I'm on my fifth straight day of duty. I haven't left the campus since Thursday morning. And by not left the campus, I mean the only times I've left the dorm are to walk the 100 yards to the cafeteria to eat a couple times a day. I'm slightly fried.
What does duty mean? For the most part, it means I sit at a desk in a big room by myself and waste time on the internet feeling guilty for not reading or writing or doing something else that doesn't suck my brain out of my head and deposit it in my ass. The point is to be available to girls - make change for laundry, answer questions about travel over the break, chat with those who want to chat, and periodically do rounds of the building.
So, last night. The four adults in the building had gotten together to plan fun Christmasy/holiday activities for the girls. I bought mini-stockings with gifts for all 37 girls and an ornament for each where I wrote their names. Another person picked out a beautiful, 8-ft tall tree. Another found ginger bread house kits to decorate in a little, healthy, advisor-group competition. The other bought supplies to make adorable, cookie-cutter ornaments to decorate our tree and fill the room with cinnamon smells. We planned to wrap their doors early one morning so they could wake up to red and green. We were excited. We each put time and money into this.
Yesterday, the tree was put up. We found a star and lights. I finished writing the names on each ornament. The mix was made for cinnamon, apple sauce and glue ornament-making. Our dorm meeting was scheduled for its regular Sunday at 7pm. We covered some business. I had to stop a few times to remind them to be quiet and put away their cell phones. Then, I started to talk about the fun activity we had for them tonight... and they just started talking. And kept talking. I sat there staring at them with my best "WHAT THE HELL???" teacher-look. My co-worker asked if she could yell, "For the love of Pete!!" They weren't talking about the activity. It wasn't that they were so excited they couldn't contain themselves. They were just being rude. After five minutes (FIVE MINUTES!!), I said, "Meeting's over. Go clean."
The ones on their phones stood up without even looking up. There were a few surprised faces, but mostly not. Once some of them passed the desk and saw my other co-worker stirring the cinnamon mixture, they were curious and asked what it was. "It's the activity we had planned for you tonight, we were going to make ornaments and decorate the tree. You guys were too busy though, so now you can go clean." I repeated this explanation several times as more girls inquired.
It wasn't my best moment. I felt passive aggressive and mean. I was also really pissed. Disappointed and pissed.
Then I sat with my co-workers and drank mint, hot chocolate and punched out ornaments in the shape of lobsters, moose, the state of Maine, and actual Christmas shapes. The dorm was almost silent as we enjoyed the smell of mint and cinnamon and pine and sat in front of the lit tree, with tiny white lights. We took pictures of the co-worker who'd never had a real tree before as she hung an ornament, took a sip of hot chocolate and stamped moose. It wasn't the evening we'd planned, but turned out okay.
Until I came back to my apartment to get supplies to clean up and Henry stood up in his crib and said, "Poopers, Mommy."
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