So, Aneesa didn't come back today. Instead, Aneesa comes back tomorrow.

As I was telling my critical incident journal last night, I'm finally getting to be comfortable here, which is really opening up doors for me to be a good intern. But Aneesa coming back is actually a little bit nerve wracking because it's not the normal that I've been used to -- even though it is what is truly 'normal.'

What if I have done my peer mediation project in a way that isn't exactly up to her expectations. Not that it's wrong, or bad, just... different? I think she probably is expecting me to have more of the lesson plan part of it done, but... half way through it I decided to play to my strengths and worked instead on the administration FAQs instead. I'm much better at distilling information that way... maybe because it's a bit more of the small details rather than the big picture.

I don't know. So far I have honed my project management skills. So far I have observed the workings of a nonprofit organization, including their growing pains and problems with funding. But I don't think I've challenged my project management skills, as there isn't someone managing me directly. And I don't think I've really done the frontline work that this organization cares so much about -- I haven't, in fact. I've been in the office for four solid weeks.

I really want to do new things... but I find I don't like change.

So, day two of the internship. Arrived this morning, found out that my connection to the network had come loose, thus the reason why my computer wasn't booting before. That was fixed, and it was lovely. I finished the project I started yesterday, which was cleaning up some photocopies so they don't look horrible for coming out of a book. I actually covered up copyrights, which I was a little squick on, but... I didn't really protest. Oh well, if they get sued, I guess I'm going down with the ship.

Then, I had a meeting with my supervisor about what I will be doing in the three weeks that she'll be gone. It's a combination of some grunt work preparation for a class she'll be teaching in October (and I assume I'll be observing), preparations for a class in an All Girls School and designing completely a peer mediation program, basically from scratch. (In my interview, they were really glad to hear I planned a project before. Yay Gold Award!)

And then I spent the majority of the rest of the day trying to get a picture of Frank Bruno that would be acceptable for holding up in front of a class. That involved wrestling both Gimp and Linux RedHat into submission.

And I've been assigned reading! I have to read a book about what conflict is, and what conflict resolution is, so that I can really understand what I'm trying to do. But, at the same time... I'm feeling a bit disconnected from what I'm doing. I don't understand the immediacy of it, I kinda want to know more about the policy part of it...

My supervisor's boss asked me what my major was, and asked me how the heck I got there. They apparently usually get Psychology students. They're doing what I think I want to do -- both direct works as well as policy. I think I need to ask, when I have my supervision this Thursday, to see if I can talk with the policy bits of the organization, and maybe get pointed to some essays and articles about why what they do is important. It's only day two, so I'm not horribly worried, but at the same time I'm going to have a hard time feeling passionate about what I'm doing if I can't find the reason WHY I'm doing it.

Okay, I'm going to go sleep. We are all getting up in the morning early, eating an English breakfast, and then going to register to vote at Ben Franklin's house. It'll be awesome.