❦ Service and Creativity in Alzheimer's ❦

❦ Service and Creativity in Alzheimer's ❦

So, two weeks ago, we sat down with the 6th grade kids and discussed their opinions of their visit to the Alzheimer's center. We debriefed on what happened and, after brainstorming and reflecting on the events of the previous week, we gave the class over to Ms. Lenk (our supervisor at the moment). She came up with the great idea to have the kids write 6-word-stories about their experience. We did this to identify areas of weakness and of strengths. For those of you that are interested, a 6-word-story basically gets people to write their feeling and thoughts about a situation in exactly six words. The kids were asked to write six words each about one challenge during the visit, one fun thing, and one thing they learned.

Here are 5 of the best, most awesome, hilarious, and sometimes concerning responses that we got from the kids when we collected in and read what they wrote. The pictures are all the authors own and any sentences/words written in brackets are basically my running commentary). Here's hoping you have as much fun reading them as we did!

" Two ladies did not speak English.
I got to watch her paint.
The Alzheimer's lady painted very well. "

(how sweet) 

" The man could not hear me.
I liked playing carom with them.
The center is a nice place. "

(not bad)

" First I thought she was dead.
It was fun playing carom board.
People enjoy while suffering from Alzheimer's. "

(I'm not sure what to say...)

" They would sometimes talking without speaking.
We painted with cool water colours.
Always be nice no matter anything. "

(the first one is a bit fishy but nice overall)

" They would not talk to me.
We played carom with a gang.
They like to talk to people. "

(one and three contradict each other)

 On another note, for the creativity section of the service, we planned and initiated and activity where we got the kids make the Alzheimer's patients Christmas cards for the coming holidays. They were told to design the cards, colour them in and write a warm message inside them and finally sign them with their names. I unfortunately don't have the pictures as they're still in a WIP (work in progress) but I'll get them asap. It was quite fun because we too made some cards for the patients. We also told the kids that if they weren't Christians or particularly religious they could simply have 'Happy Holidays' instead of 'Merry Christmas' which shows consideration of ethical issues,

♕ Action and Service Updates ♕

Action:

Soooo, it's been a couple of weeks in SAISA Badminton for me and I'm actually pretty happy with how everything is going. The team hasn't been chosen yet, duh, so we're working on skills training at the moment. We've focused a lot on serving, specially short serves which I find incredible hard to be honest. Long serves however are a lot easier for me so I haven't paid much attention to those. We've also worked on drop shots and placing these shots since a lot of people keep playing right back into the opponents hand. The best part so far about training would probably be the fact that now, as a senior and a returning player, Mr. Pradeep gets us to instruct the newer members should they need help. I find this awesome cus well, I like helping people haha but also because it helps me understand the techniques of the game when I need to explain it to others. So yeah... Here's a picture of us warming up before the session starts. I'll get more pictures over the next few weeks for a cool as picture post :)

 (Warm up - photo credits : Lawrence)

Service:

Well, I have service this afternoon and we're going to take the time to talk to the kids about how they found the Alzheimer's visit was. We'll have them talk about the reflections and we were also considering getting the kids to make some cute Christmas cards that can be given to the patients when we go next. We will most probably start this activity and plan out the things we need before we get paper, glitter, etc to make the best cards ever :)

SAISA Badminton

Hey guys,

So yeah, sorry if this post is a little lackluster but I have a sorethroat/cold thing so I don't really feel up to doing very much... Anyway, I'm just trying to update my action activity which is something I'm actually very very excited about. If you couldn't guess from the title, my activity is SAISA Badminton XD It's badminton season again so yeah, much excitement!

I'm trying out for the school team again because frankly, I loved the experience last year. This year I'm hoping to make it into the top 3 in girls singles (which I missed by one game last year -_-) as well as place in doubles and these two are going to be my goals for the season.

To achieve these goals I know that I have to learn and improve my already existing short serv, polish it up till I can nail it every single time. This is porbably my biggest area of weakness in the game as I can't get flat, slow short serves which means I lose points within the first few shots. I'll also need to practice getting my drops/saving drop shots from high up s that I don't lose easy points trying to dive for those shots.

As well as this, I will work on my areas of strengths which are usually my long serves and my smashes (if you can call  them that). I need to keep practicing these particular shots in order to improve my game and make it to the top.

I am, quite honestly, surprising myself with how committed to the game I am this year and how much I've been preserving in my need to improve my game. I've got my game face on. I realize that this is my last chance to play a SAISA sport (I won't be traveling after January due to exams) so I'm giving it my all. I'm making every single practice on time with all my gear (including shoes haha since I like playing barefoot) so that's three days a week for 2 and a half hours each session. We'll soon start Saturday morning practices as well and I'm looking forward to it :) I've also been on top of my fitness, running with my dog every day I don't have practice and doing 4K on Saturday evenings.

So, aside from the physical aspect, I've found badminton to be a fairly mentally challenging game this year. Not just strategy wise but with the team, it takes a lot of willpower to play the game and survive practices. Our team was reduced to just 4 members from last year once the seniors left last year and now I find myself having to collaborate with the other members to help in practices and sometimes plan and initiate activities when we play with the new kids which is as annoying as it is fun. That is to say, as a senior player I'm expected to help the new player and teach them some skills. I love doing this when people are willing to learn but I do have a short fuse when people muck around when I'm trying to be serious so playing the game is teaching me to be mindful of other people's opinions and feelings which is considered a bit of a challenge for me personally. Apparently I'm intimidating (pshhh as if, I'm adorbs :P) on the court so I'm trying to work on that too. I'm really looking forward to this season, I'm ready to play the game and I just really want to do my best. I can't wait to start the team practices and start playing doubles with both the guys and girls. 

Well, I guess that's what badminton is about in a nutshell. It's pretty hard balancing it with studies but at the same time it helps because I have limited time to do things so I do my work rather than procrastinating. It's the type of game that gives me a pleasantly swooping feeling in my stomach when I think about it and I look forward to a successful season ahead.

Fingers crossed for the tournament~!

Have a great weeks guys, stay safe, stay healthy and talk to you soon! :D