One Step Closer... C'mon Left Foot

I knew it was going to be a good day when I woke up this morning. I only hit the snooze button a couple of times, very impressive considering I usually hit it repeatedly for the better part of an hour. I got out of bed around 6:15 and walked to the living room to open the blinds and let the new day's light in. It has been my routine lately to turn on my computer and check the weather and browse my email looking for the words "Peace Corps". Of course I checked facebook too--what kind of self respecting twenty-something would I be if I didn't check my facebook first thing in the morning to see if anything happened while I was sleeping. Ok, enough about facebook and how it's more important than "real life". I have this glorious little e-mail in my inbox from Peace Corps, titled "Application Status Updated". In the email is a link that sends me to my current applicant toolkit and I find out I have been medically cleared! Sound the trumpets.



No, the email doesn't look anything like the animation above, it's just one little simple line of text.

Needless to say, the first thing I did was call my momma and dad. Lindsay found out shortly after--she would have found out first but she has a big girl job and travels around.

Later this morning I contacted the Africa Placement Office and they needed a couple of additional things. One of which is an updated resume and the second is an additional reference. They were so helpful and very nice. They really took the time to explain anything I didn't understand and.

It took me all of about 10 minutes to update my resume since I sent in a copy before my Interview in January. My good friend and former coworker Luke is going to be providing the details in the fill in the blank reference form. I'm pretty excited because on a "wordsmithiness" scale he's at least a 10. Thanks again buddy.

Thanks for reading and enjoy LOST season finale tonight. Oh, you don't watch LOST, well you should.

No More Needles For Now

Two weeks ago, I received my medical packet and last week I went home to get it all taken care of.

So, to recap my "medical visit" home there was a doctor's visit, dental visit, trip to the health department, and a trip to the cardiologist. Oh, and a return visit to the doctor. There were seven needles total. Not to bad... for the first wave.

Contrary to the title, the needles don't bother me much. It is the waiting to get stuck that bothers me. Once the needle finds its place I always think to myself, "Self, that wasn't so bad". I usually agree. After I received my tetanus booster, I even wanted to laugh. Not because it tickled but because of the mental image I had of the nurse holding the syringe, pulling her arm back and letting loose like she was throwing a dart at this invisible bulls-eye in my left deltoid. Cricket anyone?

All-in-all it was a very productive week. We had to wait a little bit longer than expected for all of the lab tests to run. Since I had already left to come back to Nashville by the time the last results came in, Mom added the lab results to the medical packet and got it in the mail this Monday.

On Wednesday morning at 4:15 (in case you are wondering, no I was not awake) I received an e-mail from the Peace Corps stating that I had been dentally cleared. My teeth rejoiced! This morning at 4:15 I receive another e-mail, but this time it only notified me that my medical packet had been received. I hope this is not like LOST with the reoccurring numbers.

It could be 4-6 weeks before I hear anything about medical clearance, but in the meantime I will find out who my Placement Officer or PO is. This is the person who tells me that I'm going to ________ country and I will be doing ________ job and I will be leaving on ________ date. So, needless to say I can't wait to find out who he or she is.

I slacked off on my French studies last week with the change in schedule and haven’t gotten back to it yet. Maybe tomorrow I’ll start again.

Thanks for reading. I hope to have more soon.

Medical Packet On It's Way...

I received an e-mail today informing me that my medical packet was mailed on Friday. So, I should have my hands on it by the middle of next week. This was a couple of weeks before I was expecting it, but you won't hear any complaining from this happy fellow. One step closer!

Sorry this is so short, but I wanted to get this out there so you can share in my excitement.

I will update soon about the learning of The French.

Thanks for reading.

Peace Corps Goodies and Learning Le Français

Here is a picture of some of the goodies I received in my nomination packet. Look how pretty. There are very important documents (read congratulation letters), a page with some quotes, a couple of keychain-compass-light gizmos, two super schweet magnets, a highliter (which rolled off the table before I took the picture), a luggage tag, a static cling decal, and an awesome patch. I am pretty excited about it all, but I'm most excited about the patch. Unfortunately, I don't have anything to sew it on just yet. The fridge is most excited about the magnets.

I have begun learning French. I guess the two years in highschool with no practice kind of wears off, but the amount that has come back already is exciting. Lindsay and I keep ourselves entertained with it. This week will mark week two (so don't be impressed yet). We are using the Pimsleur audio method which we checked out from the library. Each unit in the Pimsleur course is approximately 30 minutes (it reccommends to move on to the next unit only if you responded about 80% of the time correctly--we occassionally have to do a lesson twice). It's also nice that you only do one new unit a day, but the trick is to do it every day. We are also taking advantage of Netflix and renting French films. If anyone out there has any suggestions, please let me know. In addition to this we have labelled the majority of the stuff in the apartment--la lampe, le frigo, la table. Do you know what these mean? If you said "the lamp, the fridge, the table" then you are absolutely right (unless I'm wrong, corrections requested).

By the way, I'm doing this as extra learning. The Peace Corps will teach me any languages that I need to know. I just thought it wouldn't hurt to get a head start on it. Maybe I'll be able to dedicate some of the time during my three months of training where I would be learning/studying French to learning the local language or reading the new Harry Potter book--don't hate, you love Harry. If I leave before it is released I expect someone to mail that over pronto and I mean this in the nicest way possible.

At this point, I still don't know anything new about when I'm leaving for Africa, what country I'll be going to, or what specifically I'll be doing. However, I do expect my medical packet by the end of the month. Doctors and nurses beware! I can't wait to find out how many times I must get stuck with a needle. Dad, I know you'll be thinking about me.

Hooray for the first picture post and thanks for reading and thanks for your support. Since this is the first message going out via the e-mail service, let me know if it works/doesn't work, if you like it/don't like it, just give me some feedback so I can work out the kinks.

--

Update: Correctly spelled "la table". Tip of the hat to Brannon.

New Features Mini-Update

Wow, it's been over a month since my last post (I just didn't want to spoil you before I leave). There is not much new with my progress, but I've got some exciting new features for the blog to tell you about today. There is now a subscription service (Yeah), an interactive map (Yeah!), and I have shared some others' Peace Corps blog entries (YEEAAAAH!!!).

Ok, I know that all ten of the readers of my blog have been thinking "Well, gee golly, it would be nice if I could get a message every time there's an update to this fancy shmancy blog so I don't have to keep checking back every 15 minutes for a new exciting story." Well, ladies and gentlemen, problem solved. Now you can just subscribe, sit back, and relax knowing that every time I update you'll be notified. The subscription service is provided by feedburner.com and is totally free, so there's no excuse not to do it. You can subscribe by email (just type your email address into the box on the right) or use your favorite feed reader (click the orange icon underneath the email subscription box, you know the drill).

On to the interactive map, I will hopefully be able to stick a virtual thumbtack in the map to show you exactly where I am. You can also zoom in/out and drag the map in any direction you like.

My favorite new addition to the site is the shared items from my Google Reader (my favorite feed reader). With it, I have been able to share with you some of the stories of people who are currently blogging about their Peace Corps experiences. It should be a different list of stories every time you visit. After you are done reading about me still being in The States, you can read their exciting and touching stories from abroad about celebrating holidays in Africa, fixing a flat tire with local food, or babies being born. Stop by their blogs, read about what they are doing and tell them that they are doing a great job.

Well, I hope that you enjoy these new features, and in my next post, which will be soon I promise, I'll tell you about the Nomination Packet I received this week. Thanks again for reading and again, thanks for your support.