Bad Computers, Good Computers

25: My days left as an Americorps VISTA.

I'm typing away on a different laptop than I am used to today. Whenever I turn my own on, it freezes up as soon as I log in. Even after restarting it fifteen times and making many a phone call to IT.

I'm guessing my old laptop is sensing that our year together is almost complete, and has decided to retire early. You couldn't wait another three weeks, Bob the Laptop?

Anyway, Bob decided to quit on me Friday when Krupa and I were in Dayton for a Smart Money event--a resource fair, if you will. I hadn't gone to a resource fair in ages, and I really do enjoy them. We weren't able to do Quick Checks for anyone, on account of Bob's poor work ethic, but we did talk to 40 people about the Benefit Bank and 50 people took OBB pamphlets and flyers. Yes, that's right. We kept a tally.

We should have kept track of all the people who came by just to eat some candy but alas, we did not.

So the resource fair went really well. It was long--we had to leave at 6:30 a.m. and I didn't get home until a little after 4:00. But I feel like we really got the word out and helped a lot of people realize what kind of help is out there.

Moving on, I had a benefit training Thursday in Lebanon. It was at a new training location--The Warren County Career Center. And I will start by saying that the people who helped set this up were incredibly helpful and amazing.

The career center was a lot bigger than I was anticipating. There were several buildings to choose from, and I couldn't find the tech center for a long time. Eventually I went into a small office building and a woman kindly pointed out where to go. I was worried people would get lost--the tech center was down a long private drive and literally looked like a ranch house. But everyone made it there fine, and the computer lab was faaaaantastic. No internet issues at all. It was actually a pleasant experience.

Well, except for one guy, who kept crossing his arms and leaning back during the scenarios, asking me when the next question was going to pop up. I had to remind him to click the "next" button more than once.

I was going to have a training tomorrow in Dayton, but the computers at our training location are down so we have to reschedule.

Personal note: Our AC is broken. The lowest high this week is going to be 86. Woo.

Vacation Relaxation

6: The number of personal days I used over the past couple of weeks.

I'm back from my extended mostly-at-home vacation. And while I'm feeling nice and relaxed, it was definitely not easy waking up at 6:30 this morning when I had just gotten used to waking up at 9:00. Good news, though--no sprained ankles.

There's a lot to catch up on at work (not just my blog, you sillies), but fortunately I've been checking my work e-mail periodically to make sure I didn't miss anything too significant. I have a training in Franklin tomorrow and a resource fair in Dayton on Friday (for which we must leave at about 6:30---hoo boy), and aside from returning a few phone calls, I don't feel too far behind at this point.

Is anyone as surprised as I am to find out that in just over four weeks my year as an AmeriCorps VISTA will come to an end? How did that happen?

P.S. Just helped a client fill out her 2009 taxes (a bit late, but meh). She had SIX W2s! Hopefully I am completely done with taxes now.

Knock-knock!

8: The number of times I had to restart my computer today until it stopped freezing.

Last week, Krupa and I sent out letters to various organizations around Greene County letting them know that we were going to be in their area to talk to them about the OBB. So after our conference call Tuesday, we grabbed some marketing materials, our directions courtesy of google maps, and my trusty GPS Rita and headed north.

Site recruitment is exhausting no matter how you go about doing it. Being in a car for that long really takes a toll after a few hours of driving, especially if you don't have some breaks to stretch your legs. And unfortunately, we didn't spend much time out of the car.

We couldn't find a lot of the sites from our spreadsheets. My GPS led us to dead-end drives, abandoned buildings and residential homes. We left information at a few places, but were not able to actually speak with anyone about the program. It was a long, somewhat frustrating day. But it was fun to spend some time on the open road with Krupa!

We didn't want to have to go through a day like that again, though, without having recruited any OBB sites, so we spent most of Wednesday updating the contact information on our spreadsheets. Tedious, yes, but it must be done.

P.S. The title of my blog post today reminds me of a joke my brother, Zach, told me:

Knock-knock!
Who's there?
To!
To who?
To WHOM.

Hehehe!

Time, Time, Time

5.5: The hours of sleep I got last night (on account of the fireworks). (Happy 4th, by the way).

I only have seven more weeks as an Americorps VISTA, as well as three days of sick time, eight days of personal time and a little more than six days of comp time. I'm taking seven glorious days of vacation next week (woohoo!) and I have trips coming up for the next several weekends to visit various friends around Ohio.

I'm glad Krupa is here so my last couple of months at Shared Harvest aren't lonely. I think she'll make a great VISTA! Last Thursday we went to an OBB event in Troy and collected several cards from interested people wanting to become sites. Which means we'll be making a lot of phone calls in the next couple of days. We're also planning to go out to Greene County later this week to do site recruitment, and I'm sure that will spark some interesting blog posts!

Speaking of blog posts, Krupa started her very own blog already! Check it out here!

Also speaking of blogs, I briefly considered changing the background of my site, but seeing as I am only going to be posting (to this one) for another seven weeks, it seemed kind of silly.

Krupa has her first training this week, and she's pretty nervous about it (even though I know she is going to rock). We spent most of this morning going over the benefits guide. It's a funny feeling to watch someone go through the same anxieties and experiences I went through about a year ago. It's an odd way to wrap up my own VISTA year.

I'm been doing a lot of reflecting lately. It's making me all sentimental.