snapshots of my wednesday

I blatantly lied- I will not be picking up where I left off. Instead I am doing a short post of quick stories:

#1 I was speaking to a teenage girl today about safety around her apartment complex. She asked me if it was normal to hear sirens at night (I said it was) and then she asked me about serial killers. She apparently had heard a child crying last night (to be expected in a large apartment complex) and remembered hearing from "somewhere" that there was a serial killer in the United States who used a recording of a crying child to lure women outside to kill them. I in fact received the same chain email several years ago (one of those "forward to every woman you know!") and was as sure than as I am now that it is an elaborate urban legend. Trying to explain to someone with limited english that such stories are false, however, is difficult. I ultimately told her to talk to her father if she was in doubt (I assume he is more level-headed not being 17)

#2 I dropped of a nepali family at a clinic this afternoon after a completely silent 45 minute car ride (again, REALLY uncomfortable for me). While I was checking us in one of the women kept saying something to me but I didn't understand and I felt bad that I couldn't decipher what she needed. The receptionist jumped in to help and I found out that the woman was saying "stool sample," referring to the paper bag she was holding. But of course! Why didn't I guess that's what she was getting at?

#3 turns out that my FBI criminal background check has not gone through yet (speaking of the shockingly predictable-- there is a backlog of background request cases after AmeriCorps decided to require them for the first year). It could be weeks till I'm cleared and until then I cannot be left alone with "vulnerable populations" (read: children) for fear what I may do to them. Unfortunately, as a large part of my job involves school registration and homework-help, this has become a problem and I have had to take parents with me to inane school appointments and classroom tours with little or no explanation as to why I cannot just take their kids myself. (I didn't want to start the conversations "well, it is not safe for you to leave your kids with me just yet.....") Damn bureaucracy!