Put on your party favors!

There's much rejoicing which is why I've been MIA. I've not been partying like a lunatic but rather getting together all of the nuts and bolts aspects of my new internship!

Yes, I was accepted—finally!—at the agency I was hoping to be welcomed to join! It's Good Samaritan Community Center in Puyallup. I'll be working in the children and families division. Which means I get to work with the little ones! (Pooky says he thinks I'll do ok just as long as I think of the children as cats.)

Since being given the good news on Thursday, I've had to scramble to get my counselor's registration application completed, which meant taking a test about HIV/AIDS and paying $35 to take this test, buying my own malpractice insurance (only $25 for the year), tracking down my bachelor's degree diploma, and I've still got to get my immunization records and secure two more people for phone references.

I will be sent to an orientation in which I'll be put through the customary procedures: background check, TB test, photo ID card, and much, much more!

The drive to the center is about 1 hour away, and Pooky expertly calculated that means $10 a round-trip. It sucks, but I can't not take this internship. I tried to find something closer and that didn't work out. Besides, I like the supervisors. I think I fit in the facility, and apparently they think I fit too.

What's cool is I won't have to work early in the morning. Since most clients are seen after school, this means I can start my day around 11 am and work until 8 pm. These are the hours I am most functional. I am not a morning person.

As a wise fellow classmate said, your strength is also your weakness. I feel I have a lot of strengths regarding working with children, but I also see where I have a lot of weaknesses and room to fully grow and bloom. I'm sure by the time my internship is complete my feelings, thoughts, and experiences in working with children will have been completely changed. I'm looking forward to having my perceptions shattered, re-enforced, and having moments of total awe and surprise.