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name: will baker blogrollin' other sites: |
how about it?
How about no longer being masochistic? I haven�t left my office before 10PM for well over two weeks (including Saturdays and Sundays). It�s 10:24 PM, and I�m here. I will probably go entirely without sleep for the next two days, as I am personally and solely responsible for submitting a grant proposal to the Centers for Disease Control on Thursday morning. On Friday, I will be training our collaborators on the use of a new web application for reporting intervention data from our other new CDC grant. Oh, and I�m also the software developer for the aforementioned web application, which means that I�m building a massive database and learning ASP.NET programming on the fly. While I�m in the middle of doing a massive program evaluation of our TDH-funded testing program. And helping another manager write a grant proposal for the federal Office of Minority Health, which is due Aug. 5th. I have been functioning on an average of 4 hours of sleep per night for the past week or so. Nevertheless, I have found time to meet with Troy Tamez regarding the Grants Committee at the Diversity Center. He is working on the Hogg Foundation proposal, and was going to take a stab at the Macy�s Passport Fund grant, despite the fact that it�s due next week. I am working on a project design and logic model for an SBC Excellerator proposal that will request the maximum available funding for a computer lab and an innovative job skills enhancement program to address the severe problems of under-education and downward socioeconomic mobility among young people of color (specifically GLBT in our case) in San Antonio. We also had a long discussion and research session (which began at 10PM) the other night about diversifying our funding sources to include cultural and arts funding that can help the center become more involved in democratic renewal. And frankly, I�m thinking a lot lately about the way the non-profit sector can be terminally parasitic on the goodwill of the people who work within it. And I�m thinking a lot about the way we all worship busyness and exhaustion as badges of honor. I�m less and less impressed with the fact that I have no life, just work and commitments. I don�t feel honored to be working myself to death for very little money, and then working myself to death again for my various volunteer activities. I feel like a chump, badly used, and a man of 30 whose life is passing him by while he goes to long, windy meetings all day and stays up all night writing grant proposals and computer code (on alternating nights). My family wonders where I am. My boyfriend wonders where I am. I used to take Tyler Durden�s line (from �Fight Club�) � �You are not your job!� � as a personal motto. But then I realized, oops, it looks like I am nothing more than my job and my volunteer commitments, so now my motto is�what? �Nothing is ever good enough� would probably be most fitting right now. Does this sound like a big bitch-a-thon? If so, I�m sorry. I�m not bitching, so much as�wondering. Is this it? I�m certainly grateful to have a full life, but is this really as good as it gets? Surely there�s a way to be useful and also happy. I really want to find that balance, because as matters stand, all I can think about is dropping everything and driving to Merida. Maybe to stay. Painfully hilarious postscript: I just checked my stats page, and noticed that someone found this site by doing a google search for "domestic violence blogger". Yeah. Domestic violence blogger. You realize, of course, that as soon as I log off, I'm making a t-shirt that says that.
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