So a couple of months ago, my city started advertising an exciting scholarship for students for the upcoming year. It's the same basic idea as the Perach program - which involves volunteering 4 hours a week in exchange for a "scholarship" that's basically a salary for the work - but with this program, you could design your own volunteer project.
The only catch was that it had to be something to do with youth - with "youth" being defined as anyone age 18-40. So not that much of a catch, really.
Luckily for me, I didn't really need the money; I have a job that pays about the same as the scholarship would, so I could just take extra hours instead. But hey, wouldn't it be cool to be paid to do things that are good for the community? Things I've been wanting to do anyway?
So I wrote up a proposal, and sent it in. One part of the proposal involved organization volunteer activities that would be suitable for teens as well as adults; the rest were all about project to benefit adult immigrants. They replied that my ideas are "nice ideas and important," and invited me for an interview.
Spoiler: this became the Stupidest Interview Ever.
(Note: I sometimes get embarrassed/nervous when talking to people. Obviously this applies to public speaking, but really, it can happen in any setting where any number of people (including "one") are looking at me while I speak. This happens x 10 when I'm trying to speak any language other than English.
When I get nervous, I babble.)
THE INTERVIEW:
Them: So tell us about why you're interested in this?
Me: Um, so I've been living here, and, you know, I've seen things that need to be done... (launches into explanation of project I'm interested in that becomes increasingly incoherent as the looks on the faces of the two women staring at me get funnier).
Them: Umm, that's nice. But maybe tell us why you're qualified to work with youth ages 12 to 18. What experience do you have with that?
Me: Uhhh... none, really.
Them: But what makes you want to work with teenagers?
Me (thinking): Nothing!
Me (aloud): .... I wasn't really planning to work with teenagers.
Them: *stares*
Me: *confused*
Them: We're really looking for people to work with teenagers.
Me: Didn't you say you were looking for projects for adults up to age 40?
Them: Right, but things changed, and the funding something something, so now we're looking for people to work with teenagers.
Me: Um. You know there really aren't many teenagers who I could involved in a project here. There's, like, no schools in this neighborhood. (rambles for a minute about why neighborhood has few teens, sounding - probably - increasingly racist as I note the lack of non-Russian-speaking schools).
So yeah. I only know, like, five teenagers, I don't think that would be enough.
Them: Well, we're really looking for people to join existing projects with teenagers.
Me: Like what?
Them: Like, you could go to local schools and teach the teenagers about health.
Me: I don't really know any more about health than anyone else.
Them: That's OK, you'd read about it first.
Me (thinking): I would rather be waterboarded than stand in front of 30-something teens and talk - in Hebrew, no less - about "health," which is almost certainly a euphemism for "proper condom use."
(still thinking) ... and why the hell would 15-year-olds not just read about health themselves? Seriously, they're in high school! They probably read faster than I do.
Me (aloud): I don't think that activity would suit me.
Them: *pitying stare*
Me: So... look, I know it's not your fault the criteria for the scholarship changed. This isn't the first time something like this has happened, where the criteria change in the middle. But - are you telling people that you need people to work with teens, not adults? Because I have friends who've also applied for this, and I'm pretty sure they have no idea.
(note - this is the most fluent thing I've said so far, as my Hebrew gets better in every way the more annoyed I am.)
Them: Oh, well some people will still be working with adults. It's just that the interviews today are with people who wanted to work with teens.
Me: People who... wanted to work with teens.
Them: Right.
Me: I'm pretty sure I didn't say anything about wanting to work with teens. I mean (smiling in a hopefully non-insane way), not that I have anything against teens, of course
(note: this is mostly true. Perhaps bizarrely, I've found teens increasingly more interesting and less intimidating in the years since I stopped being one myself. And if you're reading this, I thought you were cool as a teenager. Really! But there are still several other populations I'd find it easier to work with, like the elderly, or mentally ill homeless people, or prison inmates.)
but I know that most projects with teens just don't fit my schedule.
Them: *pitying noises*
Me: So - can I, like, switch to the track for working with adults?
Them: No, the interviews today are only for working with teens.
Me: ... But I don't want to work with teens.
Them: But today's interviews are only for working with teens, and you were scheduled for today.
Me (thinking): Do I want to work under these people's supervision for the next several months of my life?
Me (aloud): OK, well, thanks for your time. No big deal. (Further inane statements about how this is totally fine).
Me: *exits, but not before coming within a centimeter of walking face-first into a wall*
****
OK, "stupidest ever" might be overly dramatic. The whole process was definitely the biggest waste of my time in a while, though (unless you could a dual major in math and political science).
But... let's think again about that project they offered me. I think "stupidest ever" might have been right on.
Seriously, pity the poor high school students of [My City]. Someone, somewhere, thought, "How can we best teach our students about health, by which I mean sex ed," and decided a good candidate to teach them would be:
1. An immigrant with so-so spoken Hebrew
2. and zero public speaking skills
3. who has no background in the subject whatsoever, unless you could listening to my ninth-grade health teacher talk about the one time he drank the funny tea at a concert and thought dogs were chasing him for a day and it was really scary, man, or watching the same teacher cram his entire forearm into a condom and say, "See! IT FITS!!! He's LYING!!"
4. is an orthodox Jew who's been pregnant five times in 7.5 years. Seriously? THAT'S who you want to teach teens about birth control?
Or was I supposed to be a cautionary tale?
Of course, there's always a chance that I'm assuming too much, and that "health" just meant "proper nutrition and exercise." In which case the idea of me teaching "health" is still a sad joke, as I believe the 5 major food groups are, in order of importance: 1. caffeine, 2. pizza, 3. whipped cream, 4. bananas, 5. alcohol (the ideal meal, health-wise, is a slice of pizza and Irish Cream Shake at the local mall (there should be vegetables on the pizza - I'm not that stupid)), and my only background in sports is from high school gym class, which, come to think of it, I never attended.
But at least if "health" just means "health," it's less creepy that the person who will end up doing the project is the kind of person who would want to talk to teenagers about that kind of thing.
Anyway. I believe it will be for the best that I am scholarship-free. With no mandatory 4 hours a week of volunteering, I'll either have extra time for math (which I can say with roughly 100% certainty is going to be necessary), or I can work on my other money-making ventures, by which I mean my romance novel starring a religious Jewish clown who's also a serial killer.
(I had to make him Jewish. I mean, write what you know, right?)
