bu hao yi sih

Today we started our day off with these burrito looking things, but the outside was made of rice and the inside had various things depending on which one you got-- like eggs, pork... and other good stuff. More milktea to drink, but they also had us try "chinese coffee" which smells like reeses pieces and tastes like a babe ruth, soybean tea (milk?), and "the seed of job's tears" (direct translation from one of the electronic dictionary's because we couldn't figure out what they were trying to say. Turns out they were talking about jojoba beans). I prefer milktea, but the jojoba tea and soybean tea weren't that bad. Chinese coffee is too sweet to have more than a few sips.

Original Point Therapy was next. Our professor couldn't speak English so Dr. Huang translated the whole thing. Pretty nuts. Our professor did a few demonstrations on us. I told him my shoulder's hurt and he did OPT. My thoughts? It hurts like hell but works. It was interesting to see that they use OPT for everything. They use it when someone is having a myocardial infarction and said it has worked 100% of the time (they said they'd video tape it the next time it happened to show us). But anything from acne, to dementia, cancer, tumors.. they'll use OPT. Obviously not the only thing they do, but it's one of those things where it really doesn't hurt the patient to try and if there's a possibility it will help, it's worth a shot. The way they put it was if we have someone who's suffering a heart attack, we call 911, but you have several minutes before the ambulance arrives so why not? I'm not yet comfortable enough to do much besides the origin point of the head on myself (for headaches and more).

Another interesting thing they pointed out is that when you get a fever you should apply warmth (~98 degrees), rather than cold. They have these packs that are made from adzuki beans ("red beans") that you can tie around your back (for fever) or there's one that sits on your head like a headband (fever or headache) that Kat and I really want to get. Supposed to cure a fever in like an hour.

Lunch delicious (and we learned how to say delicious) and to drink we had a black tea float! It's pre-prepared and is just black tea and ice cream.. but melted. Probably my favorite thus far. Next was my first round of clinicals ever. Katherine was in the Athletic Training Room and I had Taekwondo. Delay taught Gina and me how to tape ankles while the athletes were getting their tape jobs done. Apparently they use taping way more than braces-- as seen when one of the students taped a guy's leg who'd torn his PCL but hadn't had surgery yet. Taekwondo is insane. Wang-wang told us that last week at a tournament she saw two tibial fractures. They definitely use padding... I can't even imagine what sort of force you'd have to exert through your foot to snap someone's tibia. Each sport and each athlete at any level practices 3 hours a day, so we sat through practice from 2:30-5:30. Someone needed an ankle taping.. but other than that, we just watched. Their coach won a gold medal for TKD in the 2004 Olympics. He is by far the most spry human I've ever seen. Kat said she got Russian e-stim back in the AT room as well as got asked out by one of the athletes ("pub... dance... lots of wine?") ha.

Second tai chi lesson wasn't as brutal as the first. We learned the whole routine (which isn't even the actual whole routine, just a chunk of it. But it's all we're learning) and found out we're performing it on June 1st. For whom? No idea, but something tells me it's going to be a free-for-all... who doesn't want to see silly American's try to do tai chi? Also learned that the faster song and silly dance is called "you are my flower"... our master really like to do it. Especially the "sorry sorry" part. Which I'd never seen but just so you don't feel left out go on youtube and type in "Sorry Sorry" by Super Junior. It's a 14 person Korean boy band. It's amusing


Good end point. Tomorrow we meet at 7:30.. ugh.
-R

Zao An!
Good morning to all of you in GA and the U.S. but here it is Wan An goodnight. Our vocabulary grows by the day, not much might I add but we are trying our best. Chinese has different tones that change the inflection of your voice during the word which are hard to remember because English is level across each word. Not too much to add, Rachel got most of it. all the different teas we tried were so good, maybe I will start drinking soy milk because of this new discovery. Our breakfast was basically a burrito with rice instead of a tortilla. Tomorrow we get potato cheese omelets and chocolate toast should be interesting.

Tai Chi went well, Rachel didn't mention that our whole group broke down into three people groups and then each group performed in front of the entire class (master and Taiwanese students included) It was a little embarrassing but Rachel, Pat, and I did pretty well. I mastered that one fan flick I had such a hard time with yesterday!!!!

The Athletic Training Room was my clinical assignment for the afternoon and lets just say it was definitely different from at UGA. Here in Taiwan athletes can't miss even one day of practice even if injured. this makes rehab an extremely difficult challenge since you don't have even one or two days for scar tissue to lay down and edema to drain and add on top of that the micro trauma added from the continual practicing. Alot of the modalities are the same such as e-stim, ultrasound, traction, and short wave diathermy. We were messing around and I had Jena do Russian e-stim on me- NOT PLEASANT. This type is used to teach the muscle when to contract during motion after it has been immobile or has atrophied. It is a strong shock and you have to contract at the same time (which actually lessens the pain). Today I also watched a NTSU student do kinesio taping -really neat, google because I can't really explain it well.

We were going to play Frisbee golf with some of our buddies tomorrow morning but we have to meet at 7:30am so that canceled the 6:30am game, we shall try again on Wednesday!! Also neither of has mentioned how incredibly hospitable all of the students and staff are to us. they pick up and deliver each of our on campus meals to us and even take the orders before hand! Also, one NTSU students walks with us to every class, off campus meal, activity, and would have come got us for frisbee. Can you imagine trying to talk U.S. students into taking on those responsibilities on top of clinicals, class, and life!?

ok enough blabbing, I'm exhausted and have a long day of class tomorrow and a yoga class then possible frisbee throwing with buddies. last note the base of my skull and behind my ears hurt due to the OPT and my particular instructor ignoring the pressure to comfort part of the technique. oh well :)
slaap lekker (Dutch for sleep well)
-K