Has Anyone Seen My Time?

If you have, please inform me to where it went because I missed it this week.


I have been on the road in Southeast Ohio with my RC, Jessica May, this week for the Health Path project. At the beginning of the week I was excited to see how the presentations were to be given and the type of things I should expect to see. By Thursday afternoon I did not want to even think about benefit bank. I am still excited to give my own presentations and to continue working on getting the word out about OBB (especially after the Dateline special about poverty in America/Southeast Ohio), but for this week...I am burnt out. This, I feel, is only a glimpse into what is in store for me over the next year. This week has literally flown by me and left me somewhere stuck between Monday and Tuesday. There have been many times this week that I have had to stop and think about where I was, how I got there, what day it was, and what the day held for me. THANK YOU PLANNER!! I would have been lost so many times this week without my planner.

My Term of Service & Dateline

Being a volunteer for America was never anything that crossed my mind until the past few years. I enjoyed doing community service at Capital University for the local community, but I never looked at the bigger picture: the whole state of Ohio or even the whole country. After graduation I planned on finding a job just like the rest of the fresh graduates and taking my place in the "grown up" world. Little was I aware that not only was I competing with other recent grads like myself, but also all the other people who had lost their job in the recession that I happened to be walking into.

I had the opportunity to become a VISTA last summer but I just knew that things were going to get better and I would be able to find a good job. Looking back on that time now, I really wished I would have taken the position then. Oh the clarity of hind-sight. Again, taking a year off from the corporate world and providing a year of service was not something I expected to be doing post-graduation. Now after watching the Dateline special about Southeast Ohio (my region!) I am even more empowered to get out there and do some good!

I was extremely touched by the special. After watching Ann Curry travel throughout Southeast Ohio and just how bad the economic impact is there, my opinions of government assistance has changed greatly. The limited and extreme choices these families are facing are not things I would have thought been possible in America. To know that so many Americans are struggling on a daily basis just to provide not only for themselves but also their families, it's heart breaking. And to know that there are still so many people that either just don't know about the assistance they have available to them or their pride stops them from using that assistance is also heart breaking. Coming from a very middle class family in a rural area, I have somewhat of an understanding of the hardships these families are going through, but my family and I have been lucky enough to not know what it's like first hand.

Please use this link to watch the special if you missed it last night:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38382773/ns/dateline_nbc-america_now