The Best Day of My Life (so far)

Last night I went to an event called Arts through the Ages. It focused mostly on the elderly and intergenerational programming, and featured a panel of four young women who have different endeavors in art, writing and drama. I was particularly looking forward to hearing more about the writing program, being a writer myself, and also because I had JUST been talking with my mom and Rachael the day before about at some point doing a research study of the use of writing as a modality with individuals with dementia (and because I just did my whole case study on a huge writing project).

The Best Day of My Life (So Far) is a project created by a woman named Benita Cooper, an architect who was inspired to create this writing project after conversing with her grandmother and hearing all of her wonderful stories. In fact, she's working currently on writing a book filled with her grandmother's stories - something that I've always contemplated since my first grandma day in 2001 (*"grandma day" was created by me in 2001 after reading Tuesdays with Morrie, and becomming obsessed with the concept of spending one day a week with someone you love. I began going to grandma's after school every Tuesday. This lasted all through high school and college, although the days and times have changed through the years. Now they're on Saturdays, when I go over after work, eat dinner with her and then spend the night, and go to work from there on Sunday.) Anywho... Benita was so inspired by her conversations with her grandmother, that she decided to begin volunteering with seniors in the community. Now she has her weekly writing program at Philadelphia Senior Center every Thursday. The participants come together, and given a theme, put their memories to paper. The memories are shared through conversation, and through a blog www.thebestdayofmylifesofar.blogspot.com .

I found the entire thing extremely interesting. After working in recreation my whole life, and then completing my bachelor's in Therapeutic Recreation, I think it's amazing that someone so far removed from the health professions took the time and effort to actually begin a project like this one. I know she's looking for volunteers, so anyone interested can look her up on the blog, or on facebook (search "the best day of my life so far"). I'm hoping to be of assistance with some more clinical aspects of things, but really I'd love to help wherever I can. Hopefully I'll actually have time coming up to do so.

MLK Day poem, and other things...

A lot has happened since the last time I wrote in this thing. Colin came to visit and stayed for about 3 weeks. We had an amazing time, and now that he's gone I miss him sooo much.

I've been working like crazy to try to make enough money to be able to pay my bills during my 40-hour/week unpaid internship. And between the monday through friday internship (starting tomorrow), and working both saturday and sunday at Harlee, I'm probably going to have a nervous breakdown by the time March roles around. Well, all I have to do is keep telling myself that I really really love TR.

This morning we made a group poem at Harlee for MLK day tomorrow. Here it is:
We have a dream...
of peace and happiness and goodwill toward everyone.
Nobody would have to be poor.
There would be no war.
Illness wouldn't exist, and no one would be sick.
There would be no more violence and no more hate.

Cute, right?

So Happy MLK day, everyone.

originally from www.auroracrew.blogspot.com

Photography

If you enjoy photography, check out http://www.cbeckettphoto.com/ for Courtney Beckett's new portfolio. She does food and drink campaigns as well as photographs of people she knows, which are pretty neat. Click on the samples below to link straight in to her page, because she's awesome.





Also, I want to say that whoever took/photoshopped this picture of Brendon Urie (Panic at the Disco) is my favorite. There's something about this shot that I just love: