1.75 - Interviews

So. I met some of the people who would be sifting through applications and resumes, hopefully got my face a little stuck in peoples' heads, and possibly made a bit of an impression in conversation at the networking party. Based on these interactions... I wasn't super confident I was even going to make it to the interview round, but then obviously I did get scheduled for one. Sarah and I kept practicing.

When I got in there, I was nervous. There were six people interviewing me - Jason, the program's executive director, and 5 women I had never met but some of whose bios I had read on the website (that meant they were from last year's class). Having recent fellows on my panel meant I might have a better chance since they would remember how daunting the application process was. I had already met Jason at the beginning of the networking party when he and Sarah and I were three of maybe 8 people there; we traded friendly barbs and made snarky comments about someone's outfit. Instant understanding! 

Because Sarah and I had practiced, I did not freeze when they asked me questions - I paused, pulled up the stock answer I had ready for a similar question, modified it, and spat it out. SUCCESS!!! My panel was inquisitive and curious, but in a nice way. I didn't feel intimidated by them, and in fact almost felt like they wanted me to have my best shot. They asked semi-leading follow up questions to get me to open up more. 

One of them is running for Tacoma City Council. Another is a children's advocate and lobbyist. One of them is a small business owner (Adrift Hotel in Long Beach, WA, so if you go to Long Beach, you know where you should stay!) And the others are doing equally interesting/amazing things. Suffice it to say, these people have all "leveraged their networks" which is a big catchphrase in IDF. Everyone in my interview panel was inclusive, engaged, and supportive. I was SO lucky.

My answers weren't perfect. But they were good enough. My panel laughed. They were slack-jawed when I spoke of my friend Matt's death under a wind farm turbine as the reason I'm excited for the Eastern WA weekend (touring a wind farm is on the agenda for that weekend). They encouraged me to speak more on things they found pertinent, things that might help me better get in.

And it worked! Here I am, spending half of my time running around with these new people - once strangers, now quickly becoming friends.

1.5 - How much I hate applying for things

Applying for things is hard! I am so not about putting myself out there. I am terrible at writing resumes, bad at writing cover letters, and only barely better at securing letters of reference. I am also not good at writing answers for application questions. I have great difficulty writing things that strike a balance between trite and casual. I can either write like this, or write really annoying stuff that sounds like it should be in a pamphlet for why you should vote Rand Paul. sigh. So applying for IDF, which I had started to actually care about, was especially tough.

I wrote three resume drafts and about five different cover letters. I managed to beg a letter of reference from my most recent professor (which was difficult, because she was doing a fellowship which happened to be taking place at Harley Davidson in Milwaukee and was pretty busy) and would have gotten one from Sarah except she and her fiance were finalizing the purchase of their first home. I researched and wrote passable answers for the application (sample question: Where do you disagree with the Democratic Party and why?). I got together with Sarah to practice for my interview. 

Side note: why have I never practiced for an interview before? I go into interviews flying by the seat of my pants! Like, well if they don't like my personality then they can rot. But how are they going to know anything about my personality if I'm struggling to answer their questions? So right there I learned a lot. And the questions asked in most interviews are the same, so if I can get those answers down, then I can show people a bit of who I am in the way I answer them. So obvious, but I was so unwilling to do work before. But I digress.

I went with Sarah to a networking party put on by IDF for prospective applicants to meet current board members and IDF alumni. I was terrified. How did I get so bad at shmoozing? I used to be able to charm the pants off anyone! Also I just thought (maybe for the first time?) about what that means. Hmm. Anyway, we practiced. Sarah and I actually practiced answers to what I might be asked AT A PARTY. And we practiced ways I might introduce myself or horn in on conversations. I have never felt so socially inept in my LIFE.

But as the evening progressed, I did better and better. I met an IDF alum who is now running for City Council in West Seattle, and she is amazing. If you see her name on your ballot, I urge you to vote for Brianna Thomas! I met one of my current cohort (of course, at the time, she was just a prospective applicant) there and was immediately attached (her name is Brynn, she works for the ACLU, she's smart and interesting and adorable and showed up BY HERSELF - the cajones on that one!). 

Actually I think I only met two or three people there who made it into the program. The prospective applicants included: a guy who worked for Fish and Wildlife (with an IDF alum, who wrote him a reference. He made it in), three lawyers who really seemed like they had it together and had political chops (didn't make it), two WA State legislative session aides (didn't make it), a slew of local political organizers/campaigners/dooorbellers (didn't make it). Probably 30 or more politically active prospective applicants. 

So, I felt super out of place (no political experience to speak of, although I DID post signs for Gary Locke with my Girl Scout troop in 7th grade? I think?) and totally outclassed among a group of what seemed to me at the time like shoo-ins for the program. We ducked out after Sarah had introduced me to most of the people who were important to my acceptance into the program. Stay tuned for 1.75, in which I actually finish this post.

How is it spring already in February?

And now for a little light reading. Since I'm going to be pretty busy this weekend, you're probably not going to get a whole lot of real content. But you can look at some pretty pictures! The beauty bark is full of green shoots - some crocus, some mysteries, and a lot of tulips. I'm very excited to see what they look like since I've never seen this house in spring! 

Look at these goofy crocuses!

I don't remember what this is called, but now it has pretty pink flowers. Are these sillies?

Last weekend we went to the zoo!

Jonathan and I love the zoo. We bought each other memberships for Christmas this year, and we decided to go to the zoo last Sunday while Sam was at the groomer's. (He smells like cookies now, BTW.) Here are some of the amazing animals we saw!

One hippo was using the other as a pillow.

There are two new lion cubs. Adorable!

Prepare yourself for many pictures of the Tapir. I LOVE the Tapir. He is the most awkward animal at the zoo.

He came up right next to the glass and showed us his butt.

Then he scamper/waddled over to that tree to scratch his face on it. What a weirdo. Hah! 

I don't love the elephants, but since we might not have them for much longer, we looked at them. This little guy was hanging out outside.

Just dancin'.

There was a large family (parents + two litters) of otters, and they were very playful. We stood there and watched them for a really long time.

Those penguins sure are lazy.

The wolves were the most active I've ever seen them; I'm pretty sure they switched them out while we weren't looking. Also weren't the wolves red/gray? I know their coat changes from winter to spring, but last time I saw them was winter and I remember them being much darker. Also, there's no snow to cause them to be white.

How a customer at Bus Stop convinced me (through two years of nagging) to change my life, or: An Entire Blog Post About Sarah

If any of you have spent more than half an hour at Bus Stop, you've probably met Sarah. She's a regular and has been for years. I think I met her in 2009 when I first started hanging out there again. She's tall and blonde and totally amazing. She's really got her stuff together and knows how to get things done. If you've been paying attention to Seattle news, you've seen her work - King County is starting to change the way restaurants display food safety scores, and that is because of Sarah. She has gotten E. Coli twice, once in the Jack in the Box fiasco, and again a couple years ago from eating at a restaurant that is now closed. So she is understandably big on food safety. Anyway, she started a petition that got the attention of King County and is now the only person on their exploratory committee that is not involved in the restaurant industry. She knows 50 billion people and is a fantastic sounding board for ideas, both building on them and playing opposition for them.

So. Sarah is connected and knows how the system works. How did she get that way? Well she started off political, moving from Oak Harbor (yes, she's an island girl - her family owns a clothing store up there that has been around for 3 generations) to Seattle to DC after school. She spent time in DC learning the national political processes and meeting people that would help her start her own projects for non-profits and government agencies. Her focus is on open government and transparency, which are words that get bandied about in the political sphere that no one seems to know how to implement. Sarah knows how. In fact, she's writing a handbook on it. In any case, after DC, she moved back to Seattle, where she didn't know many people in local government or quite how to navigate it, as apparently it operates in a slightly different way. So she did IDF in 2006. Now she knows 50 billion people, and knows how to get things done here.

Sarah and I have become friends over the years, bonding over shared woes after political defeats and shared joys at progressive political victories or ideas. We've had countless debates with other customers over policy and oversight and government spending. We've had some heated ones about climate change and the depletion of our oceans. And last year, Sarah really got after me about applying for IDF after my diatribe about the Washington Health Benefit Exchange. Of course, at that time Jonathan and I were remodeling the kitchen with plans to add a bathroom, and I was not keen on giving up my weekends to spend time running around Washington with 30 people I didn't know. Plus there was an application, and I'd have to revamp my resume and get references and write a cover letter, and it was hard to do that during football season, and I wanted to finish my degree so I knew I'd be working on homework and reading and any number of other legitimate (and not) reasons why it was not a good time for me. But she kept talking about how much fun she had, and what great friendships she forged, and how much she learned, and how it set her up for any number of job offers...

I guess what really got me was the prospect of job offers. Selfish as that may seem, IDF sounded like a wonderful way to both better myself as a political citizen and get a real career going. Sorry Elias, but we all know I can't work at Bus Stop forever. So I decided when she started talking about it again this year (Sarah's prepared - the inundation began in late September) that this was going to be the year I started trying to get into IDF. 

What are you doing at IDL/IBS/ISS this weekend?

Since I suddenly decided I wanted to participate in the world outside of my narrow path from home to work and back, everyone has been asking me what in the world this thing is that I'm doing. It is called Institute for a Democratic Future. Its acronym is IDF. Yes, that is the same acronym as the Israel Defense Forces. (Did you know they have a blog?) It's also the same as the International Diabetes Federation. (They kind of have a blog. More like they feature a few blogs.) And the International Dairy Federation and the Intel Developer Forum and the Immune Deficiency Foundation. 

Anyway, the IDF of which I am a part (which doesn't really have a blog) is an organization dedicated to "educating, motivating and inspiring future democratic and civic leaders in Washington state", according to the group's alumni page on LinkedIn. Honestly, that's the best description of it I've seen so far; much better than the description on the organization's own website. Just to clarify, this is not an internship, or a class, or volunteering. It is a fellowship. How that differs from those things... well it seems like a fellowship has way more street cred. Haha... no seriously though, it is way cooler. Fellowships are for fancy people. So now I'm a fancy person.

Basically what we do is get together a couple weekends a month and learn crazy amounts of local (although usually applicable more broadly) political processes, ideas, and a little insider info from experts in the field. Last weekend we met the city attorney and the mayor, then heard from a panel of marijuana experts. But that's for another post!

There are also travel weekends, where we spend the weekend in another part of the state learning about issues that are important to those areas. This coming weekend we will be doing the "suburban crescent": all of the cities around Seattle. Saturday we start in Everett and work our way to Bellevue, Sunday we start in Renton and make our way down to Puyallup. We also have a presentation to do for our projects some time on Saturday, so that should be exciting. Jeez, I'm realizing just how many other posts I need to write. Note to self: write post about project.

This program has been really eye-opening for me as it shows me just how much I don't know. I am learning so much in these really compressed sessions and I am still so amazed and proud and grateful that I made it in to begin with! That, I guess, is also for another post - if I get into that now, this post will not be an easily readable length and it will not be about the real subject at hand.

Also, I love my cohort of fellows. You can read their bios here. They are a wonderful, curious, smart group of people with diverse backgrounds, interests and areas of expertise. I have yet to form a distaste for any of them (you all know that is HIGHLY unusual, so this speaks volumes for them) and a few of them have quickly become some of my favorite people. Of course, if you're reading this, you're probably in that small circle and don't worry, your positions will not be usurped. Hopefully some of the connections I make through this program will help me to land a career job... where I make lots of money helping people. HAHAHA! Well a girl can dream, right? 

Anyway, stay tuned for posts about:
1. How a customer at Bus Stop convinced me through two years of nagging to change my life
2. How miserable it was being sick during the first IDF weekend and still forcing myself to go
3. How we are the first IDF cohort to have HOMEWORK WTF BOO
4. Olympia Weekend!
5. Last IDF weekend
6. Next IDF weekend!

Whoa. I have a lot of writing to do.

Welcome (back)!

Well here we are, I'm trying to blog again. We'll see how long I can keep this up!

I've had many people ask me about IDF and I thought this would be the best way to keep people informed so I'm not repeating myself all day long. We do some pretty amazing things a couple weekends a month, and I'm pretty excited about it, so please excuse me if I get a little teary-eyed about democracy and hope and progressive ideals, etc.

There may or may not be soapboxing in this blog; some issues we discuss are ones that I'm passionate about and I won't be able to help it. Especially since in the beginning of this program I'm still a little shy about jumping in with questions for speakers, so I may be doing some rhetoricals I wished I had asked. 

I will also be writing in very casual voice, since this is mainly for family and friends, so please excuse the run-on sentences, questionable punctuation, and silly observations. If I had time to turn all of these posts into feature-story-quality writing, it wouldn't be a blog, would it?

I'm going to try to post about our weekends as close the their occurrence as possible while things are still fresh in my mind, but sometimes that won't happen. If you know anything about the program, you'll know that it has been going on for over a month now and I am just starting this blog. So I've got a little catching up to do! I will try to do it in as expedient a manner as I can so that you can all rest easy knowing you're fully up to date on the only interesting thing I am doing right now. Haha! (On that note, I may also be posting a little bit about our kitchen remodel from time to time. This can be the "what Mari does on the weekend" blog.)

One last observation: have you ever muted the food network and listened to Dvorak? I just watched Anne Burrell (Secrets of a Restaurant Chef) muted with the first movement (adagio, allegro molto) of the New World Symphony and it was pretty epic.

So, as Mr. Warner used to say (and I repeat way too much for a person under the age of 50): "Onward and downward, students!"