(2021) A Day in the Life of Mariana Smith-Rivera

 By: Mariana Smith-Rivera (Woodland Pattern Book Center)

A day as an intern for me is to visit the Woodland Pattern Book Center in the morning before arriving at Hopkins Lloyd on Thursdays. I arrive at Woodland Pattern around 30 minutes before leaving for Hopkins. My supervisor and I are usually the ones alone at Woodland Pattern. We drink our coffee and catch up in the morning on how our sleep was. My supervisor Alexa usually takes me to Lloyd and the drive there is simple. 

Today was a delight to see the kids again for CLC. We begin with a little warm up which would be considered our introduction for the day. We told them a story about a man with no arms struggling to find his dog, then soon enough he found his dog. And we drew a dog picture while telling the story to correlate and give visuals. Then soon after we played a game. We continue to work on their dyed T-shirts that they started on Tuesday.

Alexa and I had gone and got the supplies on Monday for them. When everything is finished we then make a collective circle with everyone and express our appreciation and hard work for that day.

We gave applause to the children and the teachers. Unfortunately, we have only an hour with the CLC kids. However, we are able to work around that. 

After Hopkins Lloyd, my supervisor and I drove back to Woodland pattern and continued administrative work. I continue recording the anthology dates that they were created and who was the organization that was associated with that anthology that year. around 12 I take my break and eat my lunch.

My very first day as an intern at Woodland Pattern Was on a Friday. I had gotten a small introduction in the building when first visiting my job. I then had a zoom meeting that was an orientation for poetry camp which was the first day I worked. The following week I had zoom meetings all week with children and the camp was based on creating an anthology for 2021. 

We agreed all together collectively that the theme for the anthology would be Life Behind the Looking Glass.

 One of the students came up with the name and was inspired by Alice In Wonderland movies. Everyone in the poetry camp wrote something and included a painting. It was a fun experience and to see for the first time from a teacher’s standpoint how students work was fascinating and understandable. It felt like it was easier for me to be in the teacher’s shoes and see exactly what they have to conquer. The challenge I have would be confidence, I tend to not show or have a lot of confidence in myself which prevents me from displaying the best version of myself. However, this job is enlightening and encourages me to be more open-minded and have more confidence in myself because I have achieved a lot of things that I wasn’t aware that I could do. Which would be showing professionalism, being more independent which wasn’t a choice that I had before because I am young, becoming more expressive with my ideas, and learning how to say no to people. When working with students it is a requirement to learn how to say no or stop. Which I learn how to do within this job.