It’s already the end of Week 5, which means only 4 more meetings with my Life Course Scholars cohort and I’m so sad that the end is creeping up so fast!!! Anyways, this week we were assigned to do an assignment on debunking ageist myths by creating some type of visual that tackles a certain ageist myth. I chose to debunk ageist myths surrounding senior homes because I feel that there are a lot of stereotypes and stigmas surrounding seniors living in senior homes. Growing up, I feel like I witnessed a lot of conversations with jokes from younger generations that they will put their parents in a senior home when they are old. This kind of implied that senior homes were an unpleasant experience for seniors, and I was under this impression. However, from taking this class and talking to many seniors living in senior homes, I realized that it is not the case. Senior homes are actually a nice and welcoming environment for seniors to be able to have a community, get supervision/help from people working in these senior homes, while still keeping their independence. I also was under the idea that all senior homes were basically nursing homes, but I have become knowledgeable that there are nursing homes, assisted living, and retirement homes, which all are different from each other. I know now that each place contains a different level of care and supervision from healthcare and social workers, but they are all definitely not an unpleasant environment! Before, I used to think that I would never move into a senior home but knowing now that I could still have a sense of independency and gain a community, I would definitely move in once I feel unstable to live in my own personal single-family home.
This quarter, we started reading a new book, Happiness Is a Choice You Make: Lessons from a Year Among the Oldest Old, by John Leland. We have only read 4 chapters, but I have really been enjoying this book! Not only is it a very interesting read, but I can actually take in a lot of information and advice to apply it to my life. Reading different perspectives of seniors has helped put in perspective what is important now as well as dealing with becoming content with life. Personally, I feel like it is difficult to feel content with my life because society has embedded in me that to be happy, I need to accomplish all types of things, from materialistic things to being successful in a career. We tend to depend on the future for happiness and although the future and goals help us become motivated and work hard toward something, it should not be the only aspect to what defines happiness. Always looking into the future for happiness will never stop even if we achieve our goals because then we will just make another goal to work for, and never being content on the present.
On the other hand, an update on my peer and I’s Healthy Aging Project, we have settled on calling it Meet and Mingle, which will allow seniors from different senior communities to talk to each other and build friendships and relationships. With the pandemic, many seniors have felt lonely and have had limited social lives so I feel hopeful that this will bring joy to seniors even if it’s just for an hour or two. This past week, we have been contacting people from Seniors Communities and we have gotten an interest from Talmadge and other Wakeland developments, so this is definitely feeling to start real! I am very excited to see how this will turn out I would like to thank Professor Lewis and Professor Bussell for making the most out of my cohort’s virtual experience with the Life Course Scholars Program! It has definitely been difficult for students and as I can imagine, for professors as well, to do virtual learning. However, I can say that these past 10 weeks in the Life Course Scholars Program has allowed me to learn a lot from the material, our professors, my peers, and even our guests from the senior housing communities! My experience in this class has allowed me to explore my interest of possibly working in an organization, center, housing, etc. that is focused on seniors. I have actually gotten the chance to become a temporary research assistant at Serving Seniors this month of March up till April, and I am very excited! I am also grateful to have learned so much and been able to change my perspective on aging. I grew up dreading the thought of growing old because I thought it meant that I would not be able to live my life at full capabilities. However, from this class, I have realized how rich and vibrant life could be with age. It truly just depends on one’s perspective of how you want to live your life. I am excited to see what my 50s, 70s, and maybe even 90s will look like. These ages always seemed like the same to me but I know now that each of these ages are still very different from each other and could still be very lively. I am grateful for this class as I am able to learn about the senior communities around me, how I can make an impact in these communities, as well as being able to change my own perspective of aging into a more positive way. I am looking forward to USP141B in Spring will bring! :)
In this past week 8's lecture, I signed up to present my Extraordinary Person who is my great aunt, Everlita Rivera-David! The experience from the interviews to the presentation to currently working on the final memoir has been fun! I’m planning on making a newspaper type of article as her final memoir since receiving her newspaper article reviews were one of her favorite things to get! This experience was really nice as I got to learn a lot about her musical career from her childhood to now. It is definitely weird thinking about how the elders in my life have known me my whole life and have been aware of my growth from a baby. Yet, I know only 20 years aka a portion of their life. Also, in the past where I have interviewed a family member for a school project, it has usually been about a certain topic or a specific time, so it was nice to have had a lot of freedom and range on what the storytelling with our extraordinary person was going to be. It also allowed me and hopefully my peers as well to be creative and explore topics that we wanted to know more about our EP, which I really enjoyed in my personal experience as well as watching others’ presentations. I have loved seeing and hearing my peers’ Extraordinary Person presentations these past two weeks because everyone’s lives seem so interesting. I am definitely excited to hear the last group’s this week, although I am kind of bummed that it’s almost over.
Talking to the residents of Case de Mañana during this past week’s lecture was really fun and eye-opening. I had the chance to be in a breakout room with Susan and Malcolm and it was interesting to hear their experiences about living here. Something that struck out to me was hearing Susan talk about how she chose to move here out of her and husband’s decisions. I had always just thought that many of these people move when they are forced to whether it by their children or out of sickness and not being able to live in their own private property. She mentioned how it was a good decision to be able to go when she was ready and I could see how the helps greatly with making this transition more positive and uplifting. Many times when seniors are forced to live here, they are not ready, mentally, therefore having a negative attitude about it and not being able to make the most out of the experience. it definitely opened up my eyes to what I would do once I got older. It was also interesting to hear how living with their children would not be an option they would like to consider for them because of the differences of lifestyles. This is interesting because growing up in an Asian household, we are taught to continuously take care of our elders and that when they are old, we have this responsibility to be their caregivers. Many of my older family members live with their children and their families so it was surprising to hear a different perspective to this. I understand why they would not want to live with their children and their families because I have seen how living with one’s children as a senior could have an impact on their sense of independence which has been something they have been practicing longer than their children have been alive so it would be weird to live with their kids and be dependent on them. Overall, hearing stories from a couple of these residents was very lovely and I hope we get the chance to hear from them again and hopefully one day, in person!
Today, on January 31, 2021, I had the opportunity to come together with Professor Lewis, Professor Bussell, and students from the LCS and Homelessness classes in person to put together some Valentines goodie bags for hundreds of the homeless and senior communities around San Diego. It’s crazy how much a solid group can do if we come together with a common passion and goal to do something remarkable! While I was rolling letters into scrolls and tying ribbons, I kept thinking about how what we were making is about to brighten the day of so many people all over San Diego . After finishing the last bag and placing them in boxes ready to be delivered, I realized that it only took a little less than two hours. This was surprising with how many bags we put together, but it was amazing to see how much we had accomplished in this amount of time! It was also really nice to be able to be surrounded by my peers in person for the first time since last March of 2020. Being able to talk to other students in my class and my professors face-to-face was a nice change of scenery from only talking to them through a screen. Going back to the Valentine’s goodies, I can’t wait for the hundreds of people to receive their goody bag and enjoy it!!
I feel very enthusiastic about being a part of the Life Course Scholars program! Although it's online, it's a nice feeling to connect and learn with my peers in a smaller environment! Listening to Dr. Banesh about the process and experience of writing a memoir about an extraordinary person made me feel more excited to go through the experience. I learned ways in which I could prepare and execute the memoir, such as ways that I could make it more fun and engaging for my extraordinary person. After Dr. Banesh’s lecture, I’m more knowledgeable of how I can ask questions, the types of questions, and how to respond to my EP after they share. Dr. Banesh also mentioned the distribution of the projects and how creative and personal we could make it, and this inspired me to incorporate music elements in the final project. I’m excited to make it look like a music sheet booklet/play program! Overall, I feel inspired and excited to get to know my extraordinary person in a deeper level, as well as what I’m going to learn throughout the process.
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Ma Kiela OrtineroMa Kiela is a Global Health and Urban Studies & Planning double major from Corona, CA. A fun fact about her is that she has lived in 8 different cities (in 2 different continents) in the past 20 years! Archives
April 2021
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