Written 1/31/14:

            My goodness!  SIXTEENTH JOURNAL!  I’ve been at Kindering for four months, and I couldn’t love it more – even while I am doing nonstop paperwork sorting.  However, I did have a minor communication slip-up this week.  There is a woman with Down Syndrome who helps out in our classroom – however, this week, the class took a field trip to the Wiggle Works on Thursday, and we had all forgotten to tell her, since she does not attend the team meetings.  She always has an amazing attitude and was not too upset about it, but she still was able to have her fun pretending to be upset.  However, she had nothing to do for hours afterwards, since her ride could not come to pick her up for a while.  At the time, we jokingly passed it off as empty-headedness due to excitement over the Seahawks going to the Superbowl (and there was quite a bit of Seahawks Spirit in the office that day) but we all did feel quite guilty at this fail in communication.

            Speaking of field trips…yes – I was filing paperwork BOTH days this week!  When I first heard about the field trip a few weeks ago, I was less than thrilled, for this very reason.  However, in the spirit of gracious professionalism, I have chosen to be happy that the kids get a day at Wiggle Works and that I have a chance to make the opening of the new Kindering location run a bit more smoothly by taking on the jobs that the employees are too busy to do at this time.  However, I am glad to report that I will be coming back to my classroom in a few weeks, since a pair of twins is joining the class!

            Time management…well…I decided that, as long as I was going to stick to my policy of gracious professionalism regarding the paperwork sorting, I might as well, be as efficient as possible and do as much as I can to.  I am pleased to announce that my time management skills have reach a new high – in the four hours of organizing and filing medical progress reports, I sorted through ALL of the necessary papers from A to S (by the way, there are a LOT of S’s…but I suppose I can’t complain without feeling slightly guilty, since my own last name begins with an S – teehee!)!  My moment of triumph of the week, I suppose.

            Lastly, this may be more in the way of “character realization” than character development, but Felise’s husband brought in her 18-month-old son to the office on Thursday for a few minutes...and he is ADORABLE (the son, I mean)!  I could barely look away from him the whole fifteen minutes they were there, and it made me realize just how much I love working with the kids, and how much I have missed them – yet another reason for me to be glad about the incoming twins!

            My goals, short term and long term, as are they were last week, only now I need the patience to wait a few more weeks to rejoin the classroom and the ability to contain my happiness at the thought of going back!

Written 1/24/14:

I (along with several members of my classroom’s team) were out sick with a stomach bug this week – since Kindering is based on direct interactions with the children, we are not allowed to come in when we are ill, due to the kids’ delicate immune systems.  Unfortunately, I missed both days of my internship, but I hope to be back next week with even more enthusiasm than before.

            Unfortunately, that is all I can say from this update, except that my short-term and long-term goals have not changed from what they were last week.

Written 1/17/14:

As it turns out, the class size has gotten so small that it looks like I will be spending my four hours of internship on Tuesdays upstairs, filing and organizing.  Once again, I’m striving to become more graciously professional, but four hours of filing paperwork in one sitting isn’t exactly a party.  However, I am still excited every day to go to Kindering and work with everyone there – in fact, I am now able to see more of Felise, my supervisor in this area and one of the sweetest people on the planet!

            The team meeting on Thursday has most definitely increased my perception of the teamwork that goes on at Kindering – I knew before that the specialists all must work together to help the children progress in their respective areas, but this time, I saw them making a full plan that they would each implement part of in the future when they had their individual home visits with the child in questions (ex:  “so I will do ___so that when you go next week, ___ will happen” “and then I will do ___ so that when it is your turn again, you can ___”).  I am definitely glad that I was able to see this sort of collaboration in action, instead of hearing about it secondhand during the meetings like I usually do (ex:  “so, how did our plan to ___ go during home visits?”).

            As I have said before, I have been getting far more time-efficient when filing paperwork.  However, my source of pride this week was the creation of a filing device that will help me sort loose papers in half the time – made out of an old wire frame, some hanging folders, and a LOT of rubber bands!  This isn’t so much a job-specific skill as it is a skill that can be useful ANYWHERE – a form of career readiness, I imagine.  I love making things out of unlikely objects, and I have recently discovered Kindering’s treasure trove of broken and discarded organization tools – perhaps, if I do keep sorting paperwork every Tuesday for a while, I might tinker with a few of them!

            However, speaking of job-specific skills, I did manage to fix the paper cutter after I had badly jammed it when I tried to cut too many folders down to size at once.  I am glad that I have acquired some practical, working-with-my-hands skills in my time here – I do believe that such simple job-specific skills as these are underrated nowadays.  If nobody could fix a jammed paper-cutter, where would we be?  Not in a good place, that’s for sure!  While this might seem like a small accomplishment, I am glad to have acquired another tool for my metaphorical belt.

            My goals for this week are just as they were last week, with one minor change – to acquire the patience I need to wait for more children to join, so that I can go back to the part of the job that excites me most – working directly with the kids!

WHEW!  Sorry it has taken so long to update!  What with college apps and semester finals, it has been one hectic month!  I will be posting the last four (yes, four...feel free to throw rocks) journals I have written about my work on site momentarily!

Written 1/10/14:

This Tuesday, I was a little upset that the class size has gotten so small in our classroom – since there were far too many adults and specialists in the room to cope with four or five children, I was sent up to do paperwork for the remainder of the day.  This was actually oddly relaxing for a while, perhaps because I was so tired that day.  However, after the third hour of sorting papers, things did get a little boring.  However, I know that this is a very important job, and with Kindering’s new location opening (!), they need all the help they can get.  I suppose this can count as gracious professionalism, even though I was slightly reluctant to do the job (I know that it was recommended that we voice our concerns in such situations, but I really don’t think it is necessary – I’m pretty sure that everyone understands that paperwork is a tedious task, and it doesn’t seem like they want me to stay with this task indefinitely).

            Speaking of paperwork, however, I am getting far more efficient – time management if I ever saw it (although, I admit…I display time management skills very rarely).  I am definitely much faster when it comes to organization and filing, and I am glad that my internship has helped my efficiency, as it may definitely come in handy in the future.

            This week’s communication, however, was a bit off – I had forgotten to tell Felise that we were completely out of yellow folders (used for special education, social work, and feeding therapy reports) last week, so I spent about an hour on Tuesday cutting yellow folders.  It was remarkably therapeutic, but it also wasted valuable time.

            Lastly, I know I have said this before, but in character-development news, I really must develop a thicker skin…one of the kids was crying again on Thursday, and we’re trying to get him to learn how to self-soothe – but it’s so difficult for me to listen to him crying and crying.  I practically had to chain myself to the art table (well, not that drastic) to keep myself from destroying the team’s hard work and what progress they had made with this child already.

            My goals are pretty much the same as they ever were – continue tracking “Mary’s” progress, while working with all the children under the direction of the specialists to make a difference in their lives in what ways I can.