let it snow?

Well, here I am sitting at home during another snow day. This is the third one in the past two weeks. That means

three less days of payment. Grrrr. On the plus side, the snow is pretty and it allows me to relax a bit. Today, I slept in, watched a good movie after a big breakfast, and took a bubble bath while listening to some quality music by Andrew Belle. Of course, I also went for a run on the treadmill and spent an hour shoveling my car out of the snow. But it balances out. Tonight I plan on watching TV (new Bones...yay!) and drinking a beer with dinner. I am grateful for the positive of having an unexpected day off because both of my jobs are in schools. I suppose one day I may not be so lucky.

I am enjoying work though. I began my part-time gig at The Children's Home of Cromwell this week. I am a one-to-one aide for an 8th grade student at their onsite school called the Learning Center. I am there for 2.5 hours M-F. So far, my student has only shown up for one of the three days that I have been there. She seems like a very sweet girl and I'm excited to get to know her. My one goal with her (for now) is to improve her motivation to be in school. Clearly, it's low. If she comes tomorrow, then she will have been to two days of school this whole week. Granted, it has been snowing practically all week, but the other day students made it there so hopefully my student will begin to come too.

Since she hasn't been there, I've been hanging out in the classroom getting to know the other students and my fellow staff members. These are tough kids. They have experienced more emotional traumas in their short lifetimes than I may ever experience. But already, I like them. I know that there will be hard days ahead and that this is only the beginning, but I feel as though I could really work with these kids. I'm not quite sure what I have to offer them yet, but I know that I'll figure it out. And I'm very excited to get to know my specific student and discover what her story is. Next week I have training all week so I won't get much time with her then, but hopefully she'll come to school tomorrow and I can begin to build a rapport with her.

My after-school job has continued to go well and the students are in a "settling" stage. This is when they begin to push their boundaries a bit. The newness of having an after school program and meeting new leaders has begun to wear off and now the students want to see how far they can push us to go. I would say that my team is holding up pretty well. This is a tough stage as you still want to build relationships with the kids, but you have to set your boundaries so they know how far they can go. Personally, I get pretty strict at this point. I don't set extreme consequences, but I follow through immediately with what I say and I let the kids know that I'm not intimidated by them and that I won't put up with anything. It is hard to do since I would much rather spend time getting to know them and joking around with them, but it is necessary. I will be glad when this stage is over and we can all loosen up a bit around each other.

So that's the update for now. Hopefully, I will be back at work tomorrow and there won't be anymore snowstorms for a little while. Truly, I don't mind the snow and I would much rather have snow on the ground all winter than have it be gray and brown all the time. It makes for a much prettier New England landscape...don't you think?