With less than three more weeks left in the quarter, I can proudly say that this was my favorite class I’ve ever taken at UCSD. This week made me realize how my time here is coming to an end, and I will soon be out in the real world. Although I do need to take some more educational steps in my journey of becoming a RN, I never imagined my undergraduate experience going by THIS fast. One more quarter left, and an infinite amount of years of learning to go. In the past two weeks, I have made some great memories! We just went to the retirement community, Casa de Mañana, this morning, and it was a blast. The community is super nice, and I really enjoyed learning about the history of it. The fact that it was once a hotel really intrigued me, especially since a lot of the architecture was still kept up with today. It was nice to see all the amenities the older adults were getting with living at Casa de Mañana, and it made me want to save up to live in a place just like that one day. The conversations I had with the older adults were so insightful. One thing I learned is that saving for older age is quite important. Although we may not see it at the beginning of our life course, but one of the adults mentioned how growing old is expensive. The lovely ladies we talked to explained how throughout their lives, they had been putting some funds away in order to pay for a place like Casa de Mañana. In the conversation I had with my peers and some of the older adults, one of the older adults talked about finding passion in traveling. This really inspired me because it seemed like she had always known what she wanted to do, and then ended up doing it. From her story, I took away that as long as we are doing things we love, life will be good. As these next couple of weeks may be the last times I have contact with some of my cohort, I know that each and every one of us will be doing great things in the future. This thought makes me smile.
Here we are, more than halfway done with the quarter, and I am in shock with how much new information I have learned about aging in just seven weeks. There has not been a single class that tops this one, and we still have four weeks left together. Just last week, we hosted our “Love, Connect, Care” event at the Gary and Mary Wellness Center. I truly enjoyed spending time with the seniors and seeing them have fun with all the activities we planned out for them. Since I haven’t been able to go home, the interaction with all the elders made my heart so full. I miss my grandma all the time when I am in SD, but seeing the seniors enjoy their time out was truly one of the best moments of this quarter. My favorite part was watching the elders take pictures at the photobooth with all the props because everyone genuinely seemed happy. At that moment, I promised myself that I would have that much fun when I get older. There is no limit to when or how many happy memories you should be making in life, and I really want to continuously add significant life experiences, even if they are small, to my life course. On top of the “Love, Connect, Care” event, our cohort took the trolley to Barrio Logan this week and did a neighborhood mapping activity. I thought this was extremely insightful because I had never been there before. I didn’t really know what to expect. Although there were aspects of the neighborhood that could be improved in order to promote better healthy aging, the neighborhood felt as if it had a strong sense of community with all the murals and small businesses in the area. I can’t wait for what the end of the quarter has in store for the class. I am really enjoying making new friends and relearning about aging.
It is the middle of week 5 and the first week back in person! The past week and half have been full of stressful times, but meeting up for LCS has consistently been the highlight of my week. Some of my classmates presented their Oral History Projects last week, and to say that my heart was full of warmth and love by the end of the class is an understatement. I was so touched by the stories of each individual. I loved learning about everyone’s EP, and can’t wait until next week to hear more stories. The Oral History Project allowed me to view life in a different light. Everyone has their own unique stories that make up parts of their lives. Although we may not think about our life events on a daily basis, the project helped me to realize that reflection is quite important for understanding your own life course. For our first in person get-together, we visited the Gary and Mary West Senior Wellness Center! I was extremely impressed with the many activities that were offered at the wellness center. My favorite part was getting to have some conversations with the seniors. Although some conversations were short, I found it fun getting to meet some of the seniors and hearing them tell stories. The visit made me excited for the event we are hosting next week! I can’t wait to see all the seniors do all the activities we have planned. It is nice to finally be able to work with everyone in person, and I am super excited for the rest of the quarter.
We are nearing the end of Week 3 of Winter Quarter. The year started off quite sad, with a spike in COVID cases and a new mutant strain that everyone seemed to be getting, but Life Course Scholars has brought such light into my life. I had also been one of the many that COVID caught at the beginning of the year, which made me put my life on pause for about a week. School was online, and I had to take a break from the new volunteer opportunity I just started. I was not that sad about getting it because the new strain seemed very contagious, but I was sad that I couldn’t be making the connections with people I aimed for when going into the new year. My mindset changed the most once meetings with my fellow Life Course Scholars began. I have enjoyed everything about the course so far. In just three weeks, I have learned so much about aging and the elderly population. There is a lot about the world that I thought I knew, but I have realized that I generally had a few misconceptions about a lot of things. For one, I always thought of aging as a one way street, where being born was the peak of all experiences and growing old just led to a deescalation of events. However, after listening in class as well as reading the first half of Happiness is a Choice You Make by John Leland, I came to a new realization that life is continuously evolving. Everyone will have random, but significant life events come and go throughout their whole lives, and nothing is set to take place during a certain time frame. This has brought me to enjoy more of the present lately instead of dwelling on the past and even the future. I hope I can keep these new lessons with me throughout the rest of my life and share it with the people around me. Although our class is online right now, I have enjoyed listening and getting to know the cohort with the activities we have done. I hope to be able to share more memories with everyone when we see each other in person!
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Jasmine MounphoxayJasmine Mounphoxay is a Global Health major from Anaheim, CA. She is interested in dance and Archives
March 2022
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