in good news...
i wrote about the promotion over the summer. i'm writing grants now. which is hard, and fun, and harder, and then done. someone once said that the best thing about writing was having written. i don't know who he is, but i name him my king. or queen, if the case.
anyway. i worked through most of august writing a grant for a program very close to my heart, a program for teenage girls, designed to build their self-esteem through literature (see?). i read everything i could find about the program. i googled stats on young latina women (did you know that one in three seriously considers suicide?). i talked to both program coordinators, many many times. i spent two afternoons with the girls in the center, asking prying questions, making tissue paper flowers, and talking about cheerleading, target and kanye west.
it was a fairly straightforward grant application, fill in the blank, short essay questions, and i struggled for weeks to get the right amount of feeling through. to show how exceptional this program was, to show how WELL it worked. revisions, revisions, revisions and exclamations of "wait! 500 characters?! I thought it was 500words! who does that?!" abounded.
and then, poof. 1st of september and off it went, through the ether of the internet and through the usps, registered, certified.
early last week, we found out that they wanted to do a site visit. i couldn't go, but my boss and our ceo went this afternoon. my boss called me about an hour ago, and told me how amazing it was, how he met all the girls i had told him about, how the girls told their stories, sad, funny, rambling, etc. "you could see it in her eyes," he said about the woman from the foundation, "she had never been to a site visit like this."
and, i cried.
i don't want this cause its the first grant i wrote for this agency. i don't want this cause i wrote it. i want it for those girls, and their joy and their heartbreak, and their irrepressible teenage-ness; breaking out into cheerleading moves, listing the virtues of lil wayne, making me try to say things in spanish, eating a box of cookies in 10 minutes, casting their eyes downward, casting their chins upward, being as amazing as anything can.
nothing is as impressive, or as fragile, as a teenage girl.
we find out for sure on december 12. keep your fingers crossed.
anyway. i worked through most of august writing a grant for a program very close to my heart, a program for teenage girls, designed to build their self-esteem through literature (see?). i read everything i could find about the program. i googled stats on young latina women (did you know that one in three seriously considers suicide?). i talked to both program coordinators, many many times. i spent two afternoons with the girls in the center, asking prying questions, making tissue paper flowers, and talking about cheerleading, target and kanye west.
it was a fairly straightforward grant application, fill in the blank, short essay questions, and i struggled for weeks to get the right amount of feeling through. to show how exceptional this program was, to show how WELL it worked. revisions, revisions, revisions and exclamations of "wait! 500 characters?! I thought it was 500words! who does that?!" abounded.
and then, poof. 1st of september and off it went, through the ether of the internet and through the usps, registered, certified.
early last week, we found out that they wanted to do a site visit. i couldn't go, but my boss and our ceo went this afternoon. my boss called me about an hour ago, and told me how amazing it was, how he met all the girls i had told him about, how the girls told their stories, sad, funny, rambling, etc. "you could see it in her eyes," he said about the woman from the foundation, "she had never been to a site visit like this."
and, i cried.
i don't want this cause its the first grant i wrote for this agency. i don't want this cause i wrote it. i want it for those girls, and their joy and their heartbreak, and their irrepressible teenage-ness; breaking out into cheerleading moves, listing the virtues of lil wayne, making me try to say things in spanish, eating a box of cookies in 10 minutes, casting their eyes downward, casting their chins upward, being as amazing as anything can.
nothing is as impressive, or as fragile, as a teenage girl.
we find out for sure on december 12. keep your fingers crossed.
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