Hindsights 20/20

Now has come the time when we look back and reflect on our previous semester. It is the time when we berate ourselves for the places where we faltered and pat ourselves on the back for getting through yet another semester. For me this time seems like the moments while driving that you allow yourself to look in the rear view mirror. But, while I was reflecting on what I would reflect on, I realized how rear view mirror focused this class was.
We spent the first few weeks of this class discussing Hurricane Katrina. We dissected and discussed every moment of those first few days after Katrina made land fall in New Orleans and did a wide sweeping arch of the months after that. What I can tell you is everyone in office screwed up. They screwed up big and they screwed up on national television. It didn't look good on them lets say that. But, hindsight is 20/20. As much as I would love to say I would never mess up as publicly and gravely as they did, I don't know. I didn't sit amongst our leaders as they discussed what the next step in this horrific tragedy was. I sat at home listening to the average man critique the work they'd done.
Now however, I feel it is no longer time to look in the rear view mirror. It is now time to move forward and change what we can. No, we can't fix the hundreds of mistakes our predecessors made, but we can take steps to change them. So, from this sentence on I refuse to look in my rear view mirrors, instead I plan to focus out my windshield and my non-profit tasks ahead.

The Unmentionable Second Draft

Anyone who has written for more than their own pleasure knows very well the second draft. In my opinion never again will any work bleeds like it does during its second draft. During your second draft your piece that was once so precious you couldn't have imagined ripping it to shreds becomes something more akin to a one night stands in the morning; it's never as pretty and as well written as you remember it. During the time you were creating the works first draft, you were on a creative high. The juices were flowing and your soul was out there for the whole world to see.
This is not at all the state you are in during your second draft. During your second draft your inner editor has begun to rear its ugly head and every sentence looks like it could be better written and the commas put in completely different places. Barbato and Furlich discuss all of this in chapter 9 of their book a long with many other things. They give amazing advice on when to use five cent words and when to use five dollar words, they discuss the parallel of letting twenty-two people give advice when only two count, and remind you to give yourself a break before going back and re-hacking at your masterpiece. All of this may seem like common knowledge but while reading a ton of it I thought, "why didn't I think of that?" It allowed me to take a more analytical stance when it came to looking at my baby and having to cut it down to size.

A good friend of mine from my writing for change class, Dane Wise, was recently at a UCA lecture given by a published author. A student asked the author if she had any sort of rituals to get started writing,and what the author said was so profound it was almost a duh moment. She said, "I put my butt in the chair." I laughed when Dana first told me but then after the research had been done I began to remember what had been said. I had done the research and have even written out the outline, but still the meat was unwritten.
So the last couple days I have done exactly what that author had said with some modifications. Not only do I put my butt in the chair but I also turn off all music and TV. I am just one of those people who must have complete silence if I plan to get any real wok done. Guess what after a day or two of this a miracle happened; the meat had begun to be written. Each day I found out that more and more of my grant project was actually written. I know that this sounds like I'm being sarcastic but I'm not. As much as I try, I am usually writing my projects the night before they are due. But with this project I have found myself prepared and all because my butt for once was where it belonged. 

Are you My Perfect Match?

I have discovered that finding a donor for your grant project is much like looking for the person your going to marry, you spend a lot of time looking and hoping you find that special someone but most of the time your looking at duds. Once you find that perfect person/grant you wounder how you ever lived without each other. Oh if only every project idea found this perfect grant partnership and didn't die in the planning stages.
I have also found that sometimes as a non-profit writer, you write a grant for a company just because your boss tells you too. This I have found can be a little frustrating, it reminds me of a blind date, you may not see why this person is right for you, but with some get to know you time, you might see exactly what the person who set you up saw. And who knows it might just end up being a match made in heaven. This is the place that I find myself right now and am hoping that after all is said and done I might see exactly what my boss sees.

P is for Passion or is it Perfection.

This week my class  was introduced to two more grant writers. Well, at least two people involved in the business of grant writing. A business I am slowly learning is a lucrative one. Who would have thought the non-profit world was swirling in money, almost an oxymoron. These two speakers definitely cemented my belief that in the non-profit world as well as in the real world, p stands for passion. Whether that is passion in preventing domestic violence, feeding the hungry, emergency management, or music in elementary schools, you must find yourself in the cause. But, I also found out this week that p may stand for perfection.

A foundation might have 2 million dollars and be interested in saving the hippos, and 5,000 non-profits may think great we are only worried about saving the hippos leave everything else to Sarah Mclachlan. But, as with all good things this money comes with catches, first they are only giving out 20 grants. What? You are telling me that I must compete with 5,000 organizations for twenty grants. I am getting money or into Harvard Business School? Now here is catch two, they only care about hippos in zoo in the eastern part of the United States. My example may be silly, but now you see where perfection comes in. Not only do you have to have the perfect grant proposal, along with the perfect project idea, but you also have to be graced with perfect timing, and the perfect foundation. It seems my mother might be right and attaining perfection a lot harder than the eight your old in me might have once thought. I think that is why p must stand for passion and perfection, because it is your passion that pushes you until you are graced by the grant Gods with perfection.

60% That's a lot of work

This week we had a guest speaker and something she said really stuck with me, 60% of your work on grant writing is your homework. All I kept thinking after she said that was WOW. Then she whipped out a pile of papers the size of a small tree and told us that it had been condensed to twelve pages. Seriously twelve pages. I would have cried with all that work to waste. But, after I left I began to wonder if it was waste. She got the money after all. The cause that she believed so desperately in was granted funds to continue to operate. Is the 60% worth it then? I thinks so. But, with all good things, there must be a catch. The work is only worth it if you believe 100% in the project. I can do the 60%, I can toil for hours on a specific cause and give it my all, but if my passion and belief is at 40% then I will see the work as useless and the project probably won't get funded. So although your home work must be at 60% your passion must be the full 100.

Extra! Extra! Write all about it.

Editorials, everyone's favorite section of the newspaper. Well, not everyone. My grandmother has some weird fascination with the obituary page, something that I'm sure has to do with her age. Regardless of that, I'm sure that Editorials and Op-Ed pages have made more people laugh then Family Circus and Dilbert put together. Editorials have also sparked anger, fear, and tears.  
This week my Writing For Change teacher has assigned me the task of writing one of those feeling inducing editorials, in five hundred to a thousand words no less. Short pieces aren't my strong point, I tend to blabber on, trying to squeeze everything I want a person to know into my work. So, for me the challenge was to hit the high points while keeping it snappy and engaging.
I did this by asking myself what the key points of my non-profit were. There is no point in throwing in every fact and statistic that I have on New York Says Thank You. For one it's boring and way over whelming and for two they don't mean much to anyone who isn't invested in the organization and their problem. My job was to begin to get them invested so that they wanted to search out those facts and figures. My first draft had two thousand words, my second somewhere around seven hundred. Learning to use one word instead of three and to take out frivolous sentences allowed me to reach that five hundred to a thousand word goal while still creating an editorial I am proud of

Mission Accomplished.

New Light, New Screwups Who Would Have Thunk it.

If childhood sports taught me anything it is that for every loser there is a winner, someone that came out on top. It is common knowledge that people make money everyday on the heartache and devastation of people. However, I was still shocked to learn just how much some people prospered off of the victims of Hurricane Katrina. I guess that's my never ending optimism showing through, I always have to believe the best in people, it's a real problem.
By chapter 8 of Dyson's book we had already learned that the years before and the weeks following Katrina the government, federal, state, and local, screwed Gulf Coast citizens, especially those who lived in New Orleans, seven days to Sunday when it came to their safety and well being. But, chapter 8 brought to light a whole new set of screwing over that was done.
I was horrified to learn of the amount of carpet bagging that was done following the weeks after Katrina. My sister, the history major, kindly reminded me that during every reconstruction throughout history comes the leeches ready to suck up every dollar that they can. And, suck up every dollar they did, by way of government contracts and home purchases. They left the victims with less than nothing walking away with their pockets lined in blood soaked gold. But, I wondered on the last page of the chapter what can be done now? The contracts have been signed, the homes purchased, the lives destroyed. How do we make right what so unjustly happened to the people long after the waves of Katrina washed away their homes. 

Are You Kidding Me

Sorry once again that I have been absent. I am the worst at remembering to blog. Which in a way is incredibly funny since I have so much to say. This week my thoughts on the whole situation involving Hurricane Katrina, or as I like to know call the time America showed its ass, is are you kidding me. Well to be fair my first thought was are you shitting me but I'm working on my language in public. So, back to the astounded part. Chapter seven in Dyson, a book that any angry person should read, showed me more then ever before the true incompetence of those involved in this situation. Half way through I really just wanted to scream drive the damn buses in there anyway. Before this class, I always thought that the government excepted help from anywhere that they could, but this week I find out that is not the case. My class and I have argued the point as to whether or not we should have accepted help from other governments, and no matter where you stand I can see both points. However, it should never have been a question about whether or not we accept help from other Americans. If you go a bus, plane, or train we'll take it should have been the cry. No one should have waited twelve hours to hear back from FEMA. In this situation the red tape should have stayed locked inside the draw where it belonged not dangled out for all the world to see. Papers could have been signed in the weeks after, people are who mattered then. By the end of the chapter my cry was fire them all, something I still stand firmly behind.

Let the Battle of the Authors Begin

Dyson v.s. Rose in what seems this week like a ten chapter death match. In several of my classes before this one, I have had to read different books by different authors all discussing and dissecting the same subject. However, I have never read to authors whose writing styles are so vastly different, and their subject exactly the same. Both Rose and Dyson wish to educate the American people on the tragedy that was Hurricane Katrina and the ineffectiveness and neglect that was the U.S. and state government.
But, where Dyson rams facts and figures down our throat as he wags his finger in our faces, Rose speaks softly of the people that he saw days, weeks, and months after the disaster. He gives to us faces of the people whose lives were forever altered on August 29, 2005.
To say that one style is better than the other is to pass a judgement I have no right to pass. However, I do feel qualified to tell you all how I feel about these two uniquely different authors.
At first Dyson grabbed me and appalled me with his facts. I was engrossed by how he could break down a complex subject and lay blame indiscriminately at everyone's feet. Now, six chapters into the book the facts have gotten repetitive and the finger wagging insulting. From the very first word of every chapter I find myself on guard, ready to defend my beliefs or lack of helping during the debacle of 2005. I have started to wonder if all I do is defend and combat him is Dyson still being as effective as he was on the first page of the first chapter?
Rose however, never finger wags, cites many facts, or stands on his soap box yelling. Instead he brings you into his pieces by telling you stories. Humans are creatures who find delight in a good story. Whether or in oral or written form, we for centuries have listened fully engrossed by the tales of our forefathers. Rose is a master at playing on the readers love of a great story. Instead of telling me the statistic of people who trudged through chest deep water searching for relief, he tells me the story of one individual who lived through the hurricane and the tole it took on them and their family. I feel by the end of each of Rose's short stories, that I have at least met one of  the victims of this disaster and follow-up incompetence. Still with only seeing a select few faces and their stories, has Rose shown me the whole picture of what Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans was?

I challenge you to read them both for yourself and decide!

Read No Evil, Cause Mass Evil

After reading Chapter Five of Dyson all I can say is, "Are you f****** kidding me?"  What did the U.S. Government need, a sky writer to spell out that New Orleans would crumble at the feet of almost any Hurricane?
I come from San Diego, California and while living there was well aware that at any time an earthquake could shake my home and state to its very foundation. Yet, we do things to make this inevitable disaster much less tragic. We build homes, bridges, and roads to earthquake resistant standards, we run drills from childhood that teach us what we are to do in the event of an earthquake and we have kits that hold vital supplies we will need after tragedy has struck. I know that there will be people who are ill prepared and could possible parish if California is rocked off the Richter scale. I also know that even some who prepared as they were told could and probably will die. The point is that we prepare and when we think we have prepared enough, the state tells us to prepare again.
Maybe it is the fact that we can't predict earth quakes, like we can hurricanes, that leads to a break down in saftey drills, and kits. But, we as the people of the United States can definitively say that a safety meltdown occurred when it came to Hurricane Katrina and Louisiana.
When I started this course, I thought that maybe the U.S. government was unaware of how unprepared the Gulf coast was when it came to Hurricane safety. After reading Dyson's chapter 5 I can say will some authority that hell no they had to know. After what seemed like a list of seventeen-hundred articles, even living under a rock is no longer an excuse. The White House, the Louisiana Government, George Bush, and FEMA, dropped the ball in a huge way. A ball that was wrapped in hundred of news articles shouting one day we are going to say I told you so.

We The People VS We The Government

This week the one word that stood out, especially on the Spike Lee movie, was WE. Every time that someone spoke they were lumping themselves into a WE. It was every desperate girls dream, WE was flowing like drinks at a club. But, here is were the WE party hit a snag, no one could decide what WE they were a part of. It was a monogamous man's nightmare. Which WE did you side with? Which We did you listen too? But, as you waded through all the different sections of WE, we came down to two majorities. We, the people, those affected by the hurricane as well as their American brothers and sisters, and We, the government, that would be you politicians out there. And, as I sit here and spill my guts to the internet I wonder what created this divide? How could WE as a country failed so badly that it became the hurricane civil war. The levies were weak, that is a fact. The government took an inexcusable  number of days to respond to this crisis, that is a fact. Hell, the president continued to vacation while the people of Louisiana and the Gulf drowned, this is a fact. But, this divide should have never been created. And now six years later I feel the divide may be changing. The WE's may be shifting and taking on a new face. I fear the WE's are still two camps but two very different camps. The first WE is still those affected by the hurricane. But, I fear that you and I may no longer be in that WE. My fear is that we now sit in the second WE, the devil WE with the horns and pitch forks. It is no longer the government who forgot them and vacationed, who forgot them and ate, who forgot them and shopped. It is now us the American brothers who forgot them and in the process forgot to help. I assumed that after six years all had been returned to what is right. That the people who fled in the days before and after the vicious storm had returned. They had rebuilt and had begun to live again. But, after the Spike Lee movie I find that this is not the case. WE have forgotten to bring them home, WE have forgotten they are still morning a loss, WE have forgotten that they still need us. To put it simply WE have forgotten.

The Elephant in the Bush

A book and class on Hurricane Katrina wouldn't be complete without at least a mention of the Elephant in Bush as it became known in my house. Like I said in my earlier post, that time of my life comes in waves and flashes and the moment Kanye West shocked us all with his declaration, is a moment that will be forever frozen and repeated in my family for generations to come.
The really funny thing, at least to me, is that my family and I never watch telethons. I think once as a child, we watched the Jerry Louis telethon but that about sums up my telethon watching experience. My parents are of the belief that if they are going to give money then it will be to someone standing in front of them, someone whose hand my father can shake and whose eyes my mother can see. A lot of people I know feel this way, that is why my church always takes up a donation for the red cross after every natural disaster. "No matter what you can trust the red cross," my mother has always said.
So, for us to all be in the living room watching this telethon, was some cosmic coincidence. The second it happened my father looked over at my mother and said, "Did I just hear him right?" My then nine year old sister, now fifteen, proceeded to inform my father that he did in fact hear the man on the TV say that the President of the United States hated an entire race of Americans. My father and mother just shook their heads and went back to listening to the next celebrity read off the teleprompter.
However, the next day my mother, the assistant manager of electronics at our local WalMart, was informed that all of Kanye West cd's needed to be removed from the store shelves. My mother, father, and I were shocked, one comment and there goes record sales. What happened to freedom of speech I wondered.
 Dyson in chapter 2 tells us that Kanye wasn't critiquing the actual George Bush as a person, but instead he was speaking of the President's administration. Now at twenty-three, I can understand what Dyson and maybe even Kanye meant, but at seventeen sitting in my parents living room I thought he meant the actual George Bush that I had seen give a speech days earlier. Yeah my family may ignore telethons but they love presidential speeches. I think it's hard to critique anything that has a figure head without implicating that the figure head, as a person in his private life must feel that way as well. Maybe if Kanye had said the administration hated African Americans then he wouldn't have been removed from the shelves of one of the biggest box stores in America.I guess how I feel after reading this chapter is that Kanye had the right to state his opinion whichever way he felt made it the most clear. However, he needed to understand that not everyone was going to understand what he meant and that he was going to lose record sales. 

Memories are a Funny Thing

On August 29, 2005, I was seventeen years old. The week before I had stepped into my high school to begin the last year of my mandatory educational experience. That, was six years ago this August, and to tell you the truth, that time of my life comes in waves of flashes and frozen moments. I remember that my classmates and me were constantly discussing where we were headed after this last year, and I remember voting for Homecoming Queen and watching a child hood friend of mine being crowned. I also remember Hurricane Katrina and the talk that she had devastated the Gulf coast to the point that some wondered if they would return.I also remember vividly my father's, the youth pastor, eyes glued to every news channel in the nation and talking in hushed tones to my mother and his friends about the people lost and churches with out homes. I even remember my mother crying as she boxed up all of the canned goods in our house to send to the red cross to help the victims. However, I don't remember the images or the news casts. I don't remember the people chest deep in water as they flashed across my homes TV and the TV's of my friends. Maybe I was too wrapped in essays, ACT scores, and the big game, but still as hard as I try I can't remember. That is part of the reason I took this class, to see if I can discovered the things I so desperately missed as a teenager who was more worried about herself than the people who need help.

The First Post

Six years ago Hurricane Katrina wiped out most of New Orleans. Sadly this is the first semester I'm spending anytime thinking about it. Of course I have a TV and a heart so when the storm was raging it was definitely on my mind. But, once the local news moved on to the next heart wrenching devastation piece I moved on as well. This is the semester to correct that. I will spend the next 16 weeks delving into the truth that is Katrina as well as grant and non-profit writing. This blog will hold my thoughts on all of these subjects as well as the general rantiness(just made this word up) that is me. I promise it won't be as boring as it sounds. Hopefully along the way I'll learn something that forever changes me as a person. Thanks for coming with me.