Vice President, Northwest Dance Network Board of Managers

What was I thinking? All you people who have been on boards should have warned me. I had absolutely no idea how much work and responsibility and time this would take. Now, granted, it's a rather busy time in the life of the organization, but four meetings a month, constant emails, and the weight of the world on my untrained shoulders? Oy.

Instructor Coordinator, Northwest Dance Network

The staff requested someone take on this job and since the organization cannot afford to pay someone, I volunteered. At least I knew what I was getting into. Sort of. I've done a lot of instructing in my life and plenty of evaluating instructing. But, ironically, I always shied away from being chair. I didn't want to schedule, hire, fire, and manage. Can I use this on my next resume?

Senior Project Poetry Mentor

Luckily, this one is over. But for six months, I mentored a high school senior. Basically, I gave her a private tutorial in writing poetry. The good news is she was a pleasure to work with. I taught her about line breaks. Next poem she had effective line breaks. It was pretty cool. The bad news—working on her poetry took time from working on mine.

Elementary School Poetry Teacher

Starting in a couple weeks, I'm going to teach the poetry unit in Rose's classroom. This involves going in daily for three weeks. I've got a great book to work from and I've taught writing poetry before, but 99.9% of my experience is teaching adults. I'm trying to learn what topics to cover, how to pace the lesson, and how to elicit their ideas. I'm also writing sample poems to go with the lessons. I'm really excited about this, but I feel like I'm jumping into the deep end. And, of course, there went the writing time for the rest of the school year.

These are all on top of my regular (unpaid) jobs: taking care of David, writing, trying to publish. Next time someone offers me a volunteer opportunity, suggest I get five poems written before I accept.