Being a returner

Mood: blah

About a week ago, we had to submit our letters of intent. Tomorrow, we should be finding out where we're placed for next year. It's a big deal here because of our living learning communities. One community is just so different from another; your placement can make or break your experience.

I'm pretty confident that I will get to stay in my current living learning community. I haven't heard about anyone else being interested in it. I think I've done a decent job this year. And I just really don't think I could work anywhere else.

But enough about that: I've been thinking about what it's been like to be a "returner" this year (after all, I need to plan the returner meeting for April, where we'll talk about what it means to be a returner).
It's been nice to know the job. I wasn't nervous or anxious about new tasks (even though I would have never admitted that I was nervous last year). I was able to make some changes in my community. I could try out some new things with my staff.
In terms of my relationships with new staff? Well, during training and at the beginning of the semester, I always felt like I should be doing more, reaching out to them more, giving more advice. But when I tried, I often felt like they didn't necessarily want that advice, so I cut back and only answered when asked or when there was a bigger issue. I tried to be positive around them as not to taint their opinion of our institution and department from the very begining. But I also didn't want to lie. And when we were asked for feedback in team meetings, I was honest and mentioned the things that were frustrating me. That was tough at times because I felt like I was the only one on our team, who'd ever bring up a problem...well, it was me and my grad (also a returner). There was one more returner on the team, but he hardly ever says anything. I'm still struggling with this - knowing when to give feedback or how often. Sometimes it feels like it's a waste of time because nothing will change anything - then sometimes things change but I'm not sure if others like the change or if they dislike me for it (for example when I suggested that we actually do something during team meeting - professional development stuf for example - instead of just having check-ins and getting some basic info from our coordinator).
It'd be really interesting to hear what the other staff members think about me. Was I a "good" returner? Had I been helpful? Were there other things that I could have done?
I have no idea.

Well it's 1:30 a.m....so I should probably try and get some sleep.
Wish me luck for tomorrow (if the letters even come out on time...which, knowing our department, i doubt).