It’s Friday. It’s been a long week. I have a mountain of mid-terms to grade. I have a zillion ideas floating around in my head and can’t focus. So, I’ll settle on the mundane.

I teach a remedial reading course at a small college one night a week as an adjunct. I do this for fun (ha!) and money (ha! ha!). Seriously, I think I make about $2 an hour for all the time I spend outside of class doing prep work and grading papers. But, I love my students and look forward to class each week. I love playing some small part in their lives. I love the opportunity to maybe be the one teacher who noticed them and paid attention and listened to them and helped them to see that college and success in life isn’t only about being smart or lucky, but about working hard and doing more. Where exactly this fits into the curriculum of a college-level reading course I’m not sure, but it’s what I do while I’m trying to teach them to be better readers.

My *real* job, where I make *real* money (ha!) is as a social services caseworker. I work in a cubicle surrounded by piles of case files and memos and cranky co-workers. My phone rings constantly with some client’s new urgent life issue. So, I counteract all this chaos, with more chaos! Looking at this pic of my cubicle makes me realize just how messy my desk really is. Geesh – the clutter! I didn’t even include any of the work-related clutter in the pic – just out of view is the current *pile*of cases that I’m working on. But I have pics of my bunnies there and some great bird photos and a nature book or two on the shelf – all to help me keep it (more or less) together in a stressful workplace. It’s not very professional-looking, but it’s my space and I don’t have any students grabbing stuff off my desk!

We all have to work and make money. A job is a job and usually they stink, right? What I enjoy most about my jobs is the people I work with – my students, my clients, my coworkers (well, most of them). Debbie and Linda (my friends, coworkers, lunch-buddies) posed for a photo today – can you tell by their smiles it’s minutes before quitting time on Friday? These two are as sweet as they come and I’m lucky to have them as friends.