Bonnie's Blog

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#SYCEP

"Discuss who and what positively influenced your SYCEP experience. Be as creative as you would like!" This is the last week of working at Optimal Physical Therapy! Although this week is the last day I am a little bit sad but glad at the same time. I am glad that I had a wonderful with patients and learned a lot of informations in such a short period and this is all because all of the fabulous co-workers and employers! The people in Optimal Physical Therapy Gym are enthusiastic, helpful, and amazing. It was a period where most of the time I can brighten up and just simply enjoy being at work. Sam, Jessica, Michael, Tham, Vivan and the Chus made my experience in SYCEP more exciting. They help me stay away from boredom and help me out when I needed it. They developed my communication skills in talking to strangers and I was able to learn other languages. Most importantly we were able to joke, simile, and laugh together. We became great co-workers watching out each other backs from taking cares of patients to cleaning up. My employer, Binh and Jeff also made my experience at Optimal Physical Therapy more exciting and challenging. At first i thought Binh was an intimating and strict man. I tried to watch my words and action but towards the end if the program, I let my carefulness go and found out Binh was an easygoing man and treated us to Bambu at the last day. Jeff was also a cool boss. He made sure I was okay and talked to me about everything I ask. Lastly Linh and the patients made my experience in Optimal Physical Therapy better. Linh took care of me and helped me out during work and expanded my knowledge in filing work. The patients also made me felt happy in Optimal Physical Therapy. They simile when I see them taught me greetings in Vietnamese. Some the patients told me their story. I am glad that I was able to help them and be able to be there to listen to there story.

[sycep-bz]

Currently, I am interning at Optimal Physical therapy. This is my fourth week of interning and you may think I am involved at this job because I am interested in the medical field. I am quite interested in medical field. However my dream job is still a distant position. I am torn between studying for forensic, international business, and sociology. Which forensic is the only position involved in the medical field. Even though my interest remains in these three field, I am confident that my dream job is going to be a job that interest and invest in me.

Becoming a forensic scientist is on my dream job list because it involves science and helping people through tools and science. It also allows me to explore the usage of nanotechnology and chemicals which I can use to discover new things. This job also invests in me not only in science but also with communications. I am able to communicate with people ranging from professionals to everyday people. I want to become a forensic scientist because the job is like a puzzle where you are going to solve the puzzle with other professionals to help you and when the team completes the puzzle it provides a nice feeling that the team have finish the puzzle and helped someone, 

Although I believe I am not really a business person. Going abroad and learning a new language interest me. This specific type of business invests in me to a new culture and allow me to explore a new experience.  Learning an extra language always come in handy and meeting new people and becoming friends with them is an incredible experience. Not only, helping out people overboard by creating a business makes a heart warming feeling because the business is helping out those who live in a different place. 

Lastly, becoming a sociologist is one of my dream job because of one particular teacher. He talks with enthusiasm when he talk about the word and why does the world function the way it does. He also share interesting topics on mob movements, classes, minorities, and more. His speeches made becoming a sociologist awesome job. I am always interested in history and how history have changed the present. Thus, I believe becoming a sociologist explores the past and invests in you to teach others about the past too and why the world is run the way it is.   

[sycep-bz]

#SYCEP

This is the third week at Optimal Physical Therapy! Finding my strength through StrengthsQuest was weird. It was like finding the future husband or wife through online dating. I find this website a little bit resembling of a fraud. Despite that, my top five strengths was input, individualization, achiever, context, and learner. At the end of the day, I end up agreeing or somewhat agreeing to the strengths. My first top strength- input, define itself as "a craving to know more. Often they like to collect..." At first glance, I disagreed to my strength. When did I ever begin to collect things? I thought to myself but as I remember how I like talking to people in Optimal Physical Therapy. I remember that I enjoy collecting personal stories from these people. I am interested and curious about their lives. One way how I can develop my input strength within my worksite is to continue on to be curious and learn about people lives. Outside of the work site I can develop my strength by going out of my comfort zone to talk to more people and learn more about them. My third top strength is achiever and I immediately agreed except with a small part regarding about great stamina. During the internship period, the work mostly consist of helping others but majorly you would need to find the work. Thus, I would try to walk around looking for work to do instead of doing nothing. To improve my skills in the worksite, I will continue to work and help out around the worksite. Outside of the worksite, I can focus my goals to work hard at school. As an achiever at work I try to maintain working and learning more facts about physical therapy and outside of working I try to maintain a good person. My second to last strength- context. It shows me that I'm interested in the past to understand the future. I believe that this is true that I have a passion to learn about people's past. Talking to close friend or listening to a person's life have always been a hobby of mine, because it always take you on an adventure on that person's life. One way of improving this skill in my worksite is by talking to more people and learning a little bit more Vietnamese to communicate at least a few more phrases to Vietnamese patients. I can also improve this skill outside of the worksite by reading more books relating to history. #SYCEP

[sycep-bz]

      Hello, this is the second week of interning! However, I was not able to experience the second week of interning. But I am still here to take you on a tour in my experience from my first week. Let's start! One way I kept my self accountable is arriving early or on time for work and wearing business causal. This is because it is important to arrive on time for work ready to go wearing correct the dress code! 

    As I remind myself it is a job, I also remember that I am not professional in physical therapy and especially the fact I am still learning. I also keep myself responsible by asking for help. When I become confuse at a specific exercise for a specific patient.  I would ask my supervisor or co-worker to help me and the patient. Asking for help, helps me develop myself further into the treatments the patient undergoes and it helps me adapt to my surrounding at Optimal Physical Therapy. 

   Even though I ask for help a lot, I also ask if other people need help too.  I keep myself responsible by keeping myself busy. I would go around the room asking the patients if they need anything or to just plainly talk with them. This allows me to adapt with the patients and learn their names's by meeting and talking with them more. I also keep myself busy by shadowing my co-workers or supervisors to learn more information about physical therapy and the patients.

    The first thought to keep myself accountable is to remind myself that I am working and this is a job. Despite the fact, I only ran small errands. At Optimal Physical Therapy, there are periods when a lot of people come in for physical therapy and there are moments when there are very little people coming in. During the period when there is not a lot of patients around, I tend to look around for jobs to do. Refilling water, talking to patients, and shadowing.  Lastly, I keep myself responsible by providing good customer services. I try to keep up in conversation with patients provide them a nice time at Optimal Physical Therapy. 

[sycep-bz]

interning at Optimal Physical Therapy!

      Hi, I'm Bonnie and I am about to take you to a tour on my experience in Optimal Physical Therapy. A place where there's a lot of stretchy rubber bands, two messaging chair, and many machines! When you first think of physical therapy you might think of staffs messaging patients or treating patients that survived an unfortunate event. All of these images do play a role in physical therapy, but in addition to that, physical therapy (which I learned over these couple days) is to teach the patient to control the symptoms of the injury, not to change the injury. 

      During the few days at Optimal Physical Therapy, I have face language barrier. Most of the patients are Vietnamese. Which left me, this Chinese person speechless when it came to handling with Vietnamese except with a few words like "chào" and by simply saying this Vietnamese greeting. The older patients would respond with "chào bạn" and continued on speaking Vietnamese. While I would just nod and simile even though I couldn't understand. Sometimes I would call my co-workers to help me translate. This made me feel a sense of awareness that maybe I should learn a couple more Vietnamese words. 

     Despite the fact, I have a language barrier with a lot of the patients. It was also rewarding to be able to work with the patients as well. Some of them would would teach me Vietnamese like "Chào anh" while pointing at something. Some of them would communicate with me through hand gestures and facial expression. And most of all it was rewarding to work with multi-language people. I was able to talk with patients that could speak Chinese/Cantonese and Vietnamese and I was fascinated when they co-switched their language. Interning at Optimal Physical Therapy also gave me a chance to meet a person who can speak five different languages!

    During the couple days of interning, adaptability is an important factor in transitioning. You have to adjust to the work around the area. At Optimal Physical Therapy, The work that is given by the employer is to help patient. There isn't a chronological order like in the hospital, the doctor see the patient in order. So, most of the work at the work-site you have to find work mostly by yourself. You have to adapt that people are not going to assign you to a job most of the time but you are going to find the job yourself by asking if the patient needs help.

    The work consist mainly of communicating and helping people, interning at Optimal Physical Therapy was an interesting experience!