Change of Plan.. Thurs Sept 29, 2005 11pm

Uh huh. Ok, so the first thing I've learned about this job already is don't even make a plan. Or think a plan has been made. I arrived at Gretna the first morning and was immediately reassigned to another center at Belle Chasse. That's ok, because I was told this one was really busy.. and I wanted to be helpful.

It's one thing to walk into a situation and know what you think you know. Remember I told some of you about my experiences in Mastering Life's Energies was that I don't 'know' as much as I think I'd like to think I know. (Maybe you follow my line of thinking or maybe you don't - I'll understand). So thinking I know that I'm going to be dealing with difficult stories and peoples lives and the devastation is on one hand, and then on the other is the confrontation of humanity. Face to face.

I'm really not trying to be dramatic. I'm just shocked at my own inability to comprehend the scope of what I take in from the media and images and believe to be true. I wasn't prepared for how challenging this was to be, but then again I wasn't really informed. You can't prepare yourself for a situation like this from bombardment of images and rolling screen scrolls from CNN. And all my surfing on MSNBC didn't even come close the reality of seeing, just folks in line - on a humid September day. Fanning themselves. Drinking water. Some chatting, some crying - a few even looking a little lost. It was much harder than I anticipated.