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!