What it's about

Looking at my first pay direct deposited paycheck of the new year brought a little surprise for my bank account.  Instead of a Christmas bonus, my stipend was cut 15 dollars.  Not much to many people, but it adds up by the time my service ends.  And this means that I now only have 35% of my paycheck left after all my bills.  It stinks, and it stinks that it happened without any warning.  But if I’ve learned anything so far in my 23 years of life, I’ve learned that bitterness imprisons life; love releases it.  Perhaps Mr. Harry Emerson Fosdick said that last poetic bit before I did, but I concur. 

My life is not about making money.  My life isn’t even about living for myself.  It’s about serving a God with a plan bigger than I can fathom and accepting the blessings I’ve been given, since I can fully acknowledge I’ve been given way more than I could do anything to deserve.

So what do I have? 

An AmeriCorps placement at a supportive and groundbreaking organization

A compassionate supervisor who I know always has my back and has been a great joy to work with

A car

A warm apartment and a trustworthy roomie friend

A past that has offered me lots of birthday and Christmas presents that included fleece blankets

Hot chocolate

A daily hot shower.  Two, if I want.

(can you tell it’s cold outside?)

An immediate and extended family that has proven time and again that we are in it together for the long haul, and shown amazing feats of forgiveness and love towards each other.

A boyfriend who has loved and supported me for over 6 years, from hours away

Oreos.  6 of which are in my stomach.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be watching Extreme Makeover Home Edition whilst I write my blog.  I may make Mom cry twice in one night after all this sappiness. 

Gratitude is the only proven way I’ve found to surmount those unexpected setbacks in life.  Things that, if you chose, could make you bitter and angry.   I implore you to turn to your gratitude list in a time of doubt, and I implore you also to start it now.



Update:  After numerous emails this pay adjustment was clarified as a tax issue, specifically dealing with the Making Work Pay credit.  Essentially this credit was applied throughout the year, allowing more money to come in my paycheck and less "estimated tax" withheld through the year to the federal gov't.  With the change I can no longer keep that money and it has to be taken out of my paycheck throughout the year, as normal wages typically work.  Perhaps I will be poor again next year, not owe tax, and get it back anyways!

Christmas Break

I've been alerted that my blog url was included in all the Christmas letters my Mom sends out, so Hello to all our family members and friends who actually made your way to my blog!  As a reminder, this blog is personal and in no way representing or speaking on behalf of my organizations.  With that said, check out the organization I work for (OASHF) and the specific program I help administer, doing outreach and trainings: (OBB)

My office is closing down between Christmas and New Years, but as a VISTA I still have hours that I have to work.  Therefore, I get the thrilling task of going through the IRS tax training called Link and Learn.  I am learning way more about taxes than I ever thought I would, but I do find it weirdly satisfying to know a lot about something that I hate, but is still worthwhile in my life.  I will conquer taxes!

Lastly, I am heading to Chicago for New Years Eve with my wonderful group of friends from college.  We went to Florida together for Spring Break and to Michigan this August, so I am beyond excited to spend NYE in Chicago with them all again. 

Happy Holidays to everyone!

Soup Kitchen Lunch

Chicken fajita soup and hamburger for lunch, yummy!  My training in Champaign County yesterday was at a homeless shelter/soup kitchen in Urbana.  For lunch, I ate with the Director of the facility and the other volunteer I was training in the kitchen. 

For this week, living in solidarity means breaking bread with people who are at the end of their rope.  I'm hoping they've all tied a knot and are hanging on!

“When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.” - Thomas Jefferson

Crazy Training Weeks

I have dreams about taxes.   About training taxes.  About missing a tax training and 15 angry people being lost and confused about taxes.   Tax season at my organization is nuts.  This week especially, we have trainings every day, sometimes two a day (taking all three people on the Central Ohio team to handle everything).  All the organizations are gearing up and they need many new people trained.

These trainings come in all shapes and sizes. Earlier this week I trained two gentlemen in Logan County at a library:

 The library reserved their "large study room" for me.  There is a possibility that I am biased just coming from Miami, where we had an amazing library with study rooms to accommodate the plethora of class groups, but I was still a little unprepared for what I found:

I didn't have enough room to capture the entire table, but there are 6 chairs in the "large study room."  Just enough room for me to squeeze around to help.

I also had a training in Pickaway County, in Circleville.  I always have trainees introduce themselves and explain what agency they are from.  In this case they were all involved with the same agency, and they all described in one way or the other how the head of the organization had strong-armed (her words!) them into coming to this training.  Hey, I don't care how they get there, as long as they are trained and can help people file their taxes for free.  I did think it was funny though.

The next training was at a facility that will stay un-named, where I found this sitting on the desk:

 

Finally, my training in Springfield on Monday provided these lovelies for everyone:

Christmas COOKIES!

If anyone is keeping count, I have conducted 10 trainings in the past 3 weeks, traveling a total of 490.8 miles to seven different counties in Central Ohio.

Let me eat cake. And other things.

New Desk.  New Co-worker.  Santa Clause.  Cake.  Youth for Technology.   My last couple weeks in a nutshell.

Most significantly my co-worker John's term was finished at the end of November, and he was replaced by my new co-worker.  I am eagerly teaching her the ropes, considering I am doing double duty covering all John's responsibilities and training load until my new co-worker is ready to go.  This huge transition was ushered in by an in-office desk move to the other end of the office.  I now have a bigger desk with a back wall that doubles as a bulletin board (yay!!) and I get to sit right by the window.  Also note the computer bag on my chair.  This is a newfangled fancy chair, and I have yet to figure out how to raise it high enough to be functional.  You win this time, fancy desk chair.  Also note my lovely TOMS flag on display.  I get to tell all my visitors about my favourite shoe brand and spread the social entrepreneurship love.  Sustainable models of giving.  Service in all aspects of life, that's how I see it.  It's meaningless unless you live it out.



When I train people on my programs' online tool, I take them through simulations with fake clients.  These training tools are used by thousands of people all over Ohio, and all the training is administered out of my office in Columbus.  Therefore, how could we not commemorate the birthday of our favourite fictitious training client, Alice Nelson?  We had cake!
As I said in my region's blog, please excuse the photo of a half eaten cake.  There are lots of hungry VISTAs in my office who love cake and who were not moved to the opposite end of the office.   That's another thing, my new desk is so much further away from the area where we put the free leftover meeting food.  I am going to have to be on my game...

I also went with my co-workers to the Statehouse to see the arrival of Santa Clause.  (I know him!  I know him! < Elf reference.  If you have not seen the movie Elf, you need to stop reading this and go watch it.  Immediately.)  I maintain this would have been a traumatizing experience as a small child, but I was scared of everything as a kid.  The children at the Statehouse I believe instead enjoyed the pretty flashing lights that delivered Santa.  I got a cookie out of the deal so I was fairly satisfied. 

 

My volunteer work with Youth for Technology Foundation is starting to picking up as well.  Naturally, this is coinciding with my actual job becoming insanely busy.  I do enjoy the chance to do something I am passionate about and specifically have a degree in.  Right now I'm helping them put together a social media strategy outline, maintain and analyze their current efforts, and interview new volunteers.
My roommate also forwarded me a job posting that had "Social Media" in the job title, which reflects an encouraging job market that is hopefully growing and eager for new hires when I am out in June.

Face of a client

As an AmeriCorps VISTA, my work is limited to a very small percentage of direct service.  My main goal is capacity building by doing indirect service.  On a slightly related note, I am devastated to report that the star between “AmeriCorps” and “VISTA” has officially been removed from my job title.   Devastated.  RIP asterisk. 

A couple weeks ago I had a rare chance my office had to help answer our hotline calls due to one of our Foodbanks up in Cleveland hosting a Phone-a-thon and needing extra help.  After three calls from various people (mothers of 5, single man, family of 4) with different needs (no gas for the past 5 months, no income/no food, any help I can give), I answered a call from a woman in Franklin County.

When I picked up the phone I could tell she was crying.  Every time you pick up a hotline call it’s a little scary, because the person on the other end of the line is in so much trouble that they have exhausted all personal resources and called a hotline for any help they can get.  So this woman that I was connected with, through her choked up voice, started explaining to me that she lived in a mobile home park and she owned her home, but she had to pay lot rent.  She had an eviction notice on her door because she couldn’t pay her lot rent and couldn’t gather money fast enough.  She would be out on the street in two days if she didn’t pay.  My program helps people apply for benefits like food assistance, which she was already on, so I couldn’t offer her much from our resource pool for housing.   We partner with many organizations that do offer housing assistance among other things we can’t help with, but this woman had put the effort in and sought out help at these organizations, but to no avail.  The organizations she visited can’t help with lot rent, even though this was the cause of her eviction.   This situation would be a major cause of stress for anyone, but this woman spilled the rest of her complications to add on to the impending eviction.  She has depression, anxiety, and is bi-polar.  She doesn’t have enough money to pay for her medicine, so she is quite literally fighting through life every single day.  The effort to make it out of bed and to do what she needs to do is crushing, she explained.  She also was told by her doctor that her front and wisdom teeth need pulled because they are diseased and poisoning her body, slowly killing her.  Among other health problems for herself and not being able to afford ANY care, her daughter is in jail.   I was on the phone with her for 20 minutes, just lending an ear to listen, knowing the entire time I couldn’t really do anything to help.  By the end all I could give her was the number for information referral, the number of a free clinic, and the address of a homeless shelter.  It was very strange hanging up the phone with a woman who I was pretty sure in two days’ time would be standing outside her home, surrounded by her evicted belongings, barraged by mental illness with nowhere to turn. 

This was a difficult but humbling day.  It was weird window into the most burdened population.  We talk about them, we read about them, we do studies on them, we even see them.  But to have this window straight into someone’s life, a 20 minute picture of everything they are facing, and then to carry around this story is a whole different situation.  It sticks with you, and ultimately empowers.  If I ever need motivation to keep doing capacity building, to keep developing programs and making partnerships and solidifying program infrastructure, I can easily recall those 20 minutes as a call to action and a raison d'être for my position.

On my toes

If you thought the title might allude to me revealing news that I am a practicing en pointe ballerina, you will be (only slightly) disappointed.   I could have also titled this post something like “playing it by ear,” but that might make you think I am a budding musician (which, in reality I am.  Hello new guitar!) and it would also be a second cliché reference using a body part to describe the fact that in my job I “fly by the seat of my pants.”  Oops, there I go again.

I remember interviewing for this job and asking my (future) supervisor what a typical day looked like.  He couldn’t give me an answer, rather promising each day was very different.  Now that I’ve been in this position for over 5 months, I have discovered three types of a “typical day.”  They are as follows:  a) Sitting in front of my computer emailing and calling people, including various breaks to stare out the window at interesting activity down on the street.  b) Training all day.  Training is draining, so once I’ve spent 6 hours in front of a room of people yapping at them and guiding them through the software, I’m spent.  c) Traveling to meetings.   This could also be interspersed with option a (staring at computer).  Traveling to meetings could be similar to what I did this morning, which entailed me driving a mile down the road from my apartment and sharing a cup of coffee and great conversation with a fellow VISTA.  It could also be driving over an hour to an outlying county (remember, I serve 15 of them) for a 20 minute meeting.  Where perhaps the person I am meeting with tells me my program is essentially worthless.  And I thank them for their time and drive back. 

The last point is a great anecdote affirming my supervisor’s explanation way back in April when I applied.  Despite there being three basic types of days, each situation is different and challenging.   Even with each cookie cutter training, I have different counselors who have different learning styles, a different sense of humor (laugh at my corny jokes people!  Come on!), and different opinions about public benefits and government programs.    

My favorite days, surprisingly, are the days I have nothing officially planned and I can sit at my desk and work.   This days are always different, always challenging, and always keep me moving, which is very important for this job.  Communication is constantly and quickly moving, and if I don’t stay up to date with emails and phone calls the entire network  could fall behind.   My desk days also give me the ability to not only react but act, or take proactive action by strategizing and preparing for goals and projects. 

This post grew increasingly boring as it went on, but our internet is down so I can’t check my email.   See?  Crazy!  On my toes!