Learning experience

I spent the past few days working with disability children. As part of our physio program, each of us have to complete 40 hours working with people with some disability. We went to Mandurah which was about a couple of hours drive. There were only 4 children because anymore and it would be too difficult and not enough staff members to handle the children. It was a good experience and it sure does test your patience. You can only tell the children to stop doing this and stop doing that before your nerves start getting the best of you. I must've sounded like a broken record half the time I was there.

There was an 18 year old girl who had Autism. HJ was really well behaved and even taught me how to sign. I felt so bad because there were many times when I couldn't understand her. It must be quite frustrating when all you want is a drink and people can't seem to understand. As much as these past few days was about patience, it can't measure up to the patience she must have.

Then there was 12 year old JL. He has Downs Syndrome and is definitely a ladies man. When we went to the grocery store, he would talk to every women behind the counter. He was clearly hitting on them and kissing the back of her hands. It was actually funny to watch because he had more guts than most guys would. They can definitely learn something from this kid. Unfortunately he saved his bad side for us, well me especially. He can be very selfish at times and always demanded to have things his way. He was also quite the drama queen. On every outing he would, at least once, pretend that he suffered a broken limb or some kind of traumatic injury and actually start crying and wimpering.

Then there was 16 year old CS. She acted like a 5 year old most of the time and was super hyper most of the time. She stuck to you like glue and whenever we were sitting, she would kneel on the floor and want to place her head on your lap. She's like a cat. If it was up to her, she would eat on the floor and sleep on your lap.

Finally we have the young 6 year old ST. We were short staffed when one of the other student had to leave due to personal reasons. ST was quite the handful so the other 2 staff had to focus their attention on him most of the time. The kid will literally take off and run if you don't hold him down in public. He must've thrown everything he touched and jumped off everything he could climb on. We called him our little monkey. The kid can scream like I've never heard anyone scream before. He was so cute but also such a pain.

We went on a boat cruise the first day and saw some dolphins. When the captain told us that we might see dolphins, I thought it was just something he told all the customers. That was a nice surprise. Then the next day we went to see Madagascar. It was a funny movie. Finally, we went to a Wildlife park on the last day. That was the highlight in my opinion. It was my first encounter with Aussie animals. The kangaroos were left to run around out in the open so we got to feed them. They were all baby kangaroos and they were sooo cute.

I also hung out with some cute koalas. Gee I couldn't believe how soft their fur was. I wanted to just pick it up and hug it like a teddy bear but I was afraid it would bite me or something. The sleep all cuddled up in a ball but sitting up. That was interesting to see.

What else did we see that was Australian...There were camels, ostrichs, and dingos which look like foxes to me. The ostrichs were a lot bigger than I ever thought they would be and man were they ugly. Those things are definitely photogenic animals because they actually look half decent in the pics. They really are uglier looking than that.


These camels just came right up to the camera. It was as though they wanted the attention and photo shoot. They're not very pretty to either eh.

This next picture is just so darn cute. Awww, they're soo cute and little...Don't ask why a rooster was in there with the them. They seem like an odd match-up.