Project 365: Emma Feeling Shy

Emma’s Birthday at the Austin Children’s Museum: Emma got all shy when the kids started singing happy birthday. It was very very cute, and very very sweet. What I especially appreciated was asking her when we got home how she felt when everyone sang happy birthday, and having her say she felt shy. I think “self conscious” is actually what she was feeling, but let’s not quibble over a word, eh?

Project 365: The Aftermath of Baking

November 12, 2008

Take one part cupcake batter, two parts 5 y/o assiting mommy in the kitchen, mix in some beater licking and a dash of can’t stand still-itis with a shallow depth of field, and you get photos that are not quite in focus…so they need to be given the old B&W treatment. And then a little iPhoto Antique treatment on top of that.

Project 365: Aftermath of Baking

Project 365: Zebra in Texas

Zebra in Texas: This was taken just south of Austin Texas, at the Texas Disposal Systems Exotic Game Ranch and Pavilion.

Project 365: Zebra in Texas

Project 365: Chutes & Ladders

Project 365: Emma with Princess Ariel

Emma sitting with Princess Ariel (The Little Mermaid) in “Ariel’s Grotto.”

Project 365: Emma and Princess Ariel

Project 365: Kiln Opening

Brimberry Kiln Opening

Project 365: Emma at the Austin Children’s Museum

Emma at the Austin Children’s Museum: This was for a classmate’s party at the museum. All the kids really seemed to love it. Emma too!

Project 365: Father & Daughter

Father & Daughter:  I took this photo with a white backdrop behind the couch in the living room, but which photographed sort of a dingy gray. So I over-processed the ever living stuffin’ out of the shot to turn it into a high key photo.

Project 365: Emma

On Why I Joined AmeriCorps

I guess I’ve always been a bit of an idealist. I remember when I was younger - when I was in the Navy I guess - thinking it might be nice to join the Peace Corps. Unfortunately, due to the career path I took in the service (Cryptologic Technician, Technical), the Peace Corps was not an option for me. Or so I heard.

Oh. Lookee here:

Does working for the CIA or having a background in intelligence disqualify you from serving in the PC? Why? Is that discriminatory?

Persons who have been employed by an intelligence agency, or otherwise have been associated with intelligence activities, are ineligible to serve as volunteers. This exclusionary policy is one aspect of the broader, long-standing policy of maintaining an absolute separation between Peace Corps and intelligence activities conducted by the U.S. government. This absolute separation is necessary to protect volunteers’ safety and to maintain the trust and confidence of the people in the countries in which volunteers serve.

I reckon that answers that.

So where was I?

Oh, yes. Ever the idealist. And as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to believe in the value of policies that help mitigate poverty and provide opportunity.

But it wasn’t until I took “Race, Class and Gender” at St. Edward’s that I started focusing on a specific area to which I thought I might want to dedicate myself. Specifically, economic and wealth inequality. (Which are, of course, linked to any number of other types of inequality.)

After I graduated from St. Ed’s in August of 2007, I continuted to stay home with my daughter until August of 2008, when she started a full time pre-K program. I started casting about more seriously for gainful employment. I realized fairly quickly that I was pretty much out of the running for many of the kinds of jobs that I wanted; a burden, perhaps, of living in a city with a well regarded school of Public Affairs.

While browsing the St. Edward’s University Career Services job listing, I took note that AmeriCorps had a number of open positions in Austin. I checked out AmeriCorps’ website, and when I saw VISTAs (Volunteers in Service to America) are specificially dedicated to fighting poverty, I knew I’d found my program.

I guess, long story short, my reasons for becoming an AmeriCorps VISTA:

• An opportunity to work in a position to help mitigate poverty.
• An opportunity to do so in my own community.
• An opportunity to serve with the Capitol Area Food Bank of Texas, which is well regarded and very active in Central Texas.
• An opportunity to scratch my idealistic itch.
• It paid enough to make it worth my while. I’d been a volunteer post-graduate intern with my Texas State Legislator’s office, but it didn’t pay, though the experience was great. I knew that it would likely be very difficult for me to find a paying position doing what I wanted to do, and I didn’t want to take a position in the state government just to get a paying job. Nor could we afford for me to do a long term volunteer gig in hopes of eventually finding a position.
• An opportunity to gain skills and experience working in a non-profit environment.

This Year’s Touchstone

Lady Bird Johnson from her “Speech on the Progressive Future of American Youth.” Madison, Wisconsin, 23 Sept. 1967:

It is not enough to be dissatisfied with things as they are, unless you put that dissatisfaction to work. It is not enough to use your voice against the world as it is, unless you’re willing to use your hands and your head to build the world that should be…We must be seekers, yes. And doubters. But builders and believers too. So I urge you to begin your building now.

Click through for the full quote:

Today, I see the spirit of a seeker in America’s young people, in their restlessness and questioning dissatisfaction.

You are not satisfied, nor should you be, when poverty still afflicts millions of American families.

You are not satisfied, nor should you be, when ugliness threatens the city and the countryside.

You are not satisfied when slums and disease and ignorance go unconquered in our world, and when peace with justice remains unattained.

You are not satisfied, and I am not, with a world still so riddled with problems.

But you and I have an opportunity to take that world and make it different.

So I urge you to be not only a seeker, but a builder, too.

For it is not enough to have only the spirit of a seeker.

It is not enough to be dissatisfied with things as they are, unless you put that dissatisfaction to work.

It is not enough to use your voice against the world as it is, unless you’re willing to use your hands and your head to build the world that should be.

Suppose our founders had written the Declaration of Independence, but never marched to battle.

Suppose Mark Twain … with his skeptical wisdom of the world and it’s condition…had never put his pen to paper.

Suppose Frank Lloyd Wright had rejected the architecture of the day, but had never built a building of his own.

We must be seekers, yes. And doubters.

But builders and believers too.

So I urge you to begin your building now.