Fridays are supposed to be my day off. Keywords: supposed to. One thing about my current schedule is that I work on Saturdays. I don’t really enjoy that but I’ve gotten quite used to it. I use Fridays to plan care/doctor’s visits, grocery shop, sleep “in,” dream about working out, and pay bills. Believe it or not, I do need a whole morning to pay bills. Planning, setting up payments, browsing online, and deciding what my “splurge” will be that pay period takes time.
Yesterday, my day went a little different.
I woke up and went to work from 9ish-2:15ish. I work at a middle school and yesterday I had a pretty good session with a bilingual (Spanish-English) 8th grader. She requires support formulating sentences that are clear in meaning and grammatically correct. She basically writes the way she talks, in a “stream of consciousness” that tends to leave the reader confused because her thoughts run all together. I am trying to work with her in a way that she can understand that there are certain things we can say but not write. That there’s nothing wrong with the way she speaks, however, when we write we have to stick to conventions. We revised an essay she had previously written, and she seemed to trust me and enjoy the editing process. I enjoyed being able to code-switch and hopefully give her some functional strategies whenever she has a writing assignment. I’m thankful that I’m able to work with students supporting them academically, and teaching them that writing is a beautiful thing and not something to be feared or detested.
I don’t know if you caught that a couple of month’s back I glazed over the fact that my new iPad mini was stolen at the middle school. Before lunch I got a call from a gentleman who said his son bought an iPad for $100 from someone, they took it to someone to try and “unlock” it and my “stolen property” message popped up with my number. He decided to Do the Right Thing like Spike Lee. 🙂 Let’s pray this intention has a happy ending.
Lunch was a nice free treat. I got to choose from this spread.
After I left the middle school, I headed over to Howard University to attend the Honors and Awards Program for the Senior Dental, Dental Hygiene and Postdoctoral Dental Programs. While at Howard, I worked and became very close to one student doctor in particular. All dentists are not “people dentists,” some could really use some lessons in bedside manner. My student doctor taught me that first and foremost patients are people. This has been something that I know firsthand as a speech therapist but now I hold other professionals to the standard. Dr. Brown is the sweetest person and most gentle doctor I’ve ever worked with. I had to go support. I’m a baby about any dental work, therefore, it’s not often that I acknowledge someone is gentle, knowledgeable and all-around great as she is!
After I left Howard, I needed a place to go and do some paperwork. Coffee shops tend to be the go-to places, however I had picked up a flyer about this new-age “shared work space” called Cove. When I typed it in my GPS, there was one location like 8 minutes away at 1624 14th Street in Columbia Heights. I’ll write another post soon as to why this is my ideal “productivity” place. Whoever thought of creating this space should be making big bucks soon because it appeals to: artists who are suddenly struck by the muse and need a quiet space to release, self-employed folk who can’t work in the busyness of coffee shops, academics who need “group-friendly” spaces for studying and or writing dissertations, ANYONE who is perpetually distracted at home, and a person who travels around the City for work and needs an “office-on-the-fly.” I sat in my corner of productivity for about 3 hours. All because the first trial was free. Thanks Cove! Check here to see if Cove has arrived to your city!
All in all, I can say that although it was a “busy” day, it was a good day. I didn’t spend the day dreading about work the next day, and I got to enjoy the day at my own pace. Every other Friday is also payday and I can’t be mad at that!
Looking forward to more productive Fridays, on my watch!
-She
PS- Congrats to all the 2015 graduates!
globetracer 