my name was and where I was from. I told her my name is Kayla and I grew up in Green Bay, and she asked if I liked it and I said I did. She then answered well that's great and gave me a big smile. I walked away and came back about two minutes later, and I was surprised that she asked me the same exact question, and had the same responses. I know this is from her dementia, but it still surprised me.
This past week I went in on Wednesday since I had some time, and I hadn't been there since the friday before. I was very surprised when one of the patients who's dementia is pretty severe came up to me and said," Oh your back again!" She then asked what we were going to do that day, so I really think she rememered me. That was such a great feeling because I felt like it really means something when I come in and spend time with them. Even though I work there, the patients don't remember who I am, and always aske me my name, so it was great to know that doing the extra activities was giving us a better relationship.
Cellular Respiration On Track #2
Sunshine and Schmeekle
This week, Lauren and I ventured out to Schmeekle again to check out how it looks since we've had such nice weather. The trails were almost all dried out from the rain and snow, so we got to work clearing out extra brush and debris that could get in the way of bikers, runners, or people just walking and enjoying the scenery. We picked up A LOT of litter as well, which really enhanced how pretty the environment is out there. In addition, we looked around for a type of weed, which is an invasive species in Schmeekle, but we didn't see any. We actually walked in pretty far since it was so nice out, and saw a variety of wildlife including ducks, several birds, a few rabbits, and a small rodent or two. It's a great feeling to be helping out in Schmeekle, especially with the nice weather because we're helping others enjoy wildlife without having to step over a bunch of litter and debris. It's also good to know that the animals don't have to deal with it either. It should be fun to go out there more now that it keeps getting warmer!
Service Learning- YMCA
Last Monday at the Y, there were only two kids working out, so when they were done, I went to the other section of the room and played air hockey and pool against James who come to Family Prime Time. I learned that his father is a physical therapist who works in Stevens Point, which I found interesting because that is what I planned on going into. It was fun switching up what I do from working out to having fun, it was a good change of pace. In my time at the YMCA, I learned all that kids can do to get into or stay in shape from a very early age. The Y offers many programs for the kids ranging from the machines that only work by resistance, to exercise programs that involve running and being aerobically active. I believe that this volunteering has helped shed some light on what I want to do with my life. I learned that I really like working with kids and I also like making muscled work correctly, so I think my thoughts about becoming a physical therapist are very good, maybe I should specialize in pediatrics. Based on the service I had, people can really make a difference in the community. I found myself looking forward to Mondays because I got to go volunteer at the Y and have a good time doing it. The people who work there have a really sweet gig. They get to play with the kids or help them work out and they get paid for it.
Where Debot Goes #3
Update
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Enjoying the nice weather
My partner and I were once again out at Schmeekle, however we had much nicer weather this week so we got a lot more done. Most of the trails are now dry so we began cleaning the trails. We cleared any debris away, as well as any litter. The guy in charge of the center told us also to look out for a type of weed. This weed is an invasive species that they try to get rid of. We did not see any; it is probably still a little early.
I think that the work Sarah and I are doing provides a great service to the community because we are allowing the public to observe the natural surroundings without any distractions. With clear and clean trails visitors are allowed to see a wide variety of habitats as well as animals. It is only the beginning of spring and so far we have observed many kinds of birds, rabbits and other small rodents. It would be nice for the public to be able to enjoy these animals to.
Praire Chicken #2
I went out last week with some people from the TWS to watch and count the praire chickens. I had to be up at 4am and leave from the parking lot here at 445am so we could be in the blind before it started getting light out. That was the first day that the DNR was also there to try and trap the praire chicken to tag them and get a blood sample from them for the records. Well they had a big net set up in the middle of this big praire, and the chickens did not want nothing to do with it, they said it takes some getting use to. I did see maybe 7 total, a couple of them were all bloomed up, but they really were not close enough to get a real good look at them, I am going to try and get out again this week to watch if there is room, and for sure next week. I took my camera out, but they were too far away for a good picture. It was a long morning, and I hope the next tie I go it goes a little better. April 14, 2008 12:31 PM
Praire Chicken #1
For this week with my project I went to a meeting in the TNR to learn how to keep records on the Praire Chickens. Starting next Tuesday, it sounded like everyday in the month of April they will leave here between 530am and 500am to drive about 15 minutes to Buena Vista to watch these Praire Chickens. I have now only got two days that I am signed up for, next Tuesday and the Tuesday after. I am also going to try and get in on a deer capturing effort before they are done with it for the year, this should all be very interesting.
March 26, 2008 11:03 PM
Oh Deer!!
The work that I am doing with the deer project is significant to many in the Stevens Point area. The deer herd on and around campus has grown to significant size and it is important that we understand how this herd works and monitor the deer for disease and overpopulation. I think with what I have learned working with the deer project it just further solidifies my desire to work in the wildlife management field. It is becoming increasingly important, especially in urban areas, that we learn to better manage the wildlife that are a integral part of our environment. Getting to work hands on with the deer on campus excited me for my future career and gave me some insight into what my future job may hold. I also got to know the types of skills and knowledge needed to work on a project like this one. It is important to understand the species you are working with and be able to understand how they make react or respond in certain situations. Trapping even the seemingly tame deer in Schmeekle is no easy task and requires knowledge of deer behavior. You can’t simply expect them to walk into the most obvious traps. You must account for their instinctive behaviors and plan accordingly. One of the biggest surprises to me was the amount of planning and behind the scenes work that goes into a project like this. Adam, the deer project leader, works nearly year round to keep the project working. He has to write a budget and lobby to college financial boards to receive funding for all his work. Him and his dad also spent much of Christmas break building the drop net that the project uses.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Adults or Children?
Well after the first 20 minutes it was very clear that all the residents were bored out of their minds, because most of them had fallen asleep at this point. That day, me and the other people I volunteer with were left alone and in charge of what we did for that hour. We all looked at each other and decided that this was not in any way helping to better these people. So we decided to turn on some music. This seemed to wake a few of them up. One of the residents (who happens to be someone I enjoy talking to and spending time with very much, not that I'm choosing favorites or anything :]), gave me an awful odd look when I started dancing and rocking out to 'Sweet Home Alabama'. I saw him staring at me and asked if he wanted to dance with me. When I grabbed his hand I felt him hold on real tight, and he gave me a big smile. After the song ended I got a beach ball and asked him if he wanted to hit it back and forth. He really seemed to like this idea. I'd throw it to him and he'd spike it right back. I told him that he could probably have started on my volleyball team in high school and he seemed to get a kick out of that.
The next activity we did was playing with the big ball again. This week I took some pictures so that you guys could get an idea of what exactly we do with them.
This particular activity seems to be pretty popular with the residents. They enjoy getting to kick the ball as hard as they can. At the same time this really helps them to get some blood flowing because as you can see from the pictures every single one of the residents is confined to a wheel chair.
It’s really starting to become clear to me that these people just want someone to spend time with them. They all seem so lonely and want someone to show them some form of love. One lady in particular always reaches for my hand whenever I’m near her. She just wants to feel that closeness to someone and feel the kindness from something as simple as me holding her hand. Doing this service learning project has really been an eye opening experience. It’s almost been like a slap in the face about how fortune we all have it and how precious life really is.
Reflection on Hospice Volunteering
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Where Debot Goes #2
Friday, April 11, 2008
Autism Night
Cellular Respiration Animation
Humane society
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Service Learning Day 2 - YMCA
First off, I need to clarify a few things. In my last post I said that kids ages 3-12 can use the exercise equipment. I misspoke. There is two rooms at Family Prime Time, the “weight room” and the play room. The play room is open to kids in grades kindergarten to sixth. The weight room is open to kids ages 7-12, which is much safer and makes sense. I am sorry for the wrong information. The Body Motion machines that the kids use were donated by Ministry Health Care. According to Ashley, the person working in the weight room, these machines are rare, not many places have them. The machines have five settings, they progressively get heavier by utilizing more of the person's body weight. The maximum that the kids can use is three quarters of their wight, which is a safe amount and will not stunt growth or have other side effects. There are 10 stations using legs, back, chest, shoulders, and abs. The kids are told to do around 15 reps and they do one circuit. They have to warm up by running on the treadmill of bike for a few minutes then stretch after the workout. Also, the kids can only work out three times a week so their body has time to heal. When someone new wants to work out, they have to go three orientations. The first and second orientations the kids have to do the exercises as the instructor tells them and the third orientation is in front of their parents and instructor to show the parents that they can do the exercises. I also found out the date of the earth day activities, but still don't really know what I will be doing there.
Monday, April 7, 2008
Autism Night
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Sturgeon Patrol Update 1
This week in sturgeon patrol I was expecting to receive an email from the coordinator of the program concerning details about our volunteering. The schedule was to be posted by April 1 but was not posted. I received an email that information would be sent out by Friday afternoon concerning the missing information and it still did not come. I did find out some information about what we are going to be doing from some who are involved while I was making phone calls. It sounds as though Chad Leanna and I will need to arrive a little before 7:00 pm where we will be briefed about what we need to do. This will include making sure people don’t tamper with the fish while they spawn. The locations we will be watching include shallow stretches of the river as well as some commonly used rock piles that are popular for the sturgeon. The shift will be from 7 to 7 and the program will provide us with 3 separate meals including dinner when we arrive, a midnight snack, and a breakfast before we leave in the morning. We signed up for 3 different night shifts on April 23, 24, and 30. Hopefully by next week the dnr will have a schedule out that will let us know when we will be watching the sturgeon. The reason for the delay on scheduleing could be because of the weather because the movement of the sturgeon as well as when they spawn is directly dependant on the weather and the water temperature. If the conditions are not right then the fish will not move up into the river.
Friday, April 4, 2008
fun at the childrens museum
Today my group which includes tyler nigon and amy simmons went down to the childrens museum and worked with the kids and talked to them about birds. we had a fun project for them which was making bird feeders with pinecones, peanut butter, and bird seed. most of the kids came and went which we didnt expect so much. we planned on talking to a group and then letting them build the feeders but this didnt happen. instead we each talked to the kids about birds as they built there own feeders. it was really interesting to hear what they knew about birds wether it was true or not. we talked to them about where they lived and wuth kinds of birds they knew. we also talked about some of the more common types of birds like ducks and geese and morning doves. i was aslo suprised as to how much they wanted to learn by asking questions. it was a lot of fun to do, even the parents thought it was fun. they thought it was a great project for the kids especially since we talked to them about birds. it was a big mess playing with the peanut butter and seed. peanut butter got all over, my hands were coverd with it and seed and looked like a bird feeder themselves. it was also pretty funny cause a couple of the younger kids one boy in particular keep trying to eat the peanut butter off of the pine cones while they were putting it on.
Children's Museum
Cleaning Schmeekle
Children's Museum
Where Debot Goes #2
Our project on “Where Debot Goes” is coming along. Right now we are in the information gathering stages. I found an extremely helpful website that tells all about the human digestive system, all the parts, a detailed description of all of the parts and the problems that can go wrong with each part or problems patients have had. We are planning on for sure having a few informational posters to show the digestive system and maybe we will make a model to show a more 3-D view. We also plan on getting a hold of someone in the HEC so we can put our project on display. Soon we are going to get together to combine all of the information that we have found and then we will start working on the posters and the potential model. I really think I will learn a lot about some of the problems that you hear people have with their digestive system and overall it will be a good experience.
Dorm Sickness
Dorm sicknesses
Reasearch on our common dorm sicknesses is going ahead as planed. We have been able to narrow our search down to the more common sicknesses. There is alot of information and it is a little overwellming but we are making go progress. We have already started and are close to finishing our bathroom pamphlets but we are trying to think of ways to make the pamphlets alittle more exciting so people want to read them. One of the challenges that we have run across so far is trying to put the information we have collected into laymens terms so that people will understand the material. We are thinking of ways to make it a little more appealing to the eye aswell, which might include some pictures here and there. Other than a few bumps in the road everything is going well.
Humane Society
When Pigments Attack!
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Cellular Respiration: 2
This past week I finished researching the subject and have looked at quite a few different illustrations gathering ideas to put together the animation. Some of the illustrations we might even be able to use in the animation, that I believe will help give a big picture of things in a better way than I thought we could do by ourselves. I have also put together a list of the main steps in cellular respiration that are necessary to cover at any level, I tried to keep things simple enough for a large target area to understand the information provided. I haven't and won't be able to meet with the rest of my group until next week, due to work conflicts, but I will be trying to sending an e-mail to them so that they can use the information I have gathered to start working on a story board....which the last I knew will be the basis for the animation.
Service Learning - Day 1
Monday I started my service learning project at the YMCA in Stevens Point. I got to help kids ages 3-12 use weight lifting equipment. I thought this was dangerous, as I had always been taught that lifting before puberty was detrimental to growth and could make people permanently short. Marissa, the person in charge of the Family Prime Time fitness section, showed me that the kids cannot lift more than their own body weight. The machines are designed to convert the weight of the kids to a certain level of resistance so the kids cannot strain of otherwise injure themselves. Some of the kids are pretty new to the machines, so Marissa had to take them through every machine and show them how to do the exercise correctly. This actually took quite a long time. I had to try it, as it looked like it would be really easy. It wasn't. It is actually a good workout. I also learned that the YMCA has a large family event planned for Earth Day and I will be able to work with them during the entire activity, so I am pretty excited. I really enjoyed my couple of hours in the Y and am looking forward to doing it again next week.
Deer Project
Cellular Respiration On Track
Cellular Respiration-new group
I just switched groups due to a problem with volunteering at the humane society. I will now be working with Cody, Liz, and Steven. We have not meet yet but plan on meeting this week to catch me up in what they have already started. We will be doing a animation video of cellular respiration. We will be using video and photo shop to create this presentation. The presentation can be used to help many people of all ages to better understand how the process works. We hope this will help teacher so they can use it in there classes to present to the students. I am starting to look up information and diagrams on cellular respiration to help the group. I hope I learn and master how this processes works myself. I also hope I learn some more technology of computers so I can make more videos. This should be very interesting and helpful to many.
Bingo!
Dorm Awareness
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Cleaning Schmeekle
Another thing we noted was the return and awakening of some animals. Along the trail we noticed many birds chirping and a lot of rabbit droppings. This is definitely a sign that spring is on its way. Catching the eye of some ducks swimming in a puddle of what use to be a nature trail, certainly tells us that we have got some work cut out for us.