Stepping In, Speaking Up

Hello, my dear Hivers!

Today, I’ll be sharing with you the continuation of my previous blog.

After our session or monthly reporting as probation officers together with the individuals under probation, we decided to have lunch since we were really hungry.

So, I asked my companions where we should eat, and the first option was to eat at a nearby carinderia (local eatery) across the barangay hall. But when Kuya Andrew mentioned that there was a nearby place with good food and air conditioning, we immediately agreed because we wanted to hang out somewhere cool this time.

As we were crossing the street, I noticed the store Kuya was talking about and told him, “This isn’t air-conditioned, Kuya. We’ve been here before when we practiced for the pinning ceremony. I even featured this place in one of my previous blogs.” But since the food there is really good, even if it’s not air-conditioned, we still went in and placed our orders right away.

Only two students were there when we arrived, so some tables were still vacant, quite fortunate, given our numbers.

A few minutes later, while waiting for our food, I grew suddenly thirsty and realized I had scarcely brought enough water. I felt I really needed to drink warm water after a stressful day because being dehydrated sets off a headache for me quite easily. I went outside the store to get water and fortunately the store next to it had warm water.

Just as I returned to our table, my food order arrived. However, I didn’t eat right away because my companions’ food hadn’t arrived yet. So basically, I only got to eat around 12:30 PM. We also ate quickly since we had to return to the office by 1 PM for our orientation.

We just took a tricycle to get there since it was a bit far from where we ate.

We arrived at the office a little past 1 PM, and thankfully, everything was okay.

At first, when we entered the office, the head of the office told us that the orientation would be moved to Tuesday instead so it could be done more properly. However, when one of the staff arrived, she suggested that we proceed with the orientation today instead so we wouldn’t waste time. But before starting, we were asked to introduce ourselves and show a talent. It was such a fun moment because my fellow interns were really funny, real jokers!

When it was my turn to introduce myself, I kept it totally formal-just straight to the goal and finished fast. For my talent, I sang just a few lines for about 10 seconds because I wanted to keep it short so we could get on with the orientation.

After all the introduction, we finally started orientation as probation officers. The orientation was both informative and eye -opening, especially for us that are beginning to understand the responsibilities of this role. One of the senior officials began explaining what it really means to be a probation officer - we expect to monitor individuals under probation, help them restore them in society, and guide them towards making better life options.

He also discussed various tasks that we can handle during our internship, such as conducting interviews, preparing reports, observing court hearing, and assisting during check-in with customers. We were reminded of the importance of sympathy, patience and privacy, because the people we are working with often come from a hard background and trying to make positive changes in our life.

Although it was quite heavy from the one sitting, I was quite motivated and inspired for this term orientation. It is like the internship will not only help me grow as a student but also prepare me with a lot of experience for the future.

That's all for today's blog, my dear hivers! Thank you for reading!