It's that time of the week again, where I bring you yet another update on the quirky happenings of my SRP!

So here we are again, after yet another week into the Senior Research Project.

How are you? Good? I hope so! How have I been, you ask? I've been well, a bit busy between studying for my music exam and running around throwing plush balls at unexpecting seven-year-olds in a music therapy clinic, but still, I've been well.

This past week was just as eventful as the last one, with lots of great opportunities for observations, plenty of time for independent research, and a plethora of games and activities. I'm slowly moving out of the "transition stage" between high school and an internship, and I'm quickly feeling more and more comfortable with everything there. Of course, there were still a few awkward moments, like those times when I needed to page my mentor and stay in the waiting room for her to come get me because I still haven't learned the access key for the inside of the clinic, or when I needed to look something up online, only to remember a few minutes later that I still haven't asked anyone for the Wi-Fi password yet.

But my week wasn't all fun and games. Earlier in the week, I had a chance to witness and take part in some of the more serious, calmer sides of music therapy. For nearly an hour, I was in the ACT school, besides only two people: a student, and another intern, as we all worked on the student's American History assignment together. There were no therapists around, and while other staff were present, they were, most of the time, busy dealing with other students to constantly be watching the three of us. What's more, the student hadn't been having the best of his days, with his arousal and emotions rapidly changing, skyrocketing at one point, and plummeting at the next. Neither I nor the other intern had ever been left to tend to a patient by ourselves before, without any other therapist or full-time staff taking the reigns.

Looking back, I don't know why I didn't feel terrified back then. I was responsible for this other person, for not just their history homework, but for their mood and attitude for the rest of that day, perhaps even the week. Yet, somehow, everything just fell into place. I found myself calmly speaking the same words I'd hear staff say to clients-- "Let's take a lap around the clinic, okay?" "Do you need a vision break?" "Communicate with your real voice, please." None of it felt awkward; if anything, it was... heartfelt. Things continued this way for the rest of the week, and by the end of it, I realized that nearly all the patients I had met in Week 1 remembered my name and wanted to know more about me, and a few of them even ran up to me and gave me high-fives and hugs. This has happened before, when I've taught music students and became close with them, but I never expected this would happen in such little time. It was shocking, but touching. I really felt like I was connecting with the patients, like I was getting to know them and, in turn, they were getting to know me.

On the research side, things are progressing smoothly as well. I'll be purchasing a few music therapy research books soon, hopefully, and I've had the chance to read many of the great books and articles kept at NMTSA. My observations are becoming more and more coherent, and I'll hopefully begin narrowing down my number of clients for my case studies, and begin handing out consent forms to parents before I begin interviews and whatnot.

What I've Learned
By popular demand (not really), the glamorous segment has returned! So, once again, here are five things, in no particular order, that I've learned this week:

1. How to give proper squeezes to the body.
    -Side note/Context: Because autism and other mental disabilities can often disconnect the brain from the body, leaving patients with no spatial recognition of their bodies, squeezing body parts, including the feet, legs, hips, arms, and head, can help rebuild networks and strengthen the connections between the brain and body, allowing patients to feel their bodies more
2. I really show draw out and show a map or blueprint of the clinic to show to people when explaining the common music therapy practices at NMTSA.
3. Always bring a jacket, no matter how warm it is outside; you never know when the AC's suddenly going to kick on in full blast.
4. Emotions and cognitive abilities go hand-in-hand, in a sort of "chicken and the egg" way: negative emotions can block cognitive functioning, but those blocks can cause frustration and more negative emotions, and that can continue in an awful cycle for quite a while
5. I still don't know medical terms.

So, after much preparation, nervous fits, and rush-hour traffic, I have finally completed the first week of my internship, and of my Senior Research Project. And let me tell you: it's been a wild ride. I mean, I even dreamed about observing sessions for some of the patients at the clinic the night after my first day there! I never knew it was possible to become so immersed into something so quickly, but apparently it is.

From the beginning, I was prepared for the worst, for confusion, for incompetence, for awkwardness, for practically anything. The reality was far from that, actually; I faced little, if any, of those things. Adjusting to the environment of the clinic took no more than a few hours, at most. Sure, at first, the sudden screams from patients would startle me, the lack of a strictly controlled environment would leave me wondering if I was in anyone's way, and the physical closeness between me and the patients as I did my observation would make me feel a bit awkward. Yet, before I knew it, I was addressing patients by their names, introducing myself to parents, and fist-bumping therapists... well, not in that exact order.

I spent three days at the clinic this week: two eight-hour days, Tuesday and Thursday, and one four-hour day, Friday. My time was split between observing group sessions, led by one therapist and with multiple patients present, taking part in individual sessions between one therapist and one client, and watching patients as they attended the ACT school offered at NMTSA for students to gain an education while their needs would be kept in mind. I've marked my observations of many patients, following their individual appointments, group sessions, and school activities, so the next week or two will be spent on narrowing down which clients to further study for my case studies.

As of now, my research question remains quite broad, and I'm still working on my particular boundaries and conditions that I'll take into consideration. Particularly, while I was previously considering studying onto patients with autism, I've found quite a few interesting cases in those either diagnosed with something else, or not diagnosed at all. Hopefully, I'll be able to specify all of that soon, in the next few weeks.

What I've Learned
Now this is a little corner I decided to introduce to each one of my weekly blog posts because, well, an internship, like anything else, is a place to learn. Why not mark what those things are, then?

So this week, I have learned...

1. That I know little to no medical terms.
2. That layout of the building is extremely important in the music therapy practice.
3. The lyrics to Elsa's part in "For the First Time in Forever" from Frozen.
4. That music therapy is far more wide-reaching than simply "using music to treat mental illnesses."
5. That there are three-year-olds sharper and wittier than I'll probably ever be.

Five seems like a good number to stop at, so I'll leave it at here this week. I hope next week I'll have more and more exciting updates to bring you all.

Until then, this is Aarthi Ganapathi, BASIS Scottsdale Senior and amateur yoga-ball-bouncer, signing out.