JUDGMENT DAY

[talkingsoup]

Oh my god has this been the week from HELL, and not just because of finals. I'll go into those reasons later.

Today was Judgment Day in my Grants class. Today we turned in our (43 page) grant proposal and gave a presentation not just to the class but to our community partners as well.

So I realize I never really explained what this class was all about. Pretty much, the class consisted of us breaking into teams and selecting a community partner--literally a partner from the Ithaca community itself--to try and draft a proposal for them. The entire semester has been us working on that one goal, which is the final grant proposal, to be utilized by the community partner as they search for funders.

My group consisted of four people, myself included--Princess, Andrew and Dan. We were working with an alternative school in Ithaca called the Lehman Alternative Community School (LACS), which wanted to send a group of students to Guatemala do to some cultural immersion work there, after which they'd return and set up a peer-to-peer workshop for their school, for the other high school, and for alternative schools across the country.

The amount of hours put in? Countless. The amount of writing? A final total of 43 pages, though overall it was probably twice that. The stress? Incalculable.

This was the most intense and most beneficial work/school program of my life. I can't even begin to talk about what I've learned. Not just about writing a grant proposal, either, but about working collaboratively with a team and about working professionally with a community partner.

Last night we were working from 7:30 to 1 in the morning to bring everything together, complete the proposal itself, and put together the powerpoint presentation. Andrew actually then slept for an hour before finishing the whole thing, then Dan went and spent a hundred freaking dollars at Kinko's to get this beautiful thing all printed up.

And today we turned it all in and did our presentation. Stumbled over a few things, but I think it went over really well, all things considered.

It's been a damn long road, but now it's over. It was rough and difficult and incredibly stressful, but it was also a wonderful experience, and I'm so glad I took the class.

And now for the after party. I intend to get drunk.

Comments

[ddrussianinja.livejournal.com]

Does it involve Julie and the "beetus"? I would imagine that would suck quite a great deal, especially since she's your best friend 'n all. It's probably more than just that, but that probably wasn't much fun.

[talkingsoup]

That's part of it. But the fact of her having diabetes, while infinitely crappy, and rather unfair considering the other bullshit she's been through, isn't quite as bad as the process of discovering she had diabetes. There are other things going on as well, but like I said, I'd rather not go into a lot of detail in the comments. I'll put up an explanation once I'm totally done with finals and everything.