Last Wednesday, we had our last reading discussion on the last couple of chapters of Happiness is a Choice We Make. My group and I spent a lot of time talking about each of our biggest take-aways from the book, and how many times the book made us cry (except Anthony, who was confused by all the talk of crying). We had a very interesting conversation about how we will use our knowledge from the course to intervene in acts of age-insensitivity or ageism. It was very interesting how we all had different approaches, largely based on our personality types and experiences. Mikayla brought up a great point– that gentler words tend to be more impactful than aggressive ones. Our small group reading discussions have been one of my favorite parts of the course. Getting to hear three or four different perspectives allowed me to get a lot more from the book than if I had read it alone. I think that it was also one of the best ways to get to know the other LCS’ers. Yesterday we went to the Casa de Manana retirement community near La Jolla Cove. I’ve probably walked by it over two dozen times and always assumed it was a hotel. Seeing how well resourced and all inclusive the ocean-front community is, I expected to hear great things from the residents. Even then, I was surprised by how highly the residents spoke about their experience at Casa. In our smaller group conversation, Griff emphasized to us how smoothly he integrated into the community, and how friendly all of the residents are. Out of the two hundred people he’s met there, there’s only four he wouldn’t want to talk to again! He said that throughout his life, he has never been a part of a more diverse, intelligent, or interesting community. Our conversation focused mainly on advice the residents wanted to give to us. I think the biggest one was about travel– do it as often, as long, and as far as possible, and ideally without an itinerary. They also gave us a rough timeline of when they think key points in our lives will be, and reminded us not to worry too much because we still have a long way to go. Being able to talk to the residents about their highlights and hardships was very rewarding, and a great way to root the things we’ve learned in class to real experiences.
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Tiffany Nakajima Tiffany Nakajima is a Public Health major with a concentration in Epidemiology and with a minor in Archives
March 2022
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