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.

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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.

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.

The Importance of Patience

Yesterday I had my interview with the Atlanta regional office of the Peace Corps. Just as I had suspected, the closer I got the more nervous I became. In part this was because I left for the five mile drive nearly two hours early and walked into the building about ten minutes late. I had prepared to get there in plenty of time to make sure I knew where I was going and to sit for a while so I could clear my head and get some of my responses ready. This obviously did not happen.

Throughout the application process my recruiter and others who were further along in the process have told me that "patience is the key". While I was sitting and waiting for the other vehicles to remove themselves from the logjam we were in I began to wonder if those who had talked to me about patience knew I would be stuck in this annoying traffic situation. I was on the verge of being insulted because none of them dropped even the slightest clue about this. I must have been delusional because of my utter disbelief about measuring my progress by inches, feet, and car lengths rather than blocks, streets, and miles. I began laughing as I came to my senses and realized that no practical joke had been pulled on me.

When I got there after the metal detector, inspection, and profuse apologizing I went in for my interview. We went over my application and I was asked several more questions. I felt like it all went smoothly except for a missing piece of paperwork. The whole interview lasted about half as long as my trip to the office had (unless you count the trip to Atlanta into my travel time). As soon as that last bit of paperwork gets processed I can be nominated (which will hopefully happen by the end of the month, keep your fingers crossed for me).

At this point I am fairly certain of a few things:
1)I will be leaving in what the Peace Corps call Q3 (April, May, June).
2)My primary task will be youth development.
3)I'll be going to Sub-Saharan Africa.

I am stoked about all three of these things. I know that the time span I might leave is pretty lengthy, it is the duration of almost an entire season. I could just say that I'll be leaving during the spring of 2007.

For those of you who are not all that familiar with the geography of Africa I'll do my best to explain Sub-Saharan Africa. If Africa were a three-scoop ice cream cone (and, it's not) everything below the top scoop would be Sub-Saharan Africa. It encompasses the majority of the continent of Africa. This means that I will probably be learning French along with a few native languages (all of which I am very excited about).