I have been having lots of people tell me how lucky I am to be living here in Québec, how they feel like I am seeing so many wonderful things, and how interesting it is to live in a different culture and language. There are a few perks about living in a different place and being able to see new things, but it's not all it's built up to be. When people tell me how exciting my life seems, they make it sound glamorous and thrilling. I'm here to tell you that it's really not that glamorous.
The cold weather has indeed officially begun. The days are at hand when you dread going outside and putting on four or more layers just to stay warm. Some days you want to just stay home and inside all day, but when that happens then you wish you went outside or somewhere because you missed being able to have any social aspect during the day. If I am already experiencing these days of dreading to go outside but feeling guilty for staying in, I am in trouble because it's only January and we are sure to have at least three more months of this! (That is if this year will be anything like last year.) And that is just the weather.
Sometimes the work isn't that fun either. I am sure many of you know what I am talking about, that tedious work that one has to experience at least once in their life: paperwork and filing. My work in preparing for the English Camps this summer has already started and this year my work load is going to be higher. Last year I had to deal mostly with the teams that were coming. This year I am doing that again as well as organizing all the children's applications and registrations. So far I am just getting ready to receive registration forms which includes updating forms and our website. That isn't too bad, for the moment.
What's kind of fun and exciting is dealing with teams and team members right now. I am already juggling teams and trying to fill holes. This is kind of what the process has looked like so far: Send invitations to old teams to see who will come again. Wait. Three teams have said yes! Yes! Wait, only one team will be full. Wait. I have an interest from this church and that church and that group. One church changed their mind, one group wants to commit. I have three vague emails asking for more information. I have one small team, I put them with team 1. I have a larger group of two families, I put them with team 2. Wait. I think the smaller team would go better with the bigger team and the bigger group with the smaller team. Suggest a switch. Wait. No, won't work. Larger group of families might need to split up. Smaller team is staying with team 1 and teams 1 & 2 still need around 5 more people. Wait to hear from the two families. Still waiting. Haven't heard from other churches who showed interest. Still waiting. I sure hope team 3 has enough people.
Juggling. That's what this part of the job is.
Filing and paperwork has been added to my list of jobs to do. I recently received a gift from my pastor of two huge boxes full of "who knows what" from the MA's files of five years ago. So I got to work right away of first finding out what was inside. I found lots of old lesson plans, extra song books, lots of loose-leaf notes, stickers, cards, information and lessons from older English Conversation activities (which will come in handy), and five years worth of old registration forms. First, I organize: English for Kids, Francofun, English Café/English Conversations, registrations, extra materials. Second, I sort: use again, keep for files, trash. Now I have the contents of those boxes in nice piles on the floor of my room which thankfully only takes up a corner, for now. Now the really fun part begins, which I am already dreading.
We used to have a document of all the contact information we had for all of the families that have come to English for Kids camps over the years. Sadly that information got lost when a computer was stolen last fall. Since we don't have a backup, that I am aware of, all that information has had to be put into a computer again. This time we do have backups. My dear friend Suzy, who was in charge of the kids registrations last year, was able to input all the information she had from registration forms over the last three years. She gave me that document and now I need to update and add to it with all the old forms I found. Thus begins my tiresome job of inputting information onto a computer document on Excel. And I barely even know how to work Excel, so this will be fun. Maybe one day I will let you know of the horror stories of sitting in front of a computer for hours while trying to make illegible writing legible and trying to understand it myself.
But I'm already getting tire from writing this post. So that will be all for now.I hope you enjoyed a small glimpse into the mundane work or a missionaries associate. I am praying that I don't burnout in front of the computer over the next few months and that I will get it done. Diligence is a difficult thing, but if you don't get it done now, it won't get done.
So I hope you have a good end to the month of January. And here's to all the office workers and secretaries I know, with God's help we can get it done!
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