Children on a Country Road
(24 October - 2 November 2003)

2 November 2003
-Those pumpkins sure are rotting fast!
-The kids will find most anything to argue with each other about.  This doesn't really come as much of a detriment to the job, though.  Just gives us something more to do.

1 November 2003
-Bleh day, but feeling better.  Unsure of what to do.
-"The Human Stain" was one of the more captivating movies I've seen in quite a while.  The moody, snowy, spooky setting is consistent throughout the film & this makes every event in the movie more powerful.  There's a great deal of depth to this one & it brings out the way people discuss movies too.  Or at least it did tonight.

31 October 2003
-Fish is in town & the plan is to carve pumpkins later.  Things are good.
-For the third year in a row, Halloween has been vaguely ruined.  Last year I had to work, the year before I had to work & had a migraine, this year I'm sick.  This is extremely frustrating given my love of this holiday.  Not that there's much to do besides answer the door, but it's still putting me in a bad mood.

30 October 2003
-Fish incoming soon, as well as Halloween.  Good good stuff.

29 October 2003
-I'm beginning to think that I initially misjudged my current boss, or at the very least that it was bad timing to start working for him when I did.  He's actually turning out to be a really good guy & not such a bad manager after all.  He definitely will make comments that he shouldn't at times, but ultimately his heart seems to be in the right place.  So many of the initial problems stemmed from it being a very hard time for our house when I started working & this putting extra pressure on everyone, especially him.  Ah well, such are bygones.

28 October 2003
-It seems that while I pretty much never get lost away from work, I have a nasty habit of getting lost all the time during work-related driving.  This is beginning to take its toll on my patience.
-Watching the kids carve pumpkins today was one of the best experiences I've had on the job.  Though they all had vaguely sharp implements (those orangey pumpkin-carving kits... safer, but not 100% safe), no one was focused on anything but doing a good job with their pumpkin shape idea.  There were whole swaths of time where one could forget the context of the scene & believe that it was just a bunch of normal neighborhood kids gathering for their carving a couple days before Halloween.  Those moments when they just get to be regular kids are the best.

27 October 2003
-Today I watched someone rip up their homework in frustration over the inability to read it without glasses, which had been left at school.  Given the lack of any magnifying devices in the house, it was very frustrating to me as well, since there was nothing I could do to help (other than simply doing the reading for him, which was the only real content of the homework, so that wasn't an option).  Blah.
-Continually, I write about work in this vague shroud, but I'm still frustrated with how much & how little I'm revealing.  I'm constantly second-guessing if it is sufficiently shrouded so that Seneca would be happy if they read it, but sufficiently clear so that anyone reading it has some idea what's going on.  Dealing with privacy may be necessary in this context, but is frustrating in all contexts.  I still advocate the society without secrecy.

26 October 2003
-Everyone will have their good days & their bad days.  At my job, though, good days inevitably mean being frustrated by others' bad days.  Some of these moments, I wonder about the group home setting in general & whether it is beneficial to try to socialize these kids when they do so much to tear each other down.  Ultimately, I know it is for the best, but sometimes it just seems hard.

25 October 2003
-Even though I don't dislike work, I still feel dread on Saturday nights when I know work is just around the corner.  I wonder how good a job has to be before that dread goes away.  Methinks that would be the sign it would be time to start a "career"... whatever that means.

24 October 2003
-This October has very few of the features that I have come to associate with October.  I have been sorely lacking in creativity, there has been very little energy running about on the undercurrents, & nothing at all notable or exciting is really taking place.  Is it just saving up for the last week?

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