Culminating Blog Post

I used communication throughout my project by asking the student athletes how they feel and how sore their injury feels. You have to communicate with them in order to know what to do for the day. This is where the critical thinking comes into place. After the student athlete tells you how they feel you have to figure out what is going to be needed most. It could either be stretching, or exercises or massage etc. A lot of the times you have to use your creativity to accomplish what you and the athlete have to do. For example, if the athlete needs to work on their quad muscles you look for the items or materials they need such as a shuttle. Lastly, collaboration comes into the picture when it is time to start the work outs of the day. You have to put your part of the effort to help the student athlete. I used all these characteristics on my paper as well. I had to use my critical thinking and creativity to make my paper interesting and I had to communicate my thoughts with the reader.

I gained personal experience throughout my project by shadowing my mentor. I went an saw all the steps he had to follow in order to get where he wanted to be with the athlete. Also I helped him with a couple of athletes by stretching them out and setting up a heating towel or materials. It helped me feel good In a personal level. This project helped me socially because this plays a huge part in the profession. You have to be talkative and keep the athlete interested in order for the time to go by fast and make them feel comfortable. It helped me understand how to socialize with the patients the right way and not in an awkward way. Finally, it helped me intellectually because I learned a couple of injuries and how they happened. Surprisingly I understood the reasons and it all made sense in a strange way. It opened my mind to how amazing the human body works.

There were a couple of challenges that I encountered. One was how to have the student athletes or patients not feel awkward and doubtful around me. This was especially hard for me since I was just a high school student with no medical degree. However, watching my mentor work with them showed me how exactly to make them feel comfortable around me. He seemed very calm and confident and gave them a smile here and there. That is what I did and by the end of the day they spoke to me about their studies and their day. The second and last challenge was understanding why injuries happen and how they get fixed. It took me a while to wrap my head around what my mentor explained to me but it made sense after a while. In the end, I came to the conclusion that I want to do this as my career.    

Day 6

Again I reviewed the injury for another hour and I tried to memorize so I don't have to look at my paper much during my presentation. That went pretty well because I went through most of it without looking at the paper. Another hour was spent on doing the stretches and exercises on the assistant.
Total hours: 25 hours

Day 5

I reviewed for one hour the patellar tendonitis injury. I needed to remember what causes it and I needed to review the four stages. Then after, I reviewed for another hour how to address the problem and I did the exercises on my assistant.
Total Hours: 22 hours

Day 4

This day, my mentor and I did pretty much the same thing. He worked with the student athletes and explained their injuries to me. I stretched out some of them so they can go on the bike or start their everyday exercises. Finally, towards the end we reviewed the one specific injury I was going to concentrate on for my physical project. I was struggling at first then it al came to me. Then when I got home I reviewed more for an hour. My mentor left the last 4 hours for me to review at home and understand the injury more. I yet to do those hours.
Total Time: 21 hours

Day 3

Today was like any other day with my mentor. I went in and he was doing ultrasound therapy to an athelete. While he was doing that, he made me do a PNF stretch on a soccer player so she can go ahead and do her exercises. I stretched her out 5 times for 15 seconds on each leg. As i finished that he explained to me what her issue was. It turns out that she has pateller tendonitis. He did deep tissue massage on the damaged tendon and he was informing me how this would help her rehabilitate. Then we went into his office and he made me read a passage on a website on pateller tendonitis and how it is healed. After he told me to explain to him what i read and understood. The reason why he made me do this is because i will be demonstrating how to help heal this particular injury in my physical project. After that he asked me what else i was interested in and i said the back. After he showed me stretches for the back i went home. He told me to go home and study the knee and this particular injury. Also he told me to go and pracitce the techniques on my test dummy (my girlfriend) so it stays fresh in my mind. He also wants me to try these techniques on our last meeting on saturday.

Total hours: 15 hours.

Conflict With The Mind

Wingston Smith's biggest conflict so far might have to be his own mind. Winston seems to be struggling to contorl his emotions and thoughts. For example, when he enters the room where they held the 2 minutes of hate he saw the girl with the "freckled face", he began dissing her because she was beautiful. Then later he looked at her again during the chaos and kept thinkingthat he wanted to have sex with her. So basically he couldn't decide if she was a beauty or evil. Also, when he saw O'Brien he began to admire his looks and how they didn't match up to the person he is acting like. Wingston said, "But he had an appearance of being a person that you could talk to, if somehow  you could cheat the telescreen and get him alone." Finally, during the two minutes of hate Wingston couldnt decide if he should be on Bog Brother's side or against. He first started with dissing him while "shouting with the others and kicking his heel violently against the rung of his chair." Then he quickly sided with Goldstein,. For example, "At those moments his secret loathing of Big Brother changed into adoration." So it seems that Wingston can't keep his mind on one side, therefore his main conflict is his own mind.    

Day 2

Today in sports medicine and physical therapy we did the same thing as yesterday for 3 hours straight. We started in his office at 10 and finished at 2. Throughout this time he was examining his patients and helping them stretch. He used shock therapy, ultra sound, and heat to relief some of his patients stress or pain. After the process he told me to stretch the rest of his patients so i could get the hang of it. he said i did goodand the patients said they felt the stretch. The stretch i did is called a PNF stretch. That jus reliefs stress and helps them be more loose. A little before 3, he got his kit redy for the upcoming baseball game. He showed me everything he had and why he needed those things. After, we went to a baseball game he had to attend since he is the one that has to be available for injuries. Throughout the game he spoke to me on how the whole process in the field works. Then around the 5th inning a player from the opposing team twisted his ankle and he checked up on him. When he came back he explained to me what he did out there and the questions he asked the player. Then the game finished at 4 and my day was over. He just told me to go home and study the knee anatomy.
Total time: 12 hours.   

Day 1

Today i met with my mentor for the first time. Yea its a little late but i had no time due to my extra curricular activities and other responsiblities. My mentor is the sports medicine trainer and physical therapist at Skyline College. We started off by introducing each other and i gave him a background of the project. After we got that out of the way he went to attend his patients, the student athletes of Skyline. He first started with my girlfirend by stretching her out. While he was doing so, he was explaining to me what her problem was. I turns out she has Pateller Tendonitis, this means that her knee cap has too much friction with the otherbones in the knee which tends to cause a lot of pain. Throughout the whole day he was going around attending other students and explaining their problem. After the day ended, we came to an agreement that since i have to do a physical project on this, i was going to concentrate mainly on the knee. He told me to go home and study the knee bones and joints for an hour. This day in general i learned so much about the body and it was just my first day.        

Total time: 6 hours.

Stranger Than Fiction

I personally don't feel like thers is much difference between a narrator and an author. All the movie showed me was a author reading their story. Really, the only difference is the fat that you can feel and hear the authors tone more when he/she narrates the story. For example, when she narrated the part before the main character gets hit by the buus, the tone in her voice made it obvious that something drastic was going to happen. The way i determined on what should be on my research paper is looking at what i belived were the important facts. Also by putting down similar information the sources had. For example, if i read where physical therapy originated and i saw it in more than two sources i would put that down. My paper doesn't just try to get one persons attetion but everyone elses. I am just trying to expose that there is a great job that pays well and is worth studing. I believe it will have a positive impact to those who want to pursue this profession because there are high hopes for this job on the near future.