Category Reflecting

The important people

My father and I never had one of those father-son pissing contests that so many seem to have. Growing up, I thought (and still do) that the sun rose and set upon my dad. Mom would often go to bed…

Plod on

It was January of 2008. I had been doing this work for about five months or so, and I was already burnt out. I had no money. None. I was surrounded and overwhelmed by the immense amount of need I…

Learning to learn.

In a meeting with an intern a while back, she complained that the things she was studying in school didn’t seem relevant to our work. “After all”, she said, “how often do we use algebra here?” I told her she…

Unitize your time.

Those of us who are in the helping professions seldom end up having 40 hour, structured workweeks. Instead, we are often responsible for creating our own schedule, which always involves other people’s schedules, which can lead to long, unstructured days.…

Trash and Time

Take some leftover chicken bones, add the tops and trimmings from a carrot, the peel of some onions and the broccoli stalks you aren’t going to eat and put all that in a pot.  Add enough water to cover it…