2. Please reflect on how your background and experiences pertain to your future success as a Kinesiology student, and ultimately, your future goals. 500 words.
[please let me know what you think:]
I was never fully encouraged in anything I have ever done; my immediate family was never a guiding force in my life. I was taught to seek for myself and I learned to find my own way in the world. I taught myself to be a diligent student, to be precise and knowledgeable to a fault. After a time, I decided to branch out and try to be an athlete. My first two years as an attempted athlete landed me nowhere but a small room populated by a handful of tables, an elliptical, stepper, bike, and an ice machine.
It was cold at first; it was unfriendly. I struggled to deal with the constant injuries I accumulated, and the problems this caused with my team. It was not just a physical battle, but a mental one as well, the pressure of being needed by my teammates, but physically unable to perform. This anguish was not just my own, as I saw over the years, but was shared by others who were steady visitors to what seemed like my prison.
I spent two years of my high school career in this room, and this experience has never left me. From my perch on the elliptical where I would cross-train for hours, I saw myriad injuries and watched my athletic trainer deftly handle each case. The mental pressure placed on me by teammates who didn’t understand the helplessness of an injury was lessened as I learned what an athletic trainer could do for an injured person, and as I slowly made progress towards being healthy.
I learned through my two years in the athletic trainer’s that the room was not a prison, it was a place to learn and get healthy. It was a place where people came together, not only to heal but to make friends, make jokes, make a contest out of balancing on a cushion to strengthen your ankle. I understood the role of the injured and the caretaker, and that a deep understanding of the injured is required to truly make the patient better. I watched this become especially important for several long-term cases, especially those who had knee surgery and required long term rehabilitation.
I have learned from observation and experience that the field of Athletic Training is not an easy job, not a passive job with room for carelessness. My current job is dull and sedentary, full of repetition and uselessness. These adjectives are the opposite of my personality; they are, in the frankest of terms, the opposite of anything I would like to be doing for the rest of my life. The field of Athletic Training is active, it is dynamic and ever changing. It is a world of real people and real problems, and I recognize these as things that I have not only experienced in the past, but hope to learn from in the future.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
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2 comments:
hey, i think this is awesome. i honestly can't think of anything else to say other than it's really good. the first and second parts flow together really well but they are different enough that they still make sense as answering different questions.
and i bet it won't be too hard to figure out who this is if you look at my blog...which no one reads haha :P
Auuudreeyyy! I didn't know you had a blog. haha.
Buy anyways, thanks for commenting.. I'm really nervous about these written portions, and I don't know if they are done well enough. but hopefully they are.. because I don't really know how else to say it! lol.
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