The Next Step

First of all I want to thank everyone for the pouring out of support I've experienced for what I'm doing. I'm sorry that I was not able to write everyone back individually, but please keep commenting. It is nice to know that people are out there and that they care about what I'm doing. If there are any questions I will do my best to address them either by comment or within the next post.

Also, I'm trying to add features, like an easy way to subscribe to my blog and a map of where I'll be (when I find out), but any other suggestions on features you would like to see and/or how to implement them would be great. Thanks in advance.

On with the boring stuff, I won't be wrestling any lions in this post (as exciting a story that would make I hope I don't ever have to tell it) so strap in and enjoy the details.

Now that my paperwork and interview are completed I could move on to the next step and last night around 5:30 that happened. My recruiter called to tell me that I had been nominated for a position in French speaking Sub-Saharan Africa doing community development. I am very excited. Now, let me explain the process to this point.

First, was the application and Health Status Review. The first is quite lengthy (resume, references, a couple of essays, and lots and lots of questions). The Health Status Review which is a short questionnaire where I provided information about my medical history... pretty self explanatory. Once these are both processed at the regional office they send a new packet which includes job specific skill addenda (I received 4: information technology, youth development, community development, and education), a National Agency Check Questionnaire (permission to do a background check), and two fingerprint charts. I also had to include a copy of my college transcript.

At this point I was ready for my interview, which you can read about here. After the interview I waited for my nomination, luckily I didn't have to wait too long. As stated earlier I received my nomination last night. Now, I get to wait even more for my packet from the Office of Medical Services (OMS). The packet will have medical, dental, and eye exams. After I get these returned I'll find out if I am medically qualified and last time I checked, I was fit as a fiddle. While I'm working on this a legal check will be done as well, no fear here either. After this I'll get an invitation at least 6-8 weeks before I leave. So, I hope that all of this goes smoothly.

If you have any more questions about the process or the Peace Corps in general, check out the Peace Corps website. The site is chock full of information for friends/family, teachers/students, and fun for kids. I know this post hasn't been fun, but I hope it has been helpful. See y'all later.