I have been so blessed and lucky over the past year. So much so that I
wonder what I could possibly have done to deserve all of it. But one
thing I do know is that I want to give some of that back — pay it forward.
When I attended the annual "Day For Hearts" at Sacred Heart Children's
Hospital last month I suddenly knew what I wanted to do: To help kids
who were having heart surgery like I had so long ago to have a little
bit easier stay in the hospital during their procedure. As such last
week I picked up an application for volunteer work at SHCH. It will be
a long process. In fact it might be mid-summer at the earliest before
I know whether I passed their standards.
But this time I refuse to let myself be pessimistic. If the mountain
does not come to Mohammed, then Mohammed will go to the mountain.
As such I have come up with a plan to bring books and video games to
the cardiac kids. Originally I was planning on buying normal paper type
books and taking those in. But now I have decided that it would give me
a lot more options to embrace the new ebook technology. I can hardly
carry a library of many paper form books around with me — I couldn't
handle the weight. But with ebooks it is of course different, practically
no weight at all for many books; and the technology of ebook readers
today is so good that it is not much different a reading experience from
the paper books. And so I decided to go with a Blackberry Playbook for
the games and a Nook Color for the ebooks. I figured that I could get
both the Playbook and the Nook for $200 less than I could the cheapest,
last-year-model iPad. I bought the Playbook first, which I can also have
for personal use other than the volunteer work. For the Nook reader I will
have to wait for this Summer to come up with the money for it.
So I have started collecting games and books on the Playbook. I've never
been much into video games, but I think Cut the Rope is a blast. And
at least up until Level 5 I've been doing fairly well at it. It is a very
forgiving game — you can play each round as many times as you want in
order to get some skill with it. I also downloaded Rocket Storm, an old-
fashioned style arcade game where you get to blow things up. Perhaps not
good for a hospital environment? Well I'll let the kids decide that.
But the real surprise came when I found a series of interactive books by
Touchybooks. Diana Dreams About Dinosaurs was a delight. These
interactive stories are what you might call 3-dimensional compared to
normal paper books — touch a bowl of cereal and Diana extends her spoon
to eat it, touch a shower head and the water starts flowing, touch the
green light on a stoplight to let Diana cross the street. Wonderful stuff.
But the true find was Goblin Forest. This interactive book is truly amazing,
a combination of beautiful artwork, gentle Celtic music, and fine background
narration. There is nothing in Goblin Forest that tells you what to touch
to make something happen. As the narrator says, the forest is full of many
mysteries: It is up to us to figure it out. Which sometimes involves a bit
of guessing. And a lot of trying.
How wonderful that those kids will have the pleasure of your company, Edward!You have already "paid it forward," though. There's a three-and-a-half-year-old in Northwest Arkansas who is healthy and happy, an indisputable testament to that. If you never did a nice thing the rest of your life, there's already a special place in Heaven reserved for you.:heart:
Nice idea. If anyone, you know the best what it is like to be a kid and spend endless days in hospital, attached to some weird machines. I hope kids will enjoy your efforts :up:
:heart: :wizard: :heart:
Thanks so much Darko. I please ask for your positive vibes maybe over the next few months. I am so nervous.
I really admire you for this. :heart:
Originally posted by edwardpiercy:
:yes:
@ San.I just hope it turns out well! I composed my cover letter this afternoon. Now the letters to my doctors asking for referrals. Thank you. 🙂
I can only admire you for doing this, Edward, and the ebook with books and games is a super excellent idea. Kids love technology and that doesn't change just because they are sick. Just makes it more accessible to them.I can't imagine the powers that be would deny you as a volunteer. These places are usually having to beg for volunteers. Good bless your efforts Edward. Am very proud to have you for a friend.
@ Linda. Thanks so much for your good thoughts on the matter. I'm trying to be positive, but I think I want to do this so badly that I imagine a hundred things going wrong. For example, I was hospitalized for depression back in 1992. Would this effect the determination? I don't know. I hope I get some good letters from my doctors. Next week I'm going to start writing them.
Hmmm, I may have a present for you. There's a service called Getjar Gold that allows you to download free versions of popular paid for games on Android. These are legitimate things that have been sent to the service by the developers so you shouldn't worry about it being a dodgy download site. You're likely to find plenty on there (Cut The Rope included) that could be great for kids and will make the Nook a better investment.There are, of course, less than savoury applications available on the service as well as games, but so long as you're the one in charge of downloads and just let them use what you've already downloaded then it should be fine.
Fantastic! Thanks a bunch Furie. :up:
Yes, we have spoken about it. You were my sounding board I guess. For which I thank you, my friend.
I comepletely missed this post!I was wondering why you hadn't been posting about your plans with the volunteer thing, which we've been talking about elsewhere. So, here it is, then.Otherwise, you know what I think about this idea, so I won't bother you with more compliments. (My dad would always say that. With a smirky smile.);)