October: an update

I know I've been gone a while, so I thought I should give a brief update:

Things were quiet around the first of the month. I watched the American League Championship Series (baseball) because the Texas Rangers were playing. They're now in the World Series playing the St. Louis Cardinals. Seeing as my mom was born and raised in St. Louis, and her half the family lives there, this has led to a house divided. My mom is a die-hard Cardinals fan, and my brother is supporting her. We live in Ranger territory. Since I was born in Florida but have lived most of my life in Texas, I'm rooting for the Texas Rangers. My sister is born & raised Texan, so obviously rooting for Texas. My dad is born and raised Texan, but his wife is rooting for the Cardinals, so mostly keeping his mouth shut....although he did make a nice quote tonight when a Cardinal caught a nice hit to the outfield- that it was a Cardinal sin. The looks my mom gave him were priceless. It's really led to a house divided, and even some battles amongst the family members. I think it'll end up being the Rangers winning, sadly, in St. Louis, rather than in their home field. *sigh*

My sister has been having marching competitions because it's marching season, and she's a clarinet in the marching band. They've done really well, advancing to area competition. If they do well at area they'll compete at state for the first time in school history. She also turned 16 on the 22nd, my baby sister is growing up so fast! She got some gifts she liked, and got to hang out with friends. If I could rewind and have a sweet 16 like that, I would. I went and saw Elf, and had to separate my "friends" because they hated each other, even though they barely knew each other, and neither of them even talks to me anymore...I don't know if that's good or bad. We went and had Red Lobster (and got stuffed, so much to eat), watched Paranormal Activity 3, and I think she had a good time.

I'm also in the transition period between dropping university services and finding outside services. In other university news, last week, I picked up my cap, gown, tassels, and degree. I'm in the process of getting tickets- I've signed up, and tickets will be released soon. I'm anxious. I'm still trying to pick a place to temporarily hang my degree in my room.

I'm also on the hunt for jobs, still. I have an interview at JCPenney on Thursday. I'm really nervous about it, and should I bring a resume? My resume needs to be completely retyped, and looks pretty horrible thus far. This is, though, my first interview amongst all the jobs I've applied for, so I'm ready to put everything I have into it. It's a retail job (oh the horror!!!) but I think I can handle it, after the previous retail job I've held in the holidays, as well as the communication skills I've built and the work ethic.

So that, so far, has been my October. We're preparing for Halloween (oh, this really is a horror, let me tell you). We usually have upwards of 600 trick or treaters- kept track of by packages of Pixi Stix. We buy enough for 600, sit on the patio out front (no use in sitting inside, they just come up the driveway/front path in lines, there's not even time to shut the door before the next kid is there), hand out one pixi stick and something else to each kid till we run out of Pixi Stix, then we shut the lights out (and still the doorbell rings, since we usually run out early).

Pollen and whatnot is all bothering right now, and most of the time I am ending the day with a bad headache and/or stuffy nose, watery eyes, something that makes me want to avoid typing this much. Today I did it, I finally mustered up enough to type a whole blog. I plan on coming back in November to my daily blogging, hopefully. As of now, I don't have much to blog about anyway, as my days are typically empty and boring. My whole month filled one blog. Pitiful, right?

Until next time,

Things I Know- I have a blog

Another mostly lazy week. We did move most of the stuff back into my room, except the crap I'd like to weed through first to pull out the stuff I don't need. No pictures- lots of boxes and mess. Once things are sorted...maybe. There's still a lot of work to be done

Things I know:

• When you have no timeline, you lose track of time. I wrote a calendar for September and started it on the wrong day. Seriously. *facepalm*
• My blogoversary is on Monday. Wheeee!!!!!!!!
• It takes a lot of work to move stuff back into a room...more than it does to move stuff out of a room. Especially when it's the same room. 
• People don't always respond right away. Be prepared for this. It's because people usually have lives. Unlike you, Ashley. Get a life, Ashley!
• It's not very nice to berate yourself. That doesn't mean it doesn't happen. See above. 
• I like research. I don't hate research. In fact, I love research. I hate statistics. For the longest time, I thought I hated research, when really, it was the statistics part that I hated. Thank you, Dr. Bron, for helping me sort through this dilemma. Now I can actually say I love research!!! (She sorted it with me on twitter...thanks!!)
• People can care-more than you think- through a computer or phone- overseas or a few states away. The internet has broken down walls, county lines, state lines, and country borders. There are no longer the same boundaries as before- just remember to keep some boundaries. Boundaries are good, just be reasonable. 

And that's all. Being cooped up isn't really doing much for my knowledge. I don't know much more than I did last week. At least I know something....

Huzzah!!!

An Idea- Suggestions? Huzzah!!

I have an idea in mind, and it's going to take some time, and some thought, and it may not air as soon as I want it to (which would ideally be this week). It is my idea *nose up* copyright Ashley!

Personally, I like the idea of blog hops not even because of traffic (although that is an enticing side effect, and has brought me three times the traffic that I've ever had in the history of my blog, and 10 times the normal traffic...yeah buddy!), but because that's a place where you can find other blogs to connect to- that's where I've found all the blogs I like to read (and filtered out all the ones that I don't). I can choose which ones I want to follow, and discover other blogs out there that do hops in the process, and it really appeals to me, finding out just how many other people are out there.

So I want a hop of my own. Not a completely no rules hop (those cause mayhem and a influx of *follows back* readers), but a genuine hop, with an idea I created myself. This one you'd have to do something, even a small something, write about it, link that blog up, and voila, you'd be part of the hop! Of course, it would take some word spreading. I have 90 followers (as of 30 August 2011), and figuring that the majority of them are followers that don't really follow, it will start out small, but I want it to be the friendly kind of hop that doesn't push people away because of the nature of the hop.

Mind you, I'm just airing out an idea here, not actually putting it all out there yet, but I have some of the tools to put it together...I'm looking for name ideas, when I would to it (there are already a lot of weekend hops, and I don't want to interfere with those, then again, there are hops every day, so hmm), just how I would start it out, and when. This is sort of my blogoversary "I've been around a year, so here's my project of my own" type of project, as well as having seen others do hops that really suck (and some that are really excellent) and trying to figure out what works.

Of course, the best way to make it work would be to get feedback and ideas from *ideally* the first people who might see, talk about, and/or participate in this thing. After all, you're my target crowd. So, shoot me, ideas, thoughts, comments, anything? I do respond to comments and whatnot, and I'll try to keep this up top until it's time for the debut of my idea to become a reality. I also want to thank Glowless for her help last night (very much appreciated) and the people who genuinely follow my blog, and thanks in advance for the people who will genuinely follow and participate in this.

Huzzah!!!!!

Attention Hoppers!! *The Drive-By Follow*

**This is a blog that will be republished every once in a while to catch the attention of people who don't seem to be catching the idea of effective following or commenting. Names and websites have been blocked to protect the commenters, although I don't think they will even read this (though they might, who knows). I will add the repost dates in a paragraph at the end.

This blog is addressed to readers of a certain type. Some of them, in fact, are not readers; in fact, some of them won't even see this, because of the drive-by manner in which they visit my blog. You see, I like blog hops. I've met some great people through blog hops, and I'm glad to have met them. There is one nasty element to them though, one that is helpful, but nasty because of some of the people that participate.

You see, most ask you to follow another member of the hop, and typically suggest you leave a comment that you are a new follower so that the person knows that you are new, and can follow you back. Some of the members have been on the hop so long that new members receive a drive-by follow request- that is, "hi, I saw you on X hop, my website is Y, please follow!! [name]. For example:

Needless to say, the most that was said about my blog was that I have a great blog! Do they know what my blog is about? Person C assumed I would follow back with a preemptive thank you, as did person A. Person B gave me the option of feeling free to stop by and they even gave me their link, name, and website! As a note, none of these people integrated code to sign their name to a comment, which can be done. I admit to having done this, rather than just leaving a link, because blogger does allow you to use the code to do so. Rather, they all left a link, which can also be found with their name by the date. IF commenting from another site, that would be different, but these all actually did have links to their website with their name, I checked.

You see, the thing is, many of these comments can be found in my history. In fact, there was one I found from the same person on separate entries...after I was already following them!!! This leads me to believe they were not paying attention to the fact that I was actually reading their blogs and leaving them *thoughtful* comments. As a follower, this was disappointing. They were also disappointing me as a follower of my blogs, because after I left them thoughtful comments, all they could leave me were identical comments asking me to follow them. Thoughtful? No, they didn't even read, it appeared, even though I read and even commented. I went back to my comments, and apparently, they don't respond to comments either.

Another person did the same. The person came back and "followed" me from two different hops and invited me to their blog, same wording, format, and even including their url, twice. Just in case I, you know, missed it. There was a reason I wasn't following- their blog is of a type in which I'm not interested and I would not regularly read it.

You see, the thing is, there is a reason I don't follow some blogs. I'm not going to follow a blog I'm not interested in for the sake of that person having a large number of followers, and never read the blog. I like to be able to read the blogs I do follow, and I don't like my reader exploding with thousands of blogs each day. There are some blogs I actually do like to read. Those are the ones I follow, and I leave comments.

This is the way that following is meant to be done. You find blogs you like, and you keep up with them. You comment, and you build rapport with the blogs you are interested in. Running around blog hops is an easy way to find blogs you are interested in, but it's also an easy way to find commenters like those above, who only visit your blog because it's new to the hop, and the hop "says so".

It's really not fair to some bloggers, because for bloggers like me, it's not purely the number of followers that we care about, but the number of engaged followers- that is, the number of followers that actually care about and read the blog, those that come back and actually follow and read the blogs, and leave comments about the content, not just the first comment because a hop says so, then just hide the subsequent posts. Sure, I like having followers, but not if they really don't follow.

How many people will actually read this blog? How many people will actually notice? How many people in my audience will actually be engaged? This is what I care about. Going from blog to blog with spam comments "I found you here, please follow me!" will only gain you a number of readers that also only care about the number, or quantity, but not the quality.

Let's do a comparison to something else here. Let's make it something great. Let's say I give you 100 pieces of chocolate. GREAT!! Right? Now let's say it's just pictures of pieces of chocolate- not real chocolate. They'll still be there, and they still look like chocolate, but they don't do anything. They just imitate chocolate. Thus, they have no quality as chocolate. Is this as enticing? Is this as fulfilling? NO! No person I know wants imitation chocolate, they want the real thing. They want quality, even if the quantity is smaller- 1 piece of chocolate is better than 100 pictures.

The same is true of followers for me. 50 true followers, who actually care about my content, is better than 100 followers who never look at my blog. True, some of them are busy- they might interact with me over other forms of media such as twitter, and when I post an interesting blog, they might link to it; that's ok too. They interact. The ones I'm talking about look once, follow, ask me to follow, then never look or interact again.

I'll admit, I'm not the best blogger out there. I'll stand up for myself, there are worse. There are also other categories, if mine isn't the type that you're into. If you don't read, then obviously, my blog is not for you. There are picture blogs. I'm not a mom, so obviously, I will not be a mommy blogger, there are craploads of those too. I'm friends with some of them. Some are not my style, some are absolutely wonderful. I'm not really much of a cook, so I won't have recipes...you can probably find a blog completely made up of recipes. There are some blogs that just do giveaways....I don't know how, but they do. If you're a super coupon person, which I'm not, you can find that somewhere too. Some people have a twitter and blog based only on coupons. I am typically not into those either. Any interest, there's probably a blog for it.

If you're not into my blog, don't follow it, drop a basic "new follower, follow me" comment, and leave forever. It's usually not in good taste, and a lot of bloggers, unless they're looking only for followers, will put them in the spam queue. I'm starting to think this is what I'll have to do. I'd really like for people to like my blog and actually follow and read it, but if your heart's not into it, and you're not going to actually read it, there's no sense in trying to make me feel good by leaving a drive-by comment. In fact, drive-by comments make me feel ignored. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

In fact, I know I'm not the only one. I ran across an article the other day like this, and if I hadn't shut my computer down for the move, so that I could have carpet in my room, I'd quote it here, but I don't have a link, and I had linked to it through another site from another site. If I do run across it again, I'll bring back the link.

Please, think of the bloggers when you're reading a blog. In fact, I'll put it more bluntly- Do it. Think of the darn blogger, and what they want, instead of just dropping by and leaving your number. I'm not here to collect websites to visit. I'm writing because I want people to read. I would not sit here and type on my blog every day for no reason. I put myself into this. It's demeaning when people come in, drop their website, and leave, expecting me to come visit them. Sorry, but it's not going to happen.

IF YOU DON'T RESPECT ME, HOW DO YOU THINK I SHOULD TREAT YOU???


Think about it.


25 August 2011,

Day 14: A Land Down Under & a Blogaversary Pimp

Day 14: Somewhere I'd love to travel

One of my biggest wishes is to travel.

Now, I know that the people around me are very paranoid insecure about people traveling, especially outside the country...and I have my eyes dead set on Australia. I know, of all places in the world, that is one place I want to travel before I die. Heck, I wouldn't mind living there.

It's got so much. Not that the people in Texas aren't friendly, but the people in
Australia are really friendly. I've never met an Australian I didn't like. I've met many, many Texans I didn't like, and even many more Americans I didn't like.

One misguided assumption is that because we're American, people are out to get us/hate us/want to kill us/abduct us/torture us everywhere we go, and that we're never safe. Yes, this does happen. It's something to be careful about, and be aware of. But this should not make people put a fence around the country and refuse to leave America. It irks me when people think that America is superior to every other country in the world- we do lack a lot of things that other countries have. No, we're not a third world country, and yes, we do have a lot of advanced things, but we are not superior to everyone.

Americans have very, very flawed thinking. They tend to think their way is the only way, and anyone not following their way is stupid, ignorant, a liar, uneducated, whatever. Then they go on to berate an belittle those not of their political/social/religious views as though the other person's beliefs have no basis. Very close-minded, very wrong. It's all about perspective, and accepting other people for who they are. Americans have a problem with this.

Actually, Americans have a lot of problems right now.

But that's not the point. The point is, I think that Australia would be an amazing place to visit, I could definitely handle the climate (after all, Texas is pretty damn moody with its temperatures and weather patterns), the people there have wicked awesome accents, they're friendly, and I'm sure they have their flaws, but they are such a tight-knit country, and sometimes, America could use that.

Plus, I'd love to see if their toilets really do flush backwards =P

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Also, it's worth mentioning that one of my fellow bloggers has his blogaversary today- The Simple Dude, who pimps blogs all the time, is a year old today. Happy blogaversary, Dude. Visit him, wish him a happy blogaversary, and consider buying his book on Amazon- it's really interesting, and pretty helpful too, as well as being cheap enough to not throw you into debt. And it's about blogs!

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I'm also taking donations for anyone who would like to see me visit Australia :) just kidding (although donations would be nice, lol)

Following Etiquette

The etiquette of following people...

That sounds sort of stalkerish, doesn't it? I know it does. But, lately, I don't mind people stalking me online. I kind of like it when they think I have something to say. The thing is, there is some etiquette that I think should be followed online, when following, that isn't always...followed!

1) When following someone new....look at the content of their post, and don't just say: "I followed you from here, please follow back!! That annoys the shit out of me. I'm sorry, but if you didn't read my post, are you really interested, or are you only following because you want me to come back and actually read your blog and follow you?

2) Greet the person. You can mention that you're a new follower, and, in fact, that's probably a good idea! I don't mind you mentioning that you're a new follower, as long as that's not the whole context of your comment. It helps me to figure out who is who, who says what, and where I shall be visiting next.

3) Don't visit just once to ask for a follow. If you want to follow a person, or if you start following a person, to ask for a follow-back, and you really want them to follow you back, don't just visit them once and then ignore them. Truth be told, some of the people I follow, I'm not into all their content, but I go back and comment when I find something that I like! That doesn't mean I stalk every post, because sometimes I won't like their post. If I find myself disinterested, I move on...which leads me to...

4) If you're disinterested, don't be a troll and be rude on posts! If you're going to follow someone, and you really don't like their content, you don't have to follow them. It's nice to have followers, yes, but not followers that have negative things to say about your posts. If you have some content that you like, make sure to go and read the post and comment!

5) Comment!! Comments are your friend. If you want someone to follow you back, they're more likely to do so if you leave them a comment. Sometimes, I don't know where my follows come from. I mean, they could be blog hop followers who are following me simply because the rules say to follow a blog hopper, and they could care less what I have to say, or they could be someone genuinely interested. Even short comments are good! If you say "Hey, I like what you wrote today"...that's a good comment! "Hey, I like dogs too!" is an excellent comment. If I find someone commenting regularly, I'll go check them out, even if they're not following me. Sometimes I follow them because I like their blogs, even if they're not following me.

6) Don't be rude. If there's a misspelling or a typo, see if you can find a way to send a message. I've seen comments that rudely address the blogger with a correction to the typo, with no other comment or content. If you're following me to be a grammar nazi, you're probably following the wrong blog.

7) Be friendly with the people you follow. I've found that I actually like a lot of the people I follow, and even some of the bigger names respond and follow. It makes me tickled when someone who has a bigger blog, a larger sphere of influence, and more followers than I have viewers, comes and visits my blog, comments, follows, or even just tweets me. BUT this often starts out with my action- I tweet them first, I follow them first, and I comment on their blogs. I make myself known. I'm friendly, and I pay attention.

8) Social networks are your friends. If you want people to follow you, sometimes you have to use social networks. Have few followers and want more? Put it on facebook. Afraid mom might see? There are settings to where you can block her from seeing it (and I'm serious). Twitter? Really good way to spread word. Plus, if you follow someone on twitter, they usually follow you back, out of interest, to find out who it is that's following them. Half the time, I end up getting 10 followers when I follow 2 or 3 people. I have a hard time keeping up. Once you follow people, talk to them. Tell them what's going on. Invite them to your blog, but make sure to mention their content too. Show interest (and don't fake it).

9) Blog hop following- When you follow on a blog hop....you often just read one post. BAD BAD BAD!!! Go back. Read another. Perhaps the person might write something more interesting. If something doesn't spark your interest, don't follow them just because you clicked their link, and be done with it. Find something that sparks your interest. Don't hide their blogs in your feed. If you're not going to read them, why are you following them?

10) Best of all these tips- if you're following someone, and you find them to be fantastic, spectacular, wonderful, and all of the above, share them with your friends and followers. Maybe give them a shout out in your blog. To be honest, I've had a couple shout outs (make sure you tell them they've been pimped), and it makes me feel great! Mention what the blog is about, how you found them, and why you think they should be followed. The best thing about good following is blogger love. If they see that you pimped them, they're likely to do something nice for you too. I read and reviewed a book for someone that pimped me. I write guest blogs for another person sometimes. This makes me feel good. I love it. This way, you can find out if people are actually interested, rather than just following because the rules of a hop say so.

BONUS: Participate in a blog hop!! Yes, a lot of them have rules. They want you to follow other bloggers. Thing is, many of us don't have time to surf through all the linkyers in a blog hop, and settle on the first one we click on. Bad idea! Click on more than one, and you're likely to find someone who you like following! This makes the experience better, and gives you more material that is worth being on the follow list. After all, you don't want followers that don't like you at all; I'm sure they don't either. I mean, a big follower list is great and all, but don't you actually want people reading and liking your blog? Yea. I have a page of blog hops that I participate in, and they're also all at the bottom of my page, if you want to check them all out. ;) These are the best way to get your blog out there, and find people that like it. Participating in monthly activities and prompted writing may also help, if you have trouble with content- future blogging topic. xoxo

The blogosphere is a great place to make friends and build relationships with other people who share interests like your own. Sometimes, though, people ruin it, and make it an uncomfortable place. Don't be one of those people. When you follow someone, make it worth the time. I see people all the time with thousands of followers, but very few actually engage, and it's sad! Commitment, commitment, commitment. And, of course, blogger love. Share it, spread it, love your fellow blogging associates. Most of all, be a good follower!

The Simple Dude

The shout out is in the title, yo, but in case you don't know who he is, or haven't seen his site before, you can find Simple Dude in a Complex World here, and you can find his book here. There's even better news- the book is uber cheap- $1.99 to be exact. That means for less than $2US you can learn how to make your own blog more popular (if it isn't already)!

Credit

Now, when I started out, to be honest, I thought that none of the stuff in there would be helpful for increasing readership, to be honest. I was like, "ok, this dude started out with more readers than I have JUST started getting..." because he talks about having hundreds of readers in the beginning. So maybe my contents need some revision. You know what, though? After reading on, I realized, I'm doing this for myself....and I'm awfully wordy anyway. I always have been!

Then I got to it. The meat of it. What I was looking for. The tips. You know what? The tips he mentioned are the ones that have increased my readership five-fold in the past two months (seriously). But you know what? I'm not going to mention it. You know why? I think it's a good book, and worth the $1.99. You can read it online even! It's not something that you need to spend days or even hours reading, and seriously, the tips are helpful. I've used them. Some of them without knowing it. Some of them might be helpful to you, if you're just starting out.

What's even better is that the tips are simple. Plain and simple. What would you expect from a guy whose moniker is "The Simple Dude"? Simplicity. He puts it out there, and makes it so easy to understand. Seriously, I encourage you to get it. It's so easy to get, and it's less than a caramel mocha at Starbucks (or whatever you drink), cheaper than most of the food you buy, heck, it's cheaper than half a gallon of gas in some places, and it's almost certain to help you if you need help stepping into the blogging world.

Some of you may have tips to add for me (if you do, I don't mind, because I'm really wanting to know how to get more people here, besides being less wordy and adding lots of pictures, because I'm no artist). After all, there are some larger bloggers than me out there reading my blog (you know who you are- don't hide), and there are some smaller bloggers and/or people who don't blog at all (hi dad, Courtney- why the heck did you view my blog 12 times yesterday??, mom).

All in all, it starts out scaring you with no tips, making you think "omg, I already failed by not starting out with hundreds of readers...oh, I'm a loser, I can't draw," but then adds tips in about halfway that make you rethink your format. I could put more pictures in, such as Mona Lisa:

I'm just here because people like pictures, and I like hanging with Ashley.
Nobody owns the copyright for me except da Vinci
This photo of me was found here

I could also insert an image of Starry Night:

I have no purpose here other than I also like hanging with Ashley.
Nobody can claim my copyright other than van Gogh
Why do all these artists have 2 surnames? Ashley should also have 2 surnames.
This image was grabbed from this site.

As you can see, the pictures really lend nothing to my blog. I don't know what photos to add. I could add a photo of me, but I'd lose a lot of viewers unless I photoshopped it, and I don't have photoshop. I am unwilling to be like the chick here and completely ruin my self esteem with a deprecating answer such as the one chosen, so I will forget self-images. I will continue to write.

I have noticed that people did like the one vlog I did. That got a lot of traffic. It was also highly publicized. The other vlog flopped. Badly. Seeing as I am socially awkward, I think my days of vlogging are...very limited, unless I otherwise see a demand for them (which seems unlikely).

I try to improve, I really do. Now that I've got my hands on this book, I have more ideas [ensue evil laughter] {just kidding about the evil part. I really don't have an evil laugh}.

Now, I've really got other things on my mind, but I really promised this book review, and it's a bit later than I had planned on it being. Until the other things on my mind clear, it's gonna be rough on me, blogging and all. If you haven't read my last blog, or if you haven't talked to me especially, you don't know much about what's going on. Here's the DL

I made a mistake at my internship in a rush to get prepared to go out of town, so that I could work on my project while away. A big mistake. I didn't know it until the next day, when I was on my way out the door. I may or may not be losing my internship. I've already been told that I did something wrong, and was sobbing over the phone about it, and I know there's a meeting awaiting me when I return. I've not been able to relax, really. I've not been able to work on my project, either, since I had to clear information out. It's a big embarrassment to me, and could cost me a lot of things, including my internship, I could fail this class and have to extend my graduation by up to 2 semesters. I could lose the chance to graduate under this degree completely, and the chance to work with this degree, even if I do graduate. I could lose the chance for licensure, many things could go wrong.

I don't know exactly what will happen yet. I know the company is going to be fined and face consequences for my mistake. There are other things, minor in comparison, going on as well, but I've just not been able to bring my head to a peaceful level, where I can just enjoy the last little bit of time that I have before my other class starts. I'm too worried, too disheveled. I'm a mess. My future looks like a disaster zone right now. So, in case anyone really is wondering, or cares, that's what's going down.

Deuces

The art of blogging

It's amazing what some people can do with a blog. Some people, like those on my blog roll, have amazing blogs that I've gone back and read past blogs into 2009 and sometimes earlier (but not all of them...c'mon guys, I do have a busy life, but I do read a lot of old posts simply because there are a lot of amazing blogs written), and I find myself stunned at what amazing things these people can write.

I find myself staring at this screen, trying to write something comparable, and I'm at a loss. I don't have much of a story to grace anyone's walls with. I've been through some stuff, but nothing to clamour over. I don't have any spectacularly crazy people to blog about, and nothing peculiar in my life. I'm not into any subject that would draw any massive crowds, and helping people in the social services isn't something that can really be written about very well, without breaching confidentiality much.

Occasionally, I can mention a client that has done something that has affected me. I've had one that brought me to tears when he left, giving me a picture he had hastily drawn upon his unexpected departure, which was actually really amazing. I have yet to hang it on the wall above the intern-ish area (I call it that, because it's not really my, nor anyone else's, desk, but the interns mostly use it).

Another one brought me to tears when he asked me to pray with him, because I'm not a particularly religious person. I've had some stuff in my past that has led me to obstacles that I couldn't ignore, and when he asked, I stumbled trying to find the right answer, but I went ahead and prayed with him. I want what's best for the client.

I've had clients that have scared the crap out of me. They've been involved in gangs and aren't afraid to go back into that lifestyle. Some come from rich, some from poor lifestyles. Some have great families, some have little family support at all. They come from different racial, social, and religious backgrounds. They all come into the same facility for the same reason, some know each other from the juvenile detention center in the county.

It's amazing when we get a group of clients that are able to pull through the program together, and a number of them are able to pull through the bottom levels of the program and reach to the higher levels. Other times, we'll have an onslaught of new clients, and we'll cycle through a lot before we finally start bringing in clients that are in it to make it through. It goes in cycles, and we're about to go through another onslaught of new kids. I'm nervous. We're also about to get an onslaught of new interns. Oh my!

I'd love to blog more about my internship, but I know that I can't go into much more detail than that. I love my internship. Often I bring my work home with me. I'll work on something for the clients until the end of the night, forwarding an email to the primary counselor that I work with, and she'll implement the changes the next day. I helped in the creation of an incentive program that rewards them for good behavior and helping each other out. I try to call them out before they get written up for something, to see if they'll change their behavior.

I really do care about what I'm doing, otherwise, I would have said "See ya in a month!" after I finished my class at the beginning of May, but I didn't. I continued to work through the month of May. I put in 100 extra hours in the spring semester. I know most of them won't count, but I did it anyway. Because I care.

Some people do stuff like this for money. They blog for money. They counsel for money. Everything that I'm doing right now? They'd have a lot of money from it. I haven't made a dime this year. Not a single dime. But you know what? I'm okay with that. I like what I do, and that's all that matters right now. I'm working on my degree, and soon enough, I'll be able to like what I do and earn money from it. I just have to finish what I'm doing now, and I'll make my way. It may be difficult, but I'll make it. In the meantime....I have no idea what this blog was about. It's been a long day, I'm tired, and I'm ready to go to bed. Goodnight, world.