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It has been a whirlwind of activity, both for the BCSL staff and for me. But mostly I am talking about me today. I am sooooo excited because next week, I've calculated that I will be in the office for at least 75% of each workday. HOORAY!! I can actually get projects done and do my job! Astonishing, I know.
Last week I had lunch with a friend. He said "For once, I'd just like to turn in an annual report that said This year I did nothing new, but worked on perfecting all I am currently doing." As I sprint through my VISTA year, trying to keep up and doing the best I can even though I feel like all I do is fall flat sometimes......I can't help but feel it's rather idealistic to do a VISTA project in a year. Yeah, a lot can happen in a year. One person putting in 20,000 hours of work is going to accomplish something.
Maybe it's just my learning style of needing to do things repeatedly, but I would love to be able to do two taxes seasons because I know the second one would be better than the first one. If I could stay on for a year, I'd totally Get It and be able to prepare appropriately when Donna says "Oh, man. When Andy comes back, it just all starts to get crazy." I'd totally Get It that we have to start preparing for tax season now, whereas today I'll go along with the idea because people who are wiser than me emphasize we need to start early. I'm getting a bit frustrated because it feels like I'm out of the office half the time; though the trainings and conferences I go to are valuable and my brain is vibrating with learning, the emails pile up and my projects get dusty. But if I were here for another year? I'd already be trained! I could spend more time in the office perfecting what I do based on what I'd already done--it would already be in my head. There's something slightly ironic about VISTA being a program centered around building infrastructure, but the way it's set up inherently prevents the infrastructure that is only present when a person does the same thing twice.
Of course, this is a rather useless rant because I know I won't be in the area next year. I took the VISTA position, expecting it to be a one-year placeholder; most VISTAs do. Life will be taking me other places; I won't have the luxury of considering a second VISTA year at the BCSL. For one, my student loans are due--I'll need a larger paycheck. I know I'm not the only VISTA who loves the job, but can't stay on because of the need of a paycheck instead of a stipend.
There's a VISTA tagline contest going on (or it might have already ended). One person laughingly suggested "PAY US MORE MONEY AND WE WILL SAVE THE WORLD" I think I'd like to edit that to: "PAY US MORE MONEY AND GIVE US MORE TIME...AND WE WILL SAVE THE WORLD."
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In Other News:
The US Census Bureau released the stats on poverty for the nation in 2009 yesterday. Here are some good summary news articles:
Nationwide:
- Tampa Bay WTSP (the shortest article of the bunch)
- New York Times
- The Huffington Post
- The Daily Caller
If you are interested in the knitty-gritty details, a PDF of the report can be found at: http://www.census.gov/prod/2010pubs/p60-238.pdf
Also of interest: A Commerce.com article on the alternative poverty measure coming out next year (because the current measure misses a lot of things)
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