musings – 1 month later

-Upon logging into my account today, I was thoroughy amused to see “teach for america – rejected” as one of the searches that resulted in someone viewing my blog.  Comical reminders of past failures are always fun, and I’m glad fellow TFA rejects get to read my ramblings.

-Recent events at work have resulted in me sitting at home at the end of a day still trying to fully resolve my thoughts.  So much so that I reworded the previous sentence at least 4 times and still don’t think it captures the state of unease I’ve experienced at work in recent weeks.  Much of this discord stems from the seemingly sudden surge in the number of individuals who seem to be interested in volunteering to fulfill some kind of community service requirement.

Many of these people are between the ages of 15-18, in the midst of those formative years when a lot of people seem to need SOMETHING to latch onto in order to gain direction and purpose.  A lot of these kids, in my estimation, have gotten into trouble out of boredom or as the result of an absence of any real, fulfilling target for their energies.  I never went down the trouble making route when I was that age, but I can at least identify with the restlessness that results from not having a significant and internally-motivated target for my efforts.

As such, and because I found my own fulfilling, personally-rewarding purpose through my experiences in service-learning/community involvement, I can’t help but want to give some of these kids the opportunity to have the same grounding, eye-opening experiences I had a few years later in life.  However, as the volunteer coordinator for an organization that works with a vulnerable population, I also have a responsibility to our clients to ensure that we utilize only those volunteers who can make meaningful contributions to their ability to experience life-enriching, accessible outdoor recreation activities.

So every time a teenage kid comes into the office to inquire about fulfilling a community service requirement, I experience the same internal struggle.   On one hand, I firmly believe that teaching these kids why I believe what we do is so important and giving them the opportunity to play a meaningful role in providing those services could really result in a cascade effect-type scenario, leading to active citizenship and decreased delinquency, a very positive effect for the community.  On the other hand, I realize the risk that is implicit in letting kids who have already gotten into some kind of trouble have significant interaction with our clients, many of which comprise a vulnerable population.  Trying to figure out how to do the most good for the community while preventing the most harm is a dilemma I still haven’t resolved.  I think I’m going to go read some J.S. Mill and meditate on utilitarianism…

-  DISCLAIMER: This bullet point will probably make most sense only to alumni of Alternative Breaks.

On many days when I come home from work, I really wish I could partake in reflection with my coworkers.  Having had Alternative Breaks trips as the cornerstone of my formative undergraduate experiences, I’m constantly caught trying to integrate anything I do that triggers my AB schema (hey, some of my psychology vernacular is still intact!) into that same framework.  As such, I really see my entire *VISTA experience as a year-long AB/service-learning trip centered around the issue of people with disabilities.  However, one element missing from this “AB trip” is the opportunity for nightly reflection with my “tripmates”/coworkers.

If I were participating in a reflection session tonight, I have one thing I’d definitely like to discuss.  I conducted a volunteer orientation session a few weeks ago, and in the mandatory health form/liability waiver that we have all volunteers fill out, I noticed that one of the prospective volunteers marked that he suffered from bipolar disorder, which happens to be one of the “disabilities” that our organization considers as sufficent to be considered a “person with a disability,” and someone with this condition hence would generally partake in our programs as a “participant,” and not as a “volunteer.”

This raised a number of interesting issues for me.  Although our “participants” are asked to pay a very modest fee for our activities, which is in fact much less expensive than it would cost them to partake in the same activities on their own, our “volunteers” nevertheless take part free of charge.  The general assumption here is that “volunteers” are providing a service that helps to result in “participants” being able to access outdoor recreation that they wouldn’t otherwise be able to, and as such they are not asked to contribute financially.  It occurred to me that, if we consider bipolar disorder to be a disability that precludes “participants” who suffer from it from being able to partake in ourdoor recreation activities on their own, should we really believe that one such individual, simply because he happens to register as a “volunteer” instead of a “participant,” can not only partake in these activities on his own, but can also contribute to other “participants’” success in these endeavors?  But at the same time, one of the stated goals of our organization is to reduce/remove stereotypes regarding people with disabilities.  Would I not be acting in direct violation of this goal if I were to assume that, strictly because such an individual has this stated “disability,” he can’t contribute to others’ success in participating in outdoor recreation activities?  Has my use of “quotation marks” in this paragraph become annoying yet?  But in all seriousness, I haven’t fully sorted through my thoughts on this, and having reflection has really helped me with tough questions like this in the past, so I really wish I could do it now.

Musings

I return from a prolonged hiatus with a post that has absolutely no relevance to the job or AmeriCorps.  Or to anything else of any significance, for that matter.  I apologize to anyone expecting a comprehensive update.  And to anyone else who might spend 2 minutes reading what follows haha.

- I oftentimes think I would more appropriately fit in Tolkien’s universe than in this one.

- As much as I enjoy watching episodes of ‘Arrested Development’ on Hulu, I should really be using that time to read.

- I get really bummed out when I start reflecting on life’s necessary tradeoffs and opportunity costs.  Recently I’ve been having a really hard time with this, and with living in the moment and fully enjoying what I’m doing at the present time and place.  I’m constantly thinking about the people I wish I could talk to and hang out with and the adventures I could be having.  This leads me to much daydreaming about what the multitude of potential options that are currently bouncing around in my head for post-VISTA plans.  While I’m glad there are a number of things I’m excited about and would be really happy pursuing 9+ months from now, I can’t ignore the nagging sense that I’m doing myself and the people I’m working with a disservice by not “living in the moment,” to again use the cliche.  I don’t want to end up with an incomplete appreciation for my experiences because I’m forever preoccupied with what will come next.

Tonight I was sitting on my back deck listening to “Lord of the Rings” on audiobook and taking in the northern Utah sunset.  Instead of basking in the natural beauty of a mountain landscape I’d been longing for years to live in close proximity to, I started reminiscing about the time I spent laying in a hammock in the mountains of Panama, reading and listening to the sounds of the jungle anticipating an afternoon thunderstorm.  This sparked a longing to travel and experience more such surreal moments, and once again I was mentally weighing options for next April.  I’d like to work on this, but I think it will be difficult.

- Writing is a lot harder than it initially seems.  I need to carry around a notepad or a voice recorder.  This sounds incredibly pompous, i.e. “I have so many worthwhile thoughts that just never end up getting translated to print/type,” but it’s partly true.  Maybe the thoughts aren’t worthwhile, but the rate of retention/translation definitely is incredibly low.  Also, I lack the commitment to really sit and work at putting things into words.  Which is much the case right now.  As Yoda once sagely remarked, “and that is why you fail.”

In the swing of things

Once again far too much has transpired since my last post to do all of it adequate justice.  I’m annoyed with my own laziness.  But I assure you the tone of this post will be much more cheerful than the last…

-After returning from the conference in Salt Lake City, I conducted my first volunteer orientation/training last week.  I was really happy with how it went.  A large number of people completely new to Common Ground showed up, and, if the number of questions a bunch of them hung around to ask me after the conclusion of the training is any indication, were really interested in becoming more involved.  I even got a pretty nice compliment from one veteran volunteer in attendance, an older gentleman who told me to keep up the good work and that thought it was too bad I’d only be staying for a year.  That evening I went home having worked a 10-hour day, but nonetheless experiencing what I’m starting to call (at least in my head) a service high.  This experience is characterized by the feeling that my talents are being effectively utilized to serve a worthwhile purpose in my current endeavors, and that my efforts are having a positive impact on my community.  Good times.

-Headed up to camp in the Jackson, WY area over Memorial Day weekend with some fellow *VISTAs (my Common Ground coworkers and a friend serving in Ogden, UT), a Common Ground alumnus, and some friends of friends.  The former Common Ground *VISTA is an experienced river rat who owns his own boat, so we rafted (for free!) the Alpine section of the Snake river twice.  I’d rafted this once before a few summers ago with a commercial raft company, but that experience in no way prepared me for this weekend.  Apparently by the time the river’s flow rate settles out in the middle of the summer, the rapids are consistent and predictable, and experienced guides are able to direct their boats across the rapids in just the right way.  However, in late May, with massive quantities of snow melting off of the Grand Teton mountain range and running off into the river, the Snake runs much higher, and as such, the rapids are completely different and much harder to predict.

This made for some truly white-knuckle moments.  As we hit the Alpine section’s signature rapid, “Lunch counter,” facing almost completely perpindicular to the flow of the river and taking on massive amounts of water in our non-self-bailing boat, time seemed to stop long enough for me to reflect on the fact that I had essentially put my life in the hands of a guy I’d only really had beers with, using such sound logic as, “well the guy owns his own boat, he must know what he’s doing, right?”  But everything turned out alright; we never flipped, always managed to bail out enough water to survive the next rapid, and caught some really amazing waves.  An awesome weekend all told.  Especially when you consider I paid less than $50 for three days of camping, eating, and rafting.  The only sad note (and it’s a significant one) is that my trusty Native sunglasses of two and a half years finally met their demise.  I wish something really cool had done them in, but one of the earpieces snapped off at the hinge while they were sitting in my pocket at one point.  Goodnight, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

-Yesterday I led my first Common Ground activity all by myself.  I took a group of individuals from an assisted living center to go cycling on our adaptive bikes.  I was really happy with how things went; there were a number of minor wrinkles that I felt I handled pretty well and everyone had a good time.  Two of the people were completely new to Common Ground and expressed a desire to participate in more activities, which made me really happy.  I’m starting to feel really comfortable both working with people with disabilities and representing this organization.  I feel competent!  This was my second “service high” in less than a week.  I apparently even worked my charm on a 70 year old woman, who made sure I had the phone number for her center and requested that I call her in the afternoons or evenings to see how she’s doing.

-I spent today assembling a massive grocery list for this weekend’s camping trip to Great Basin National Park (which I’ll be working!)  One of my supervisors gave me a list of all the meals we’ll be preparing on the trip, and from there I had to make a consolidated list of the various items needed to cook all of these meals, then decide which of these items we already had, which could be obtained at the local food pantry (which generously helps out with our trips) and which would need to be purchased with donated gift cards from the grocery stores in town.  8 hours, $75 in gift cards and only $25 on the Common Ground credit card, and one giant garbage bag full of donated end-of-day Einstein’s Bagels later, and I’d assembled the food to make 70 meals this weekend.  This isn’t the kind of day I envisioned having when I took the job, but days like these are strangely satisfying anyway.

-We’re leaving Common Ground in about 10 hours for Great Basin.  My tent still hasn’t been aired out from my last camping trip and I’m still fighting the cold that I picked up in Salt Lake and aggrivated on the Snake.  This weekend will be a pretty big test for me; I think I’m starting to get the hang of this job, but I haven’t ever really had the experience of being “on duty” 24-hours a day for three days.  I’m sure this trip will try my patience, creativity, and quick-thinking, but I also fully expect it to be a lot of fun, really rewarding, and an opportunity that will help me to be a stronger volunteer coordinator, as I’ll be speaking to people from a much broader base of experience.  Also, I’m going camping at a national park I’ve never been to before – for work!

Government-organized service trainings are not efficient.

In my experience, anyway.  I’m at the midday break period of the Utah Conference on Service, sponsored by the Utah Commission on Volunteers, and  I’m experiencing many of the same sentiments as I did at the San Diego national AmeriCorps *VISTA training.  This conference is not an AmeriCorps-exclusive event, but nevertheless it seems as though *VISTAs and AmeriCorps state members make up the majority of the group.  Once again we’re housed at a relatively upscale hotel to attend workshops with dubious degrees of relevance and value.  The Corporation for National and Community Service paid for conference registrations for every *VISTA in the state of Utah, and again I’m left with the feeling that this was not the best potential use of those funds.  For instance, in the last 24 hours, I’ve sat through one workshop titled “Personality Differences and Working Together” in which a presenter tried to cover the Myers-Briggs personality inventory in a one-hour session (a ridiculously ambitious, and ultimately failed, attempt), and another entitled “Collaboration: Working with Service Clubs,” which turned into an hour-long competition between representatives of the American Legion, Junior League, Rotary Club, and Optimists Club to see who could boast the greatest number of service accomplishments by their respective club and who could recruit the most conference attendees as future members.  This workshop abjectly failed its objective, which was to inform representatives of non-profit organizations, such as myself, as to how we can most effectively establish mutually-beneficial collaborations with these service clubs.

This just really upsets me, because the theme of the conference is “NOW is the time,” a seemingly-obvious reference to the greatly-increased spotlight put on national service following the passage of the Serve America Act and other actions of the Obama administration to emphasize service.  As such, it seems to make sense that trainings and conferences of this kind should be conducted with the utmost efficiency, so as to use the enhanced visibility to demonstrate the utility and value of national service and its accompanying functions.  I believe in the value of national and community service, but it is extremely disillusioning to continue to observe funding allocated for this purpose used in such inefficient ways.

/end rant.

I’m really bad at keeping this current.

It’s not even like I’ve been that busy.  The last two weeks I’ve spent about 5 hours each night on some combination of watching playoff hockey and basketball and reading “Anna Karenina.”  Like most things that I ever have to write, I’ve  just been procrastinating writing this.  Anyway, I’m now four full weeks into my term and starting to get more comfortable in my job, which is a nice feeling.  Becaues my last post was about two weeks ago, I think this post once again lends itself to a bullet point summary format of the intervening two weeks.

-Went to Preston, Idaho to take a group of kids from a special education class out for a bike ride on some of Common Ground’s adaptive cycles.  This was really fun, my first real “accessible outdoor recreation activity.”  The kids seemed to have a really good time, and I felt surprisingly knowledgable and comfortable with all of the various types of cycles from my brief training on them.  This trip also featured a surprise visit to the high school where “Napoleon Dynamite” was filmed.  Super random.  My fellow *VISTA Nick told me this as we were pulling up to the school and I thought he was messing with me, but immediately after walking into the school, I saw the rainbow-colored lockers that Napoleon gets pushed into.  Just to make sure, I asked one of the teachers we were working with whether the movie had actually been filmed there.  Not only did she confirm this, but told me that she appears for a few seconds during the karate scene of the movie.  To close out an awesome trip, we stopped at a Pepperidge Farm factory outlet store just inside the Utah border where they sell off-weight cookies and crackers really cheaply.  I bought a box of 30 bags of Goldfish, Milanos, and Chocolate Chip cookies for $6!  I’ll definitely be making return visits to that place.

-A big part of me feeling more comfortable in my job has been a definite increase in the warmth with which a lot of our participants and their families have treated me.  Understandably, a lot of people had seemed a little bit standoffish in the early going, as two other *VISTAs they had spent a year developing relationships with had just left town and I was taking their place.  Which is still a little bit sad, because the same thing will happen with me in all likelihood.  But that’s 11 months away, so for now I’ll just be happy that people are comfortable talking to me and asking me to help with things.

-Spent last Saturday working with some fellow AmeriCorps members, helping to build accessible beds at a local community garden.  As part of the national AmeriCorps week, we partnered with some AmeriCorps State members working with the Utah Conservation Corps on this community garden project.  It was pretty cool, something I hadn’t really thought of before.  Also cool to connect with other local AmeriCorps people as part of the nation-wide outreach week to try to make communities aware of the various opportunities available within AmeriCorps.

-I’ve spent much of the last week working on some outreach/public relations things for Common Ground.  Got to collaborate on drafting applications for two new scholarships that Common Ground will offer this summer and on writing the quarterly newsletter.  One of the nice things about working for a small nonprofit with a barebones staff is that I’ve been given a number of responsibilities that I’m not sure I’d be trusted with at a lot of jobs as a college grad with no professional experience.  I remind myself of things like this when I get my pay statement every two weeks telling me I made less than $400 during that two weeks.

-On the topic of consolation prizes for my meager compensation, I’ll work in the office exactly 4 days over the next two weeks.  Monday through Wednesday of this week, my fellow *VISTAs and I will attend a Utah volunteerism conference to fulfill one of our two AmeriCorps-mandated in-service trainings.  Next weekend (Memorial Day weekend), it looks like there will be a trip of current and former Common Ground employees heading up to Jackson, WY to raft the Snake River!  I’m pretty psyched about the prospect of getting to raft the alpine stretch of the Snake multiple times during a particularly “big water” time of year, for free, no less.  The only other time I’ve been on the Snake, it was phenomenal, but it cost me about $50.  Tuesday and Wednesday of that week I’ll be back to the office, but Thursday through Saturday I’ll be working Common Ground’s destination trip to Great Basin National Park!  While I’ve been told these trips are extremely exhausing for staff, as we’re constantly “on-duty,” including attending to middle of the night bathroom trips with participants, I’m still pretty excited.  Three days of camping, hiking, and cave exploration in eastern Nevada, for which I’ll acquire 14 hours of flex time that I can use to take afternoons off work in the coming weeks to go hiking in the mountains around Logan sounds like a pretty good deal to me.  We’ll see if I feel this way two weeks from now, when I’m helping one of our participants change out of urine-soaked clothes and sleeping bag at 4am.  This isn’t a hypothetical; Nick had to do just this on last month’s Arches National Park trip.

-Last Saturday I hiked up a local canyon and up onto the snow-covered ridge of the tallest mountain in its range.  I’m sure there is a decent trail when there’s not three feet of snow on the ridge, but right now the only “trail” is one set of frozen footprints that heads straight up the ridge, instead of switchbacking, as I’m sure the actual trail does.  Nevertheless, I was feeling stubborn and walked/ran up the ridiculously straight ridge in those tracks, pausing every minute or so to give my burning quads a rest.  I made it to the top of Mt. Logan, which offered an amazing view of surrounding mountains and the valley far below.  I then had a blast (albeit a little stupidly) laying on my back and body-sledding down the same ridge in 15 minutes that had just taken me an hour and a half to climb up.  It was ridiculously fun, tempered only by the knowledge that glissading, as it’s formally known, down a mountain slope one is not super familiar with when hiking alone is probably not the wisest decision in the world.

-My current preoccupation is with the potential of running(/walking?) a 28-mile mountain trail race that covers much of the same ground as last Saturday’s hike.  It’s called the Logan Peak Trail Run (http://www.loganpeakrun.com) and I’m masochistically drawn to it, despite the fact that I’ve never run a race longer than 13.1 miles, or even completed a run longer than 19 miles.  This race will absolutely destroy me, but it will make me train with a dedication I haven’t had in about a year and a half, and it will be a pretty sweet accomplishment, assuming I’m able to stagger across the finish line.  Stay tuned.

“VISTA moves”

Well, week number two is in the books.  This was a long one; I logged 7 hours of overtime!  Which, for a VISTA in many organizations, wouldn’t be anything out of the ordinary, but one of the many perks of being a VISTA for Common Ground is that we’re only required to work 40-hour weeks, and can take a few hours off here and there to offset extra hours logged.  This is really nice, as VISTA sponsor organizations can basically ask their VISTAs to work as many hours as they want, as when you get sworn in as a VISTA you essentially agree to be available to your sponsor organization whenever they need you to be available.  Some of the highlights of the last four days:

-Driving across town twice in an hour with first the mattress, then the box spring, of my new bed strapped to the roof of my Civic.  (This was just one in a recent series of what my cohorts and I have begun to call “VISTA moves” – basically an action that involves compromising one’s dignity to save a relatively small amount of money)  This was a great purchase – full size bed with box spring and frame, $50!

-Being assigned the job of bus repairman for an afternoon.  Especially funny if you are familiar with my complete lack of efficacy in the realm of automotive repair.  Luckily these were fairly straightforward jobs that needed to be completed so our state-funded accessible bus could pass inspection – affixing the front license plate, replacing light bulbs, lubricating the wheelchair lift, etc.  I enjoy this spontaneity of job tasks though, it keeps things interesting.

-Instructing the afforementioned non-English speaking court-appointed service hours “volunteer” on how needed to be cleaned in the recently vacated apartment above the Common Ground (from whose previous occupant I had purchased my bed) by pointing at various things and saying “limpia.”  My spanish competency has taken a bit of a dip from where it was when I was in Panama last summer.

-Ensuring one of our participants, a woman with a mental illness, that the decision to cancel Tuesday’s rock-climbing activity had not, in fact, been made to punish her for something she did wrong.  I spent, without exaggeration, fifteen minutes on the phone trying to convince her that we simply hadn’t had enough people signed up to justify holding the activity, and that we at Common Ground weren’t mad at her.

-Getting to meet a number of Common Ground’s frequent participants at an Open House social/summer season kick-off.  Highlights of this night included a heated basketball discussion with a man with a cognitive disability, in which he (a Lakers fan) adamantly insisted that the Pistons had gotten lucky in beating the Lakers in the 2004 finals and an advance invitation to go ice fishing this winter with another of Common Ground’s regulars.

-Eating a ridiculous quantity of delicious Indian food for $6.99 at a lunch buffet at a restaurant just a few blocks from the office.  This could prove to be a harmful discovery if I’m not careful.

-Hosting an information table for Common Ground today at the Cache Valley MultiCultural Center’s Cinco de Mayo Festival.  In a torrential downpour.  This was kind of a debacle.  I think I handed out 5 pieces of Common Ground literature and talked to maybe a dozen people in the 6 hours I was there.  I probably should have been researched more thoroughly before I agreed to go, but in my defense the email simply said “all Cache Valley NPO (non-profit organizations) are welcome to host a free table.”  As it turned out, I’m pretty sure I the only representative of a NPO that didn’t specifically serve the Hispanic community.  But I did get a free t-shirt from a nearby representative of a local head start program for children of migrant agricultural workers, who probably took pity on me as I sat looking wet, cold, and forlorn.

-In anticipation of picking up hours on Saturday, I left work early on Friday to hike a trail that had been recommended to me earlier in the week.  It was pretty nice.  Great views of Logan Canyon just before sunset, pretty strenuous elevation gain in stretches, not overrun with people, and only a 10-minute drive from my house to the trailhead.

-Already starting to think about life post-Common Ground.  Ridiculously early for this, but I happen to know of an awesome-sounding 10-week AmeriCorps direct program working for the Utah Conservation Corps building trails and restoring habitats in epic places like the Tetons and Zion National Park that starts in early May, just weeks after my VISTA year ends.  I’m intrigued to say the least.

-Starting to feel a little bit more confident in my role at Common Ground.  Which is good, because we decided in a meeting on Friday that I’ll be running my very first volunteer Orientation and Training session in less than 3 weeks!

-Growing both my hair and beard for a while I think.  Stay tuned.

1.5 weeks in

Now that I have internet access at home, I can finally get around to documenting the first week and a half on the job.  I’m not really sure if this is better suited for paragraphs or bullet points, so if the format changes halfway though, it’s because I’ve changed my mind.

-Work has been crazy.  Trying to learn on the job in your first (mostly) grownup person job with no transition period with your predecessor is not the most enjoyable experience.  I spent most of my first week telling people on the phone and in person, “I’m not sure about that, let me find out for you,” and running to ask somebody.  Compounding this is absence of one of the other two incoming VISTAs for the first few weeks, which means a lot of his job tasks have fallen to me until he gets here.  So right now I’m sort of juggling two jobs (or at least a job and a half) and I’m starting to get worried that when he gets here I’ll keep stepping on his toes because I’ll be used to doing a lot of his things.

-It’s really difficult to arrange work for a bunch of people who want to volunteer for different reasons and lengths of time when you’re still trying to figure out exactly what your work is supposed to be.  Hopefully I will get better at this as I get more familiar with the organization and its needs, but right now I feel like I’m scrambling and creating work for people when they show up.  For instance, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about creating long-term, sustainable volunteer positions to start to transition some of the work currently done by my fellow VISTAs and I (as this year is the final year Common Ground will have VISTAs), and I had a really promising conversation/interview today with a guy that is only going to be in town for 6 weeks and wants to get a lot of volunteer experience working with a nonprofit organization.  I set up what I think is a pretty good schedule for him that will incorporate both administrative tasks that need to get done as well as volunteering on some of the outdoor activities.

I felt pretty good about this, but about 15 minutes later a guy walked in who could not speak english, and after much difficulty, we figured out that he had 24 court-appointed hours of service and wanted to do them with us.  I immediately began scrambling for jobs for what seems to be known in the jargon of nonprofit organizations as a “warm body” volunteer.  I’m not making this up, this was a common term at PSO.  I eventually found some things, but it’s already become clear that a volunteer coordinator is expected to have a handle on a multitude of potential volunteer jobs, ranging from a two-hour manual labor assignment to a summer-long office administrative assistant position.  Again, I think (and hope) that as I become more familiar with multiple assets of the organization this becomes easier for me.  I hate thinking that an organization that runs on volunteers might let even an hour of potential volunteer time go to waste because I’m not good enough at my job.

-I’m also realizing that the line between direct and indirect service is not as clear in practice as it is in AmeriCorps’ training materials.  For those unfamiliar, AmeriCorps VISTAs (as opposed to AmeriCorps State/National Direct and AmeriCorps NCCC) are supposed to be indirect service agents whose primary goal is building capacity within communities to combat poverty.  The textbook examples of this distinction are as follows: VISTAs can set up literacy tutoring programs within a community, but cannot themselves act as tutors; VISTAs can write grants, do outreach, and raise funds for an organization that provides affordable homes, but cannot aid in the construction of those homes.

This seems pretty clear, and even at PSO my thinking was something along the lines of “alright, so that doesn’t seem like it will be an issue, I’ll recruit and train volunteers and establish a sustainable volunteer recruitment and training program that can be run by established, long-term volunteers after I leave, so I’ll definitely be doing indirect service.”  However, upon starting work it became clear that I would soon be expected to help out with and even lead some of the accessible outdoor recreation activities run by Common Ground, as evidenced by my training in adaptive cycling/canoeing safety.  While I’m not opposed to this (could I really complain about multiple opportunities to get out and do outdoor sports in a beautiful area of the country and actually work with the people whom my work will ultimately benefit?), it does create a bit of discomfort as I remember the strict provisions against such “direct service” during AmeriCorps training.  At this point, I think I have it reconciled for myself, because I think working hands-on and performing the service that I’ll be training volunteers in will really make me more effective in conducting volunteer orientations/trainings.  Also, I think that by seeing first-hand what an enriching impact these opportunities have on the lives of the people Common Ground serves, I’ll be even more motivated and inspired to do the best job I possibly can in providing a volunteer corps that will help to keep these activities successful.

-Outside of work things have been a little tougher.  It really hit me this weekend, the first real down-time I’ve had since leaving Grand Rapids, that I’m 1600 miles from all of my friends and family and, besides people from work, my roommate, and a few of his friends, I don’t know anybody here.  I’d thought about this in the abstract and convinced myself that I’d be so absorbed by work and that I’d be in an outdoor sports paradise that these things wouldn’t bother me that much.  Saturday, however, was in the low 40s in Logan, with a snow/rain combination most of the day.  This meant that hiking/canoeing were out of the picture, and I ended up spending most of my day reading “Anna Karenina.”  Which I’m thoroughly enjoying, but by about 7:00 my spirits were sagging a little, and it was a bit of a rough (read: homesick) evening.  Sunday was a bit better, as I managed to get out for a hike in the early afternoon, making it about 2 hours up one of the local canyons before being turned back by snow, both falling and on the ground.  The physical effort and tranquility of the canyon (I didn’t see a single other person after the first half mile) cheered me up quite a bit, but it’s still been a little bit lonely in the evenings after work the last few nights.  It might be time to return to trying to learn guitar, running as much as I did in the past, and (gasp!) playing World of Warcraft.  That sounds like a recipe for an occupied mind.

San Diego!

Really delayed post.  Wrote most of this before leaving San Diego, then came back to Logan and had no internet.  So here it is, now that I have regained internet!

“So I’m finally getting around to documenting PSO (pre-service orientation) three days into a four-day conference.  Whoops.  I hasn’t really been all that interesting, and I’ve been so frustrated and borderline-disillusioned at the end of each day’s sessions that rehashing them hasn’t been first on my list of things I’d wanted to do.  But the blog must go on, so without further ado…

-Arrived in San Diego via a very pleasant Jet Blue flight at about 3 PM PST with several other VISTAs and received a shuttle ride to the Mission Valley Hilton.  Immediately stood in lines for various things (room keys, PSO binders, turning in paperwork, filing for reimbursement), and continued this process for about two hours.

-Became distressed as the reimbursement process played out.  I was given $0.55 per mile for my 1600 mile drive from GR to Logan, plus $10 per every 100 mile per diem.  This seems like an obscene amount of money, especially given our current economic situation.  I feel guilty about getting this much money, even though I know I shouldn’t, as I’ll be making below minimum wage this year.

-Already feeling anxious about this use of taxpayer funds, I proceeded to the next line, which was for reimbursements for travel to PSO.  My fell0w Common Ground VISTA Mary and I had driven from Logan to the Salt Lake City airport together, and will thus spend about $15 on gas between us.  Nevertheless, we were each given $0.55 per mile for a 160 mile round trip.  This again seemed obscene.  However, I’d also had to pay to park my car at the airport in SLC, which I told the woman at the reimbursement table.  She immediately asked what the rate was and how many days my car would be there.  When I gave her these figures, she promptly added another $28/day x 4 days to my total, without asking for documentation.  I had legitimately put this $112 on my credit card, but I could just as easily have been lying.  I would have assumed (and hoped) that in light of the legislation Congress recently passed to allocate a substantial sum of money to national service, AmeriCorps would have been much more careful to make sure everything was being done as efficiently as possible during this time of intense scrutiny from opponents of such legislation.

-This just really bothered me because I believe in federally-funded national and community service programs, but this experience seems to support the age-old concerns of more conservative-minded individuals regarding government programs and inefficiency.  I don’t really know how to reconcile this.”

Looking back on PSO now, I still think it was a little on the inefficient side, but after working for a week and a half I realize it has to be incredibly dificult to come up with something that will be universally relevant to a group of people working in such a wide variety of places and doing such different things.  Oh well, it was a free trip to San Diego.

Logan!

Well I’ve finally made it.  After 1598 miles and 23 hours of driving in a 34 hour period with an extremely unhappy feline in tow, I arrived in Logan Saturday night at about 9:30 mountain time.  I had been informed that there would be nobody home at my house when I got there, but that the back door was never locked.  This was my first sign that I had arrived in a different kind of community.  I brought Jack’s carrier inside and introduced him to my new roomate’s 12 pound Jack Russell Terrier (named Jackie, of all things).  Jack and Jackie got off to a bit of a rocky start, both growling and looking very suspiciously at one another.  Since this initial meeting, Jack has been little seen from.  Which is not surprising, as he disappeared under the sink for much of the first few days he spent at 5o6.  I think he might be a little upset with me for making him ride in the carrier for almost 12 hours, then spend a night in a hotel, then adjust to a new place with many people and two dogs (my roomate’s girlfriend brought her pitbull over once Jack was already in hiding).  Oh well, maybe he’ll forgive me by the time I return from San Diego.

Another interesting note from last night: I needed to pick up a few things before going to bed, so I asked my roomate for directions to a grocery store and hit the empty, night before Easter at 11:30, streets of Logan.  On my way there, I was making a left turn at a stoplight and, as a result of having driven so much and being exhausted as well as of trying to find this grocery store, cut the turn a little short and put my front driver’s side tire into the left-turn lane of the street I was turning onto, which was  of course unoccupied.  Immediately following this I saw flashing lights in my rearview mirrow.  Confused, I pulled over and was informed (by a police officer who joked that it looked like I was running away from home after looking at my full-to-the-brim Honda) that I had made an improper turn.  He ran my information and decided he could let me go with only an official warning (which I have a paper copy of), a scolding that I should watch my improper turns to avoid collisions (as I asked in my head, “with which (expletive) cars?”) and a “welcome to Logan, Daniel.”  I’d run afoul of the law after being in town for two hours.

I returned to the house to crash on the couch, surrounded by all my earthly possessions, as the guy whose room I’m taking won’t be moved out until Thursday, when I get back from San Diego.  My spirits improved considerably this morning, however, when I awoke to the sight of snow-capped mountains out the window in the living room.  Mountains always have that effect on me.  I spent the day cruising around town with one of my future co-workers, going for a run through town, eating a veggie omelet with avocado at a restaurant whose tagline is “where the locals eat,” and making enchiladas and guacamole for dinner.  A pretty low-key day in all, but I’m still pretty worn out from the two heavy driving days.  Also, I get to drive an hour and a half to the Salt Lake City airport tomorrow morning to fly to San Diego for the AmeriCorps VISTA Pre-Service Orientation, which I feel too sleepy for right now.  But I’m not about to complain too much about an all-expense paid trip to southern California.  Things could be worse.  I could be driving through Iowa and Nebraska.

Reflections on leaving Grand Rapids

Well, my days in Grand Rapids are really winding down.  Two more days, then starting off for Utah on Friday morning.  It really hasn’t hit me at all yet, despite having had my going away bar night with friends, which was a blast.  I haven’t really started packing in the strictest sense yet, although I’ve moved my few pieces of furniture back to Troy.  I’ll basically just be packing up my clothes, books, air bed, computer, cat, and whatever other odds and ends fit in my Civic.  I figure it will be liberating to travel on the light side, and I’ll furnish my place (if I ever find one) at the Goodwill-type store apparently run by the Mormon church in Logan and featuring fantastic bargains on anything and everything.  Anyway, I figured I’d write this post to make myself realize I’m actually leaving in a couple of days.  The following will be a non-linear, likely non-cohesive collection of my thoughts on the place that has become my home over the last five years.  It will probably also border on cliche/corny at various points.  Oh well.

As most people who go away to school do, I spent progressively less time in Troy as the years passed, going home every few weekends as a freshman and spending the first few summers at home, and eventually living in the Grand Rapids area year-round and going home a handful of times a year.  Over this time, I went from being an 18-year-old biomedical science major to a 23-year-old psychology graduate.  More importantly, I met a bunch of cool and interesting people, made a number of significant friendships, gained a lot of confidence in myself, and figured out a few things that I think I’m good at and a few things I’m passionate about doing.  The last five years have been a greater period of personal growth and development than any other in my life, and I will always look back on it extremely fondly.  I had an amazing number of ridiculous, poignant, trying, exciting, enlightening, and frustrating experiences over this period, and Grand Rapids/Allendale/the house on Lake Michigan Drive figure prominently into the majority of them.

This is the place where I first became really inspired about, and disillusioned with, a potential career.  This is the place where I got to spend a year living in a house with five of my best friends.  This is the place where I first got excited about service, advocacy, and citizenship.  This is the place where I dressed up as Cindy Bear as part of a job.  The place where Scott drove me to the emergency room while I held a frozen chicken breast to my groin after being struck in the testicles with a floor hockey ball.  The place where I got drunk for the first time.  The place where I struggled to deal with the unforeseen divorce of my parents.  The place where I started running.  The place where I got bit by one mental patient and physically prevented the suicide attempts of another.  The place where Scott and I had hour-long no-talking homework periods in our Laker Village room, but still communicated through instant messanger.  The place where Jared and I hid in our room from our freshmen orientation session leaders, muting our game of Madden, which had been blaring right up until the moment they knocked on our door.  The place where Chris, Grant and I would go for a 12 mile run at 8am, then spend the next 16 hours sitting in running shorts in the dining room of 9802, playing World of Warcraft and eating copious amounts of frozen pizza and ice cream.  The place where I got Jack, my cat.  The place where I fell in love for the first time.  The place where I grew out, then cut, my hair.  The place where I lived in a house in the middle of nowhere and had bonfires in my backyard one year, then lived in an apartment downtown amidst hospitals, freeway overpasses, and construction the next.  The place where I started to travel, camping/road-tripping/Alternative Breaking to Georgia, Tennessee, New Mexico, Wyoming, Utah, Mississippi, Arizona, California, New Orleans, Colorado, South Dakota, Panama, New York City, Maryland, Chicago, and Pittsburgh.  The place where I started to enjoy speaking to groups of people.  The place where I learned to cook.  The place where I significantly let people down for the first time.  The place where I got my first real taste of significant rejection.  The place where I experienced copious amounts of self-doubt, interspersed with stretches of borderline arrogance.  The place where I went ghost hunting with a carload of GVSU cross-country runners.  The place where Ben and I sat smoking cigars and trying to figure out where our lives were going while on the porch of an apartment we moved out of after only two nights of screaming upstairs neighbor children, unlockable windows, and a 1am visit from the upstairs neighbor, who was apparently accustomed to climbing in our window to use the washing machine.  The place where I wallowed in a mononucleosis- and wine-induced fugue state for two months.  The place where my sister came to school with me and became one of my closest friends.  The place where I first really listened to Bruce Springsteen.  The place where Megan and I had an incredibly awkward, tense conversation at Applebees, in which we both admitted to “liking” each other and she later reported having thought she was going to throw up out of nervousness.

I could continue writing this for hours.  And probably should at some point, as I don’t know how long some of these memories will be retrievable.  The point is that this place will be forever intertwined with a monumental transitional period in my life.  For that reason, even though in a few days I will no longer call Grand Rapids home, it will always be a place of profound sigificance to me.  I’m excited to see what my time in Logan has in store for me; if it’s anywhere close to my years in Grand Rapids, it will be pretty memorable.