My mind is spinning tonight. It's filled with facts and pictures from work today and I don't really know how to process them or how to feel.

The future is super hazy for our afterschool programme. It doesn't look promising for after April. The staff members are on notice (one month of funding left and that's it, if even one month) and there's no programme funding. There's a few things in the works, and FS has a history of resiliency, but this time it seems really dire.

Then we had youth programmes, which was basically just giving out info about the Residential (retreat) this weekend. It's a bit of a mess. The youth have been inconsistent and thus, the groups haven't had a chance to meet yet. Which means, Friday night could be nuts. It's all just so frustrating. Both sides say the exact same thing: "we won't start anything, but THEY will! And if THEY hit me, I'll f-in hit back!" There's just no reasoning to be done with that argument. I'm tired of saying the same things over and over and over. I'm sure life isn't easy for these yp, and they have seen people hating on them, but if you're not willing to listen and believe what I say, let's not have the conversation. (Ugh. that sounds bad. I don't think I really mean that). It's just on of those nights when I wonder if anything we do is sinking in.

As we walked the boys out, they decided to dander around the gate (i.e. goad any unsuspecting Catholics to a riot at the gate). It caused a ruckus (thankfully no one was out on the other side...yet), brought out the neighbors (whose conversation about "prods" and "taigs"just makes my blood BOIL) and made for an uneasy little while. The boys whistles finally brought some other guys to the gate, older boys who we've never seen (which also means people who won't give darn about us being there) but thankfully nothing really kicked off.

It's probably one of the few places in Belfast where nothing really kicked off today. It's was wild tonight, with bomb hoaxes closing roads all around, hijacked and burning cars, police, sirens, fire trucks, helicopters. It seems to be quiet now, and the only effect it had on us was that our taxi had to take the super long way to our house. But add up all of that and today feels rather defeating. Good thing it's almost over. God knew what he was doing in creating new days, new starts, sunsets and sunrises.