How time flies. And crawls.

It dawned on me the other day that I'm 1/4 of the way done with my VISTA year. The ticker at the bottom of this blog confirms it.

I've been doing this for three months already.

It feels like it's been that long and like it's been no time at all. (Yes, it can feel both ways at once.)

I'm getting ready to write my next monthly VISTA report which always gets me thinking about what it is, exactly, that I've done in the last month.

Written grants. Check.
Been staff photographer for events. Check.
Worked on next donor newsletter. Check.
To use the hated phrase... made a difference..... er... check?

This is where it gets hard as a VISTA. Since we're not doing direct service, there are days when it feels like what I'm doing doesn't really impact the students we serve. I know that's completely bogus, but it feels like it nevertheless.

I guess maybe this feeling is partly because yesterday afternoon most of what I worked on was a postcard to donors about whether they wanted to get paper or electronic copies of things like newsletters. I know this is a good thing, but it took time to print the postcards, fold the postcards, run them all through the stamp/meter do-dad.

Today, much of my day will be spent at the library doing research through their Foundation Center database. It's good work, but it's solitary and isolated from what we really do.

This will pay off in the end, I know. More funders, hopefully, to support the heart of what we do. But in the meantime...