Day 17 - And We’re Back
Banneker Day 9
Good lord, I’ve only been there 9 days? Wild. Well, as you might have surmised, I’m back to interning, and it only took me a week! I was selfish, I didn’t go my first week back. I always amaze the smug, self assured version of myself when things don’t go exactly according to plan and I end up having so much more work to do than I’d planned.
But here we are, back again. Last semester I did two internships which, counting travel time, turned out to be 18 hours out of my week. On Tuesdays I would wake up and go to work for 9, be in the office until 2:30, get to Banneker at 3:15, and work until we were done. After a full day, of, you know, regular job hours, even less, I was, shall we say, eager to wrap up at a reasonable hour. But this semester Banneker is my only internship. Which is why I really don’t mind when we go “long” (as in go until about 6:00). Yeah, it was pitched as a 3:30 - 4:45 gig. But now I’m used to it. Mrs. Brinkman is nice enough to give me the ride to the metro now that it’s dark, and I haven’t been cooped up and crabby for hours before hand. The arrangement just works better now.
There weren’t many kids today (they had an open advisory yesterday where nearly everyone was there and they got a lot done) so I was mostly there to help with the fixes. I’m so glad I’m in a place where I’m useful. That’s what matters, in the end. What’s the point of me being around if I don’t have a purpose?
So I worked with InDesign and layout and made a little graphic (in my signature, Minemal Memento style) for the advice column and helped going over issues with Mrs. Brinkman, Sylvia, and the few kids that were popping in and out.
In the car ride to the metro Mrs. Brinkman told me that the white house correspondents would be coming to the school on February 28th. I told her about the great time I had when they’d come to GW and we settled on talking with the kids the next time about the kinds of questions they should be thinking about. The guys who I saw speak were funny, engaging, and had some great information and anecdotes. Hope these guys get the same kind of stuff.
I was surprised when I realized that I’m the only intern who stuck around. I get it, schedules change, things get harder to plan around. But I’m really glad I’m back. I’m not getting credit and that’s fine, there’s no way that I could. I just like being useful, and being useful in ways that aren’t completely selfish. It’ll be nice meeting the new interns.
