Haha, weird, because I read this (below) just *after* I was literally thinking to myself how close/comfortable I feel around my coworkers, and how this was soooooo apparent after today. I was thinking about how I said to my supervisor/boss, in a really goofy way after a meeting when she was trying to get our attention/acting angry and we were allll in a really talkative/goofy mood: "Step aside sistah!" (or maybe I said "Step down sistah!"), and I remember thinking RIGHT when I said it that it was a bold comment for me to make to my *supervisor*, but that I just love her so much that I felt able to kid around with her to a huuuge extent. . . she replied to me... "you know what.. I will pepper spray you!" because we were in a parking lot and I guess it's her big joke now because she has it on her key-chain.
I don't know.. it was just so obvious after our dreadfully long work day today how *well* we all get along. And we also had a surprise meeting for one of our staff members who turned 21 today. It's just *AMAZING* how different I am in this work setting compared to my last one. My last one I always felt like I was on pins and needles/watching my back, at my new job.. I still have to watch my back, but everyone is just so FRIENDLY/loving/goofy.. it makes my extremely hard work/excessively long hours feel fine. I'm exhausted, way over-extended, but I don't mind it one bit. . and that's really something.
Funny because my last job you couldn't get me to stay a minute past my time necessary there, and I would always come in late... at my new job: right on time (if not early) and working over 8 hrs/day (and the max we're allowed to get paid for is 8 hrs./day a week... but luckily we DO get comptime if we go over i.e. take off time and still get paid according to how many extra hours of work we have done)
I am definitely the socialite in my new job (whereas I practically felt like a mute in my old job).. and I guess that's the way I really like it to be.. in all honesty, I always have liked it that way: with friends, work, etc. I'm all about the fun/wild/chaoticness of trying to respond to 3 people at once.. sometimes I need my time away from it, but for the most part.. that's when I feel at my best.
Notice how I talk about my job *all* the time in this journal too, compared to hardly ever talking about it when in my internship. Although DC was great, my internship blew.. and I just didn't feel like wasting any more energy discussing it in this journal.. plus, nothing exciting ever happened.
My CRE* is becoming increasingly rambunctious and somewhat lazy. I have to yell at them a lot.. but it's difficult because sometimes I'm just as silly/lazy as they are and that's when things sometimes spin out of control.. luckily I know how to bring it back into control though. Today I had to fill out 4 Injury forms!!! That's huge (4 out of 5 working today..) and I was getting upset with all of the injuries because that doesn't make *me* or our program look good, even though there really was nothing I could do to prevent it, and also because I have to report EVERY TINY THING (minor scratches/bleeding.. stuff in eyes.. etc.) ... but yeah, let's just say they aim to have NONE throughout the entire summer, and I just wracked up 4 in 30 minutes of work today. The kids thought it was funny, but I made us stop what we were doing and do trash-pickup instead because it was just too ridiculous. One guy (not in my CRE*, but an outside worker) threw a piece of wood onto one of my CRE* worker's neck! (aiming for the trash area).. two others were bleeding from wood poking them... and I had to send one home because her eyes were irritating her badly after something got stuck behind her goggles. Mannnn... so everyone gave me a hard time when I got back to work after being with my CRE*... they were just teasing mostly.
Trash pick-up was actually a blast. Um.. yeah.. I got my kids to RUN AFTER trash to put it in the bag. lol... never thought it possible.. until I thought of THE GREATEST game ever. It's called, "I-SPY TRASH" ... haha.... I made it up because they were complaining so much... .. basically I hold out the bag.. we walk through the forest, and I call out "I spy something silvery for one point!"... they go runnnnnning to everyhting silvery.. the thing is.. I don't tell them if they've found the right thing unless they touch it with their trash-grabber.. and if they DO touch it with the trash-grabber but it isn't the right thing, they have to bring back anything they touch to the trash bag before they can go looking for the right thing.... .. and then I said I'd give them a prize of their choice (something small) at the end.. so I owe two kids Energy Drinks tomorrow (lol), and they want to play the "game" again tomorrow! Yes! haha. They literally are fighting each other to get to trash.. it's great.
Oh, and odd.. but for some weird reason out of NO WHERE today during lunch I said, "oh, by the way kids.. don't play with oujia
An hour later, after an intense conversation, I wanted to stop talking about it and couldn't figure out why we had started talking about that in the first place... they said that it was literally a moment of pause between conversation when I said it out of no where.. the thing is... the only girl there who said she had played with it before had only done it TWO DAYS AGO (we found this out after an hour went by and she had been talking about how she "had done it before".. I'm thinking like years ago). ... she said she was pretty shocked to hear me say my comment out of no where because of how recently she has... and she also asked me, "do you think dogs can sense things?"... apparently, since playing with the board, her super-cuddly-dog who crawls into bed with her at night won't even go around her anymore and was growling at her when she came home ... she said her dog won't even come into her room anymore. heh... not to be too supernatural (more spiritual than anything), but I really feel like I said that out of no where for a reason.... like a message meant for her... I mean, that's *really* not something that's on my mind a lot.. and for me to just say that out of no where (myself even asking the kids later how the heck the conversation came up.. and they ALL said I "said it out of no where")
.. anyway, weird.
Here's the thing about the coworkers:
You've always thought of your coworkers as part of your extended family, and you've just hoped that they felt the same. Well, lucky you. You're about to be shown just how right you are.
Lin *
Jason
Sarah
Phil