Blog of the Week

Daily Kos, it is!

Blog o’ the Week time come again

Nominations, my pretties …

[... and your little blog, too!]

Bleargh

Good Grief. I had no idea getting a cell phone activated was such a pain in the ass.

Re: the VA cut?

Has it already gone through? I ask because I’ve been seeing a bit of an increase in Veterans seeking assistance …

Go read this right now

Jeanne d’Arc doing what she does so well – making the political personal. Beautifully written and not to be missed.

You’re too kind!

*blush*

Missing … presumed having a good time

Where’s Ann?

Harrumph.

Still not on the Dog Run. What’s a girl gotta do?

Perhaps it’s my close association with cats that’s throwing him off?

Hee! Squeaky wheel meets grease. I’m a Blue Lacy.

Blog of the Week

The Agonist

It’s unanimous! By virtue of his marvelous ‘Flash’ war updates, Sean-Paul is rapidly becoming Blogtopia’s* superior answer to the CNN news crawl. Big thanks go out to Sean-Paul for keeping us all informed of the latest, while minimizing the chaff.

Oh my. Sean-Paul’s ‘Flash’ updates are so popular, they’re killing his bandwidth. Try one of his mirror sites:
http://agonist.got.net/
http://agonist.rangebroadband.com/
http://agonist.imaginot.com/

*y! sctp!

What I’m doing

I don’t think I ever got around to talking about my new job. This is week two, just beginning, and I’m finding myself very busy during the day & pretty much blocked from the ‘net (some kind of wireless PDA set-up would be nice). That’s a bit annoying. But, on the whole, aside from the inability to surf at will, I really like what I’m doing.

I’m now Manager of Direct Services at the agency where I’d been volunteering as a counselor since last summer. It’s a bit hectic, sure, but it’s worthwhile. We serve the poorest of the poor in our community – we do what we can to connect our clients with services (some in-house, many provided by other social service agencies) that help them to get by in the short-term … with an eye toward long-term ’stabilization’.

Last Friday, on only my fifth day on staff, I had to give a presentation on behalf of our organization to a Human Services class at a local college. I had to do it off the cuff, and realized we provide so many services, there was no way to really give an accurate overview. It’s difficult to cover it all in only 20-30 minutes. So I just blathered on a bit, touching on the stuff I knew best – and what I thought was the handful or so of really terrific services that we provide, that I don’t think anyone else does. Some of them are really basic – and I’m still amazed we’re the only folks in town who deal with them: things like state ID’s, that are an absolute necessity to even get services at a food closet, and bus tickets to get to appointments. But others, like a coordinated ‘jobs’ program, that includes classes on anger management & emotional well-being, as well as resume-writing & interviewing, focus on long-term changes to clients’ lives. There are many ‘job’ programs around, but few of them look at gently helping clients take notice of how they view the world – and how that affects their work options.

What I do every day is prep our counseling & waiting areas, ensure we have sufficient supplies on hand to support the direct services we provide, try to stay informed about what other services are available in the community, and support the volunteer counselors in any way I can. Among other things. Heh. The counselors report to me; I try to (gently) remind them of our guidelines, and give them emotional support when a meeting with a client does not go as well as we would hope.

In a nutshell, I’m like a Store Manager, if a store gave away services for free to poor, mentally ill, and/or homeless customers. It’s good work. I’m proud of what we do. I hope I do it well.