Week 2

After getting home from the music store last week I took the ukulele out of it's box. I was excited to start playing and hearing the fun sounds of the ukulele.  I ran my finger across the strings and was instantly disappointed.  My ukulele sounded horrible!  It hadn't crossed my mind to check to see if it was in tune before I left the store.  So there my ukulele sat in its box underneath my bed for the next few days.  It wasn't until Tuesday when campus was closed and I was home with all of my roommates that my roommate Jessica offered to help tune my ukulele.  She has this really neat tuning device that clips to the end of the ukulele.  As you play a string it tells you how to adjust the strings to get the ukulele in tune!  It was pretty exciting when I finally got all four strings to the green area and the ukulele finally sounded like a ukulele.  My excitement went away pretty fast as my roommate proceeded to tell me that when you play the ukulele there are certain strumming patterns and proceeded to say "down-down-up-up-down-up" as she strummed her ukulele.  Puzzled is a pretty good description to how I was feeling as I attempted to get my right hand to go down-down-up-up-down-up.  After a while of repeating the strumming pattern I decided that it was time to try and learn a song.  So I did the only logical thing and started watching videos on YouTube.  I found a video that had the chords displayed on the screen as the guy was demonstrating how to play the song.  Being that I didn't know any of the chords, I paused the video every few seconds and drew each chord in sequence out on a piece of paper.  Once this task was finished I then attempted to play the song.  I would pause between each chord and awkwardly place my fingers on the strings and then say "down-down-up-up-down-up."  Over and over and over again.  Many times I thought to myself, I'm never going to sound like Jessica when she plays, but I kept trying.  Tuesday evening I was feeling more comfortable with the ukulele and came out and played the "song" for my roommates and asked if they could guess what song it was.  It wasn't until I was almost done with the song that they guessed correctly.  I was actually surprised, because if I didn't know what song I was trying to play there is no way that I would have been able to guess.  Needless to say there is still a lot of improvement to take place as I continue to learn the ukulele.

Learning to play the ukulele is my new occupation for the semester.  Occupation, a word that is so comprehensive that it has many, many different definitions. . . . How does learning to play the ukulele fit in as an occupation? 

Clark et al. (1991) described occupation as "the ordinary and familiar things people do everyday." Currently, there is nothing that feels ordinary or familiar about playing the ukulele.  

Yerxa (1994) says that occupation is "engagement in self-initiated, self-directed, adaptive, purposeful, culturally relevant, organized activity."  Well, practicing the ukulele has been self-initiated and self-directed with the help of people on YouTube. Adaptability - I am a beginner and am adapting practice to better meet my needs.   Purposeful - I am learning something new and it happens to be a homework assignment.  

Golledge (1998) offered a simplified definition of occupation, "the daily living tasks that are part of an individual's lifestyle."  Playing the ukulele has only recently become a daily task but I wouldn't go as far to say that playing the ukulele has become part of my lifestyle.

Why would playing the ukulele fit well with one definition of occupation, yet not fit in at all to another definition of occupation?  Isn't an occupation an occupation?  Anyways, I guess that is part of the reason we still struggle to explain what Occupational Therapists do, and why Hasselkus explains that the Occupational Therapy Practice Framework provides many definitions of occupation.

If I were to apply Willcock's  model of occupation "doing + being, becoming, belonging = survival and health" to playing the ukulele, the majority of what I am focused on is the doing aspect of the occupation.  As far as the being, becoming, and belonging aspects of this model, over this week I have been frustrated and excited and everything in between, but there is less frustration the more I practice the song I learned this week.  The feelings of frustration will hopefully continue to diminish as I find more enjoyment out of playing the ukulele.

Week 1

You know that point in the semester when you have so much stuff you should be doing, but you come up with lots of ways to keep busy to prolong doing your school work.  The times when having dance parties, going to get ice cream, and playing volleyball aren't even questions in your mind, you are going because if you don't you would be in the library studying for your exam.  Even cleaning your apartment and going to the gym sound like great ideas, because well you haven't worked out all semester but in high school health class they told you that exercising was good for your brain. Well for me this situation may or may not occur way more than once a semester, but I can usually count on it happening around finals week each semester.  My second semester of college was no exception!  With only a few days left in the semester my roommate and I were in the living room avoiding school work for a couple of hours as she played the ukulele and then proceeded to show me a few of the basics.  It was so much fun and way more memorable than studying a couple more pages in my sociology book.  Since that jam session I have wanted to learn to play the ukulele, but have never made it a priority.  So here I am 5 years later finally making steps towards the goal of learning the ukulele.

Most of the steps that I have taken in efforts to start my new occupation fall in the calculative thinking.  I researched ukuleles online before deciding to purchase a ukulele at a local music store. In addition to purchasing the ukulele I have talked with friends who play the ukulele who are willing to help teach me the basics.  As of right now my occupation is going to be heavy in calculative thinking until I am comfortable with the basics of the ukulele and can move towards more meditative thinking.  I am hoping that the meditative thinking will come more into play as I  learn to enjoy playing the ukulele and choose songs that have more meaning to me.

The only personal experience I have had with a ukulele is the one that I described earlier with my roommate.  Although this experience has given me a small amount of personal meaning in my desire to learn the ukulele, the majority of my desire to learn is coming from societal expectations that may come from class or my desire to conform with my current roommates who play string instruments as well.