I figured I should probably update all of you on my job search. Well, to be honest, there isn't much to update you on. I'm having a hard time motivating myself to job search, to write those resumes and cover letters and send them, to look for jobs online. I'm not going through placement this time around - I just really didn't want to spend the money; and I'm searching pretty selectively, so placement just didn't seem like the best option.
I'm still waiting to hear from this one job opportunity that I'm really really interested in. I know that I can't count on that though and that I should be applying for other jobs but when I get home at night, I'm tired and lazy and I just don't want to deal with this. Some days I daydream about just taking a year off and traveling. Or maybe doing some service thing for a year - preferably abroad. I mean, I want to see the world - I want to make a difference. I'm antsy and restless.
But I need to be realistic. Yes, I have some money saved and could probably survive for a year without a job, but do I really want to use up all my savings. I'm a little young to that, aren't I? And how much harder will it be to get back into the job market if I've been gone for a year, especially considering my usual visa issues and that I'd probably have to do my next job search from outside the country.
No, it doesn't make sense - logically - to take a year off but that doesn't mean I can't dream...
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Thursday, February 18, 2010
What came first? The chicken or the egg?
What do you think??? Chicken? Egg?
Why am I bringing this up? Well, I've been wondering lately - what comes first? A well-functioning, strong RHA or an adequate RHA budget?
My RHA doesn't have a lot of money. We get less than a dollar per student living on campus. The average RHA in this area gets $14.50 per students; $9.50 of that being provided by their Housing department. Or let's look at it this way: We have almost 3,000 students living on campus. My budget is less than half of that of another school that has 300 residents.
Why do we have such a small budget, you may ask... Well, I've been told that it's because we haven't had a very active RHA. Last year, most areas didn't even have an Area Council for the entire year. At the end of last year, only three students ran for RHA Executive Board Elections.
We've come a long way since that. Every area currently has an active council that's planning events and has representation at RHA meetings. I have a full RHA Executive Board. I have students who have already expressed interested in continuing their involvement next year, Area Council members who want to take on RHA Executive Board positions. We've attended two state conferences (last year, RHA went to none) and the only reason we didn't go to more was because we couldn't get the funding, not because students weren't interested.
But where do we go from here? I still get to hear the argument that our RHA needs to grow first before it'd be justified to give them a larger budget. But how can my RHA grow without getting a larger budget first? Students are trying but how can they accomplish much with so little funds? Yes, the RAs program more - there's even an RA committee for campus-wide programs - and yes, part of that may be because the RAs have more programming experience, but they also have a larger budget than my RHA. And what incentive is there for students to get involved when you see RHA being such a small organization with a tiny budget? Conferences get students excited about RHA and can often help get new students involved or train current members to become effective and strong Executive Board members for the next year - but without funds we can't take them to any bigger conferences!
I just wish I had a decent conference budget, some more programming money and some money toward incentives for RHA Executive Board members (if that's a reduced room rate, a small stipend for their office hours - wait, I'd have to have an office first - or even something as small as RHA Executive Board shirts ... just something to let them know that we value and appreciate them).
So I guess to answer the question - I believe you need to have a decent budget to build up an RHA. Now is the budget the chicken or egg? That's for you to decide.
Why am I bringing this up? Well, I've been wondering lately - what comes first? A well-functioning, strong RHA or an adequate RHA budget?
My RHA doesn't have a lot of money. We get less than a dollar per student living on campus. The average RHA in this area gets $14.50 per students; $9.50 of that being provided by their Housing department. Or let's look at it this way: We have almost 3,000 students living on campus. My budget is less than half of that of another school that has 300 residents.
Why do we have such a small budget, you may ask... Well, I've been told that it's because we haven't had a very active RHA. Last year, most areas didn't even have an Area Council for the entire year. At the end of last year, only three students ran for RHA Executive Board Elections.
We've come a long way since that. Every area currently has an active council that's planning events and has representation at RHA meetings. I have a full RHA Executive Board. I have students who have already expressed interested in continuing their involvement next year, Area Council members who want to take on RHA Executive Board positions. We've attended two state conferences (last year, RHA went to none) and the only reason we didn't go to more was because we couldn't get the funding, not because students weren't interested.
But where do we go from here? I still get to hear the argument that our RHA needs to grow first before it'd be justified to give them a larger budget. But how can my RHA grow without getting a larger budget first? Students are trying but how can they accomplish much with so little funds? Yes, the RAs program more - there's even an RA committee for campus-wide programs - and yes, part of that may be because the RAs have more programming experience, but they also have a larger budget than my RHA. And what incentive is there for students to get involved when you see RHA being such a small organization with a tiny budget? Conferences get students excited about RHA and can often help get new students involved or train current members to become effective and strong Executive Board members for the next year - but without funds we can't take them to any bigger conferences!
I just wish I had a decent conference budget, some more programming money and some money toward incentives for RHA Executive Board members (if that's a reduced room rate, a small stipend for their office hours - wait, I'd have to have an office first - or even something as small as RHA Executive Board shirts ... just something to let them know that we value and appreciate them).
So I guess to answer the question - I believe you need to have a decent budget to build up an RHA. Now is the budget the chicken or egg? That's for you to decide.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Sleep Deprivation, Support and Feedback
I'm tired. No, I'm not just tired; I'm exhausted. I wake up every morning wishing that I didn't have to get up and go work. I sit in the office all day day dreaming about going back to my apartment and curling up in my bed. I come home and all I want to do is take a nap but I have meetings and errands. I fall asleep while still trying to accomplish a few more things - like last night when I found myself passed out on the couch with my laptop and my guitar next to me. I'm not sure how much longer I can do this.
Weekends are usually when I catch up on sleep - but I haven't had a real weekend in a while. There is always something that needs to get done on the weekends. Last weekend, I went to an RHA conference. We left Friday at noon and got back Sunday afternoon. And then Monday, I had to get up early to drop off the van before 9 am and then go back to the office.
My NRHH is starting to become more active; and I'm super excited about that but that adds another meeting to my evenings. I'm now up to at least one meeting every night - more than one some nights.
RAs have now asked to have more professional staff presence at Homecoming practices - we have a flag football team, a lip sync team, etc. So tonight, I ended up going to the lip sync practice and it was fun but now it's 1:30 am and I haven't practiced playing the guitar yet, haven't done the dishes or cleaned the apartment and tomorrow at 9 am, I have to be back in the office.
Oh and have I mentioned that I've had a really bad cold for the past week? But how do you get better when you don't have time to relax, sleep and drink tea?
I'm not even sure if this post makes sense; I'm just rambling. Ha.
But I've been thinking about support lately. What does it mean to support your staff? How do you yourself want to be supported?
To me, support means that a supervisor will listen to me, let me vent, process and problem-solve. It means that a supervisor will help me find balance in my life. It also means that a supervisor will respect me and give me the feeling that my work is appreciated. When I spend countless hours at night and on weekends working on things, I want that to be recognized - instead of being told that maybe I should do more.
I'm not sure what support to my RAs means. I've been trying to find out.
When I ask for feedback, I often get suggestions about changing things on a departmental level - I'm not in a position where I can make those changes happen. Or they want to get rid of a certain initiative or program - something that I and the other professional staff members believe in, something that we know will benefit our residents if executed well...something that just isn't going away. But when you listen to a staff member's feedback and then have to tell them that the change they want won't happen, will they still feel supported and understood? I try to explain. I try to give reasons. I'm not sure I'm being heard.
How do you support a staff that won't give you real feedback? RAs here have the opportunity to give anonymous feedback about their supervisor at the end of the year. I realize it's easier for students to give anonymous feedback - they feel more comfortable and are willing to say more - but is that really helping our department or teaching them anything? In what real job will they be able to give anonymous feedback? Wouldn't it be better if we taught them how to give feedback - in person, directly? And then, if I got that feedback from the RAs directly, we could talk about things, work through these problems, come up with compromises and solutions. When I get the anonymous feedback - especially when half my staff says one thing and the other half the exact opposite - what am I supposed to do with that?
Oh, I'm so tired - not just physically, emotionally/mentally - I'm just drained.
80 more days. And as much as I have no clue what will happen after - if I'll have a job or not, if I'll be returning to this country next year or not - I can't wait. It's gotta get better. It just has to.
In 80 days, I'll stop being tired!!!
Weekends are usually when I catch up on sleep - but I haven't had a real weekend in a while. There is always something that needs to get done on the weekends. Last weekend, I went to an RHA conference. We left Friday at noon and got back Sunday afternoon. And then Monday, I had to get up early to drop off the van before 9 am and then go back to the office.
My NRHH is starting to become more active; and I'm super excited about that but that adds another meeting to my evenings. I'm now up to at least one meeting every night - more than one some nights.
RAs have now asked to have more professional staff presence at Homecoming practices - we have a flag football team, a lip sync team, etc. So tonight, I ended up going to the lip sync practice and it was fun but now it's 1:30 am and I haven't practiced playing the guitar yet, haven't done the dishes or cleaned the apartment and tomorrow at 9 am, I have to be back in the office.
Oh and have I mentioned that I've had a really bad cold for the past week? But how do you get better when you don't have time to relax, sleep and drink tea?
I'm not even sure if this post makes sense; I'm just rambling. Ha.
But I've been thinking about support lately. What does it mean to support your staff? How do you yourself want to be supported?
To me, support means that a supervisor will listen to me, let me vent, process and problem-solve. It means that a supervisor will help me find balance in my life. It also means that a supervisor will respect me and give me the feeling that my work is appreciated. When I spend countless hours at night and on weekends working on things, I want that to be recognized - instead of being told that maybe I should do more.
I'm not sure what support to my RAs means. I've been trying to find out.
When I ask for feedback, I often get suggestions about changing things on a departmental level - I'm not in a position where I can make those changes happen. Or they want to get rid of a certain initiative or program - something that I and the other professional staff members believe in, something that we know will benefit our residents if executed well...something that just isn't going away. But when you listen to a staff member's feedback and then have to tell them that the change they want won't happen, will they still feel supported and understood? I try to explain. I try to give reasons. I'm not sure I'm being heard.
How do you support a staff that won't give you real feedback? RAs here have the opportunity to give anonymous feedback about their supervisor at the end of the year. I realize it's easier for students to give anonymous feedback - they feel more comfortable and are willing to say more - but is that really helping our department or teaching them anything? In what real job will they be able to give anonymous feedback? Wouldn't it be better if we taught them how to give feedback - in person, directly? And then, if I got that feedback from the RAs directly, we could talk about things, work through these problems, come up with compromises and solutions. When I get the anonymous feedback - especially when half my staff says one thing and the other half the exact opposite - what am I supposed to do with that?
Oh, I'm so tired - not just physically, emotionally/mentally - I'm just drained.
80 more days. And as much as I have no clue what will happen after - if I'll have a job or not, if I'll be returning to this country next year or not - I can't wait. It's gotta get better. It just has to.
In 80 days, I'll stop being tired!!!
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
The good old days
One of my best friends is getting married this summer (actually two of them are - in two different countries - so there's definitely a lot of traveling in my future). Anyway, what I meant to tell you before I got sidetracked was this...
One of my best friends is getting married and since I'm in the bridal party, she asked me to send her a picture and blurb for her wedding web site. She wanted me to talk about how I know her.
Writing that little blurb brought back so many memories. We met as Residence Hall Association delegates from two different halls. We both were on the delegation for the regional conference that Fall, which was hosted at our school. Hosting a conference is exciting but being on the delegation kinda sucks. You don't get to stay at the hotel with the other delegates but are usually staying in your own room. There is no fun van-ride to the conference, no late-night adventures. All the focus is on hosting the conference and the conference staff; all the outstanding student leaders are on the conference staff. So the delegations often consist of just a group of wide-eyed first-year students that have no idea what's going on. At least that's what my experience was like. [Don't let that turn you away from hosting a conference though, if you've been thinking about that. I still think hosting a conference is an amazing experience; one of those once-in-a-lifetime kind of things that you'll never forget; life-altering for sure!] So while we met on the delegation, we didn't get "that" close. We saw each other throughout the year, had some friends in common but that was about it.
However, sophomore - or really starting the end of our first-year - was a different story. We went to the national conference together - this time we got the "whole" experience; a week of preparations on campus after the school year had ended, then a flight, staying in a residence hall together (we were roommates), extra days with fun activities. We had also both applied to be RAs and that time we already knew that we'd been hired and would be on the same staff together.
It still took us a while to become really really close friends. We were both overinvolved - me, editor for the student newspaper; her - president of a student organization she'd started. We organized programs together, saw each other at staff meetings, had fun when we were on duty together - but outside of "RA" life, we often went our separate ways. Funny enough, it took a separation for us to become really really close. When she studied abroad second semester, we stayed in touch. We e-mailed, chatted online and suddenly we were best friends. And when she finally returned to campus our junior year, we were inseparable. We came "as a package deal," as one of our friends once said. Together with that friend, an RA from another building, we were known as "The Three Musketeers."
This friendship is definitely one of the most treasured memories from my RA experience. And how much did we learn from each other!!! How I loved our diverse little group! Me from Austria, my best friend from India and our third friend, the Puerto Rican. We were "diversity." And we talked about diversity. We educated our residents about diversity.
But as much as I loved those days, sometimes I look back and I am saddened by the missed opportunities. Yes, we did a good job as RAs. We knew our residents; we built relationships. We did a relatively good job enforcing policies and making sure everyone was safe in our community. We programmed - more than we had to; that's for sure. But how much more could we have gotten out of our communities if we'd been a little more intentional? If someone had told us to have meaningful one-on-one conversations with our residents... If we hadn't just done random programs but actually thought about what we wanted our students to learn, what sequence of learning would make sense.
Oh, how I sometimes wish I could go back to being an RA, to do it all over again - but so much better this time. But one thing is for sure: I'd still make sure that the two of us became best friends.
One of my best friends is getting married and since I'm in the bridal party, she asked me to send her a picture and blurb for her wedding web site. She wanted me to talk about how I know her.
Writing that little blurb brought back so many memories. We met as Residence Hall Association delegates from two different halls. We both were on the delegation for the regional conference that Fall, which was hosted at our school. Hosting a conference is exciting but being on the delegation kinda sucks. You don't get to stay at the hotel with the other delegates but are usually staying in your own room. There is no fun van-ride to the conference, no late-night adventures. All the focus is on hosting the conference and the conference staff; all the outstanding student leaders are on the conference staff. So the delegations often consist of just a group of wide-eyed first-year students that have no idea what's going on. At least that's what my experience was like. [Don't let that turn you away from hosting a conference though, if you've been thinking about that. I still think hosting a conference is an amazing experience; one of those once-in-a-lifetime kind of things that you'll never forget; life-altering for sure!] So while we met on the delegation, we didn't get "that" close. We saw each other throughout the year, had some friends in common but that was about it.
However, sophomore - or really starting the end of our first-year - was a different story. We went to the national conference together - this time we got the "whole" experience; a week of preparations on campus after the school year had ended, then a flight, staying in a residence hall together (we were roommates), extra days with fun activities. We had also both applied to be RAs and that time we already knew that we'd been hired and would be on the same staff together.
It still took us a while to become really really close friends. We were both overinvolved - me, editor for the student newspaper; her - president of a student organization she'd started. We organized programs together, saw each other at staff meetings, had fun when we were on duty together - but outside of "RA" life, we often went our separate ways. Funny enough, it took a separation for us to become really really close. When she studied abroad second semester, we stayed in touch. We e-mailed, chatted online and suddenly we were best friends. And when she finally returned to campus our junior year, we were inseparable. We came "as a package deal," as one of our friends once said. Together with that friend, an RA from another building, we were known as "The Three Musketeers."
This friendship is definitely one of the most treasured memories from my RA experience. And how much did we learn from each other!!! How I loved our diverse little group! Me from Austria, my best friend from India and our third friend, the Puerto Rican. We were "diversity." And we talked about diversity. We educated our residents about diversity.
But as much as I loved those days, sometimes I look back and I am saddened by the missed opportunities. Yes, we did a good job as RAs. We knew our residents; we built relationships. We did a relatively good job enforcing policies and making sure everyone was safe in our community. We programmed - more than we had to; that's for sure. But how much more could we have gotten out of our communities if we'd been a little more intentional? If someone had told us to have meaningful one-on-one conversations with our residents... If we hadn't just done random programs but actually thought about what we wanted our students to learn, what sequence of learning would make sense.
Oh, how I sometimes wish I could go back to being an RA, to do it all over again - but so much better this time. But one thing is for sure: I'd still make sure that the two of us became best friends.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Highs and Lows
It's Sunday night and I should probably be in bed but there's still too much I need to get done before I'm ready for the week to start. We all know once the week starts, I'll have hardly any time for a personal life...and even when I have the time, I'm too tired to really do anything. Sometimes I feel like this job sucks the soul out of me. It's like a big bad dementor...haha...I've been reading too much Harry Potter. ;)
Anyway, so this weekend was pretty amazing. :) Two of my friends and I hung out Saturday night. I cooked dinner, then we went to a concert and afterwards we came back to my apartment and had brownies and ice cream. It was pretty much the perfect evening. I wish more evenings were like that. It's just nice to be able to laugh and talk and have a good time. There hasn't been enough of that this year.
I spent the rest of the weekend reading Pride & Prejudice. I absolutely love that book and have read it several times. Usually I relate more to Elizabeth Bennet but this time, I felt like Mr. Darcy and I have quite a lot in common. And whenever I read it, I feel like talking in really fancy English and saying things like "I'm ardently in love with you." I tend to lose myself in books and forget everything around me.
But today, reality sucked me back in. I had a meeting and then a Superbowl Party. Me and football = yes, quite ironic. I wouldn't mind it so much if I hadn't felt forced into hosting this program whether or not I wanted to. I've hosted Superbowl Parties in the past; I even watched it a few times with friends; but this year it just really bothered me that I had to do this.
Well, I should get going. I still have to respond to an e-mail and get some stuff together for work tomorrow. The week hasn't even started yet and I'm already tired. Is it the weekend yet? ;)
Anyway, so this weekend was pretty amazing. :) Two of my friends and I hung out Saturday night. I cooked dinner, then we went to a concert and afterwards we came back to my apartment and had brownies and ice cream. It was pretty much the perfect evening. I wish more evenings were like that. It's just nice to be able to laugh and talk and have a good time. There hasn't been enough of that this year.
I spent the rest of the weekend reading Pride & Prejudice. I absolutely love that book and have read it several times. Usually I relate more to Elizabeth Bennet but this time, I felt like Mr. Darcy and I have quite a lot in common. And whenever I read it, I feel like talking in really fancy English and saying things like "I'm ardently in love with you." I tend to lose myself in books and forget everything around me.
But today, reality sucked me back in. I had a meeting and then a Superbowl Party. Me and football = yes, quite ironic. I wouldn't mind it so much if I hadn't felt forced into hosting this program whether or not I wanted to. I've hosted Superbowl Parties in the past; I even watched it a few times with friends; but this year it just really bothered me that I had to do this.
Well, I should get going. I still have to respond to an e-mail and get some stuff together for work tomorrow. The week hasn't even started yet and I'm already tired. Is it the weekend yet? ;)
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