First Milestone!

That was a fun break from my usual over-analytical style yesterday, so I won't ramble on for too long today.


Today is exciting because I conducted my last history interview today! Yaaay! My straight Girls Inc. chronological history is complied and only needs some light fact-checking and editing. I'm also going to cut and paste it into individual sections like "technology" and "outreach" that future staff can add to on a regular basis. Then I will perfect the record-keeping system's sustainablility/accessiblity at my convenience for the rest of the year. Hopefully when I leave Girls Incorporated, the staff won't need a historian-type ever again, and will be able to pull up information about past programs, partnerships, and decisions whenever they need to.

So the next thing I'm starting on is actually developing and piloting program outcome evaluation techniques by leading a program! This is a very good thing. This is the first week I've been here without the summer camp girls running up and down the stairs all day. I miss them. It's too quiet. Plus, I get to DO something other than listening to variations on the same story, writing them down, re-typing everything, and then sorting everything I typed.



I'm going to start writing more about what I actually do because I've been feeling pretty lonely lately, and it's my own fault. I'm the only VISTA in evaluation in Indiana (Maybe the whole country. I've never even heard of anyone knowing about a VISTA with a position like mine.), I'm the only staff member working on evaluation full time, and of the community and board members on the Evaluation Task Force, I'm the only one with a background in anthropology. So basically, nobody is going to get where I'm coming from or understand what I do unless I quit whining to my coworkers and loved ones and put some effort into letting people know. This is a practical project. It's not worth doing if I can't/don't communicate why it's important. So there.