I remember one of the questions I always asked people when I was applying for jobs was what a typical work day looked like. More often than not, the response was, "Well, every day is different." And in fact, my job changes everyday, which I love. Knowing PP55 applications are due tomorrow, I thought it might be helpful to outline a typical day as a Communications Coordinator at a DC education nonprofit.
9am- Grabbed a coffee at my local bakery in Mt. Pleasant before hopping in a Zipcar. I usually rely on public transportation, so driving was a rare treat!
10am- Met with a reporter at one of our campuses in Southeast DC. My boss couldn't attend, so the Principal and I took turns answering his questions. I was excited to realize that after five months on the job, I could comfortably answer most of his questions without stumbling or questioning my responses.
11am- Joined one of the preschool classes while they read The Doorbell Rang. It was amazing to watch the teacher lead the discussion of the book with the 3-year-olds, as she emphasized new vocabulary words (e.g. "plenty," "doorbell," and "enormous"), basic math skills (counting the number of neighbors in the house), and a new letter ("V" as in the character's name "Veronica"). Afterwards, I sat on the carpet with a few of the students for Journaling as they practiced drawing the letter "D".
12pm- Sadly returned the Zipcar to Mt. Pleasant, deciding I should create excuses to borrow a car more regularly.
12:30pm- Joined a conference call with our communications consultant, who has helped us develop and implement a communications plan for the past few months. We made a lot of great progress this fall in improving our messages and communications decisions, but there's still plenty of work to be done!
1:30pm- Replied to emails I had received over the weekend. A less glorious but necessary portion of each day.
2:30pm- Printed and reviewed the proof sets for a redesign of the organization's logo. This is one of my favorite projects that I've worked on recently.
3:30pm- Revised my application to attend a full-day blogging workshop. My organization actively encourages staff to seek out professional development opportunities.
5pm- Caught up with the day's education news by perusing through my organization's Twitter feed.
6:30pm- Attended a Young Education Professionals-DC networking event. It was great to discuss early childhood education with a couple of attendees, and I always love hearing about the work of other organizations.
9pm- Quick trip to the gym, and bed soon after!
PP55 fellows share their experience working in the public interest and being a part of the Princeton AlumniCorps community.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Monday, December 12, 2011
Holidays in NY
I can't believe there are only two weeks until the holidays. Working in a school, I get some great vacation including a week and a half for Christmas and New Years. Work has been very busy the past couple weeks as I've been working on the Winter Newsletter that I just sent out last week and holiday gifts for the advisory board and our major patrons. As silly as it sounds the Holiday Gifts are very important because most of our patrons and advisory board members volunteer their time and it's the only opportunity we have to really honor them and their commitment to St. Mark's. That being said, holiday gifts are extremely time consuming. Kids under 12 seem to take a lot of time to do just about anything. So the plethora of pictures that needed to be colored and thank you notes that needed to be written took a surprising amount of time of effort. But I think the scrapbooks I made with the students were well-received and really did feature the students' talents because that's what we're all about. Looking ahead I'm completely shifting gears as our next task is Registration for the next school year. As always, day to day life in the school is very exciting especially as the kids get anxious for Christmas break. Although holiday shopping in NY actually sounds like a nightmare to me with the extraordinary amount of people browsing, I did get a bit of holiday cheer when I chaperoned the 5th grade field trip to see the Rockettes: A Christmas Spectacular. I'm looking forward to the Christmas Pageant that our second graders put on every year and the upcoming winter concerts next week!
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Holiday Updates
Recently, I have been reading others' blog posts about new-found flexibility and the ability to actually go home for Thanksgiving. I am one of this bunch -- I was unable go ever go home during that short four day break in college because it always seemed that I had a Wednesday night class and could just not make the trip back home in such short time.
Well, it is quite wonderful to now have "vacation days." I was able to spend quality time with my family (including my entire extended family) and not have to worry about any homework. In this sense, I think that I am starting to get the feel of a work-life balance. I even went up to my Grandpa's farm in Minnesota and spent time picking eggs and driving a tractor!
That being said, I had a quite enjoyable work week when I returned to New York City. Every month, I co-author an education litigation newsletter that is a huge undertaking. I enjoy researching and writing these articles and learning about state-specific law cases. We also had an advisory council meeting this past week--this includes individuals from all facets of education -- higher education professors, principals, education non-profit individuals, NYC education dept. representatives, parents, and others. I really value listening in on their often differing viewpoints; having everyone together is such a great resource for our organization and my general growth in the field. I finished the week off helping our executive director update a handful of historical backgrounds on state public school funding.
I must say that I cannot believe it is the winter holidays in 3 weeks. How time has flown! I saw the tree at Rockefeller Center. I must say that I showed up expecting something incredible--like the Christmas tree of a lifetime. Though it is very pretty, I was much more impressed by the giant snowflake at 57th and 5th avenue. Hoisted above beautiful corner stores (many covered in a kaleidoscopic array of holiday decorations), this is the site to see!
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Broker Nightmares
After a brief flirtation with homelessness and the loss of a few hundred dollars, I successfully greeted December from a new home… one block away from the previous one. The apartment is a nice and spacious two-bedroom, whose only shortcoming is my weirdly shaped closet, but I lost my right to complain about that the moment I seriously contemplated living in a subway station. If anyone else is on the brink of homelessness, get in touch with me and I give you links to some great guides on surviving homelessness. They include useful and encouraging advice such as, "It won't be easy at first, but you'll get used to it.”
My initiation into the realty industry of New York City was rough. I thought finding a new apartment was easy, and I was in for an unpleasant surprise. Realtors can be vague, unreliable, pushy, rude and deceitful all at once! They can casually forget to mention their fee is, in fact, one and a half months’ worth of rent, rather than the standard one month in Astoria. They can waste hours of your time only to fail to show you any apartments because when they finally arrive at the location… they realize they’ve forgotten the key. They can also try to convince you that getting a railroad-style apartment at a ridiculously high price is a steal. Basically, they don’t have your interest at heart. It’s important to understand that before starting to deal with them.
I’m now on a first name basis with almost all brokers in Astoria and have the phone numbers of 18 of them in my phone. The various applications for apartments yielded three different credit reports with scores diverging by up to 60 points. I still get calls from brokers daily offering to show me “a great, renovated two-bedroom,” although my roommate and I made it clear we would be homeless if we didn’t find a place by the first of the month. But all of that is over now and we even cooked our first communal dinner in the apartment – French fries.
There is also exciting news from work. While I do have to write my self-appraisal, which I have been avoiding for about a week now, I feel like I have finally become a fully integrated member of the Foundation’s staff. At first, it was challenging to coordinate competing assignments from the three supervisors I effectively work for, but as I got a better grasp of my responsibilities and their expectations, things became a lot easier. Besides, all three of them (and all my other colleagues) were always happy to answer my questions and give me feedback on my performance, so I never felt a lack of support.
More recently, I participated in an internal innovation competition for the research associates and the associate directors at the Foundation, and ended up winning one of the three awards! Well, technically the generous award went to the grantee organization, on whose behalf I was competing, but I still really enjoyed preparing the application and the presentation for the contest. Not to mention, the award will contribute to the future success of an organization I deeply respect, which is a sufficient reward for me.
My initiation into the realty industry of New York City was rough. I thought finding a new apartment was easy, and I was in for an unpleasant surprise. Realtors can be vague, unreliable, pushy, rude and deceitful all at once! They can casually forget to mention their fee is, in fact, one and a half months’ worth of rent, rather than the standard one month in Astoria. They can waste hours of your time only to fail to show you any apartments because when they finally arrive at the location… they realize they’ve forgotten the key. They can also try to convince you that getting a railroad-style apartment at a ridiculously high price is a steal. Basically, they don’t have your interest at heart. It’s important to understand that before starting to deal with them.
I’m now on a first name basis with almost all brokers in Astoria and have the phone numbers of 18 of them in my phone. The various applications for apartments yielded three different credit reports with scores diverging by up to 60 points. I still get calls from brokers daily offering to show me “a great, renovated two-bedroom,” although my roommate and I made it clear we would be homeless if we didn’t find a place by the first of the month. But all of that is over now and we even cooked our first communal dinner in the apartment – French fries.
There is also exciting news from work. While I do have to write my self-appraisal, which I have been avoiding for about a week now, I feel like I have finally become a fully integrated member of the Foundation’s staff. At first, it was challenging to coordinate competing assignments from the three supervisors I effectively work for, but as I got a better grasp of my responsibilities and their expectations, things became a lot easier. Besides, all three of them (and all my other colleagues) were always happy to answer my questions and give me feedback on my performance, so I never felt a lack of support.
More recently, I participated in an internal innovation competition for the research associates and the associate directors at the Foundation, and ended up winning one of the three awards! Well, technically the generous award went to the grantee organization, on whose behalf I was competing, but I still really enjoyed preparing the application and the presentation for the contest. Not to mention, the award will contribute to the future success of an organization I deeply respect, which is a sufficient reward for me.
Monday, December 5, 2011
Toy Drive!
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas here at Angelwish. December means crunch time as we work to organize, publicize, and manage our holiday toy drive programs. Without the generosity of our Angelwish donors, many of the chronically ill children we serve would not receive any presents this holiday season as their parents continue to struggle to pay for their medical bills and make ends meet in this difficult economy. We are therefore working as hard as we can to reach out to as many potential donors as possible.
On that note, I am very excited to announce that the Class of 2011 officers have decided to partner with Angelwish for a holiday service opportunity. All '11ers will be receiving an email in the next day or so detailing the program, but if you want to get a head start looking through the Wishlists of our partner care centers (or aren't a member of our class) you can visit our personalized page at princeton11.angelwish.org Even if you can't donate at this time, scrolling through the toy lists is actually a great mini-break from work...
These online donation pages are a modern twist on the traditional toy drive, and we work closely with hospital social workers nationwide to make sure the items on each Wishlist fit the needs of their patient populations. Best of all, 100% of your donation will go directly toward purchasing the gift - the little bit of overhead there is has been taken care of by corporate contributions.
Happy Holidays Everyone!
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Dread Knots and Shifting Desire
This fellowship year has provided me the unique privilege reflect on the types of change I'd like to see in the world. Whether through attending the PolicyLink Equity Summit in Detroit in early November or exclusive Princeton sponsored networking events, I've met a vast array of people who are offering interesting solutions to very real challenges.
I've struggled, however, with the question of whether these privileges and opportunities actually work to eradicate the types of structural inequalities I'm working against, or simply reify them.
One of my job responsibilities is to help teach people of color from Chicago's West Side how to navigate corporate - and often white - work environments. While I'm offering a real service to people who otherwise might be passed over, I often feel as if I'm normalizing the clients to the white supremacist patriarchy. For example, many clients come to class with hair styles which are quite common in North Lawndale such as dreads, afro's or braids on men. All of those hairstyles, however, prove to be barriers to employment. So we typically advise people to cut their hair in a way that white people will find less threatening.
But I feel my time would be better spent educating prejudiced employers that every black man with dreads is not Lil Wayne. Instead, when I meet people of power and privilege I have to perform an exaggerated congeniality to ensure that they don't find me (a lilliputian, Princeton educated man of color) threatening.
Oscillating between the militarized ghetto's of Chicago's West Side and garden parties in Lakeview is such a thoroughly disorienting experience that I struggle to imagine what a meaningful engagement between the two worlds might look like.
I've struggled, however, with the question of whether these privileges and opportunities actually work to eradicate the types of structural inequalities I'm working against, or simply reify them.
One of my job responsibilities is to help teach people of color from Chicago's West Side how to navigate corporate - and often white - work environments. While I'm offering a real service to people who otherwise might be passed over, I often feel as if I'm normalizing the clients to the white supremacist patriarchy. For example, many clients come to class with hair styles which are quite common in North Lawndale such as dreads, afro's or braids on men. All of those hairstyles, however, prove to be barriers to employment. So we typically advise people to cut their hair in a way that white people will find less threatening.
But I feel my time would be better spent educating prejudiced employers that every black man with dreads is not Lil Wayne. Instead, when I meet people of power and privilege I have to perform an exaggerated congeniality to ensure that they don't find me (a lilliputian, Princeton educated man of color) threatening.
Oscillating between the militarized ghetto's of Chicago's West Side and garden parties in Lakeview is such a thoroughly disorienting experience that I struggle to imagine what a meaningful engagement between the two worlds might look like.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Ten Commandments of the Bronx County Hall of Justice
- Thou must pull up, and keep up, thy Trousers.
- If a Youth, thou art Advised to bring thy Mother.
- If thou seeketh thy Attorney, thou must approach every individual dressed in business attire.
- Thou must place thy cell phone on "vibrate", lest thy Lil' Wayne Ringtone disturb the Sanctum Legis.
- Speaking of the Sanctum Legis, thou must leave the crying Baby outside.
- Thou must refrain from wearing the shirt commonly known as a "Wife Beater". Put another way, thou must not show thy Biceps.
- Thou must not curse off thy judge, lest thou be Remanded.
- If thou art asked to Allocute, thusly admitting thy commission of a Crime, it is advised for thou to remember the specifics of thy Crime, and not resort to Vagueries.
- Thou must Show Up.
- Thou must Wait.
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