I typically work one Saturday a month for the Juvenile Advisory Council–the new program we have at the court that relies on youth input to make probation more effective. I’ve blogged about it before and I’ve mentioned how much I love the program, today was only a little different. Instead of running the exit interviews or a peer jury, today I facilitated the orientation program. This means I gave a small pep talk and then ran a power point presentation for the youth reps.

Turnout was low. Given the weather–cold, wet, snowy–I didn’t expect more than fifty people. We had twenty total, for both programs. It wasn’t a waste per se. I got practice, those twenty kids learned something (or probation learned something from them). The problem is I don’t feel as energized as I normally do after these sessions. In fact, I feel positively drained. It wasn’t a particularly difficult crowd. The youth reps did their jobs beautifully. Other than a few misspoken words, the program went off with out a hitch.

Maybe I’m forgetting how draining it is to work another shift, but I don’t think it is that simple. I think I’m expecting My Plan to work super quick, when in fact, it will take a few weeks for it to kick in.

I’m using this as an excuse to put up a pitiful blog post. I have another one about religion brewing…. but first you have to listen to This American Life’s program on Heretics. Go listen. I expect to finish the post by sunday.