Still too idealistic??

Getting closer to the end of the project, and it is pretty exciting to really see some progress since the beginning of the summer. The interviews with David (we ended up having the one Wednesday afternoon, then another one this morning) went pretty well. It is interesting seeing the transition from mock interview professionalism to after the interview, going over what he said and shouldn’t have said, where we were all joking around. He is interviewing tomorrow for a company, and we are setting him up with a few other companies in the mean time, and his birth certificate is on its way to CareerLink as we speak. I also talked to Nancy this afternoon, who went for an interview on Friday. She isn’t finished with the program necessarily, but if she gets this position she will be required to take a reading and math test, and the remediation in the program will be extremely useful for that test. Danielle completed her last few hours for the GED pre-testing sessions, and hopefully has scheduled her final test for her GED for this week (I need to call her still…), and Catherine is trying to work the remediation around her part-time work schedule as much as possible so she can continue to works towards clerical work. I also need to get reconnected with Samantha, who I am hoping will get involved with the program again and hopefully attend some of the evening classroom sessions. Kenneth left his shelter last week, which was extremely upsetting because he seemed so earnest and motivated. He just seemed really determined to get through everything to show that he really could work through it all, and it was extremely disappointing to see him leave the area before he had finished it. I think this brought me back to reality (not completely, apparently, since I am still leaving this internship incredibly idealistic and optimistic!) and helped me realize that I am only seeing one challenge that these individuals are dealing with on a day to day basis… Still, I believe that even if we can help ease some of the problems in one area we can help make a difference in that person’s life, even if just a little bit.