ranting on the ferry.

I have spent all of my drive from Kaikoura to Picton philosophising about what I would write in this blog and now that I’m here and waiting in line for the ferry I just feel exhausted and drained. But I will write, we’ll see how long my laptop battery lasts anyway.

I’m on my way to fieldwork one placement which is pretty exciting as although I have been studying OT for almost two years now (part time) I haven’t yet seen an OT in action. This however means that for a the last couple of weeks I have been in assignment land and lets say, somewhat stressed. One of these assignments was to write a concept review for a few different occupational science concepts; occupational identity and occupational satisfaction; occupational transition; occupational disruption and deprivation. I really enjoyed reading and thinking about these concepts but I loathed breaking them down for an assignment and regurgitating them. I did read at least a million journal articles about the ‘fluffy’ side of OT and lots of them were really interesting if not applicable to my assignment.

So now, what I want to do is apply those concepts to my occupation of making wine.

My lecturer said at the start of the year that basically occupational scientists just chuck the word occupation in front of a word to own it as something to do with occupation. My tactic is therefore just ignoring the word occupation. In my opinion, and from I’ve read by Ann Wilcock (a wonderful occupational scientist) pretty much everything humans do and be is an occupation. An activity that brings purpose and meaning. We are occupational beings. Therefore I more like to think of my studies as a therapist in enabling and supporting meaning and purpose through activities, is my current view. Therefore I’m excited about my placement starting on Tuesday to see how this is actually applied. A few different lecturers (especially my Occupational Science lecture) have warned that in practice the big picture stuff can be lost for just enabling activities of daily living (ADLs), I don’t know if this is a shortcoming because of institutional attitudes, lack of funding, time or resources, or it’s just easy to fall into a rut and method of practise. It’s probably a mix of all. Anyway, I really enjoy all this philosophical, ‘fluffy’, big picture part of Occupational Therapy (I just hate doing the assignments) and so being the optimistic, naïve undergraduate that I am, I hope to apply it and save the world. This is also part of my distrust and dislike of diagnosis and medication. I hope to be able to support people in a mental health setting through their particular limitations and challenges through just supporting the process of creating meaning and purpose through their own chosen occupations, and therefore improving their well-being and health. Let’s hope I’m not just being optimistic and naïve. I’m sure I also have a lot to learn about mental health, I’m anticipating having to challenge my opinion against diagnosis and medication which is fine. Challenging my opinion should lead to growth and better understanding.

Anyway, that rant over. It’s just what I’ve been thinking about on my long drive. What am I studying? Why am I studying this? What does it mean to me? Where do I want to go with it?

So what does this mean in relation to wine? And where am I at with my wine making?

I haven’t been doing much as I have been in assignment land and with timing of going away for 6-7 weeks I couldn’t get much going. I have racked my yarrow mead into another demijohn to get it away from tainting sediment (my friend is making bread from this sediment). We had a little taste. It’s quite dry and sharp and I can’t imagine drinking much of it at once however it was still an enjoyable experience. I still can’t work my hydrometer but I added more honey to sweeten it and feed whatever yeasts are still in the brew. I still don’t know what I’m doing but I’ll just go along with whatever I think is a good idea and hope for the best.

What does this wine making adventure mean in terms of my occupational identity and occupational satisfaction? Well it ties in greatly with my interests in cooking, nature, gardening and potentially partying (not that I encourage binge drinking). I identify strongly with learning how to use what resources I have in my environment for food and medicine. I hope to lessen my impact on the environment by making conscious decisions regarding what I consume. I guess you could label my identity as ‘hippie’ however I don’t like the term and think it’s better suited as a shortening of hypocrite rather than hipster (its origin word) and that statement probably shows I’m too cynical and dark to be a true hippie. Maybe ‘greenie’ is a better label but then that makes me think of yuppies who buy eco friendly cleaning products and donate to greenpeace. Basically I can poke holes in any label put on my identity, and my identity is unique to me, Keri Simone McMullan alone.

So back to the wine, I certainly identify with this new occupation strongly and I have been deriving a lot of satisfaction from it. I am proud of my beautiful demijohns and smile whenever I pass them in the washhouse. I have been telling everyone about it and my hopes. This unfortunately means that everyone wants to taste it so I’m going to have to make a lot but that’s ok, I enjoy the process and have lots of recipes I want to try. I imagine that I will be incredibly satisfied and proud of my end product once it’s ready. I already get so proud over certain meals and preserves I have made with my own garden produce and weeds.

Occupational transition is when one goes through a transition in their occupations. This is a very normal part of life process such as graduating from school into tertiary education, becoming a parent, migrating. At the moment I am transitioning from someone with no knowledge of how to make wine to someone with basic experience. I hope to transition to someone who can craft delicious wines out of a variety of different wild sources. I hope to gather more information for problem solving and feeling more at ease with the process. Then I hope to transition to someone with many delicious wines to share with friends and family. Plus gather more understanding and knowledge of ‘weeds’ and their uses along the way.

Occupation disruption and occupational deprivation are certainly two experiences I haven’t really had so far in my wine making adventure. Occupational disruption is when there is a short-term halt on the ability to engage in a chosen occupation, this could be a broken bone or a child being born. The emphasis is that after a short time things will return to stability or normality. Occupational deprivation is a much longer experience and in my last assignment I listed these categories of factors contributing to occupational deprivation; geographic isolation, incarceration, refugeeism, stereotyping and problems with employment- unemployment, underemployment or overemployment  . Note these factors are external forces.  A disability is not a factor contributing to deprivation rather it may be an external factor such as no wheel-chair access to a building that deprives an individual with a disability. Like I said, I don’t really think these two concepts can really apply to my situation. I guess my wine making has been disrupted by the time I am spending away on fieldwork but this doesn’t concern me. I could imagine that if I were deprived of the ability to make wine it wouldn’t really impact my overall wellbeing and health, rather more important activities would be my focus. If I were incarcerated in prison (I can’t think of any reason why this would happen), I would be far more concerned about my inability to be a mother rather than make wine. Besides, I’ve talked to someone who was in prison a long time ago, and they managed to make potato wine without being noticed.

So that’s a “quick” interpretation of how my wine relates to concepts within occupational science and how occupational science relates to my studies and how my studies relate to me. It’s so much easier to write when I don’t have to reference or say specific things or worry about being marked.

Ka pai for getting this far!! Almost 1500 words.

Just a brief outline of my future hopes. When I get back to Dunedin in mid-July I will start preparing to do my 20L dumpster brew. Hopefully this will be at zinefest and I can have people to share the experience with. Just sent a message to try and organise this.

Plus come August I get another brew going as I will bottle my elderberry wine in September and will have another demijohn free. I’ve been eyeing up all the beautiful gorse flowers as I drove up the country and would love to make some however it will be up to what’s in season in August . There are lots of different flower wines I can make in spring. I’d also love to make a nettle wine but I don’t know where I’d find enough nettles.

No pictures or links yet as I’m on the ferry and they have limited wifi options.