Time flying v. standing still

It is 8 degrees outside right now.

That is so very wrong.

But what’s unfortunate about that is the weather is beautiful. It’s clear, no precipitation and, more importantly, no wind. “Eight degrees” and “beautiful” should never go together.

The wind here just brutal, so any reprieve from it is utterly fantastic. I’m just dreading the rest of the winter.

Or, I guess I should say, winter. Technically, this is still fall, as I’m reminded by the fact FSU lost a horrible football game yesterday. Winter won’t begin until December 21.

I’m sort of looking forward to that, if only because that’s also the winter solstice and therefore on. Dec. 22, the days will start to get longer again. It’ll be colder, for sure, but it won’t be dark at 6:17 p.m.

Yeah, just like in PC, I look forward to crossing off dates on the calendar.

There are still two little landmarks to cross before I hit that solstice, though.

The first is Nov. 30, which is the last day of my $50k in 30 days fund-raising campaign. The early results of the direct mailing are in. I had a $4k day on Saturday, which put me to the $17k mark – not counting that automatic match I mentioned last week.

The next landmark is Friday, Dec. 13. According to the little journals I have to do for AmeriCorps, that’s going to be week 21 – the halfway point.

That’s a bit bittersweet. Except for the weather, I feel like I just got here, but I’m halfway done.

So far, I’ve done far more than I did while in PC (not that I didn’t try), and in some sense time is flying. But in others, it’s standing still, too. I have stuff I’ve been working on for what seems like forever, but I haven’t even made a dent.

I learned another crappy thing about my position with AmeriCorps – it’s not being renewed.

This is bad, and it’s wrong. My organization signed on with another organization for two volunteers for multiple years. The one was Epic Fail, and she is not being replaced, nor are they putting anyone here after me.

So for me, this creates a dilemma because I am still pursuing the State job, for which I am still undergoing clearances.

Assuming I clear that, it is possible – though not extremely likely – that I could get an offer in January or March.

I feel the odds for January are virtually zero, but on the off-chance if I got an offer in March, I’d have to accept and would feel very guilty about it.

This would leave my organization, and flood recovery overall, in a lurch.

I’m expendable; I’m comfortable knowing that. But my position is not. It doesn’t matter if it’s an AmeriCorps position, pro bono or funded by a grant. The position is needed.

When the VISTA people came to visit me previously, I lobbied for the next volunteer to be placed here in April, because that’s when the Hope Village campus reopens. There’s a big need for continuity. Me leaving in June would have been hard enough.

Now, I’m going to have to go out and find a grant or something to fund another position and hope we can get funding by March.

Incidentally, when I got a visit from the VISTA people, I got a lecture (a nice one, I mean) about how VISTA is *not* the same thing as AmeriCorps. Apparently, the VISTA people are not AmeriCorps, although VISTA is one of the AmeriCorps programs.

It makes no sense to me, either, honestly, but I don’t like identifying myself as a VISTA because, well, no one knows what the hell a VISTA is. (For the record, it is a Volunteer In Service To America.)

As far as I am concerned, I am an AmeriCorps volunteer, and that works for me.

I just wish there would be another AmeriCorps volunteer coming here after me.