Corinne's Blog

So it’s 10:27am on the last day of the year, yesterday was my brothers birthday and I wish him the best in my heart and at this moment my boyfriend David is at work teaching an ACT prep course. I was up all night baking banana chocolate chip bread and cookies because I had nothing else to do and an abundance of resources to do so. I just woke up.

I was thinking about how the year is coming to an end and everything I’ve done in the past year and accomplished and everything that I hope to accomplish in the next up coming year.

So Like I’ve done in years past I’m going to write down some solid New Years Resolutions for the year of 2012.

It’s said that 2012 may be the end of the world because that’s when the Early Mayan peoples stopped calculating on their calendars but I don’t believe that to be true.

But I’d still have to say that my first New Year Resolution for 2012 is to

1) “Simply Survive“…I just want to make it through 2012 is one piece, alive and healthy with a stable enough life like I have now. The next time I’ll be writing a list of resolutions two semesters in school and a Summer would have passed and I may or may not be where I want to be to be able to sign up for the MCTC nursing program. I want to live my day to day without getting super depressed that I’m not making any progress, I want to look at each day in a more positive light.

My 2nd Resolution: Would be to
2) “Not be a quitter”- Whether this is in my relationship with David, at my workplace(s) or in my school work I’d like to keep going with everything I start until I succeed, and if I fail I’d like to know that I made my very best effort.

3) “Enjoy Life for what is has to offer” This past year I can honestly say I didn’t have many adventures, the whole year outside of a time I went to Michigan to represent my church I’ve been in Minnesota, and what I’ve been doing here has mainly been working, going to school and watching a lot of movies. I’d like to be able to get out and enjoy Minnesota for what it has to offer me, I want to explore new parts of the city and enjoy the weather. And create a new outlook on life even during the boring times.

4) Get out of Debt: I recently looked at my expenses again and in order to figure out how much money I’d need to make a month in order to continue living the life I am and still be able to save for a car or a new apartment in the future. I discovered that If I continue on I’ll be able to get out of all my Debt to Hamline University, to MCTC and to the Various Hospitals and organizations I’m a part of that I haven’t been paying by this time next year if I keep my consistent hours at working at Minneapolis Kids at Burroughs and working at my new workplace. I don’t want my pushing to get out of debt to interfere with my ability to do well in school though, this is the only thing that worries me I’m going to get so overwhelmed and wrapped up working that I’ll have no time for school.

5) Learn How to Prioritize.- Most people who know me know that I value strange things and I prioritize things that I value rather than what I should be prioritizing to make life easier on myself. I value my relationships but I don’t value my family, I value what I do with my money now rather than worrying about how I’ll save my money for the future. I also Value work over school which seems to make life harder because I need to do well in school in order to do better work. I’ve learned a lot of these life lessons over the past year and I’d like to be able to say ‘first things first’ and actually know where I’m going to go when I need to place value on things.

6) Lose More Weight: I’m proud to say that though an unhealthy weight I have maintained the same weight for the last few months and over the summer I actually lost weight. This past year I was a member of a gym called LA Fitness and because of some financial difficulty that I’m still trying to get out of I’ve found myself once again without a means of working out. I do do a lot of walking on a regular basis and I find myself jogging to and from the bus stop often but that’s not enough. I want to find some means of exercise which can be incorporated into my everyday routine, maybe it’s rollerskating because I discovered I am good at it and that I enjoy it or maybe it’s just biking like my housemates do 24/7, I don’t know. Part of that is the simple step I can take of eating more healthy, David said that he could help me with that and I’m hoping to get a George Foreman grill because David swears by it. In general I just want to GET FIT.

7) Get even More Organized than I already Have- This past year I’ve come a long way in maintaining the clutter that is my room. I have installed and organized to the point where everything now has a decent place. I realized though that when I move in the future that I want a place with walk in closets. Or I want to be able to build myself walk in closets because a bulk of my bulk is clothing and I don’t feel like getting rid of much of it now. My room currently is so small that it constantly needs to be converted for me to be able to do simple things such as play a board game, sleep or watch television on my computer. I’m getting tired of having to move everything around in order to do simple tasks so I want to eventually maybe in the next year find a place where I can have enough room to roam and be able to store what I want to to bring out later. Getting more organized may help me manage my stress better, calm easily maintained environment might mean a calmer me.

8) Maintain relationships: I’m proud to say that unlike last year where I was getting over Craig I have a great man who though he has his faults I’d like to keep around for awhile and have adventures with. I’m not on that search for a boyfriend “Thank God.” and i’m not wondering what the wide world of dating has to offer me, instead I’m in a perfectly good spot in my relationship with David and I’m finally starting the see breakthroughs in how he and I communicate and understand each other as for dating at this point I’m going to keep things open I’m not looking for anyone on the side but David said that if something better comes along that I should take it. So far nothing better has come along that can be long term. I think that’s what I’m looking for now, not just a boyfriend who will be around for a few months who I give a lot to and who leaves, I want something that will last more than a year. David and I have potential to last more than a year, three months have flown by and I think part of it is because we are able to give each other enough space to live our separate lives. Though I’d like to see parts of our lives coming together more like him meeting my family and me meeting his family for now I’m pretty content with him coming over and spending time with me. Anytime at all can be hectic I know with his crazy law school schedule. Part of that maintaining this relationship would be not being so clingy and demanding so much of David, it’s hard because it seems to me that David thinks my wanting anything at all is from him is being too demanding …that’s something we have to work on.

9) Find Church again: I didn’t write a blog about being kicked off the worship team because I thought getting into a big fuss over it all would be a huge waste of my time. I didn’t write a blog about not attending church because of a lack of motivation to do so because I didn’t feel it was something that was worth blogging about just yet and I’ve been busy and haven’t really had the time to blog as much as I wish I could. I was kicked off the team because Matt and Peter think that I need to become reconciled with something in my life that’s going on before I can help lead a congregation in worship.  They think I’m going through some sort of spiritual battle and they think i should seek some kind of counseling. There’s nothing crazy going on in my life right now that isn’t normal for someone my age to be going through, I’m experiencing life as everyone else does and I’m trying to get by. Counseling is expensive and unnecessary in my particular case because anything a counselor might say to me is the exact thing I could discover by making mistakes and learning those life lessons on my own. I accept that things aren’t perfect in my life and that I have a lot to work on but that’s the same for everyone that God put on this planet. I am in a relationship and it scares me that I might be trying to commit myself to a person who might not be meant for me, but I’m experiencing it because even if David isn’t “the one” I’ve learned a lot from the relationships I’ve already experienced and the experiences I’ve had have taught me much about what I am looking for in a partner.

I’m looking for a love in a man and I am looking to love a man just like those famous passages in Corinthians 13 talking about love:

¹ If I speak in the tongues^[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ²If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,^[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. ¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. ¹² For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

I see a lot of good things in David and I hope that over time I will learn to love him or that through my experiences with him I’ll be able to better love another. There is no loss of faith in me in that respect and I don’t need to go to church to know what I should seek in LOVE.

I’m working and my coworkers are frustrating at times when they make my job harder and cause me unwanted stress. They are mean and inconsiderate and lazy and I can honestly say if at times if it weren’t for work and the fact that I might lose my job, I would quickly curse some of them out for acting the way they do. They aren’t the worst kind of people for they do have the abilities to make the children at my work place happy but they aren’t good to me and some of my other coworkers. They do good but there isn’t much love in them but for those who are their own and mean like themselves. I’ve watched and I’ve taken a lot of shit because of their wanting to make someone look worse than themselves. I don’t need to go to church every Sunday to know how I need to deal with them because being in church as I grew up I’ve learned that Jesus instructs me to Love my enemies in Luke 6:27:

²⁷ “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,²⁸ bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.²⁹ If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them.³⁰ Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back.³¹ Do to others as you would have them do to you.

³² “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them.³³ And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that.³⁴ And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full.³⁵ But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.³⁶ Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”

So at work I’m learning to turn the other cheek and so far being nice to those who mistreat me, though it isn’t always easy has kept me my job for the last year and a half.

I’m also in School and though it’s hard I don’t need to go to church to know that God created me to do good things and produce good fruit from all my hard work. I have a good heart because of God and what I produce in the world will be good it says so clearly in the Bible.

 ⁴³ “No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. ⁴⁴ Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thorn bushes, or grapes from briers. ⁴⁵ A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.

All these things I’ve learned to deal with over the years and God has taught me many lessons about how to deal with people in those settings and in those situations.

Learning about God in church in my life has taught be a lot.

I have enough knowledge to deal with my day to day struggles so I don’t feel I need to attend church every Sunday I’m taking a break from Church for awhile. I need to find myself and reestablish a positive relationship with God on my own and where Gods place in my life is. I want to get out of thinking about church in a legalistic way where I hate that I can’t be myself in church and everyone pretends that life is just so fine and dandy and no one can really says what they want to say to a person’s face.For example: when my mother was planning on putting my cat down I was against it, that was this summer and I vocalized my feelings to her and the cat still lives today and is doing much better than she was a couple of months ago. And when my brother didn’t want to go to college and instead decided he’d rather join the military because he’s afraid he can’t afford to go to school I was against it, and the many soldiers I know (except Jason) were also against it. I want to go to church when I know I can really praise God again and not have to worry about How the way I’m living my life will reflect how holy and great the church itself is. We all make mistakes and God is helping me through mine in his own way and his own time. I don’t need the people at my church judging me. It’s not that I’m no longer a Christian I just haven’t been going to the Christian gatherings because I don’t feel that they are genuine anymore. But this next year I’d like to find a way to come back to church whether it’s a different church or not I’m unsure.

For some reason when I think of the church now I think of what Jesus said : “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” Meaning that I can do what I want on Sunday as long as my heart is there. And I can have communion with bread and grape juice whenever I want to at home, every meal I have can be my communion…I still pray I still believe I still want God to be in the lives of the people I love and care about. I believe that God blesses me daily. Enough said.

10) Learn to Love myself: Which means taking care of myself and thinking about what I deserve rather than what others think and want. I hear that is the only way I’ll find self esteem and confidence in this world, apparently everyone says I don’t know myself and that I’m afraid of my own company and as soon as I find myself I’ll find where I’m going in life. So that is definitely a goal.

So it’s Thanksgiving again and I’m thinking this year has turned around a lot from where I was last year at this time.

Last year around this time I’d just been broken up with my my ex boyfriend Craig, This year I am happy to say that I’ve been blessed with a handsome, caring and intelligent new boyfriend, David. Though David is unable to join my family and I this Thanksgiving because he’s busy doing work for law school I was blessed to be able to see him on Tuesday and he might grace me with his presence Friday also. I’m grateful to have a boyfriend who I can physically see and touch and interact with it’s a total turn around from having a long distance boyfriend who I could only interact with online. It’s nice to have someone I can actually reach out and touch who can touch me back when I want and need it. It’s great to have someone to hug and hold hands with, I’m Thankful this Thanksgiving Holiday for that ability.

My new handsome boyfriend David

I am also Thankful for my job. Though I have a sometime messy and frustrating job I’m thankful that I’m doing something at which I’m good. I’m really great with working with children and the fact that I am surrounded by children and I can play and do fun art projects with them really makes my life more exciting. Even though many of my coworkers are cliquey and even though every little thing I does seems to warrant a meeting with the boss and a threat of losing my job I’m thankful for being able to destress and take my job one day at a time.

I’m Thankful to have a roof over my head and good housemates who take the time to acknowledge my presence. Matthew one of my housemates who is a little older than me and at a higher level in school as I am at MCTC even tutored me through a Chemistry assignment the other night. And when he was making pizza he shared it with me. I am thankful for good friendly conversation that I get to have with my housemates (all except Alton who doesn’t talk to me) in passing.

The day our front tree lost all it's leaves.

Though I absolutely hate my commute, especially now that I’ve had my wallet stolen off a bus I’m thankful that I have a way to get to and from work and I pray that by this time next year I’ll have a brand new car to be thankful for.

I’m thankful for the ability to be able to go to school and get a decent education. My being in school this semester has really shown me that with the right work effort and established work habits that I can accomplish whatever I set my mind to. I’m praying that with God’s grace I’ll actually pass the Chemistry exam that is coming up in a few weeks.

Nutrition Flashcards

I’m Thankful for family, My mother has been there for me when I’ve needed her this past year. I appreciate that bonding I’ve been able to do with my brother Eric while being on the worship team. And though she’s a pest sometimes I’m grateful and Thankful for my little sister for looking up to me and missing me, it makes me feel special. I hope next year I’ll have more to write about Tiffany, Evan, Tyler and my father Ronnie.

I am thankful for being alive under the grace of God and I hope I continue to live to make a positive difference in the world.

I’m Thankful for the friends I’ve had this last year, though I’m not able to see them as much as I’d like to I’m thankful that I have people in my life who check up on me and text me wishing me a happy Thanksgiving and who tell me they care about me. Adam M, Heidi W, Alex J, Mikey B, Ian M, Byron T, James, Cori, Alisa, Julie K, Peter P, Lucy, Tymisha and Dean, and all those people who I forget to mention. I’m Thankful for the people I get to interact with on a regular basis and I wish them all a great and happy Thanksgiving.

I’m Thankful for good food and decent weather, though I get tired of the snow of Winter about one third of the way through it because I must stand outside for Minneapolis Kids recess I’m Thankful for the changes in weather and that I have eyes to see the beauty in the weather. I love that fact that I wake early and I’m able to see the sunrise and that I get to go home and see the sun setting. I’m thankful for being able to enjoy all parts of my day and that I have well working sensory organs.

I’m Thankful for my church, and the people who support and counsel me even when I don’t feel like getting counselling. I’m Thankful that God created those people and brought them together for his purposes. I’m also thankful for the world church as a body working together to being the truth to all nations.

I’m thankful for our nation’s history and the leaders that are currently trying to lead our government even through all the grief and fault that take for the nations problems.

I’m thankful for those who are brave enough to stand up and fight for what they believe in, whether it be the Occupy movement or the oppressed peoples of other countries. I appreciate and am thankful for having a voice that can be heard even if I am small and even if I think I’m insignificant.

I’m Thankful for my past relationships that are no longer for making me the way I am.

I’m thankful for the ability to laugh and smile and feel pain, and cry and live a human life with all it’s roller coaster ups and downs.

I’m thankful for where God placed me in the world and where he’s put me in life, I really have goals set and I’m thankful that I’m taking the steps to accomplish the way of life I’m striving for.

I have a lot more that I’m thankful for, but I’m going to go make some cranberry mold and baked pumpkin with my little sister Cynthia.

I wish everyone a pleasant Thanksgiving.

I’m really getting tired of my commute on the bus along with having to get rides from people.

Taking the bus is annoying because people are so gross and dirty in my neighborhood, there are bums who smell bad and ghetto woman with their crying children who they can’t control. There are rude people who talk on their cellphones and cheesy guys who try to hit on me and who slip me their cards. I’m tired of having to stand on a crowded bus or having to make small talk with crazy people when I don’t feel like it. I’m tired of my commute taking forty five minutes to an hour when it should only take at max fifteen minutes on a bad day. I want to sleep in later :D and not have to rely on other people as much. I want more freedom to go where I want to go when I want to go instead of having to trust in others to get me and having to wait on the bus.

So I’ve decided that it would be wise for me to invest in another form of transportation than just the city bus and rides from fellow church members on weekends for work.

I’m thinking a scooter but a car would be more practical for Winter driving, but what time or money do I have to save to get one.

Solution: Figure out rides with friends or get the schools bus card.

We’ll see.

During the time when I was unsure If I would be able to continue working with Minneapolis Kids for the 2011 Summer program I went job searching.

I was searching for a job in anyway I could, I would walk around to places I’d dreamed of working and I asked for applications, I looked through jobs magazines and I applied to almost every craig list job posting that sparked my interest.

Luckily which was unexpected I was offered hours for the summer 2011 and again for the August 2011- June 2012 school year.

When I’d applied I hadn’t received any feedback way back in April and then all of a sudden in August I get an email offering me an interview for a receptionist position. I take the interview and I get the job.

Now this job was the best thing to happen to me and I was even more excited that every week on Friday that I’d receive a paycheck from one of my two positions. Everything for a few weeks was going swell and i was even picking up extra hours, but then one of my paychecks came in and it wasn’t correct. And then my coworkers started complaining because they were being added to the schedule without any notification of the changes made.

Being the Receptionist in a business where the manager/boss never shows up and you’re not filled in on anything is extremely hard, My boss Muzique was lucky she hired competent people who knew how to problem solve or the first week her business would have closed down because one of her receptionists didn’t even show up on the first week the business was open and was instantly fired and one of her therapists didn’t show up and was also instantly fired. My boss had a no tolerance policy for attendance absences and because she had a habit of firing people many of us who were left found ourselves picking up the slack.

I worked many times forty hour weeks when I’d only been scheduled to do seventeen hours on one weekday and on the weekends.

Basic maintenance things didn’t get completed like laundry being done and new products being bought on time. When the computers went down the first time we blamed the internet provider but when the internet was put back up and the music system was taken away because it wasn’t paid for I knew that I was in trouble.

Everything seemed to be shutting down…then I learned we’d been stealing internet from the neighboring company. And that we never had our own internet and they only changed the password.

Then my hours changed after she hired someone new and I was barely working and when I did work I was doing major damage control. SO ANNOYING to have to fix what another receptionist messes up. But it wasn’t always the other receptionists it was often the computer software itself that continued to allow people, civilians to schedule appointments under staff members who have been let go of.

When I tried complaining about my check being wrong I was told that she wouldn’t be able to pay me back all at once.

People were getting frustrated with the service and my coworkers were getting frustrated ‘at me’ about the lack of management.

It was all falling apart around me and I had no control over it.

I offered to do more hours to do more damage control. The bad receptionist quit after having a breakdown and walking out…I came in and replaced her and fixed everything from that day. Because the music system was shut down I brought in my own cd roms.

Everything was finally fixing itself and I was getting into a great routine of fixing major problems and turning them minor and then there was a Sunday I was working and the key went missing.

I called my boss, She told me to call everyone who worked and ask them. I did and everyone said that they had no clue where the key was.

Then I called my boss back and she told me to lock up like it was locked up but not to use the key as I needed to.

I did as I was told and the next day I get a call that the computer was stolen…the main computer, well all the employees have laptops they can use and the company would go smoothly as possible if they ran the business from their personal computers.

But instead my boss stops all shifts until further notice.

And a payday comes and goes and I don’t get paid.

I hunt down my boss and she tells me I should come get my check from her at the chuckie cheese where she’s playing with her daughter. Why is she playing with her daughter when her business is falling apart?

And the shifts are never un-paused and I hear from a fellow coworker that the shop is going out of business. And I call and call my boss but she doesn’t answer or return my phone calls.

She owes me money and she’s not returning my phone calls. So I begin emailing…no response.

this is getting really annoying.

So I call my coworkers and they know even less about what’s going on than I do.

Then I hear that my boss is looking to open at a new location.

What about my job? What about my money? Am I fired? Do I have a second job now? Should I start looking for another position?

This whole thing is just ridiculously messed up. Then I read about the scam that is my company online. And I really wonder who and what kind of entity I was working for.

Why did she do this to all these people? I haven’t paid my rent because I was expecting money from her, I was paying rent with my money from my second job and tuition with my money from the first job. This is all just getting worse and worse.

I haven’t been able to make up the money that I would have gotten from her and I’m 100$ short on my rent for this month and I owe rent now again next week.

This whole thing is ridiculous, I should go to the police I want to get paid for the work and hours I put in.

Why isn’t she answering my phone calls?

When I did so much hard work to work for her?

I hate this. Money situation is tight because of my new old job.

Tonight Instead of making my way back home to my house in South Minneapolis after my work at Euphoric Ambiance I made a detour downtown and to North Minneapolis to my mother’s house.

I’d had the intentions of coming around to these parts ever since my mom told me that my cat Snow was dying and that she had intentions of putting her to sleep.

I’m highly against putting animals to sleep especially when I can come home to my mom’s house and see my cat in the exact same health condition as she has been for months now.

The only difference between this cat and my normal cat is that she can’t control her bladder, that’s the beginning of the end they say.

Last Tuesday I completely lost it when my mother told me that she had intentions of taking my Cat in last Wednesday. I cried and cried and I refused to get out of my mother’s car and go home until she promised that she’d give snow one more day.

It frightens me that the vets will be taking my cat and making her die alone with gas or a shot that will slowly make all her vital organs just stop.

I love my cat dearly and I can’t handle not having her around after she’d been in my life my whole life.

I thought my mom was possibly lying to me but boy was I surprised to discover that my cat was still alive Wednesday afternoon after i got out of my class and I was headed to work at my second job. I wasn’t able to get out and to my mom’s house to see my cat until nearly nine at night when there would be no chance of me getting back home after the fact to change and get ready for Thursday day at work and school.

Thursday wasn’t any better and everyday until now Sunday…and my cat is still alive because I asked that I be able to see her before she is put to sleep so I can say goodbye in anyway I can.

Coming tonight though I am unable to see anything wrong with her which just frustrates me because she seems like she always is, a tired old cat just laying around and being cute, she’s walking around, eating and meowing for attention as she always has. She even spent some time following me around when I first arrived at my mother’s house.

She’s laying right next to me sleep right now so I’m sitting here thinking…to put her to sleep would be to kill a innocent, yet a little sickly  animal.
I go to my mother and ask her why she wants to put Snow down now that she’s showing such little signs of being sickly enough to die.

My mom says that she can’t deal with any stress right now, and I ask her what stress there would be in snow’s being the same as she usually is and my mom makes me sit down in front of her and she informs me that she thinks she’s relapsing.

My mom has had cancer for about two years now and she’d had Multiple Sclerosis for twenty two, she was diagnosed with it when she was pregnant with me.

“I’m relapsing Corinne and as hard as it is for me to deal with Snow right now I can’t take this stress while I’m relapsing.”

“Into Cancer?” I asked knowing my mom had cancer.

“I’ll always have Cancer” my mom said “it’s not going anywhere anytime soon” she says

“Than it’s the MS?” I ask

And she nods.

My mom has relapsed into MS twice in my life, the first time I was in Kindergarten and i found my mom laying on the ground in the hallway and she couldn’t get up, I remember I thought she was dying the second time I was about sixteen and i remember having to change her iv for the steroids they put her on to make her stronger. When she lapsed from stage one to stage two she was forced into taking shots daily.

This time my mom tells me she is having trouble with her walking, I noticed it today this morning when she didn’t walk straight up the stairs and she used the handle railing at church to assist her.

So I think this is the more than just a relapse, people with MS have lost their abilities to walk and have ended up in wheelchairs.

So this just became  an issue of if I want to cause my mom more stress and kill her or if I want to let my childhood cat be put to sleep.

I am having a hard time letting go of my childhood cat because I don’t believe in killing and innocent creature and that it is God’s place to do so but this whole business with my mother and the way she’s sprung it on me has me thinking that I have no other choice.

It’s my mother or my cat.

So in my last post Labeled “Work” I was nervous about having just been called into my bosses office.

When I got into the office I was asked about an incident the week before when my boss had been out on vacation.

A small frail looking child and I had been playing on the monkeybars. At Burroughs where I work there are swinging spinning monkey bars and this frail child had asked me to spin him on one of the bars. I should have said no but because he’d gotten up there in the first place I thought he could handle holding on if I spun him. So I started spinning him and he wasn’t able to handle the force of the spin and let go and went flying landing flat on his stomach in the sand.

Right away I could feel his pain for in the silent scream his nose started gushing blood and his sand filled mouth began to fill with blood also. I wiped his mouth out and started walking him inside. I was the closest to the situation, I am staff and saw what happened and I took charge.

On my way inside I asked one of my coworkers who I trust if she could help me clean the child up. She’d already been on her way inside and she willingly agreed to help. After getting the child inside we had him clean out his mouth and get out all the sand and dirt. I put on gloves and dealt with the bloody nose and I also checked the child’s ribs to see if they felt broken…none of them did. Then we asked the child how he was breathing because he was still taking frantic breaths long after the time when his breathing should have regulated. “I have something to help me breath.” The child said so we allowed him to use his inhaler. My coworker said that she knew how to use the inhaler properly because she carried one herself…we shook the medicine in the container and administered it. As soon as the child had gotten the inhaler his breath steadied and he calmed down, his bloodied nose had even stopped. At that point my coworker turned to me and said two things “You should fill out an accident report” and “In a half an hour if he’s still wheezing it’s fine if you give him his inhaler again.” Then I thanked her and she went back to working with her older kids and I went to the task of getting an accident report.

There was a risk that if this accident wasn’t documented that I could have been in a lot of trouble so I felt the incident report wouldn’t do any harm. One of my coworkers helped me get to the report which was in a tricky file cabinet drawer I had trouble opening myself.

When the rest of the younger kids group came in and the rest of my coworkers came back in I’d had the child sitting and playing innocently with Legos he willingly answered all my questions about how he felt and the incident report was almost complete outside of that I needed someone to call and inform his parents of the accident. When one of my coworkers saw what I was doing she instructed me that for playground accidents that an incident report wasn’t necessary and she ordered me to rip the report up. I was hesitant because my other coworker said I should fill one out.

Well I ripped the report up with the intention of asking another coworker opinion. When I asked someone else they informed me that incident reports were only used when a child broke a bone or lost a limb or in very serious incidents.

Not minor incidents like falls or cuts. But how was I to know that the child was alright when he may not have shown any signs of any long term damage done until later on. For example if he’d broken a rib of punctured his lung it may not have effected him till later when the shock wore off.

Also the asthmatic attack was worth reporting. When I’d asked my coworkers if it was necessary to call the child’s parents she told me that they’ll probably inform his parents at the end of the day when the child got picked up.

My boss called me into her office to tell me that I shouldn’t be filling out any reports and that I should away ask someone else to do them for me because apparently someone had told that I was filling out an incident report to my boss when she got back.

The crazy thing is that it was better that I did my job and took initiative to protect myself and the company lest something go wrong.

I was informed that the parents had never found out about their child’s condition and that the afternoon staff hadn’t informed them or even known about the incident from any of the morning staff after I’d left.

It wasn’t my job to make sure the parent got the information because I’d passed it to the channels of those who remained at the site longer than me. So hearing the chain of communication was broken I felt that I was really stuck in this situation.

It’s like there are so many strong personalities and too many cooks in the kitchen at my work place that I don’t know who I should talk to or who I should take orders and listen to.

My boss told me today that when she is present I should aways go to her…and never trust the opinions of my fellow coworkers. She said in the case of an emergency that my go to person should be someone i trust. I picked out of all my coworkers my coworker Brad who has the most experience with the program and who I feel is the most approachable in my group who has the longest hours in my age group and could communicate situations to the parents.

She also said that I shouldn’t think for myself or make assumptions because I am liable for my own actions and that sometimes it is safer to call another staff member over to help me who works with my age group (not like Karron who works with the older kids) and who has the Minneapolis Kids title of Permanent staff…which I don’t officially have yet.

This is kind of crazy that I can’t take initiative and do my job well because my title isn’t that which proves that I am capable to do a job when I have experience in that job and I do it very well.

This all sparks from a deeper situation about how I work independently from my team because they are really cliquey. I go to work everyday and I do my job get the job done and I go home. I don’t need to rely on my coworkers to work well and often they never inform me till the last minute about schedule changes when they inform each other.

For example: I open my own classroom up in the mornings, we usually have free play for a few hours then we go outside to play at 9am. We clean up around 8:50-8:57 and we head to bathrooms, drinks and to get sunscreen on the kids. Today April was missing because he grandma died to Colleen wanted us to take the kids out later. Colleen came to my classroom and told me 9:15 is when we’d be taking them out. But at 9:13 when I was getting my group prepared Katherine came in and told me that the other classroom had voted amongst themselves that they actually wanted to wait for Brad to arrive at 9:30 and to actually go out at 9:45. But they’d never thought to speak on the walky to ask or to inform me of this change…so I had my kids prepared to go outside 30minutes early and I had to transition them back into play mode which took ten minutes to have then play for fifteen minutes and have me try to a second time transition them out of play mode…which the second time was a lot harder. It’s getting frustrating this cliquishness and it’s the only part of my job I hate…I love the kids and love working with them and wish I could do it alone sometimes. It’s just my peers that make the work difficult…I don’t think I’d pass my peer review with everyone on my tail thinking that if it’s not their way it’s not the right way. They don’t even try to communicate with me and I have over half the kids that I must deal with in the morning by myself. When three staff members are in the one classroom I’m sitting by myself with no one to tell me if anything in the schedule changes.

I feel really isolated like I always hear things late.

Colleen asked me if my coworkers were approachable…and I wanted to yell HELL NO.

I said “some more than others”

She explained that it’s a group of strong willed people, and quite a few “leader types” when I myself can be a leader but I know when to back off and follow directions.

My mom sent me this email after I explained the situation to her:

I wanted to make sure this issue was clear for you.

The isolation you are experiencing is not in any way, your fault. This is part of what we deal with as educated, articulate, intelligent,

African Americans. You are not accepted in the circles in which you work. If you are working in a group of people,

they will make it seem as if you are not being personable, when in reality they don’t know how to approach you.

The larger the organization, the greater the chances of you finding like minded African Americans, or people of African descent.

The reason I say, of African descent is because you will find in organizations, they will try to separate those people by being friendly to the least threatening one and not the other. Feelings of resentment develop between the different groups and those groups will not get along and they won’t even understand why…i.e. African Americans and Somali, Somali and Nigerian. What you must do is be friendly to everyone.

Smile, do your job, document everything and stay in prayer. They will always critique your work as if you are not competent. Make sure you know your job and perform it well. Then go home and try to surround yourself with as many family and friends as possible. It’s a job. They will not be your friends. They may not even see you as human…so rest your heart.

___________________________________________

I think what she said makes sense…I’m done with jumping through hoops and I’m going to communicate my problems to Colleen and Brad and them only. I’m going to ask advice of them only and I’m going to do my job well and not worry about the rest of them.

I’m trying to be prayful about the situation because all I’m trying to do it do my job well so I can keep it.

I’m worried though…who is the person who told Colleen about me and how do I go out of my way to avoid that person in the future?