they're coming to take me away, he he, ha ha, ho ho.
I have spent the last three days at the Oregon State Hospital for the mentally ill. NO, not as a patient, though I think some of the people there are more sane than I am. It's part of our clinical assignment for this term, and as a result of a swine-flu quarantine, I got reassigned from the "transitional" ward (ie, people that are mostly-well and preparing to return to society) to an all-male ward which doesn't allow female patients because most of the patients there are sex offenders. Fortunately (or not?) I was not made aware of this reassignment until just before I got there, so I didn't have time to get anxious about it. I didn't even have that moment of panic after the doors slammed locked behind me and I was left at the mercy of my partner, who was the only one assigned keys.
A mental hospital is an interesting place. I don't know what I was expecting. Something out of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, I guess. I mean, it was filmed in that hospital! But it wasn't really like that at all, except for some very delayed games of Rummy, where we would be waiting for the person playing with us to finish consulting his hand with someone the rest of us couldn't see. Is that cheating? For the most part, I could kind of forget I was in a mental hospital, until the guy in the corner started loudly singing "Mellow Yellow", or one of the other patients would tell us about how the radio station KUPL was shut down because they were transmitting radio signals for the American Al Qaida. Then again, I could probably hear that last one from someone in my own family. :)
I think it'll be tougher next week, when my partner and I are split up and left to our own devices to interact with our assigned patients and entertain ourselves. I foresee a lot of Rummy, Yahtzee, and Mellow Yellow.
After that, it's back to the regular hospital, to fend off H1N1 and try to make it through the rest of this term without any more sick days.
Hope you all are well. Sorry I have sucked at keeping up. Everything else is going good. :)
A mental hospital is an interesting place. I don't know what I was expecting. Something out of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, I guess. I mean, it was filmed in that hospital! But it wasn't really like that at all, except for some very delayed games of Rummy, where we would be waiting for the person playing with us to finish consulting his hand with someone the rest of us couldn't see. Is that cheating? For the most part, I could kind of forget I was in a mental hospital, until the guy in the corner started loudly singing "Mellow Yellow", or one of the other patients would tell us about how the radio station KUPL was shut down because they were transmitting radio signals for the American Al Qaida. Then again, I could probably hear that last one from someone in my own family. :)
I think it'll be tougher next week, when my partner and I are split up and left to our own devices to interact with our assigned patients and entertain ourselves. I foresee a lot of Rummy, Yahtzee, and Mellow Yellow.
After that, it's back to the regular hospital, to fend off H1N1 and try to make it through the rest of this term without any more sick days.
Hope you all are well. Sorry I have sucked at keeping up. Everything else is going good. :)