So, today I wrote out a summary of my first qualitative interview, and I think my boss will hate it. It drones on, and gives examples, and taps into the heart of what my interviewee said, so I strongly predict that she won't like it. She is more a matrices type of gal, a - put their feelings into columns and we'll rate them - type person. So maybe I'll end up with a chart for all the the interviews when I am done, to suit her. If I have any goal at work, it is to do my job well, and then to do it in another way, equally well, to keep everyone's options open. This explains, this and doing qualitative interviews all the time (i.e. - chatting with strangers like they're your friends for the betterment of each party) why I am tired most days.
Today, I feel good though. After the summary I ended up kind of mulling around, finally meeting with the clinical lady about co-occurring disorders, and then gathering up some more resources about Latino clinics from the one resource guide that exists in the city. Just so you know, there are about 6 places to go if you only speak spanish and you are seeking mental health services. Whether you can get there, will want to, and well, will, is another story, for another day.
After clearing all of that up, I went to yet another meeting where I knew no one (except a surprise participant who happened to be a girl studying part-time in HBS, yea!) and had no idea what was going on. Then again, they were all fun, all smart, all working with at-risk youth, and the pediatrician brought chocolate cake and kale from the Yabba Pot! So that was that.
Instead of going back to the office at 4:55, I went to snuggle and have dinner at Papermoon, which you may be saddened to know that, as of today, is no longer a 24 hour establishment. Yup, from Sunday-Thursday it opens at 7am and closes at midnight. Some might not care, but I have maintained solace in the fact for a long time, that as with UniMini and Subway, I can always go to Papermoon. My only other complaint about that place is that the 'chocolate cow' (glorified chocolate milk) always makes me think of a 'black cow' drink, which my mom taught me was a half-and-half mixture of coke and milk. It is so much better than the former, which I order, and am disappointed with, whenever I forget the distinction.
Shortly after digesting Papermoon, we stopped off at Wyman park to "play" field hockey. It is much more fun for me, a perennial bench warmer, to play hockey nowadays, when it is non-competitive, with a boy, and the field is mostly occupied by puppies whose owners use it as a dog park. We made friends with a terrier named Petey who liked us better than the polo-shirted dude who was his master.
So I was thinking about being born again. And I think it's a constant thing, not a singular, decisive, pledge-my-old-life-away thing. Because the metaphor, being born, is pretty deep. As a newborn, we have no concept of good and evil. We do terribly selfish things almost constantly, but in our innocence, we are blameless. We expect nothing from anyone or anything in particular, and in that way, we accept endless possibility, from any and every direction. We live for the moment, we know ourselves without labeling ourselves, and we don't judge others. At least, that is what I can extrapolate, from my observation of babies and my Forrest-Gump-like lack of recollection of my own birth. I think being born again also means being washed clean, with the chance to live a better life not once over, as in baptism, but with every breath, step, and blink, as if rebirth moved along the tides and never stopped renewing us. Of course literally 'being born again,' that requires just as much hardship, and as much joy, as the first very gooey time around.
And why the happy mood, really? Well, its cool outside for the first time in weeks. And we are simple creatures.
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