*I’m having a slight ethical dilemma.  All of the executive staff under the age of 40 were drafted to attend an intern fair at a local university.  Is it wrong for me to spend 3 hours trying to sucker coerce influence young people to come work in a place I hate?  To be fair, I guess I don’t hate the place.  I hate my position.  The place is kind of sucky but most of the people are okay. 

*Poor Steve.  I must have been solving the world’s problems last night in my dreams because he said I was grinding my teeth so loudly that I kept him awake half the night.  No wonder I don’t feel completely rested. 

*It has snowed everyday for 2 weeks.  We only have maybe 2 inches on the ground but it snows just enough every morning that I have to scrape my windshield.  Between that and a road they decided to close for the next 6 months which screws up traffic on my bridge, I haven’t been to work on time in 2 weeks.

*Carla asked if the day I forgot was bra was going “brammando”.  HA!  You kill me girl!

*Two dear friends received previos yesterday after 6 o& 7 weeks in PGN.  This is such a blow when it happens.  You have reached a point where you almost think you are going to make it through and WHAM.  Now they have to make the fix requested and start the wait over.  It is so disheartening because previos are 95% political.  The issues cited have nothing to do with the baby going to a good home with good parents.  The occasional previo has to do with a birth mom issue that might or might not truly need to be corrected to ensure a clean process – but the rest are truly just to lengthen the process.  An accent forgotten over a letter, a typo, the wrong color of ink, a document that is supposedly missing but was simply overlooked in the file – these things only keep our children in foster care longer and make the transition home harder because they are older.  I wish I could understand how holding these children back serves any purpose. 

*Another dilemma I had yesterday.  When I have time, I help out with a co-workers program working with CYF kids who are graduating from high school.  We try to help the kids plan what comes next – applying for college, getting a job, finding a place to live…the kind of things a parent would normally help with.  The majority of kids that I meet with are lacking in social skills and behind the curve in intellectual development.  But the girl I met yesterday was articulate, smart, funny, mature and very likeable.  I asked her what her plan was after high school.  She wants to skip college, work full time at her waitressing job and write short stories.  She found a place that will publish “anyone” for a fee and then try to get book stores to buy the finished works.  I would bet that she writes well.  But I was torn between supporting her dream and giving her the cold hard facts that being poor is hard and her plan likely wouldn’t result in her selling many books.  I tried to suggest alternatives without stomping on her dreams.  Because she wasn’t at all interested in a going to college full time, I suggested that she take English literature and creative writing classes part time at the community college while she works.  I took the stance that if nothing else the college experience would give her new fodder for her writing as well as new eyes critiquing her work so that she can continue to improve her craft.  She agreed this sounded like a reasonable idea.  Is it wrong that I still hope to persuade her to stick with school and get a degree?  I’m supposed to let her choose her own path and I support her wanting to be a writer.  I just fear that the way she wants to go about it will result in her waking up in 10 years still waitressing and no longer writing because she is just trying to survive.