real stuff

Lorena is one of the new people coming to our english class. i met her at the bus stop. she was speaking spanish and offered lyvi a biscuit, so we got to talking, in spanish. she has only been here a couple of months and speaks no english. she has only been coming to english a few weeks. over the course of the last few weeks she has shared that she has struggled with depression in the past, and was having a hard time now. she shared her recent experiences with classic depression symptoms. she had a doctor's appointment scheduled soon, so she was going to let me know how it went. when she came on tuesday she said they took some blood for tests, but that it was hard going with her partner as he didn't translate much of what the doctor said. she had another appointment scheduled for this morning, to get her results.

so, this morning i met her at her doctor's office and used my incredibly rusty spanish to help translate what the doctor said. Lorena made a decision about her next step and hopefully she will be able to follow through and start feeling better. sometimes i get lost in doing administrative and management types of things, so it was refreshing to be able to have a significant impact in a person's "now" with something as practical as language and as simple as an available slot of time.

jamie