To become a Life Course Scholar Alum as soon as I submit this last blog post, feels bittersweet, as to be expected. Bitter because we were robbed of our second quarter experiencing the aging process and the in/equitable resources folks have in different areas in person. Bitter because this class was so educational and my favorite course for the past six months and now its ending. Yet sweet because I was able to meet all the lovely individuals in this cohort, make connections and build a more solidified picture of what I’d like to do careerwise, enhance my relationships with the older adults in my life, be educated on ageism and learn so much in real life and from readings/current events. I feel so happy and lucky to have gotten this experience, this class never felt like painful work or a drag, it was always a warm space to be a part of. It never felt boring or lame, it was so exciting to get off campus and meet new people and that was “class.” I feel like I’m at a loss of words to explicitly describe the feeling of not fully comprehending that this is it, this is over, I won’t get to see Dr. Bussell or Dr. Lewis or my classmates every Wednesday anymore. But the other part of me feels so happy to have found new friends that care about old people as much as I do and who I’ll still speak to even after this all ends, as well as professors I hope I can reach out to be part of mine or their research. I can’t really explain how much I’ve learned in this two-parter course and yes I’m basically reiterating the same sentence in different ways, but I can’t even remember who I was before this year started. It’s been a wild ride since January, and here I am, its June, its my birth month, I’m turning 20, I’m going to enter this new decade in my life and I have the “I hated my twenties” phrase echoing in the back of my head by all the older folks I heard say that, and all I can think about is: If I want to be happy at 80, I have to play like chess, I have to work backwards and do what makes me happy now. And I think that’s a major takeaway that I have realized: happiness is a choice. And I choose to be happy to be in the present, happy to be able to learn so much and so hands-on, happy to age, and happy to teach others why ‘old’ isn’t a bad word. In the end, all I can say is thank-you. Thank you to my professors who made this class exist and support us fully throughout and beyond the classroom. Thank you to my peers for being curious. Thank you to anyone reading this. Thank you for listening to me like older folks want to be listened to. I literally look forward to living in Sardinia or any other Blue Zone, eating a plant-based diet and living past 100 now and I’m not sure 2019 Sophia would’ve said the same. Goodbye forever Life Course Scholars 2020, yes I’m crying :( (I learned saying 'goodbye forever' is good for closure.)
Today we presented the final product of our So Tell Me… Healthy Aging Project. This idea was inspired by Cut’s “Keep it 100” series where they ask 100 people of different ethnicities, gender, ages, etc the same question and put them together. We wanted to make a version of our own that truly painted the aging population as positive, wise, and educated individuals. I loved every experience of working with my group, they are all such hard working people and great communicators and I’m so thankful to have been inducted late (due to COVID) but warmly accepted into the works of this project. Looking back on the experience, I was grateful to have recruited my friend to interview their parents because I learned that after the interview, he was able to have a heart-to-heart with them. His parents were able to tell him how proud they are of him for accomplishing so much that they were unable to do themselves due to the sacrifices they had to make for their family. He was also able to thank them as he understood more about what they had to give up, how difficult it was for them, and how all his hard work made his parents feel as though everything they gave up was worth it. I had this similar experience when I had interviewed my grandma for my original oral history project. This is often a hard conversation due to the cold tendencies in our Latinx culture, so I’m glad I was able to offer those opportunities to my friend as well. As far as the outcome of our video, I was so inspired by listening to what they had to say and truly integrate those ideas into my life. As I’m about to enter a new decade of my life, I just want to fill it with chasing after my education, being happy with minimal to no regrets lol, and just be present with time. I want to look back and know that I followed the advice that was given to me, it's like a cheat in life and I’m so lucky to understand and digest that concept fully.
In class today we presented our Neighborhood Age-Friendly Assessment, in which I did mine on my hometown, North Fontana. My family moved to Fontana around 1995 as it served as an attractive home for new families, offering affordable housing. I have since lived here, in the same exact house, since I was five months old. Fontana is all I know, but I actually didn’t know a whole lot on the development of it, its future plans and goals, and how, in particular, it would support the aging population, such as my grandparents. When I had first completed my project, I was so excited and happy with my city for including an aging plan to allow the citizens who were attracted in the 80’s and 90’s to age in place. Some things I found were questionable as there was no movement or growth in the plan even though this master plan for change was written in 2015, but I gave them the biggest benefit of the doubt. Still, I learned that Central and South Fontana played an essentially important role in supporting the senior community in Fontana with having a train station, a community recreation center designed specifically for senior events, but still, no green spaces. In North Fontana there were plenty of green spaces, the buildings and sidewalks were designed to be wide enough for both strollers and walkers to go through them, so I thought wow, what a beautiful place for them to age. There are healthy and lively parks and intergenerational opportunities for them to engage in in North Fontana. And though the transportation wasn’t super flexible since they only came once an hour and are spaced far apart, I still had hope for growth that was inclusive of our older adults. But while going through the WHO checklist to measure truly how “age-friendly” my town is, I found that there was no affordable housing, hospitals, or public healthcare in North Fontana. However, at the time I presented my project, I had obtained advanced knowledge on who my mayor, Aquanetta Warren, is and her actual goals for my city. I learned that 60% of our funding was going towards supporting Fontana PD and that she vocalized acknowledging North Fontana as “the rich area” and South Fontana the “poor area”, though all the aging resources are in South Fontana. I began figuring out that this growth and boom specifically in North Fontana was intentional and it was really disappointing. Although, as a small city with 200k residents, many of my friends and others began to speak out about the injustices occurring in our own city. And though we’re focused heavily on the racial inequities we face as a predominantly Black and Brown community, I hope to eventually voice my concerns for the age gaps and disparities.
In the start of the production of my Debunking Ageist Myths project, I had no specific idea or plan of action, the final result came together almost seamlessly. I have been able to fall in love with all the concepts learned about in Life Course Scholars and I wish that I could debunk ageism in its entirety and choosing a topic was the first difficult challenge. When I was drawing spider webs trying to think of ideas, I knew one thing I had learned outside of the content taught in class, was that not everyone goes out of their way to learn about the aging population and that if I didn’t engage in a conversation with them about it, they wouldn’t have otherwise known. So this prompted me to actually interview a couple of my friends that I hadn’t really talked with about these ideas yet to see what they thought.
The questions I had developed were 1. When thinking of old people, what are the first five words/phrases that come to mind? (Taken from Leland’s Happiness is a Choice You Make) 2. Do you see aging as the end of life or as an extension of life (taken from a question I posed to myself after reading Leland’s book) 3. What do you want your life to look like at 80? (sprouted from LCS Retreat). In the end, the last question was more fun than productive for my project so I only used answers from the first two questions for my final video! This part was actually a lot of fun because I didn’t tell them what I was interviewing them about, we just so happened to call each other and I was like hey can I actually interview you for school, it's not super intense, and they all said yes, so that was fun surprising them with my questions. Their answers were funny, questionable, but also some aligned with ageist beliefs. After I had enough content, I decided then what direction I would go in from my project. In a way, I worked backwards. So, I dove into common themes as well as what prompted me to ask my questions. So that is where I decided that I really wanted to tackle the idea that getting older is a problem to ~overcome~ or a burden, an enemy, even. I have learned the beauty of accepting aging as a natural process of life and truly wanted to debunk this idea. So then, I got creative with making little GIFs to make the title boards and used my handwriting to make it more personalized. In the end, it was a lot of fun and I loved my final product! For our first project of LCS Spring Quarter, we did an extension of our initial Oral History Presentation from last quarter. For this second part, I decided to stick with my original extraordinary person, my paternal grandma, because I had learned so much about her outlook on life and heard stories I would’ve never thought to ask. I really wanted to find more questions to ask her and was excited about this prompt. It was an interesting experience because where in the first project I had to facetime her at super early hours because of my busy schedule + distance, this time around I still had to facetime interview her due to the safety precautions surrounding covid-19. Although the first part brought together my grandma and I emotionally, promoting a stronger bond between us, I have not been able to see her due to certain circumstances. Though I have not been able to actually hang out since being back home, being able to learn more about my grandma’s take on these life catastrophes was an opportunity I jumped on right away. In the beginning, it was confusing at first to see her hesitation on saying a response she thought others would expect her to say instead of saying her own response. It made me realize that, I don’t think we genuinely ask her how she’s doing often enough. Maybe she hadn’t really thought about her own feelings in regards to the pandemic and this was the first time she had been asked how she was coping. I was glad to be the one to start this conversation though. As we kept going through the questions, I felt a sense of familiarity where though I couldn’t be there physically like I was for at least one of my interviews with her last time, I still felt the moment when she allowed herself to be vulnerable. It’s so much harder to see her that way when we're looking at each other over a screen, but I found her strength truly admirable. The way she had shifted form speaking about her fear and how scary it had felt to live a nightmare in real life, to how it is a matter that we can only pray for the best on, was something that I took to heart. In the last project my grandma had opened up about her immigration story, followed with a tip to my siblings and I to not value materialistic items but to honor love and patience instead. I saw that same pattern in this where she talked about despite the protests and how scary our environment is, all we can do is listen and follow the safety measures, as well as be patient and kind to ourselves during this hard time. After reading and learning much from Leland’s Happiness Is A Choice You Make, I recognize that I had initially learned more from others in the aging population than from my own grandparents like Leland with his mom. I, now, repeatedly find myself being more grateful for my grandma not only being my caretaker and for loving me unconditionally, but for being vulnerable with me and for diving deep about the severity and fear of the sacrifices she made.
Even post-interview, we have been sending each other messages and today we talked about how God’s timing isn’t always the same as ours, but His timing is always better. In which she responded, “Cosas cambian en la vida, pero aprendemos a ser fuertes y a aceptar las circunstancias! Siempre agradeciendo a Dios por la oportunidad de estar vivo. Amén.” Things change in life, but we learn to be strong and accept circumstances! Always thanking God for the opportunity to be alive. Amen. I forgot to screenshot selfies from our facetime calls, but below is my grandma in her homemade face masks from old pajamas she never wore and out messages from today. When the introduction of possibly taking online courses for Spring Quarter first arose, it was a slow growth from “some courses” to “all but studio and lab” to “studio and lab classes will be flexible” to complete remote education across all departments. When this was all initially happening, I was super devastated and concerned how everything would change for Life Course Scholars. I thought I couldn’t gain the same insights and knowledge had the program stayed the same; however, now that LCS has shifted to remote work, I believe it has given me a greater advantage had we stuck to our old normal.
Now that we are pretty much forced to slow down our regular pace of life, I feel that I have more time to soak up all the knowledge from the second half of this program. Back in Winter, with all the commitments I usually would have, this class was my favorite highlight of every week and made my days so much better. This was because meeting and interacting with this population of people was always an interesting experience, for better or for worse, I always took home a lesson. However, now that my commitments are no longer as demanding, I love having more time to be able to read Leland’s Happiness Is a Choice You Make, sit down with my peers and have a deep, intellectual conversation about the topics, and take life notes. I think normally I’d sit there and be like wow, how cool. Okay what’s next, I don’t have a lot of time. But being in quarantine, it’s more like: wow, how can I effectively apply these concepts in my life since I have so much time to plan everything out? Also, I think seeing other elderly individuals for an entire quarter has made me more grateful for having my grandma (despite not being able to see her :( ) and gives me the flexibility to call her more and for longer periods of time. USP 141A&B have been my favorite courses for two consecutive quarters and I feel so grateful to have a little Life Course Scholar family that is intrigued by the lessons we learn, whether it be from our current events projects, the book, or one another’s personal experiences and advice, I think it’s amazing to have this great bond to Zoom call every week. I love the energy of this program and this cohort because in other classes, it’s just a class, but here, it always definitely feels like more. And where the saying usually goes "home away from home" this has become more of a home even while at home. (: Taking this first quarter of the course has really shifted and changed my perspective and career path for me. I had never known exactly what professional job I wanted, I just knew I wanted to work with the older population and cure Alzheimer’s disease. Of course everyone would assume that requires going down a medical route, but I really craved to accomplish this goal of mine through a physical, social environment. During the course of this program, I have been enlightened by the many obstacles, as well as many luxuries that are provided to this community. I’ve been given the hands-on, live perspective of homelessness and affordable housing, dementia care facilities, Intergenerational events, realities of retirement options, etc., and it’s been absolutely wonderful. I’ve been able to intersect the knowledge gained in this class with others and I feel like I’m going in the right direction with what I would want to do career-wise. I was also super grateful to intertwine my varying identities of being a LCS’r and a Rhosa (or a member of Phi Lambda Rho) by having my sisters come out and support our Prom and seeing why I love this class and why it matters. It has been a very impactful experience and I’m lucky to have met the folks at the multiple senior centers and in the course with me.
The class was set up in a flexible manner where you got to choose which dates you presented the various projects we were assigned. My only regret is doing the oral history reflection, current events presentation, and book presentation all within the same Wednesday. That was rough and I wish I recognized that I accidentally chose all the same dates earlier, but it’s okay because I managed and did a successful job at all three. Having class once a week was also hard because it’s so easy to lose track of time with other classes, but having that three hour time block to learn about things I cared about was great. I thoroughly enjoyed it and it helped my mental health to be off campus but still doing school work. I loved going on excursions back-to-back, that was not an issue for me. All the projects were allll things I was curious and interested in, it never felt like I was in class. I don’t think there were any explicit flaws for me as a student, it was just learning how to navigate this uncommonly structured class and the duties it requires, hence why it is 6 units worth. Otherwise, I feel like I have grown stronger bonds with my grandma, discussed the importance of this population and ageism more with my peers, and engaged with professional mentors I aspire to be more like. I can’t wait to see how the second half of this experience is like over Zoom! On Wednesday, February 26th, 2020, the Life Course Scholars Program visited Casa de Mañana in Downtown La Jolla. The site was located in a beautiful crevice that overlooked a private portion of La Jolla Shores where we could see the seal pups. The demographics of this retirement home were: average age 81 and 35% men. She said the building used to be a historical landmark and so now that they extend the building, they try to keep the “Spanish Hacienda” feel. The person guiding us told us that there are 200+ rooms available, 220 residents, 130 staff members, and assisted and independent living with lower and higher levels of care. They provide weekly housekeeping, maintenance where the bed gets made once a week, and classes.
But if I’m being honest, I found myself very uncomfortable in this setting. After reflecting on my visit with another fellow student, I expressed how I felt not only super out of place, but noticed and rejected. I only saw people who look like me, and by this I mean brown individuals, working in this facility. I didn’t get the chance to ask, but I believe the ethnic demographic of this retirement home was about 90%+ White. When it was time to converse with the members that came out to talk to us about their experiences, aside from the woman who sat next to me and and gentleman, I noticed the other two ladies eyeing me and giving me looks. This could have been for anything, but because I already felt uncomfortable, this was the cherry on top for feeling dirty in my own skin. Despite these feelings, my conversation with the woman I spoke too was very intriguing. Her background was similar to that of my grandma’s, at least that I recognized from doing my oral history project on her. This lady had married her high school sweetheart and he joined the military while he went to school. She said she was very stern on having something to fall back on though, so she didn’t let him tell her she couldn’t go to school. She said that she tried having kids even though she knew she couldn’t afford it because back then it didn’t matter if you couldn’t afford it. She said people would think something was wrong with you if you didn’t have a baby within the first year of your marriage. But she said she couldn’t have a baby, so she adopted one! It was lovely hearing her story and learning how much she’s grown throughout life and how she continues to grow now within this community. Woo! It’s week 7. Today we worked on many things for class and our class healthy aging project coming up this Saturday. We began with a debrief of all our off campus visits from the past 3 weeks, did our Current Event presentations, Oral History presentations, This Chair Rocks book discussion, and made final decisions on our Senior Prom project. In our debrief from all our site visits we discussed how we felt and how our perspectives have changed. Some things I brought up was how I knew the demographic I wanted to work with and specifically how but didn’t know how to get there and through all these visits my eyes really opened to the many possibilities. We also shared memories with specific members we had met and I was happy to hear that we all had funny and cute memories with some people (:
Then we did current event projects where I presented with Leeda Sea about dementia cafes in Japan and how the U.S. should be following them. Some follow up questions we got were about the finances behind it and how dementia cafes could prosper in America because we live in such a capitalist society. Then we listened to a few but cute, creative, and heartfelt oral history presentations. They were so beautiful and thought out and I very much appreciate them. We then moved onto the book discussion of This Chair Rocks, which I was very proud of because I felt as though the presentation was well-put together and that the ideas were concise and thoughtful. We then finished off with final conversation of individual healthy aging projects we’re considering, as well as our prom this weekend, in which we decided who would be able to gather together for Friday at 4pm to assemble goodie bags. I was very excited to visit this space because my roommate volunteers for their immigration services wing and finds this place full of culture and always in need of help. I wanted to explore what other services they offer and how their various extensions help out and support diverse populations in San Diego. I found Aviva, the individual who gave us a tour, full of energy and welcoming. She shared with us the background of the development of this establishment and explained how it was started by Jewish women who needed support when they came to San Diego but it isn’t just for individuals who identify as Jewish, and in fact most of their patients are not. She also told us how she takes care of patients with Alzheimer’s and dementia, emphasizing that it needs more support through the people. She said it’s good that the patients do not know they have dementia but the weight falls heavily on the families. She also added that people are mean to individuals in this particular population because they get annoyed and frustrated with them, which I find too true, too often. We were then followed by a tour of services they provide such as their food mobiles, excursion planning, and diaper services. They even had a mini market where their doctors will assign the, points per month and they can shop there. All produce and healthy foods are 0 points. The worst for your health, the more points it costs. I was surprised to see they even have vegan options! It was truly incredible how above and beyond their facilities will go, as well as the amount of volunteers than allow this organization to flourish. We then played bingo which was a lot of fun in itself, I loved the people I sat with, very funny and nice individuals.
After we left, I decided to look into how to reconnect with them to volunteer and do an internship with them in the future. I found two that I will for sure come back for. One was the Alzheimer’s Assistant Internship and another was the Out and About volunteer. The internship, I hope, works with Aviva. I think she does amazing work and as someone who’s career goal is to cure Alzheimer’s, I believe this is a step in the right direction. Career-wise, I was unsure of exactly what I’d do to get there, but seeing the incredible work Aviva does just pulled me in. I really want that interaction and people engagement that Aviva is able to do through her work and I want to do her job one day. She cares for them and maybe I’d be able to get into research one day by becoming familiar with her work. The volunteer job is to build a blog, similar to this one, that highlights the life and adventures of those with Alzheimer’s and dementia in this facility. Their goal is to remind others that they are still people and we need to better support them. I also hope this blog post may support others to look into how they can advance their career by volunteering at wellness centers because it seems like so much fun. |
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June 2020
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