Where's this going?

My job here is hard to define. I go into work for about 3 maybe 4 hours a day. They exhaust me. Utterly exhaust me. I wanted to do development work when I got here, but now I just want anything but a desk. And you know what work has? Lots of desks. It's not like an American workplace with job descriptions and goals and a general idea of what to do with your day. It's showing up, chatting, hoping something comes out of those chats, finding a new section of the wall to stare at and then leaving. Well, most days.

Last week and the week before, while everyone else was vacationing, I wrote and polished a proposal for a project I'd be really interested in doing - working collectively with my town's non-profits to move them in the right direction. The proposal writing process seemed to be endless and I'm sure there are still parts I could have polished. I was wiped at the end of it. Now, this week, my department is writing a proposal for about 60x more money in, oh THREE days. Am I going insane? Why yes, I am. Thanks for asking. I bust my ass for two weeks only to arrive at a week of stress founded on poor planning and lack of foresight. I need my old gym and a pair of boxing gloves. God, how I miss boxing!

In any case, so I read through this thing and it barely makes any sense. I'm torn. My professional ethics say "suck it up, it's only a couple days". However, I came here for many reasons, one of which was not to work all the live long day. To have better boundaries. To not be so professionally defined. I'm not sure what to do. The project itself COULD be good, but for this deadline? I think not. Too much work. Too much thinking. Too much planning that hasn't been done. It's frustrating. I think I am going to see if they'll take the time to redo it after the deadline with me to show them how it works, or how it should work. To see what a polished finished proposal looks like. However, in part I am also talking out of my ass. I have no clear idea of what a polished proposal looks like, I just know what makes sense, what's logical, what stands out...what looks "polished". I need to ask Peace Corps and other PCVs if they have an example. Something to work from. Hm. Another project.

Here's another problem: I am sick to death of not only offices but projects and proposals. I joined the PC to AVOID this shit. Now, here I am knee deep in it. I bravely jumped ship to dive into something new and just ended in another ship. Explains the headaches, I guess. I just don't know how to escape it here. Organizations want money, the temporary but fun and brag-worthy band-aid. And I'm an American. I am walking money. They don't see my knowledge or skills, just my link to the cash. The pursuit of cash kills development. If I was still interested in policy work, that'd be my grad thesis topic. It gives people, especially people used to depending on the government, an extension on their excuse to not take control of their own lives. To wait for the hero. It gives the idea that your world can and will get better with little effort from you. That there are free lunches.

I spent ten years (off and on) studying politics and economics. I joined the Peace Corps to do development work. Now, though both interest me, I'm unconvinced I want to do either of them for a living. I want to write, but I have to be prepared if that doesn't work...or, for something to do while I make it work. That sounds better. I'm qualified to do a lot, as a friend insisted earlier today, but what do I want to do? Where do I want to apply these skills (which are...??... somewhat unclear to me at the moment)? To what do I apply them? This is what this next year will be about for me, at least in part. Figuring out what's next. What all of my wacky live experiences are pointing me to. Identifying what feeds me and will fuel me too. Or, just figuring out how to make this damn writing thing go. That works too. Ah, so much work to be done...