The Writing to Evaluate section has gone by really fast, so fast that I have not had time to process what is going on! I feel as if my team and I are so disconnected for they all want to address homelessness, and I want to address, er, homelessness with animals. I understand why creating a community kitchen is a great idea, but it all just seems too complicated for a group of college students to help. Although I am not degrading their idea for attempting, I just feel that creating a community kitchen would take a lot more than our 5k and therefore, I would not feel as if I helped acheive anything at all.

Not only do I feel disconnected, I feel alone! Once again, a team setting is not going over well with me. I wish I could have chosen my own group, because I would have chosen a group of people who I knew would participate and interact, as well as do their assignments. I tried a couple times to ask questions that would help me understand what's going on, but my voice was muffled by the plans of how this will work. In my opinion, if I cannot even understand what you're trying to plan, how will the community or the non profits understand?

We couldn't even think of a group name. UGH.

So, I decided to personally set out a quest to write a NOFO that would mesh with my interests. Although I will have to write this NOFO I do not desire to write eventually, and indeed, my lack of participation could be the demise of the group itself, it is not all my responsibility to keep our heads over water. I want to help and give the 5k out to a needed cause, however my group and I just do not have the same feelings. But I digress. I decided to focus my time on the spaying and neutering of animals, which has now led to just stray cats.

I know it isn't the assignment to be a loner, but I suppose the part I will play in my group is providing a lot of critical feedback and questions. Helpful, but not super involved. My skills will best come into play next semester when we have to review the proposals. I will rip those things into shreds!

Writing to Evaluate happened to be my favorite section. Evaluating, in my head, means "is this achieving what it wants to achieve?" and "did it flow?" or "did it do it the best way possible?" Those are definitely my areas. I know what works and what does not, and I can help influence my fellow writers to get where they want. And, next semester, I will be able to narrow down which non profit organizations hit the nail on the head.

So what I'm trying to say is, I'm basically sitting this part out and waiting till the part when I can shine and truly be significant. If my group needs me, I can help. But I don't agree or understand what they are trying to accomplish, and I don't wish to develop more headaches and stress than I already have. I'm not quitting, just fading to the background.

Andrea - never fear - your time will come.  I had the same issues in my Tech Writing class where I had to let go of some of my preferences for our NOFO.  We're doing the entire process from writing the NOFO, sending it out, evaluating non-profit proposals and finally awarding the $5K.  I had a lot different ideas of where I wanted the grant to go, but me and another team mate had to let go of our biases for the group to move forward.  I feel your pain, but it does teach you an important lesson when working with groups.  You don't always get what you want :-/ ~ Jay ps: kudos on the xtranormal vid - I love that site :-)