The Intern-ist: Nostalgia

July 3, 2008

2008 begins my second year in Nada (I am starting to feel like a professional intern) and with this perspective I can look back and see some of the differences from last year. I won’t lie, I get lots of help from the Nada teenagers, who like to reminisce about previous summers and how much fun they were. The thing is, they are older now. Most of them will be in high school this coming year and that changes their perspective on the present because, “it’s just not as fun as it used to be.”

I will say, we anticipated this change and began to encorporate life skills classes in with the regular summer activities. This may be part of the difference the teenagers notice. Mostly, I think they are becoming more aware of themselves, and paying attention to who they are and want to be in this world. And when you’re not quite ready to move forward, you tend to wax a little poetic about the past. They are climbing up their ladders, approaching the diving board, and while that is a tough place to be, I am excited to watch them jump.