days like today

on days like today, we wonder why we sometimes struggle with youth work. we think that working with yp is the best thing in the world. we are willing to forget the events that went down in the worst ever books. we genuinely enjoy spending time with yp and i think that, maybe, on days like today, youth workers and yp walk away with equal amounts of satisfaction.

at the start there were four of them and five of us. we sped through the program and they were actually complimentary about the program we had been running the last four months. four more of them came during the open club time and the mood was light, stress-free and fun. they asked us to play basketball with them, a game of pool (and happily teased us when they saw how bad we were...). we laughed, joked, sang. no discipline was necessary, the craic was good.


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H sent me an email tonight of her thinking aloud about her future. I thought I would share my reply, and open up the floor for suggestions:

"i like and identify with your random thoughts. the thought of having to look for a paying career related job makes me nauseous. i still dread the question "what do you want to be when you grow up?" uhhhm, me? A nice, normal person? someone better at reading the bible? unfortunately i do not want to be an astronaut or zoologist. i am jealous of my friends who are ALL going into nursing because it is a straight up skill that they can take anywhere...uva, alaska, africa. but alas, i do not want to be a nurse. i'm not into [shelving] yogurt, but [shelving] books is fine with me. the guy who is our interm director is super cool. he does freelance community relations work; people bring him in to facilitate their organization's retreats and planning sessions. he [occasionally] leads sessions on how to talk about controversial issues. that sounds like fun. i want to freelance, but i don't have anything to freelance....it is hard to even make up a job suited for oneself when i don't have a clue what i want to do or what i am good at."