As the dust settles.

What can only be described as an insanely intense two weeks finally reached its culmination yesterday, with our OT graduation and convocation ceremonies. I feel like I just lived through a month's worth of experiences in 5 days. First, I drove a good 2 hours total to Richmond Hill and back on Friday night to pick up Canan (who moved into my nearly-downtown house for 2 nights knowing how impossible commuting back and forth would be). Then with a tragic lack of foresight, we grabbed Tim's on our way home and thereby completely murdered our chances of getting a good night's sleep before our registration exam. Then we awoke at 6:00am and headed down to write it. It went, well, about as well as a registration exam with 2 years worth of material on it COULD go. There were a few easy ones... a few wtf ones... and a lot of in-between ones that forced me to rely heavily on successive approximations and guesstimating. I'm not ashamed to admit I heard several voices in my head during the exam, as I summoned the opinions of various classmates, profs and preceptors alike to give me the right answers (unfortunately they knew exactly the same things I did. Darn.)

Then we rushed home, caught a few quintessential z's, put ourselves through an ultra-high-speed beauty regimen, and ran right back out to our grad formal. I don't remember a whole lot of it (sure sign of a good night), but the highlights included trying to catch tea bags on my head, busting a move with several professors, belting out the backstreet boys at the top of my lungs, and telling nearly ever person in the room how much I love them. Or so I'm told by friends and photographs alike. Unfortunately good nights like these turn into NOT such good mornings. I woke up feeling like I'd been hit by a truck, so Canan and I went for a looooooooong walk to try to walk it all off. Sorta worked. CRAZY WEEKEND.

Monday barely felt like it's own day since I was just preparing myself for Tuesday, which was our graduation and convocation day. It was a whirlwind of ceremonies, speeches, handshaking, thank-you's, and...well, see you laters. Barely had time to process it all as it was happening, but as I lay down that night to sleep, it kind of it hit me...wow. That's it. It's really over. Two years has passed, and now's the time that people head back to lead their respective lives. To become OTs. It's a crazy thought. The past two years have been so jam-packed with experiences that have pushed me well beyond my comfort zones, into territories I didn't even know I could navigate. And man, have I ever learned a lot. About people, about life, about myself. And surrounded by 75 of the most incredible people, who put together have so much talent...so much ambition...passion....drive...intelligence... caring.  It's always almost felt surreal to place myself in their company. And yet, our diversity of skills and experiences is what made us so awesome as a collective. Sure, we had our moments. But we went through a LOT together, and it's incredible how well we did, considering. So many life lessons I'll take away from these two years, but I think my favourite is just that...it's okay to struggle sometimes. It's okay to have a bad day. It's okay to not know. It's okay to feel uncertain, inadequate, or underprepared. And it's okay to ask for help. We're stronger together than we ever could be as individuals.

And so, as the journey draws to a close, I set out to do what I did throughout the program... which is write a mildly ridiculous poem that sums everything up. OT class of 2011, this one's for you.

THE JOURNEY'S END

Well my friends, the journey ends...it's hard to say, I know

I feel like I just met you... where does time tend to go?

Two years ago we stumbled on into 500 U

And we didn't know back then what we were getting ourselves into

So we lived through months of theories, yes, we could write a book

And we know about the lenses that we're going to use to look

Anatomy will never leave us, there's nowhere to hide

Our notes will smell forevermore just like formaldehyde

We survived the journey learning all those neuro tracts

The hours spent in study rooms that we'll never get back

And we know never to call things splints' cause they're really orthoses

Or we'll have to answer to the queen herself, Ms. Pat McKee

We know that all that people need are a house, a job, a friend

And that turning to your partner is quite the common trend

We can all build things like engineers (well almost, anyway)

And we can manual muscle test your @ss right on through the day

We're soldiers of enablement, they've trained us pretty well

And we've got enough acronyms that we'll never have to spell

CPPF, CAOT, COTO and CMOP-E

We got to know these bad boys way too intimately

Yes my friends, the time has come for us to close the book

On papers, tests and presentations, YAY, we're off the hook!

Now we've got the savviness to take on anything

And when someone asks what OT is, you'll know which song to sing...

So as the tables turn now, we're on the other side

And I guess it's our turn now, to lead and teach and guide

We still don't have a clue which way our river's gonna flow...

But I hope it takes you all the places that you wanna go.

xo Janine