Ambience and Practical considerations

So my final post for this paper. 

Ambiance, as described by the Concise English Dictionary (1990) is "the mood, character, quality, tone and atmosphere etc., particularly of an environment" (p. 31).  Ambience basically sums up the essence of an activity and the surrounding atmosphere generated by the activity.  For cooking that means eating the food.

Practical considerations on the other hand take note of the objects and tools necessary to engage successfully in occupations (Christiansen & Townsend, 2004).  For cooking this means that if I don't have the right ingredients or the right equipment (for example an electric whisk to whip cream) my job is made very difficult or near impossible.

This weekend, we had friends over to watch the World Cup.  Each brought a salad to go with the barbeque that we had planned and I make a banoffee pie for pudding.  First I had to consider the practical side of how I was going to make this pudding; did I have room in the fridge?, did I have the ingredients, equipment to make it?  Not necessarily... but I could organise myself to meet these practical considerations.

I really enjoyed making the pie because it is a while since I cooked for pleasure - whilst I was making it considered the eating experience to come - essentially a group of friends gathering together to eat in readyness for watching the World Cup final.

Visser (1992) states it quite aptly - "We turn the consumption of food, a biological necessity, into a carefully cultured phenomenon. We use eating as a medium for social relationships: satisfaction of the most individual of needs becomes the means of creating community" (p. ix).  By creating this atmosphere from cooking and food, we create the ambience.

I considered the scene later when we were eating..the food created an atmosphere of comraderie, we all sat together and ate..which then set us up to do the same watching the rugby...through cooking, and the food it produced  the ambience for the evening was determined.

References

Christiansen, C. H. & Townsend, E. A. (2004).  An introduction to occupation.  In C. H. Christiansen & E. A. Townsend (Eds.), Introduction to occupation: The art and science of living (pp. 1-28).  New Jersey, USA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Hayward, L.A. & Sparkes, J.J. (1990). The Concise English Dictionary (4th ed.).  Great Britian: Mackays of Chatham PLC.  

Visser M. (1992). The rituals of dinner. London, England: The Penguin Group.

Reference list for the 6 blog postings

Arendt, H. (1958).  The human condition.  Chicago, USA: Chicago University Press.

Butler, M.  (2011).  Affordances (cont).  Unpublished, cited with the permission of the author.  Dunedin, New Zealand: Otago Polytechnic School of Occupational Therapy.

Caulton, R. & Dickson, R.  (2007).  What’s going on? Finding an explanation for what we do.  In J. Creek & A. Lawson-Porter (Eds.), Contemporary issues in occupational therapy (pp. 87-114).  Chichester, England: John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Christiansen, C. H. & Townsend E. A. (2004).  An introduction to occupation.  In C. H. Christiansen & E. A. Townsend (Eds.),  Introduction to occupation: The art and science of living (pp. 1-28).  New Jersey, USA: Pearson Education, Inc.

de Lore,  C. & Brook-White, J. (2000).  Every kitchen tells a story.  New Zealand: HarperCollins Publishers.

Fisher, M. & Yeats, M. (1995).  Interview with Martin Fisher - Violin maker.  Occupation, 6(2), 24-34.

Green, T. F. (1968).  Work, leisure and the American schools.  New York, USA: Random House.

Hayward, L.A. & Sparkes, J.J. (1990). The Concise English Dictionary (4th ed.).  Great Britian: Mackays of Chatham PLC.  

Leach, H. (1997).  Are we selling out on domestic life? Occupation, 5(1), 10-16.

Visser, M. (1992).  The rituals of dinner.  London, England: The Penguin Group.

Comments I have made on other student's blogs

Anna said...

Hi Izabela I really enjoyed reading this post and like the way you used the senses to describe your mindfulness. I wonder if you have considered (maybe from an OT perspective of working with a client) what might affect a person from working mindfully and what could help a future client reach that state of mindfulness? Cheers Anna :)

16 October 2011 18:19  

Anna said...

Hey Cara..I really like the way you used literature to illustrate your understanding of ergonomics and know appreciate how ergonomics can relate to both a group setting and an individual completing a project. I think it would be interesting to see how you think you would change the way you set about starting a project (ergonomically speaking) when you haven't attempted a particular design before.

25 September 2011 18:18

Anna said...

Hi Sarah I really enjoyed reading this post and understanding your take on spirituality..it can be a rather ambiguous term but the way you have described it in connection to your Nana really makes sense to me :) I wonder if you have reflected on how feeling spiritually connected to your Nana through running makes you feel i.e. what feelings or emotions this affords you? Anna :)

16 October 2011 18:40  

Anna said...

Hi Nancy I really enjoyed reading this blog on ergonomics and how you need to consider things such as the environment and abilities of people when playing card games. I wonder if you have thought about the different motivations of the people playing the game.. if for example you are playing with highly competitive people would you play differently yourself? Cheers Anna

24 October 2011 22:05 

My activity and me

According to Arendt (1958), “labour is the activity which corresponds to the biological process of the human body” (whereas) “work is the activity which corresponds to the unnaturalness of human existence” (p. 7).

From this I understand that labour is done out of necessity; we have to do it to survive.  Work however is a choice, it is something we find enjoyable and our survival does not rely on it.  When I cook, according to Green (1968), I am labouring: "whatever is produced by labor is produced to be consumed, not to be put into use" (p. 18).

The cooking I do every day it represents that I am a mother, a nurturer and an organiser - these words describe the roles I take on out of the necessity to provide for my family.  If however I think about the cooking I do out of enjoyment, I am still a mother and nurturer but also a creator and a researcher.  Essentially I am a person with different values when I cook out of necessity versus out of want.

So 'why do I need to do this activity?'.  I cook for different reasons – some days I simply labour; other days when I have more time I labour and work.

I labour to cook in order to keep my family alive, safe and physically healthy; also to keep order in my family life and therefore reduce my own anxieties.

On the contrary, I work to cook to provide interesting and tasty meals for my family; to create an environment of sitting together to eat and communicate; to find pleasure and relaxation for myself and hold onto memories of cooking with my mum; and to cook with my daughter in order to create connections for her to the activity.

Fundamentally cooking is cooking, however when I differentiate between the labour side of cooking and the work side of cooking they have very different meanings for me personally.

References

Arendt, H. (1958).  The human condition.  Chicago, USA: Chicago University Press.

Green, T. F. (1968).  Work, leisure and the American schools.  New York, USA: Random House.