I began my day organizing books today. It was a tedious assignment at first, but I soon understood the importance of it. The books were thrown on a book shelf in random order, and books that are meant for younger children were at the very top, whereas as adult books were closer to the middle. In other words, young children would not be able to reach any book meant for their age group, so I worked on making that more accessible. I am beginning to understand the significance behind seemingly insignificant tasks like this one; I hope to adopt this way of thinking soon and hopefully take my own initiative on what needs to be done around the office. I also began looking through newspapers articles as far back as the 70s that cover El Centro's history. I'm very glad that staff members and volunteers over the years have kept track of articles. It was interesting to read some of the more recent articles as I was organizing them today. The current director began his position as such in about 2005 or 2006, and he entered with a lot of enthusiasm and support from community and board members. I have yet to meet him, but I am intrigued to find out how his performance has met the expectations with which he entered. I am sure that he has done only good things for El Centro (because he was covered in several articles as I browsed through them) but I think it's great that we have a way to keep track of things like these, as well as other issues that have long been covered in the community, such as immigration and violence. For example, there were just as many articles on Gang-related violence in the year 2000, as there are in the year 2009; that indicates to me that there is either a huge and increasing number of gang violence and/or we have yet to find the correct way to combat it. This reality is somewhat disheartening, but I think that access to this history is vital for change as it serves as a reminder of our past mistakes and will hopefully highlight a solution.