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Thursday, December 8, 2011

Crises and problem solving

I've been mostly quiet for a while. There's a reason for this, beyond being almost to finals. I'm not going to go into specifics, except to say that my family life is turbulent for a number of reasons, and several of them came up this week. I'm okay. I have a lot of thinking to do, but I'm okay, and I should continue to be okay even as the semester ends.

I have to say, though, that my job seeps into my life in insidious ways. The latest bit of bad news sent me into mild shock and panic, but my training as a ResLife* staff member had already kicked in and set my mind to processing and brainstorming before I ever came out of the shock. Within two or three hours I had phone numbers and names to offer as resources for solving the problem or at least getting a reprieve and learning about various options related to the problem. I passed these on to the person who needed to know. I stepped into the role of objectively thinking and finding resources, which is exactly what my ResLife training would have me doing. Even if I was also emotionally involved.

I just never realized I could apply it to problems off-campus, or that I wouldn't need to consciously apply it because it would just happen. Which makes me think that the training was very effective. Life skills. I wonder what else I'll be applying this to?


*short for Residential Life; I'm not sure how common the term is in the wider world

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