Stranger than Fiction Write-Up

After watching the film Stranger Than Fiction, I can connect the roles of being an author and a narrator of a story. I know for a fact that the author controls the story and and has the power to decide what will happen next. The narrator is basically the author's voice and is reading what the author wrote. Just like how in the movie whatever Ms. Eiffel typed in the type writer was narrated and actually happened to Harold Crick. Originally, Harold was supposed to die until Karen discovered that Harold was a real person. Karen, being the author, had the power to change how her book was going to end and came up with a new ending that saved Harold's life. So I believe that the author has a lot more power than the narrator, who just reads what the author wrote. 

Well since we had to write a research paper and not a speech, I had to leave out any personal nouns. I imagined my self as a narrator to avoid writing in any pronouns. It helped because I had that narrator who narrates books in third person omniscient. I think who ever reads my paper might be hooked after they read some of the information I found researching. I think they may find it interesting how steroids will be affecting people. 

Day 8

Day 8 was a Saturday afternoon and was my first time working on a weekend. Dr. Cheng says Saturdays are usually his busiest days and wanted me to come see for my self. Unfortunately, this particular Saturday was a slow business day. I did the usual removing staples and filing papers for about hour and a half. Dr. Cheng only had one patient who came in while I was there. After I finished with a big stack of files, Dr. Cheng showed me an old file of a prisoner. In 2009 Dr. Cheng volunteered to do a physical for a prisoner who was in poor health. Lets call her "Maria" This was an interesting and sad story, Maria had a rare recessive gene disorder that affected her height and her mobility; she is a legal dwarf I think is the correct term and is on a wheelchair. She was convicted for murdering her 2 year old son after pleading guilty in court even though Dr. Cheng think she's innocent. She pleaded guilty because she found out that she would only spend a few years in jail instead of 10 years. Dr. Cheng said that the son was beaten to death but he said it was unlikely that the mom killed the son because she had a difficult time doing simple tasks because of her condition (he confirmed this after he did her physical and she was unable to throw a ball, let alone beat her own child). They think the real suspect was the woman who let Maria live with her and her children. Now this is where the story gets even more interesting. The woman's kid's father was the man who raped Maria and Ivan, Maria's son who's deceased, was the fruit of that act. In my opinion, that woman let her anger out on Ivan because she was mad that the father made him. After Ivan's death, the woman disappeared and was never tracked by L.A Police Dept. Dr. Cheng was pretty skeptical on how the justice system down in L.A handle this case because barely no common sense was used. Maria could barely throw a ball, how can she possibly cause damage to her son? The sad thing was that Maria was almost deported back to her parent's home country even though she spent most of her life living in the U.S and she had a green card. So yeah this was very interesting and sad at the same time, it made me wonder the corruption and the carelessness of the higher authority that is suppose to be protecting our rights. This was the highlight of my visit to Dr. Cheng's office has certainly got me wondering about what I read. I never knew how much interesting things a chiropractor can do. I'd like to have more visits like this in the future. That's all for now folks, until next time...

-Ya boii John!!


Time logged in: 2.5 hrs
Time logged total: 14 hrs

Day 6 & Day 7

This is a post for Tuesday February 5 and Thursday February 7 2013.

Day 6 was another filing and removing staples day at Dr. Cheng's office. Those papers are records of his patients since the late 90's and I'm helping Dr. Cheng prepare them to be scanned to be stored in the computer. I had only 5 files but they were pretty thick ones and it took me about an hour to finish removing staples and another 45 minutes doing another stack. It's pretty boring work but the Jazz music in the background helps me through the job. It was a slow afternoon as only a couple of people had appointments and one of those people was Coach Oca who is a football coach and a teacher in South City. Other than that it was a slow day. I hope I could do more in the future so I could get an idea what to do for my presentation.

Day 7 was another file and removing staples day at Dr. Cheng's office. I filed for the majority of my visit but I did other things as well. It was a pretty busy afternoon/night, there were a lot of patients who came in. I saw a couple of girls from South City who had a physical scheduled. One of them was having fun with the massage chair. I know this because I had to observe what was going on in the office. Dr. Cheng had me listen in while he worked with a patient. I picked up his techniques and methods of diagnosing injuries while i listened. He asked the patient questions and had them go on different positions checking for any pain. After  that he gave his diagnosis  and recommended what was best for the patient. He then explained that he doesn't like skip steps or procedures when he does his job unlike some doctors and physicians. That seems to be a pet peeve of his. This visit was much more interesting and I hope to have more visits like this.

Until next time,
-Ya boii John!

Time logged (Day 6&7): 4 hrs
Time logged in total: 11 and 1/2 hours

Day 5

This is a late post done earlier last week on Thursday January 31, 2013. I thought I had posted it but it seems that I'm wrong. Day 5 was an interesting day, Dr. Cheng allowed me to watch him do an adjustment on two patients. Before that I was removing staples off of old records to get them scanner ready so he can have those records saved in his computer. Dr. Cheng introduced me to one of his long term patients who was cool with me watching her getting adjusted. It was really interesting, it looked like it felt good and painful at the same time but the patient looked so relaxed the whole time. I was surprised on how much force Dr. Cheng applied and he later explain that if he only work with little force then it won't be effective. The patient was more lively after the back adjustment and she described it "It's the best thing since peanut butter!". This experience was very interesting and every visit with my mentor gets me educated more about chiropractic. Till next time....

-Ya boii John!


Time logged in: 2 hrs
Time logged total: 7.5 hrs

Days 3 & 4

This post includes day 3 and day 4 for my mentor log hours. Day 3 consisted of more info about chiropractic. Dr. Cheng introduced more ideas and some more info about what he does with his patients. We talked about Malpractice which is as he described it "If a doctor or a chiropractor does not do his or her job and misses an injury that kept that patient from moving or worse death." That's what malpractice is. We looked at more files about his former patients to get an idea of how he dos his observations. I observed more patients who came in for their adjustments and their posture before and after their visit with Dr. Cheng.

Day 4 seemed like a non busy day for Dr. Cheng because he had no patients scheduled. He introduced me his idea for marketing, which is a simple greeting card and a refrigerator magnet that he will send to his patients around this years Christmas. Dr. Cheng really likes to explain what he talks about because he gave me a lecture about marketing. But I didn't mind because he wants people to understand what he is talking about and tries not to confuse them. Anyways I had to count the cards and organize them. Took me about 45 minutes to count 1023 cards and organize them neatly in a box and label each pile. After Dr. Cheng showed me something really cool, an actual MRI scan or picture or graph, I forgot what they are called. It was really cool seeing someone's spine and what that patient is having problems with. Dr. Cheng gave me another lecture between X-Rays and MRI and the main difference between them. I really learned a lot on Day 4 and I'm getting comfortable around my work place. Until next time....

-Ya Boii John!!

Time logged in: 2.5 hours (Day 3&4 combined)
Time in total: 5.5 hours

Day 2

This is a late post, these hours were done on Tuesday earlier this week. For day 2 of my internship at Dr. Cheng's office, we mainly discussed how he evaluates his patients before he physically treats them. He showed me a paper with some basic questions like "What do you feel?" or "What's hurting?" with diagrams so he can doodle what part of the patient's body is hurting. Dr. Cheng calls this his SOAP (Subjective Objective Assessment Plan) notes sheet. The sheet has five sections: Subjective is for finding out what is the patient is feeling, Objective is for what Dr. Cheng can infer based on his findings from the patient, Assessment is for the diagnosis that Dr.Cheng makes, Plan is for how he will treat these problems and give directions that the patient will follow to get better, and the last section is for the codes of the treatment to record data. Then I looked at old files he had in the back room and told me I could help him file them electronically and shred the papers soon. He left the office for a few minutes and I kinda took over for him but all I did was tell the patients that he was gone and he'll come back in a few. I did more observations on the patients and looked for minor details like how they looked after the treatment compared to how they looked before. This is a tool Dr. Cheng uses to tell if something positive happened to the patients and are on their way to recovery. Well that is it for now, at this stage its still pretty early for me to be watching an actual adjustment but in the future I'm sure I will experience it. Until next time.......

-Ya boii John!

Time logged: 2hrs
Time logged in total: 3hrs

Day 1

Today I visited Dr. Cheng's (my mentor) office after school. He asked me what I knew about chiropractic care and I told him my knowledge based on the research I did. Then, he gave me a tour of the work place and introduced me to the rest of the employees. He had to finish treating his patients so I had to wait for a few minutes. I sat on the massage chair he had in the office and it felt so good on my back. Dr. Cheng then asked me what I observed while waiting for him and I told him I was watching the fish in his aquarium. We shared a laugh and he told me that listening is a key tool he uses for determining what's wrong with his patients. He told more background info about Chiropractic care and why he loves it. I learned that this type of therapy has high benefits with low risk for patients. Basically seeing a chiropractor is safer than taking medicine. He explained that his work can help an injured athlete to get back to their game at 100% because he helps the recovery process to speed up. I asked him what he would like me to do in his office in the future and he told me I would most likely be just observing and organizing paperwork. He'll try to get me to watch one of his adjustments with his patients. I would like to do and learn more while working under Dr. Cheng in the future. That's all for now folks, until next time.....

-Ya boii John!

Time logged in: 1hr
Time logged total: 1hr